The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan wishes he’d gotten to recreate Lucille’s “death scene” from the comics. First introduced in unforgettable fashion in the final episode of season 6 (after being heavily teased before that), Negan quickly became the biggest bad ever seen in the Walking Dead TV universe.
Comic book fans of course knew all about Negan and his evil ways, and even though the character’s language had to be toned down from the comics, he still retained the same level of violence and indeed even revolted viewers with his brutality. The full scope of Negan’s evil indeed came to light immediately as he infamously used his barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat, named Lucille in honor of his dead wife, to viciously dispatch Glenn and Abraham (their fates of course were not revealed until the season 7 premiere). Since then, Negan has gone through a lot of changes, being defeated by Rick Grimes and subsequently imprisoned only to make his way out of jail and, in a twist, kill the series’ other baddest villain Alpha.
Of course, the biggest change for Negan as he proceeds through his presumed redemption arc is that he no longer has Lucille, his constant companion throughout his reign of terror as leader of the Saviors. Appearing on AMC’s The Walking Dead panel as part of Comic-Con@Home 2020, actor Morgan talked about no longer having Lucille on the show, and said he thinks Negan may actually have “moved past the Lucille of it all” at this point. However, he did lament a key Lucille scene from the comics that he never got to play on the show (via Comic-Con International):
In the comic book when he loses Lucille, I missed that scene. We never got to do that scene. And I always loved it. That kind of emotional…cause Lucille represents so much to him beyond a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. And I always loved that. But we’ve moved so kind of far away from that at this point.
As fans remember, Lucille meets her demise in the comics when she breaks as Negan uses her to beat Beta, and after Lucille’s noble sacrifice Negan buries her in a moment that is basically a funeral for his long-dead wife. Indeed, it’s an emotional scene for a character mostly known for being a blunt and soulless instrument of destruction. On the show of course, Lucille never was officially destroyed, but was seemingly lost after Negan was defeated by Rick. But Negan has not forgotten his old favorite weapon (and bizarre wife replacement) as was proven when he later found a new baseball bat to use as a killing implement while running around loose.
Given that Lucillle presumably is still out there somewhere on the show (as Michonne once said to Negan), there’s always the possibility of a reunion. And since Beta is still alive on The Walking Dead, the chance actually exists that Morgan will still get to do the Lucille death scene from the comics after all. But perhaps it would be more meaningful, from a character standpoint, for Negan to never get Lucille back and instead continue on the road toward becoming a more productive and less violent member of society. Or maybe it would be most meaningful for Negan to indeed find Lucille but destroy her himself in an act of symbolic purging.
