The Walking Dead: Dead City has delivered a few things that were missing from the main Walking Dead universe, making the show a much needed breath of fresh – or rotting – air to the franchise. One of those things is giving Jeffrey Dean Morgan the chance return to Negan’s more brutal side in his fight for survival in the dangerous new world of New York. However, Negan’s most recent kill even surprised the actor as he turned to a kitchen utensil for one graphic scene.
The Walking Dead has rarely pulled any punches with its violence, and Negan became one of the most hated characters on TV when he battered Glenn and Abraham in the opening of season 7. While the episode drew many complaints for its graphic scenes, the brutality was expected by those who have read the graphic novels of Robert Kirkman, and now it looks like Negan is back to his brutal best. Negan’s latest kill involved the use of a cheese grater – the second time the item has been used as a gory weapon following its use in Evil Dead Rise – and Morgan explained that the whole thing took him by surprise. He told Entertainment Weekly:
” The face-grating killed me. I was like, ‘Really? I’m going to get him with a face-grater?’ But this is a guy that’s like 6-foot-6, and 200-some-odd-pounds of muscle. You know, Negan is not that guy. That survival instinct kicks in with ‘What can I use to, to fight back?’ A cheese grater happened to be at hand, and that gets that guy off of him. There’s that whole dance that happens before the cheese grater where I’m trying to step around him. And I warn him a good three, four times — ‘Look, I don’t want it to go here. It doesn’t have to go here.”
Related: The Walking Dead: Dead City Review: A Surprisingly Good Redemption
Neagan is Still a Fan Favorite, Despite His Villainous Origins.
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal of Negan became one of the instant highlights of The Walking Dead, and every scene he was involved in made the show worth watching. For that reason alone, it seems that Dead City was onto a winner from the start. When it comes to the evolution of the character, although it may seem that this latest episode saw him regressing to his bad side, Morgan doesn’t think it is quite as simple as that.
“I think he came a long way in the original show. But I think there’s a problem when we find him in Dead City. He’s not been part of the group now for a couple of years, and he’s reverted a little bit in some ways because he is a survivor. More than anything else, he’s a survivor.”
Dead City continues to expand the universe of The Walking Dead, with Negan and Maggie on a quest to save the latter’s son, Hershel, from The Croat, who is tied to Negan’s past. Bringing the focus solely on two popular characters from the flagship series, seems to have been the type of kickstart the franchise has been looking for, and it will continue to try and keep up the momentum with Daryl Dixon later this year.
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