Welcome, at long last, to the
actual finale episode of Season 10 of
The Walking Dead! What a long and strange trip it’s been getting through this season, and this year. In tonight’s finale, we finally find out more about the one and only Negan, how he became who he was when we met him, and a glimpse at what his future may hold.
The plot: Carol takes Negan to Leah’s old cabin and tells him he’s been banished from Alexandria. Over the next day or so, Negan returns to the tree where Rick defeated but didn’t kill him, finds Lucille the bat buried in the dirt there, and reflects on his past by the fireplace. We learn that shortly before the apocalypse hit, Negan was a former high school gym teacher who got fired for an assault charge, cheating on his wife with her best friend, and on top of that Lucille was just diagnosed with cancer. They were managing to keep up with her chemo treatments with drugs and a schedule they got before things truly went to hell, but when the fridge went without power long enough that the last two bags were no good anymore, Negan set out to find a traveling group of doctors for medical supplies. Lucille tried to keep him from going, but he was determined to fight for her. Unfortunately, the search took six weeks, and he also got held up by some bikers who forced him to turn in the kindly doctors in exchange for his freedom. Alas, he returns much too late to save Lucille. At some point during his absence, Lucille zip-tied herself to the bed, overdosed on her pain meds and put a bag over her head, leaving him a note to not leave her this way. Heartbroken, Negan burned down the house with her walker in it, and took his new signature weapon to take out his rage on the biker gang, transforming into the man we first met. In the present, one last walker kill finally breaks Lucille the bat, and Negan burns the bat as he makes a final apology to his wife. He promises to keep fighting, and returns to Alexandria, telling Carol he plans to stay.