(Spoiler alert: Do not keep reading if you have not seen the Season 6 finale of “The Walking Dead”
“The Walking Dead’s” Jeffrey Dean Morgan feels the pain that fans have experienced in watching last night’s Season 6 finale.
“I think agitated is a fair word,” Morgan said on a conference call with reporters after the episode. “It’s a very emotional night. You can see it on the actors’ faces…I was just trying to find that groove of Negan, which I only had two days to do it…It was very emotional for the whole cast. Some of them didn’t make eye contact with me until [shooting ended].”
Morgan was finally introduced as major villain Negan in the finale. In the comics, Negan makes his first big appearance by killing Glenn.
Speculation has been running wild as to whom exactly Negan would kill in this episode and if the show would remain faithful to the comics. But fans didn’t get to see who was on the receiving end of blows from Negan’s barbed-wire bat, leaving fans to speculate until Season 7 begins.
The cliffhanger ending did not sit well with many fans, some of whom called it “unnecessary” and describing the episode’s ending as a “letdown.”
“In talking to [Scott Gimple] and [Robert Kirkman] last night, that was the end of the story for that season, that is Rick has lost control and there’s Negan,” Morgan said. “And Negan has all of the control. And that’s where they wanted to end the story. It’s not about the death of the person. I understand the fans’ frustrations. That being said…I have to trust these writers and showrunners. They know what they’re doing.”
Morgan also hinted that Kirkman is currently working on a more developed backstory for Negan. Kirkman has previously revealed little of the character’s background, other than he used to be a used car salesman.
“I talked to Robert Kirkman last night after we did ‘Talking Dead’ and he is kind of doing the backstory of Negan now,” he said. “Whether or not we get to see that–and I hope we do–I can’t answer that. When Season 7 kicks off it’s going to pick up right where we left off last night.”