'The Walking Dead' showrunner weighs in on Negan and Hershel confrontation (2024)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead, "The Rotten Core".

Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead featured a lot of action as a group of former Alexandrians and Hilltoppers reunited to take out a Commonwealth commando unit. But the biggest moments of the episode were actually some of the quietest.

Not only was it revealed that Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was now married to a woman from the building under siege named Annie (Medina Senghore), but also that he's going to be a father! (That is, if Annie can manage to stay alive long enough to deliver said baby. On this show, you never know.) But that was not the only drama going down.

At one point, Negan noticed that young Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller), who had stowed away in Maggie's truck, had been captured by soldiers, leading to the twisted full-circle moment of the former Savior saving the child of the man he brutally murdered. Hershel then did the post-apocalyptic math and figured out that Negan was the man who killed Glenn, leading the tyke to pull a gun on the guy who had just saved him. (Like I said, twisted.)

Negan talked Hershel down then, but later approached the lad acknowledging they had "unfinished business" and advising him to put it aside for now while he grew up, and then to find him as an adult so they could "settle it."

But what exactly does settling it mean? What does Negan make now of his actions of the past when he killed Glenn? And how did this dude go and get married, anyway? We got the whole zombie meet-cute story from showrunner Angela Kang, who also weighed in on a bloody episode for Mercer and that Leah cliffhanger.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, what can you say about Negan getting hitched again here to this woman Annie?

ANGELA KANG: We talked a lot about, what would Negan do when he walks off? Because that felt like the right move for Negan at that point. He clearly sees that he's not wanted there by Maggie [Lauren Cohan], he doesn't want to sleep with one eye open, so off he goes. Ultimately, we really think that Negan, from the books, but also in the way that we've established him on the show, he is not actually a guy who's a loner. He's a joiner. He says so, he wants to be in a group, he wants to be social, he is a total extrovert, and I think being alone is death for him. So I think he probably pretty quickly hooks up with this group, I think his goal was to keep his head down, but then he got enamored with this really strong, beautiful, awesome, badass woman.

We know that he admires people like that, and so I think that this is a guy who likes to be in love. He's a guy who cheated a lot on his wife, he's a guy who coerced many women into marrying him when he was at the Sanctuary, he hooked up with Alpha, so it felt like that is part of his character. But in this case, he finds something true about this person and this relationship, and that is part of what is changing him even now.

When Negan sees Hershel has been captured and he goes to save him: Is this purely altruistic? Is he trying to make amends? Is this a strategic chip with Maggie?

When it comes to kids, that is one of the areas where Negan actually can be just purely altruistic and heroic. That's also just something that is an established part of his character, he does admire children. I think he's a guy who, it doesn't bother him being in conflict with his peers, because he's a guy who's got to survive, and if he's got to push some people aside and knock some people down with the bat to keep surviving, he will. But I think when he looks at the generation below, as somebody who used to be a teacher, he really sees nothing but promise in children.

He feels like there is a goodness and a purity to them that is lost by the time that they're often adults. But I think as long as they're kids, all he sees is somebody that needs to be protected. I think that is one of his redlines that he respects, is like, "I really, really tried not to put children into positions where they're hurt." So I think in this case, it is just pure altruism. I think any child that was in trouble, he would run to try to get them. Of course, he knows that there's a whole complicated history, but if anything, I think his fear is after the fact, if Maggie is going to look at this as something that's a move, but I think in the moment he doesn't think about it too hard, he's going to go and help.

Let's talk about the scene where Negan comes clean to Hershel about killing his dad. This really had me thinking: What does Negan make of what he did there at this point, because on one hand, he's indisputably changed. But he also told Maggie not that long ago that he should have killed all of them. So how does he view that act of killing Glenn night now?

I think that when Negan told Maggie that he should have killed them all, I think he really believes that, and he's trying to talk to her in that scene like leader to leader. Going like, "Strategically speaking, you guys caused a lot of problems for me, and I fell as a result of that." But he really, he doesn't have a lot of remorse that he shows there. I definitely think he is trying to make up with it via actions, but he's never apologized to her.

But it's all a very theoretical thing in some ways. That night, he was like, "Well, you guys killed my guys, so I had to do something. I didn't even kill all of you, maybe that was a mistake on my part." So I think he's really been thinking of it almost in terms of the chess moves he made, and did he f--- up the chess moves? I think it's a little different when you're face to face with a child who now has a gun in his hand going like, "You killed my father and I never got to know that parent."

So a lot of things are running through his head, I don't think he's all the way there to the point where he's like, "I'm sorry." But he actually treats him like a child and is like, "Look, you're too young to get into this s--- with me, this is clearly not an even match and we're going to have a problem, but I understand where you're coming from." I think there is something to Negan about, the guy is weirdly radically honest at times; he could very easily tell the kid like, "No, I didn't do it. I don't know what you're thinking." Because clearly mom didn't say that it was him, but I think that there is something about Negan that feels like if he's going to move forward, he can't hide the things he did, because they happened and people know it.

So he didn't lie to Annie about it and he's not going to lie to the kid about it. I think that's very true to who Negan is. For better or worse, he'll tell you exactly what he's thinking.

So when he later goes up to Hershel and says they have unfinished business and to come find him when he grows up and they will settle it, what does he mean by "settle it"? Because that could mean a few things. It could mean, "Come kill me in 10 years and we're good." Or it could mean, "We'll deal with it in another way." What does he mean at that point?

I think what he means is any of the above. I think he wants the kid to have a chance to grow up and be a child, and if he still feels the same way 10, 15 years from now, 20 years from now, then he has the right to come after him and try to kill him. Or maybe they get to shake hands and talk it out like men, but he just doesn't think it's fair to put the burden of avenging your father on somebody who's still, his hands are too small to even hold the gun properly.

Mercer [Michael James Shaw] kills these two soldiers who were working for Sebastian. Does that qualify as a pretty significant act, and perhaps a significant turning point for a guy who is all about order and the chain of command?

I would say that Mercer is a guy who has always been brought up to respect the rule of law, and that is paramount to him. Even when he disagrees with elements of the law, his job is to uphold it, and I think that his internal struggle. So when he sees these two guys that have flouted the law in such a horrific way, and on top of that caused so much human misery and they show no remorse, no respect for the lives that have been lost on something that feels so stupid, I think that inner conflict that he's been feeling just comes to a head and he goes vigilante, which is a huge deal for someone like Mercer.

Everybody's just going to have to watch to see how the story continues to play out, but this is definitely a moment that just sticks with Mercer in some significant ways, and causes some significant fallout.

You finish the episode with a shot of Leah [Lynn Collins], showing her as the one who stole the weapons. What can you say about her role here moving forward?

Leah is somebody that lost everybody that was the most important to her, because family came first, her found family. In that way, she's very similar to Daryl, but obviously it takes different forms for each of them. But with having lost that family, she's got nothing else to lose at this point, so she's a very dangerous character that's coming back into our world. Things will ensue.

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