‘The Walking Dead’: Will Negan Die In Season 8?

We’re all going to die eventually. You, me, even fictional characters — unless they’re particularly sensual vampires — have limited lifespans. But for fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead, one of the biggest questions for nearly three seasons now has been, “When is Negan going to die?”

The leather jacket wearing, cursing, baseball bat wielding, perpetually leaning while talking villain portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan first physically showed up at the end of Season 6, but his presence was felt long before. His followers, the Saviors, had tortured and taunted Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and the rest of Team Family (the name given by fans to Rick’s group of zombie apocalypse survivors). And when he finally did show up, he immediately bashed in the brains of Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) in the absolute most horrific way possible.

Since then, we’ve had two solid seasons of Negan fighting Rick’s group, with the promise that by the end of Season 8, it’ll all be over — one way, or another. So is Negan going to survive when the dust clears and we head towards Season 9?

For the answer, let’s first go to the source material, with the caveat that the answer is a little murkier and more complicated than you might expect. In the comics by Robert Kirkman the show is based on, Negan doesn’t just survive the end of the war — he thrives. Not initially, mind you: in the books, after Rick convinces Negan to end their war and work together, Negan gets his throat slashed and is thrown in prison for life. There’s a time jump to a few years later (fans of the show will recognize these scenes from Carl’s dying vision for what Rick could build next), and Negan is still held in prison, occasionally consulting with Rick until a greater threat arises and the two team up to help save everyone.

So if you’re going from the source, Negan will disappear post-Season 8, then come back some time later. Only problem with that theory is that the TV show never follows the comics exactly — and behind the scenes there are some big shakeups coming in Season 9.

First of all, with the death of Carl (Chandler Riggs), the plot from the comics can’t be followed exactly. He’s intrinsic to the plot of the book from this point forward, so removing him from the cast of the show means nothing will be exactly the same. In addition, we’ve already seen the future timeline from the books, in Old Dead Carl’s vision as he died during the midseason premiere. Add in a glimpse at Rick’s future where he’s not looking so great while sitting under a tree (though I have a few ideas as to what’s going on there), and the end of the season is very much in flux.

Behind the scenes, longtime showrunner Scott Gimple has been promoted to take charge of the creative direction of the Walking Dead universe of shows and more, while writer Angela Kang is bumped up to showrunner for Season 9. Add in some other potential changes — Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, has signed up for an ABC pilot — and you have less prognostication power from comic readers than you have had in previous seasons.

That all said? Jeffrey Dean Morgan loves being on The Walking Dead. He’s friends with the cast, has settled down roots in the Atlanta environs, and has repeatedly expressed interest in delving further into Negan’s backstory, and generally is all in on Dead. Just liking being on the show is no guarantee of staying on the show, mind you — R.I.P., Carl Grimes — but JDM is a TV star, and eight seasons in I don’t see AMC saying, “it cool, let him die in a pool of his own blood.”

And textually, the show threw a curveball in the final moments of the midseason premiere, as Negan was glimpsed in Carl’s vision for the future, farming tomatoes in Alexandria and chilling with little Judith. His path to redemption probably won’t be as simple or straightforward as Carl’s zombie virus addled brain described to his Dad, but it’s the start of something.

So short answer, no, Negan won’t die in Season 8. Long answer? We’re all going to die. All of us.

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