Since Angela Kang has come aboard The Walking Dead as showrunner, she has done a remarkable job of combining material from Robert Kirkman’s source material with her own original storylines. Some of that, of course, has been out of necessity, with Andrew Lincoln leaving, Carl being killed off the series, Maggie taking a temporary leave of absence, and Michonne exiting the series later this season, not to mention the fact the series now centers on Daryl — who is not in the comics — and Carol, who died much earlier on in the source material.
It appears that Kang will also be enhancing and expanding Kirkman’s Whisperer arc on the television series, at least insofar as it concerns Negan. We have learned, for instance, that Negan and Alpha will be involved in a “sexual situation” that was not present in the comics, and that Negan wil alsol don a skin mask. That doesn’t happen in the comics, where Alpha insisted that Negan “earn” a skin mask, but for reasons that I won’t get into so as not to spoil anything, Negan never gets that opportunity. In the TV series, according to featurette for the back half of the season released yesterday, Negan will earn himself a skin mask (and perhaps earning it will involve that “sexual situation”).
The fact that Negan is wearing a skin mask here suggests that the TV show will take a fairly dramatic detour, at least in the short term, before it presumably jumps back on the track laid down by Kirkman. However, I am OK with any excuse to give Samantha Morton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan a few more episodes together.
The Walking Dead returns on February 23rd.
