We have known for over two months now that Hilarie Burton — the real-life wife of Jeffrey Dean Morgan — would be playing the fictional wife, Lucille, of Morgan’s fictional character, Negan, on The Walking Dead. Burton, who met Morgan through his Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles, will be featured in an episode adapted from “Here’s Negan,” based on a stand-alone issue of Robert Kirkman’s comic tracking the character’s origin story.
Before the apocalypse, Negan was a middle-school gym teacher who cheated on his wife. However, after his wife, Lucille, was diagnosed with cancer, Negan redoubled his efforts to be the best husband he could. Unfortunately, Lucille’s death from cancer coincided with the rise of the zombies in a particularly tragic way, which may partially explain Negan’s behavior on The Walking Dead. He did, after all, name his deadly baseball bat after his late wife.
In the video above, we see Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (among other cast members) conducting a virtual table read for the episode, “Here’s Negan.” In that episode, a newly reformed Negan reflects on his past. The episode will take us back 12 years to Negan’s basement, where he and his dying wife try to decide on a James Bond DVD and figure out whether to kill a walker drawn to their generator.
“It’s not like killing a person, babe,” Lucille tells him. “It’s not even like killing an animal. You have to stop letting it bother you.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Negan says. “It doesn’t bother me, but I’m worried that I’ll get used to it.”
As we know, of course, Negan gets more than used to killing not only walkers, but humans, too.
The episode will air as part of the 6-episode extension of the series’ 10th season, which will kick off on AMC on February 28th.
