The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 22 recap: Here’s Negan

The final episode of The Walking Dead Season 10C has aired and proved to be the best of the six additional episodes. The opening of The Walking Dead Episode 22, “Here’s Negan,” begins with Negan himself recapping his recent involvement in The Whisperer War.

Afterward, we see Maggie with her son Hershel talking about his grandfather while Negan continues his work after Carol spots the awkward moment between them. Maggie notices Negan but refuses to address him; the two venture into the woods.

Negan casually asks Carol to put in a good word for him, essentially keeping her end of the bargain. Instead, Carol leads Negan to an abandoned cabin and reveals that he has been banished.

Negan, however, doesn’t believe this to be a decision of the council but Carol herself. That evening while drinking before a roaring fire, he is haunted by his previous self; the leather jacket, red scarf-wearing, bat-wielding leader of The Saviors.

His previous self reminds Negan of one fact: that he is nothing without Lucille. The scene transitions to Negan revisiting the site where he lost his war against Rick.

This is the very place where his throat was slit and Lucille was abandoned. Remembering what Michonne told him years ago, he begins digging the site, searching for Lucille.

When he finds her, he remembers his time with his deceased wife.

The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 22 – Negan and Lucille

The flashbacks begin with Negan being captured by two bikers of the Valaks Vipers, about to steal his two-bag supply of chemotherapy he needs for his wife. They demand to know where he found the supply.

Negan instead tells them about the events that led him to obtain the two bags. This turns into another flashback where he is trying to rob a medical RV belonging to Franklin and his daughter Laura.

Yes, future Savior Laura. When the robbery fails, he awakes in the RV, where they have hydrated and fed him.

They wanted to know why he was trying to rob them, so he tells them what led him to that moment.

Negan and Lucille are surviving as best as they can in their boarded-up home. Negan had been administering the chemotherapy she needs, while they spend time together as a loving couple.

This includes her gifting him the iconic leather jacket that he had previously bought that she lied about returning. However, a lone walker is often disrupting their time.

Negan believes turning off the generator will make it wander off; Lucille believes it needs to be killed, reasoning that killing a human is not the same. When Negan finally agrees to kill the walker, he nearly dies if it weren’t for Lucille killing it with their last bullet.

In between his time with her, Negan is scavenging for anything they can use, including fuel for the generator. The problem is Lucille is down to her last two bags of chemotherapy.

Negan stores them in the freezer, hoping to keep them cold enough while the generator is off.

However, the freezer couldn’t keep the bags cold long enough, and they are now useless. Refusing to give up, Negan plans to rob the medical RV. However, Lucille begs him to stay.

It turns out before the apocalypse began, their marriage was nothing short of rocky. Negan had lost his job as a gym teacher and becoming quite the man-child. Lucille rants her frustrations to her friend Janine.

Lucille reminds Negan that she has an appointment with her doctor. Negan makes an excuse for not being able to pick her up after her appointment.

When Lucille receives the heartbreaking cancer diagnosis and tries to reach Janine and Negan to come pick her up, she realizes they are together. In her distress, she drives home, unable to listen to the radio broadcast that is hinting at the beginning of the apocalypse.

She keeps a gun at her side, waiting for Negan to return home. When he does, she reveals she has cancer.

Negan never knew that his wife was aware of the affair. Lucille did not want him leaving to get her the chemotherapy knowing he had done enough to repay her.

He leaves anyway, leading to him meeting Franklin and Laura and getting captured by the Valaks Vipers. When they threaten to kill them, he reveals the medical RV location and returns home.

The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 22 – A new Negan is born

When Negan returns home, he finds that Lucille has become a walker by killing herself. He cannot kill her and instead wraps the baseball bat Laura had given him previously in barbed wire.

Negan puts on his leather jacket and burns his home to the ground. He returns to the bar where he was captured and kills the biker gang men except the leader.

Franklin was able to escape thanks to a screw under the chair Negan had loosened earlier. Before Negan kills the leader, he tells him how he lost his job as a gym teacher.

Negan had beaten a man, whose child attended the school he worked at, to a pulp for refusing to pay him and Lucille money to hear their song that he was rudely interrupting. At this moment, Negan becomes the man we later see in the Season 6 finale, complete with the same chilling musical score.

He kills him with Lucille without remorse.

The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 22 – Negan’s future

Returning to the present, a walker that has been approaching Negan since he began searching for Lucille is now within reach. Negan kills the walker, but in the process, the bat is now broken.

That night he burns the bat in the fireplace, saying farewell to his beloved wife. The next day he strolls back into Alexandria, surprising Carol, Daryl, and Maggie.

With a grin, he explains that he’ll be staying. Trying to remain calm, Carol explains that she hoped to save his life by sending him away.

But Negan isn’t going to die alone in exile. He’s going to live in Alexandria as was promised.

Final Thoughts – The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 22 may have been the best of the six additional episodes

How did Episode 22 of The Walking Dead fare as the last of the six additional episodes? While much of Negan’s backstory was skimmed through, what wasn’t was the performances and the core of the story.

There will be similarities and differences between the show and comics as there always have been, but the changes made worked marvelously. Not surprisingly, Negan and Lucille brought to the forefront how much people change, whether in their current lives or due to the unexpected apocalypse.

We’ve been told the backstories of previous unlikeable characters like The Governor and Alpha, but Negan’s was something to behold. I imagine it was difficult to cram such an extensive backstory into one episode. However, the episode covered a lot in a short time.

“Here’s Negan” could have benefited from multiple episodes, if not an entire mini-series on its own. Maybe one day, fans will be lucky to see such a mini-series.

But for now, the episode was everything that was promised. This was the perfect episode to end Season 10C leaving fans with so many questions about what Negan will do now.

Will he continue to be the same man, or has he changed? One thing is for sure, he doesn’t owe anyone anything anymore, and he is owed what Carol had promised.

What did you think of The Walking Dead Episode 22? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The Walking Dead Season 11 airs on August 22, 2021.