Apart from the handful of deaths in the midseason premiere, things have been looking up for Rick Grimes and Co. on AMC's "The Walking Dead." Carl is healing from his grotesque eye wound, Rick is bumping uglies with Michonne, and the Alexandria Safe Zone seems to be back on its feet for the most part. All is right with the world. Except for, you know, the millions of reanimated corpses trying to tear everyone to bits and the looming threat of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan.
Viewers are familiar with the former threat after six years of watching "The Walking Dead," but the latter may only ring a bell for comic book readers. In Robert Kirkman's source material, Negan is the bad guy to end all bad guys. He's intelligent, psychotic, and brutal but has the mouth of a pissed off sailor, which may be a problem for AMC. As you know, basic cable networks are not allowed to throw around curse words all willy nilly. This red flag was raised with Morgan, Kirkman, showrunner Scott M. Gimple and producer/director Greg Nicotero in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Morgan:
"Look, it's a speed bump. I'm not going to say it's an issue because they're working on it. We're going to push AMC - the plan is to push them as far as they can because it's who Negan is. He uses some colorful language. And I use some colorful language. And reading the comic, it's important. So we'll see where that lands. It's our intention that this character is going to leap off the pages of the comic book. It's very important that that's who it is. Some of the characters there's much more leeway, but Negan is a guy that you want to keep as true as possible, and that would be how I want to play him as well."
Nicotero:
"[Shooting two versions of Negan's entrance] would be a very good guess. We've talked about that. Even back when Michael Cudlitz was cast as Abraham we were like, 'Damn, how are we going to deal with Abraham's dialogue?' And I think Gimple went, 'Yeah, Abraham's dialogue is fine. It's negan that we're going to have problems with because every other word out of Negan's is f---.' There is a rhythm to it that even in some of the takes that we did. What I affectionately call the 'f--- takes' have completely different rhythm to them and a completely different feel. So while editing it, I was very careful to make sure that I preserved a lot of the performance without getting myself into trouble with the profanity."
Gimple:
"I'm still finishing up season 6, so there are still aspects of these questions that I'm figuring out. But I will say that my goal is for, at the very least, in some way - might not be all the time, and it might not even be directly through your TV box - that people will be able to get full-octane Negan. I'm still playing around with it, but I will say I do have the material two ways right now. I'll see what I can do with it. One way or another I want people to see full-octane Negan. Will I be able to shoot every scene like that? Probably not, but to tell you the truth, I think we will get as close to the version of full-octane Negan as we can through some version of the show or another."
Kirkman:
"I would say that there are certain words that try as I might, we are not allowed to say on AMC, and those are certain words that Negan likes to say. So those words are going to be filmed, and people are going to be able to get those words, but there are definitely some broadcast limitations that we're going to have to deal with. We're sorting that out now, but I will say that, worst-case scenario, the extras will be extra-special on Blu-ray. I mean, we're trying to explore some other more interesting options, but that's the bare minimum of what we'll be doing."
Fans of FX's "American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson" likely took note of episode three's use of a certain curse as the final line a dialogue before the credits. Exceptions can be made in certain circumstances. However, Negan's excessive cursing will not be allowed. If anything, expect just one carefully selected four-letter word from Negan throughout his run on the show.
"The Walking Dead" airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC.
