Is This Finally the End for Negan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'?

It’s been a very long journey for Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan in The Walking Dead universe. He first appeared nearly a decade ago in the Season Six finale of the mothership, and the Season Seven premiere is arguably when The Walking Dead peaked. Alas, it’s been all downhill from there, through no real fault of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who’s remained game for every ridiculous character turn the writers have thrown at him.

That weariness shows in his performance this season on the Walking Dead spin-off, Dead City. He looks tired. Carrying a dying franchise, along with Norman Reedus, has to be taking its toll, especially as his character has come full circle throughout this second season. But we’ll get to that.

The reason I suspect Negan may finally meet his end in this weekend’s season finale, aside from hints during the press tour that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is starting to feel too old for the role, is what happened in the most recent episode. Negan suffered a concussion and wandered through the episode hallucinating, including scenes with his dead wife, Lucille (played by his real-life wife, Hilarie Burton Morgan), and his second wife, Annie, both appearing in ghostly visions.

This is vintage Walking Dead foreshadowing. In Season Five, Tyreese Williams hallucinated characters from his past before dying. In Season Seven, Sasha saw her former romantic partner, Abraham Ford, before her death. Rick Grimes hallucinated Shane, Hershel, and Sasha before he was written out of the series. Carl, before dying, envisioned a peaceful future where Judith Grimes was grown up and Rick and Negan coexisted. It’s also happened in Fear the Walking Dead, where Grace and Ofelia both experienced visions shortly before their deaths.

It’s so common in The Walking Dead universe that when Negan began hallucinating his two wives in this week’s episode, I perked up, assuming his end was imminent. Instead, just ahead of the finale, Negan had an epiphany. After spending the season pretending to be the Old Negan in service of the new villain, The Dama, he decided at the end of the episode to fully embrace that persona once again. This time, though, he vowed to show “no mercy” and essentially kill them all — his enemies, that is. Doing so would presumably save Maggie and her son, Hershel, as well as his surrogate daughter, Ginny, a young mute girl he’s been caring for, who’s now battling an infection.

Seeing Negan fully return to his original form certainly feels like the kind of full-circle moment the character should end on. Factor in the hallucinations, the show’s ratings trajectory, and the overall sense of narrative closure, and everything seems to be pointing toward not just Negan’s death, but possibly the end of Dead City itself.

And if I’m wrong? It’ll be just another needlessly cruel trick from a Walking Dead universe that has long since burned through all its goodwill.