Jeffrey Dean Morgan Confirms Negan For The Walking Dead Season 8, Teases Next Episodes

While season 7 of The Walking Dead has proven to be somewhat underwhelming so far, it has had its moments. The premiere was absolutely electrifying and still one of the most talked about television events of the year, while subsequent episodes provided some quality scenes thanks to a few interesting character developments and a number of strong performances.

Admittedly, there has been a severe pacing issue throughout, and a good chunk of what we’ve seen so far does appear to be more filler than anything else, but still, we’ve been finding enough reasons to keep tuning in week after week, and that’s in large part thanks to Negan.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has brought the fan favorite villain to life incredibly well so far and though we’ve heard in the past that he’ll be on board for the “long haul,” the actor has now confirmed once again that he won’t be going anywhere any time soon. While talking to Howard Stern, Morgan said that he’ll definitely be back for season 8, before teasing that the next two episodes of The Walking Dead will feature his character quite heavily. For those who’ve been complaining that we haven’t seen enough of Negan lately, that should be welcome news.

Elsewhere in the interview, the actor spoke about the leaked death scene video that surfaced on the web last month. In it, we saw the villain take a swing at Maggie with his bat Lucille, resulting in a pretty brutal and gory end for her. Obviously, it turned out to be fake, as Maggie is still alive and well, and as Morgan says, the clip was just the result of him filming “kill shots” for each member of the cast.

“I did kill shots on the entire cast,” Jeffrey explained. “I think the plan was, they would leak some stuff beforehand just to throw people off because there are people whose sole purpose is to ruin the show, to spoil what’s going to happen on the show.”

We’d heard as much before, but still, that Maggie video did cause quite a stir when it appeared online. As for the clips of the rest of the cast taking a whack to the head, we imagine (read: hope) they’ll find their way onto the eventual Blu-ray release.

Looking to the immediate future though, The Walking Dead will return this Sunday with a brand new episode that’ll feature quite a bit more Negan, at least according to Morgan. While you wait for that to arrive, you can check out the aforementioned Maggie video below and let us know in the comments section what you think of season 7 so far.