Michael Cudlitz Defends Negan’s Kills On The Walking Dead

Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan is a force to be reckoned with.

He’s a sadist, an unhinged psychopath, and a calculating leader; but he’s also one of the more compelling villains that The Walking Dead has seen in years. First introduced at the tail-end of season 6, Negan arguably hit his stride during the somewhat contentious “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be,” when he lined up Rick and his ragtag crew before brutally executing Glenn and Abraham.

But for all of the malice on display, Michael Cudlitz, who played Abraham, doesn’t believe that those aforementioned murders were any worse than some of the other ones we’ve seen on the show. While talking to ComicBook.com in a recent interview, the actor said the following:

“These deaths were not anymore gruesome. These are just people that you loved and that made it feel worse. It’s exactly what happened. You can’t tell me that my head getting smashed in was worse than Noah getting his guts ripped in glass turnstile.”

Continuing on, Cudlitz noted that the only reason fans were so shocked and devastated over what happened to Abraham and Glenn is because those characters were so beloved.

“Or the guy before [Noah], that we didn’t know at all, who impaled from behind and was literally holding his guts. Or Spencer literally holding his guts. All of those are way more, quote, ‘gross or graphic,'” Cudlitz said.

“Ours was so bad because it was drawn out and you were teased and these were characters that you loved. Nobody in that group would have been okay to see go. So yeah, that’s exactly what it is. You love these characters.”

To be fair, the actor does have a point here. The Walking Dead is no stranger to gory and gruesome kills and there have been plenty throughout the years. While what happened to Abraham and Glenn does fall under that category, too, Cudlitz is right in saying that their deaths hit us so much harder mostly because they were so well liked and fans felt such an attachment to them. Or at least, that’s a big part of it.

Said to bring a sense of closure to the war brewing between Rick and Negan, all the while zipping along at breakneck speed, The Walking Dead‘s eighth season begins on Sunday, October 22nd.