Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals Why He ‘Couldn’t Wait’ to Have Negan Snap in ‘Dead City’
Redemption arcs in “The Walking Dead” universe have always come with an asterisk, a lingering sense that the darker instincts driving a character’s most infamous moments never fully disappear, no matter how much personal growth the story tries to layer on top. That tension has defined much of Negan’s journey across “Dead City,” and Season 3 just delivered one of its most brutal reminders yet that the old Negan hasn’t gone anywhere.
Sunday’s episode, titled “Imperialis,” spent most of its runtime following a tense but ultimately successful heist-style mission to clear walkers out of the subway tunnels for electricity, complete with a celebratory moment once the operation wrapped. That relief was short-lived. The episode’s final stretch pivots sharply when a community member named Fabian, caught earlier stealing supplies, confronts Negan at Dillard’s bar and starts blaming Maggie for tearing his family apart.
Negan initially tries redirecting Fabian’s rage toward Renata, but once Fabian fixates on Maggie and hints at wanting to act on his anger, Negan doesn’t hesitate, breaking a bottle over Fabian’s head before ultimately shooting and killing him. When Renata attempts to arrest him for it, reminding him “this is not how we do things,” Negan flatly replies, “It is exactly how I do things,” before warning her, “Bring your army.”
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly about the moment, Morgan didn’t hide his enthusiasm for finally getting to shoot the confrontation. “I couldn’t wait! I’m, like, itching to pull that gun out and stick it to his head and scream at Renata,” Morgan said in the interview, explaining that Fabian’s decision to threaten Maggie directly was what sealed his fate in Negan’s eyes.
Morgan noted that the language Fabian used toward Maggie during the confrontation genuinely irritated him as a performer, adding an extra layer of authenticity to the scene’s escalating tension. He also praised director Sylvain White, who previously worked with Morgan on “The Boys,” for his instincts in staging the sequence, particularly given the demanding production pace of shooting roughly nine pages of script in a single day.
According to Morgan, everything Negan does across the season, including killing the Dama earlier in the season, stems from a combination of protecting Maggie, resisting Renata’s authority over the community and a lingering thread of personal revenge. He was careful to frame Fabian’s death as consistent with who Negan has always been at his core, rather than a step backward in the character’s arc.
For Morgan, preserving that unpredictable, “loose cannon” side of Negan remains a priority no matter how much the character has softened in his relationship with Maggie this season. “I don’t care how and why and who he becomes in this growth, because he has grown in a lot of ways since we first met him, there has to be that loose cannon aspect to him,” Morgan explained, emphasizing that Negan relished having Renata as an audience for the moment specifically because it was the point where she realized she’d completely lost control over him.
Morgan directly connected the scene to his earlier comments about the season’s central dynamic shift between Negan and Maggie, describing this new season as the first time the two characters have actually been able to communicate rather than existing in constant conflict. Even with that softer dynamic established, Morgan made clear that every interaction Negan has with Renata throughout the season has essentially been building toward this exact breaking point.
Morgan confirmed that Fabian’s death is far from the end of the fallout from this particular confrontation, teasing that audiences will see a direct continuation of the scene where Negan “loses his f—ing mind for a moment there.” He described the moment with Fabian as the spark, but not the full extent, of where Negan’s defiance toward Renata and the community ultimately leads.
With “Dead City” continuing its run on AMC and AMC Plus, Morgan’s comments suggest the fallout from Negan’s latest kill will carry significant weight for the rest of the season, particularly given his explicit warning to Renata about bringing her army.
Was Negan Right to Kill Fabian in 'Dead City'?
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