Season 9 of The Walking Dead has stuck Negan in a very different status quo than he was used to in previous seasons. The former tyrant of the zombie apocalypse lost the war, Lucille, and his freedom at the end of Season 8, and he's been stuck in a grubby jail cell in Alexandria. We haven't seen that much of Negan's new home, which isn't all that big. Naturally, some fans have wondered: how does Negan use the bathroom? Showrunner Angela Kang weighed in, saying this:
We don't see it here, but [the bed pan] does feature in a very prominent moment later on this season. Or he might even have a bucket at this point, but we really wanted to shroud that cell in so much darkness that the corners are very black. But we've thought about that.
Just because The Walking Dead hasn't showcased Negan's "bathroom" doesn't mean any of the Alexandrians have been tasked with taking him out of his cell to use the facilities every day! Michonne might have felt compelled to kill him herself if she'd earned that particular job, although I wouldn't have put it past Negan to foul himself just to get some attention from his captors. Fortunately, that was never an issue anybody had to deal with.
Of course, a bed pan or bucket isn't all that glamorous for Negan, and somebody at Alexandria must have the task of emptying and cleaning it, which... just sounds unpleasant. It's not like Negan is a guest that anybody is happy to accommodate. I would not want to draw the short straw and earn that particular task! The good news is that we haven't even had to really get a look at the vessel he uses.
Interestingly, Angela Kang's comments to The Huffington Post do indicate that the Walking Dead production team has put some thought into how Negan's bathroom situation works. Apparently, his bed pan/bucket will have a part to play later in Season 9. Kang didn't reveal the context, but I'm imagining Negan either whacking somebody in the face with it or flinging the contents at somebody. That said, maybe it could be as simple as Michonne or somebody else confiscating the pan for some reason. We'll have to wait and see.
If any of those scenarios are accurate, they could point toward Negan changing his tune about wanting to die and join Lucille, as he communicated to Maggie in her final episode for now. Using his bucket (or the contents) as a weapon seems like the action of somebody who wants to fight and live. Perhaps something happened during the time jump that saw Judith Grimes grow up into a cowboy hat-wearing, gun-toting, life-saving badass that changed Negan's outlook on life.
Like other surviving characters who haven't left the area, Negan will have a whole new look when the action picks up again after the time jump. Only time will tell if his new look isn't the only new thing about him six years in the future.
Tune in to The Walking Dead on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC for new episodes. Despite low ratings in Season 9, the Walking Dead universe is expanding in some huge ways moving forward, including by bringing Rick Grimes back in a twist that few could have seen coming after the announcement of Andrew Lincoln's departure.
