Spoilers below for the latest episode of The Walking Dead, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched.
When The Walking Dead kicked off its latest spinoff Dead City, fans had many narrative-based questions about Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan and Lauren Cohan’s Maggie, thanks in part to the big time jump that followed the flagship series’ finale. One of the biggest mysteries revolved around the current status of Negan’s wife Annie, as portrayed by Medina Senghore, as well as their previously unnamed child. Now we finally have an answer to the “What up with Annie?” question, and — ding, ding! — anyone who expected the answer to be rather unfairly dour and depressing gets a prize. (Please note that the prize is Ginny's filthy stuffed dinosaur.)
The latest episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City gave fans a bit more of the origins of Negan and Ginny’s relationship, while also showcasing The Croat’s baffling MMA octagon zombie death-match challenge that was clearly inspired in part by Saw. But it was during one of the more quiet moments in “People Are a Resource” where JDM’s ever-deadly quasi-villain opened up about his family life, or lack thereof, after previously dismissing Maggie’s questions about it. And I can't tell if it's because of mishandled writing, or if the point was to make Negan look like a moron in front of Maggie, but it was a rather frustrating set of reveals. Here’s how he explained it:
A few years ago, Joshua, Annie and I, we were living in this little cabin outside of New Babylon. One day, Annie decided to go into town and do some trading. When she wasn’t home at nightfall, I knew something had gone wrong. I went looking for her. I found her, and she had been robbed and beaten. She begged me not to do something stupid. But hell, you know me. I found ‘em, all five of ‘em. Some shit-drinking hole. Honestly, I don’t even think I wanted to kill em. After that, we were on the run, and it was very hard for Annie. So I put them on a wagon train to Missouri, and I said I’d be right behind them. I stayed. I think about them every single day. I hope to God they are okay, and maybe I have no right in hoping that, but I don’t know, Maggie. I mean, what else do we have besides hope?
Obviously that story wasn't going to revolve around Annie and their kid stumbling across a literal Garden of Eden where they could feel safe and confident that no danger would ever befall them again, but damn, y'all. Couldn't even get any "We were so happy that..." anecdotes before hearing about all the bad shit that happened.
In any case, let’s break down the biggest takeaways from that harsh anecdote.
- Negan and Annie's kid is apparently named Joshua.
Negan’s story immediately started off with a big reveal, as we finally learned the name of his kid, though clearly with as little post-apocalyptic fanfare as humanly possible. No clues into why the li’l dude’s name is Joshua, and whether that has any specific significance to Annie’s past, or if it was a purely random choice. (Because if it was related to Negan’s past, we’d have already heard 14 stories about it by now.)
- Annie Was Severely Beaten And Robbed
While I’m certainly happy viewers didn’t have to actually witness this ordeal (at least not yet), it’s a damned shame that our first big update about Annie centers on the idea that she was beaten so badly after being robbed that she couldn’t make it back home to Negan. That can’t have been an easy situation for the kid to deal with, either, so I guess I’m doubly glad that Negan didn’t share that part in his story.
- Annie’s Attackers Were The New Babylon Marshals That Negan Is Wanted For Killing
Okay, so JDM’s character didn’t come right out and say all of the above, but it didn’t take much dot-connecting to piece things together, especially when his Wanted poster was actually brought out and read aloud later in the Dead City ep. So the murders that Gaius Charles’ Perlie Armstrong was hunting Negan down for concerned the men that beat and robbed Annie, assuming Negan was telling the truth when talking to Maggie. Considering most of the men were marshals, with one being a magistrate, that just paints the New Babylon Federation in an even darker light.
By all means, I get that this isn’t highly unlikely or anything, especially in the TWD Universe, but gawdamn. The Commonwealth at least looked like a normal slice of life for a little while before its various corruptions surfaced. At this point, there’s not even a promise of structure before a safe haven is revealed to be a nightmare hive run by monsters. Obviously this wasn’t the first sign of the monstrousness, but I digress.
- Negan Sent His Family To Missouri And Lied About Following Them
Okay, I'm at a total loss here. Negan has been presenting himself as an okay guy, and not as big of a demon as The Croat, but even when we remove the whole "murdering Abraham and Glenn in cold blood" thing, and all the stuff that happened at the Sanctuary, this anecdote further proves that this guy is a mess. He sent the possibly still-healing Annie and their son on a wagon train to Missouri, with no intentions of joining them at their final destination despite telling them he'd be behind, but why didn't he go with them?
If the point of him staying behind was to get vengence for her beating, that'd be one thing, but he was already wanted for the marshals' deaths by that point. So instead of actively keeping his family safe while on the lam, he sent them off to be even farther away from him. Which perhaps keeps them "safe" from Marshals tracking Negan down, but that whole wagon train could have been set ablaze with everyone still on board — heaven forbid — and Negan wouldn't have a whisp of a clue.
And what's more, him lying about following them means that Annie and Joshua are possibly still worrying about what happened to Negan even as he's telling Maggie that story. Unless he sent word out to them after the fact, somehow, then they likely thought he was A. caught and imprisoned, B. caught and killed, or C. just never followed them to begin with. None of those options are great for a mother and her young child to cope with, but this bearded bastard over here was too busy selling himself as Mr. Nice Guy to think about how insanely damaging his idea was.
But hey, at least we don't have to go on wondering about Annie anymore, right? Wait, no, now we're still wondering about it, and with more worried urgency than ever before. Dammit, Negan.
Here's hoping Medina Senghore can return within an upcoming Walking Dead TV show to possibly reveal that life got WAY better for her and Joshua whenever they left Negan behind. I guess I'd be okay with Negan going back to them after the events of Dead City, assuming he would no longer be a wanted man. Otherwise, they're probably better off without him.
