My heart is going for Old Man Negan. He is trying he's best to be a good guy, even though he's not and it's almost as if knows it. Things that he's doing to keep out of Maggie's way are streatching the relationship.
It's just interesting that Carol, our original bad woman, is still having the relationship with the devil. As if he has accepted all the good and the bad. In Negan's case I wouldn't be betting that his path on the redemption is going to take him to the Pearly Gates. There's just too many sins in his past from him to get a pass.
All in all, it's the ticket to the hot place that is waiting for him. And just like in a similar kind of hut in the Maine, Negan met his adversary, the evil Negan. Wait, does it mean that this is a serious nod towards Raimi's Evil Dead?
Maybe. It's how I felt about it, when the Ghost of the Winter Past appeared in the Dog's Original Home. Negan called him a clown, even though the Ghost was telling the truth. There is Negan, without Negan, not even in the redemption path.
It also reminds me about biblical story of Christ last temptation. A fitting analogue in my mind taken that this episode was broadcasted yesterday, in the Christ resurrection. In that particular story, the Devil took J to the mountaintop and asked the questions, while He resisted the temptation.
If you think Negan's case, his exile was a fitting solution, so in a similar tone he's watching down in the world, seeing what it is, and how easily he could take the offer, turn back to Evil and go slaughtering what's left of Alexandria.
But he doesn't and the Ghost of Winter Past announced: "You're nothing without her."
I think the Devil meant the woman in her past, not the bat.
I loved the past transition when he picked up the Lucielle. It was perfectly done and it showed that before the apocalypse, Negan was like you and me, a normal person. A desperate person. But not an evil person.
Some could call him a petty criminal. Not a major leaguer he became afterwards. In the Kirkman's world, the Old School Negan is still among the top three villains, with the other two being in my mind The Governor and The Filthy Woman.
It's interesting that he tried to keep the Wife alive, just like I'd have done, during the outbreak. But we all know that nothing is going to last forever. Everything has an end date. Nothing survives forever.
Nothing
I know personally how hard it is to fight the terminal illness as a carer. Every single day you will fight your damnest to keep up the good spirit. Never giving up on anything. Except all the other things normal persons do, because it's all in the past and the fight against the disease is all you know. And all you do it for is love. Not money or anything material.
Unlike as it is with Carol, we know that in the distant past, the psychotic side was there and he put a guy in the hospital. It explains why after the Fall he was able to flip the switch and do what he does best, kill people.
It's also interesting that they showed Negan cheating his wife, kind of explaining that enormous libido he has in the comics, but not in the small screen.
When Negan fell on his knees after he rescued Lucielle, it was the first moment of redemption I felt coming from him. It was fitting that he burned the bat at the end, marking the fitting farewell for the terrible tool.
