Episode 22 begins with a scene where Negan encounters Maggie and Hershel while the pair are out walking. Maggie and Negan exchange some dagger glances, but he still feels sorry for what he’s done. This prompts Negan to ask Carol to put in a good word for him, but it turns out Alexandria has opted to banish Negan to Leah’s cabin instead. As he sits around and ponders his fate, he thinks back to the moment where Rick slit his throat and recalls Lucille being buried at that spot. He goes back to dig up the barbed bat, which triggers a flashback to the character’s origins.

The flashback features the highly anticipated backstory of Negan, and it doesn’t disappoint. In the episode we’re introduced to Negan and Lucille Smith, a fairly average couple trying to make their way through the zombie apocalypse. Negan loses his job as a high school gym teacher for getting in a bar brawl, and the dejected man responds by spending $600 on his iconic leather jacket and insulting people with some very familiar insults in online video games. Lucille hates this trend and tries to return the jacket, but she isn’t able to and ultimately let’s him keep it. All the while, Negan is also cheating on his wife with her friend Janine, and it’s not much of a secret.

As far as handling the early months of the apocalypse is concerned, it’s Lucille who seems far more equipped to handle the change in lifestyle. When a walker attacks their generator and disrupts their power supply, Negan is too afraid to go over and kill it. It’s Lucille who ends up getting the job done.

This scenario ends up paying narrative dividends when it’s discovered that Lucille has pancreatic cancer. One night the couple decides to get high, and the generator shuts off while they’re asleep. This causes Lucille’s cancer medication to spoil, which sends Negan on a quest to find some doctors in the area that he’s heard about. He leaves his wife unattended for six weeks and becomes horribly malnourished. When he finds the doctor and tries to overpower him, he’s knocked out by the doctor’s daughter instead. This daughter just so happens to be the future Savior, Laura. Even though he’s taken down, the doctor opts to help Negan by giving him an IV full of fluids, a meal all the meds Lucille needs.

On his way back home, however, Negan is captured by a group of bikers who demand to know where he got his meds. At first he lies about the doctor’s location, but eventually gives him up to be set free. When he finally returns home, he finds that Lucille has presumably succumbed to the cancer.

Back in the present, Negan decides to burn the Lucille bat and leaves the cabin to walk back to Alexandria. This doesn’t appear to be the best idea, though, as Carol warns him that Maggie will kill him if he stays. The episode ends lingering on a possible faceoff between Negan and Maggie in Season 11. There are also mentions of Daryl finding some sort of military base as well, which could play a role in future episodes.

Like most episodes in season 10C of The Walking Dead, this one doesn’t do much for plot advancement. It does, however, fill fans in on a backstory they’ve been dying to see for the past few years. There are certainly plot threads left to explore like the capture of Princess and her friends, the battle against the Reapers, and now this Negan situation. However, much of that content seems like window dressing. Episode 22 delivers in telling a compelling Negan backstory, but it won’t change any negative views on season 10C for those who didn’t like its introspective episodes.

The Walking Dead continues Sunday April 4 on AMC.

What are your thoughts on The Walking Dead season 10 finale? Did you enjoy the backstory of Negan and Lucille? Tell us in the comments section!