Negan tells Maggie if he could do everything all over again that he would’ve killed every member of her group on the season seven premiere. He likely does that for a deliberate reason.
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Maggie’s horrified by Negan’s brutal honestly. Viewers may be as well.
On an AMC+ bonus feature, showrunner Angela Kang says she doesn’t believe that Negan regrets killing Glenn.
“I think he thinks that was the right strategic move,” Kang said.
But Negan’s honesty in this moment says a lot. What was he supposed to say here?
If he said he would have spared them, Maggie would have (and should have) been skeptical of Negan moving forward. Instead, he decided to be brutally honest. Maggie may hate him, but at least she may be slightly more trusting of him.
Maggie may never fully trust him, but Negan’s smart enough to know that there’s no point in lying to someone who’s skeptical of him.
Kang told EW that Negan’s honesty may also play a role in how they take on the Reapers. Negan wants Maggie to know, as a leader, where he feels he failed in the past strategically.
“We’re talking now about a military mission and this is what I want you to know about what I think about the past and what I might have done wrong and what strategic regrets I had,” Kang said of what’s going through Negan’s mind in that moment.