One of Negan’s dastardly qualities from The Walking Dead comics is how much he loves the F-word. He just loves it! So the big question would be how AMC and The Walking Dead would preserve his linguistic character on the cable show, which doesn’t use hard profanity (but is fine with like, guys biting out someone’s jugular). It turns out, on Sunday night’s finale, the show got around this by shooting two versions of Negan’s big scene: the officially sanctioned version, which aired on television, and a raw, uncut one that will be available on Blu-Ray and DVD.
“We had to shoot two versions — we had to shoot the Blu-ray version, which had a lot of the swearing and a lot of Negan’s colorful language, and then we had to shoot the broadcast version,†executive producer and director of the season six finale, Greg Nicotero told EW. “So when you get the DVD or the Blu-ray version, that will have the full Negan speech from the graphic novel.†Unsurprisingly, Nicotero and Jeffrey Dean Morgan like that version better: “I know Jeffrey and I both kind of preferred that version, it just felt better to be able to say swear words.â€
This is the same strategy Nicotero employed with the season-four finale when The Walking Dead shot two versions of the final line of the episode. During broadcast, Rick says, “They’re screwing with the wrong people.†Those with the adult purchasing power could listen to the uncensored version. Or, they could just YouTube it: