New Walking Dead, FTWD pics reveal first throwback look at Lucille (the woman, not the baseball bat)

Back in November, it was confirmed that Hilarie Burton Morgan was stepping up to the plate to portray Negan's deceased wife, Lucille, in the six additional episodes of The Walking Dead's never-ending 10th season. Thanks to a batch of new images from said episodes (airing at the end of the month), we now have an official first look at the woman who inspired the name of the barbed wire-covered baseball bat that killed poor Glenn at the start of Season 7.

In the comics by Robert Kirkman, Negan (played on the show by Burton's actual husband, Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was just a normal guy who went insane after losing his beloved spouse to the zombie apocalypse.

"Been pretty hard to keep this a secret," the actress wrote on Twitter when the news broke in late 2020. "But I love working with @JDMorgan. I love watching him become #Negan and take on that swagger. And I love the @TheWalkingDead family. They’ve been a part of our family for ages and I’m so grateful for their kindness. Xoxo #hereslucille."

Based on the first still in the gallery below, it's pretty clear that Lucille is definitely going to show up in flashbacks for at least part of her appearance. You can clearly tell that it's set in the past because Negan's beard is shorter and less gray, and they're having a seemingly normal dinner (which doesn't happen all that often after the end of the world).

Take a look for yourself:

The six new episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 will start airing on AMC Sunday, Feb. 28. Watch the trailer for them here. The network plans to conclude the series after Season 11, which is set to air in two halves between this year and next. Once the flagship title is over, Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride will lead a spinoff centered around Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier (the network is also eyeing an anthology series).

But wait, there's more! AMC also released a slew of fresh production images for the second half of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, which returns to screens this spring. While Fear has enjoyed crossover with mainstream Walking Dead characters (e.g. Lennie James' Morgan Jones), it could one day be part of a larger, Arrowverse-inspired crossover event.

 "I would love to get to be like Crisis on Infinite Earths. That would be super cool, but that’s way down the line," franchise head honcho Scott M. Gimple told Entertainment Weekly at the the start of the year.

Check them out:

Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead returns Sunday, April 11. Watch the new trailer here.