Negan Smith (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is back in action in the latest season of The Walking Dead: Dead City – and he’s got a brand new version of Lucille with an electrifying upgrade!

After months of imprisonment, the season 2 premiere episode “Power Equals Power” revealed The Dama (Lisa Emery) and The Croat (Željko Ivanek) finally convinced Negan to do their bidding by not-so-subtly threatening his wife and son. As a peace offering, The Croat gave Negan his signature weapon from his days as the leader of The Saviors – a barbed-wire-covered bat.

“Just like the original Lucille,” he said. “Although I have added some, shall we say, improvements.”

And those “improvements” turned out to be a button in the handle that sends a powerful electric charge through it, shocking and potentially killing anyone who touches it. Viewers know from last season that The Croat was formerly a scientist studying alternative energy, and he’d been using methane from dead bodies to create a fuel source – experiments that seem to have expanded to returning electricity to Manhattan.

Fans got a first glimpse at Lucille 2.0’s wild new bells and whistles in the church scene, when Negan attempted to unite the different groups in Manhattan to fight together against the New Babylon Federation.

“I am not asking for any kumbaya. You see, I am not a preacher. And you sure as s–t ain’t no congregation,” he said to the crowd of unruly survivors. “But you are gonna fight … and not for the common good. I could give a rat’s ass about the common good. No, you are gonna fight … you’re gonna fight because I say so.”

Negan baited one particularly frustrated man by holding Lucille near his face and refusing to move it. When he finally grabbed hold of the bat, he instantly electrocuted himself and collapsed to the ground.

“Methane. We got it, you don’t,” Negan told his stunned audience. “We got the bright lights, the cool cars, the awesome weapons … You see, power equals power. It’s as simple as that. So if you aren’t with us, I guess you’re in for a bit of a shock.”

And while longtime Negan fans are sure to go wild at the return of the bat wrapped in barbed wire – which he famously burned in The Walking Dead season 10 episode “Here’s Negan” – there are probably few more excited for the return of Lucille on the small screen than Jeffrey, who admitted in a behind-the-scenes interview on AMC+ that he rarely lets go of it between takes during filming.

“When people always rush up, ‘Jeff, can we take Lucille now?’ [I say] ‘I got it,’” he shared at the time. “I got a tattoo this year and it says ‘Lucille’ … I’ve never had a prop in my life as an actor that felt so innately mine and feels like an extension of the character. And me, personally, I adore her.”

Lucille also made a cameo appearance in the first season of Dead City. In a July 2023 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the Grey’s Anatomy alum revealed he was “so happy” that he got to don his signature leather jacket and hold Lucille again for a flashback sequence.

“There’s something about holding that bat in a scene that makes me feel whole,” he explained. “There is a relationship that I will forever have with that piece of wood wrapped in barbed wire — that I will have as Jeff. It’s incredibly special because for whatever reason, on that first day when Negan comes out of the trailer and the first couple days that we shot, I really bonded in an odd way to this object. And it indicated so much of what I did as an actor … Everything kind of stemmed from that bat.”

Watch new episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC or streaming on AMC+.