This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead‘s spinoff, Dead City.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan walked into the realm of The Walking Dead with a leather jacket, a baseball bat, and a knack for spewing vitriol like it was the thing he was put on this planet to do. His character, Negan, became one of the most hated men in pop culture history; and the thing was — it didn’t phase him at all.

Negan had already seen the worst of life, lost the things that mattered most, and watched his hope for the future slip through his fingers; nothing anyone could say would sting as much as his past. He was powerful in his own right, and more so because of the barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat he carried.

Lucille, an important name to Negan for an important weapon, and the latest episode of Dead City allowed his character to reunite with her once more.

In a chat with Entertainment Weekly, Morgan says that the reunion was a joyous occasion:

“I was so happy. It was just awesome to have on the leather jacket and to have Lucille in my hand. I can’t tell you how much I miss her. There’s something about holding that bat in a scene that makes me feel whole.”

Continuing, he says that there’s something special that he feels when he holds Lucille, both as Negan and as Jeff; he has a connection with the bat:

“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. It indicated the lean back. It indicated so much of the physicality of who Negan was by just holding it. Everything kind of stemmed from that bat.”

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Negan’s character arc revolves heavily around Lucille, both the bat and the love of his life. It makes sense that he’d feel such a pull to a “piece of wood wrapped in barbed wire” because of the depth of what it means. Lucille was his wife on screen, played by Hillary Burton Morgan, his wife in real life, and the bat is the personification of love, hopes, and dreams — and the heartbreaking reality of how quickly they can be lost.

Negan had to say goodbye to Lucille in more ways than one, so having her in his arms again — it’s magnificent, it’s otherworldly, it’s everything.

You can see Morgan as Negan in Dead City, with new episodes airing each Sunday.