Why The Walking Dead Didn't Drop More "F-Bombs"

It's Negan's favorite four-letter word: "F---." (The Walking Dead dropped F-bombs so frequently in Robert Kirkman's comics that a Negan quote book is nearly just expletives.) So why did AMC's The Walking Dead — rated TV-MA for gore and graphic violence — shy away from the "f-dash-dash-dash word" that went un-bleeped on cable contemporaries like Breaking Bad and Mayans M.C.? If Federal Communications Commission regulations on profanity didn't apply to basic cable... why the f*$% did it take so long for The Walking Dead to say the "F-word"? 

"At the end of season 4, we could have used one f-bomb for the last line of season 4. 'They're screwing with the wrong people,'" former Walking Dead showrunner Scott M. Gimple told ComicBook. The line, which is delivered by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) when his group of zombie apocalypse survivors are herded into a train car by the cannibals at Terminus, goes uncensored on the DVD version: "They're f---ing with the wrong people."

"People can do that now a lot on TV," added Gimple of the uncensored swearing that's become more commonplace on television. That includes the Walking Dead spinoffs The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. (ComicBook can confirm Rick Grimes drops multiple uncensored F-bombs in the new series, among others.)

After years of pushing the envelope in terms of violence, The Walking Dead began to air episodes with uncensored "F-bombs" more often in later seasons. What helped lead to the change? The 2016 FX miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

"[TWD showrunner] Angela Kang and I were talking years ago and the FX O.J. show was on. And Courtney B. Vance, he plays Johnny Cochrane, and he drops an F-bomb directly to camera that's extended," Gimple explained. "It lasts like ten seconds. And it hit us each other immediately, like, 'Wait, how can they do it and we can't?' But we had gone so long without doing it [on The Walking Dead] that it was hard to introduce it in any regular basis because it's almost weird at that point."

The Walking Dead F-Bombs

The Walking Dead released the uncensored alternate version of Rick's "they're screwing with the wrong people" line on the season 4 DVD and Blu-ray. Daryl (Norman Reedus) told Carol (Melissa McBride) "f--- the way it was" when talking about the old world in the season 5 episode "Consumed," and Rick said "f--- this guy" when referring to Paul "Jesus" Rovia (Tom Payne) in the season 6 episode "The Next World." (In the cable version, Rick said: "No, not this guy.") 

When introducing the foul-mouthed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the season 6 finale, "Last Day on Earth," AMC reserved the uncut version — in which Negan utters the "F-word" 23 times in four minutes — for the DVD and Blu-ray. Lincoln admitted to saying a muted "f--- it" when firing at Negan in the season 8 episode "Mercy," and Daryl dropped another muffled F-bomb in the season 9 episode "The Obliged" when he reminded Rick he "sure as f--- wouldn't have found any of us" if not for Glenn (Steven Yeun).

"You get a specific number of curse words you can say, and then there's a list of what you can and can't do," then-Fear the Walking Dead showrunner Dave Erickson explained to ComicBook in 2017 after that show aired an uncensored "F-word." "I think it was our script coordinator who told me there was an email had come up; there had been a memo saying we could now say 'f---' twice over the course of an entire season."

However, the Kang-run final season of The Walking Dead was allotted more than two: Daryl said it twice in the season 11 episodes "A New Deal" and "Trust"; Mercer (Michael James Shaw) improvised an uncensored "f--- sh-- up" line in "Faith"; Princess (Paola Lazaro) said "f--- that" in season 11 episode "Variant"; and Negan, who said "I am f---ed either way" in "Lockdown," also let fly a comical "what the f---?" when watching variant walkers climbing over a gate in the "Family" penultimate episode of the series. Rosita (Christian Serratos) also got her share of F-bombs, dropping three over the course of season 11 — including the "Rest in Peace" series finale.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres Feb. 25 on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.