Here’s What Carl’s Letter to Negan Said on ‘The Walking Dead’

*This article contains spoilers for Season 8 of The Walking Dead*

During last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, we saw Rick brutally reached a new low that resulted in him finally deciding to open the letter that Carl wrote for him before his death. However, while we don’t know what the exact contents of that letter say…yet, we were able to get a quick glimpse a few episodes ago of the thoughtful and surprising letter that Carl left behind for Negan.

Rick choosing to open up Carl’s letter to Negan as opposed to his own was just another way of him desperately searching for some concrete reason behind how and why his son died. Perhaps he hoped there would be some clue in there that would allow Rick to convince himself even further that Carl’s death was Negan’s fault or something that would make it easier to pass blame. Either way, what Carl had to say to his enemy was far more important in the moment to Rick than what he had to say to him.

Thankfully, Reddit user awakeningosiris was able to grab a solid screenshot of the letter during the quick glimpse of it and decipher what some oits’s contents were. Although it was a little obscured, the message that Carl had been trying to teach Rick this season was very much evident in his words to Negan as well. Check it out below!

Negan,

This is Carl…back when I…someone. I got bit. We didn’t even have…doing… I was just helping someone. And now…

You might be gone. Maybe my dad killed you – but I don’t think so. I think you’re working on a way out. Maybe you got out. Maybe…lost cause and you just want to kill all of us.

I think you have to be who you are. I just…what you wanted. I wanted to ask you…

Maybe you’ll beat us. If you do, there’ll just be someone [else.] The way out is working together. It’s forgiveness. It’s believing [there doesn’t] have to be a fight anymore. Because …

… offers you peace … everything can change.

Start [over].

– Carl

Chandler Riggs actually responded to the Reddit thread saying that he’d written the letter simply as something for Andrew Lincoln to hold during the scene, and he never thought that his “god-awful handwriting” would make it on camera. However, he did applaud the user’s deciphering skills!

After reading the letter, Rick calls Negan over the walkie-talkie to break the news and also reiterates Carl’s dying wish, “He asked you to stop. He asked me to stop. He asked us for peace.” However, even though Negan showed some real sadness and remorse over Carl’s death, Rick is still in vengeance mode and wants nothing more than to ignore whatever hopes Carl had for the future and simply murder Negan.

So, while Carl’s letter to Negan didn’t get through to Rick at all, hopefully, next week we will see his own letter start to resonate more and he will finally begin to go down the much more honorable and righteous path that Carl had envisioned.