Mother Cluckers: AMC Is Finally Allowing The F-Word On 'The Walking Dead'

From stubbing your toe to dropping your phone down the toilet, there are a few awful situations in life when the use of colorful language should be excused for anyone and everyone. Certainly, amidst the rotting corpses and deranged villains of a zombie apocalypse, you can probably forgive the survivors of AMC's #TheWalkingDead for dropping the odd F-bomb to let off steam.

It has been some seven years of cock-biting carnage, and more brain-bashing than we can shake a baseball bat at, and yet, not a single F-word has fallen on the show? Through the years of Darabont, Mazzara, and Gimple, there has been a certain censoring of everyone's favorite curse word to appease those network bigwigs — well, all that could be about to change.

Swear On Your Life

While a slew of R-rated wordplay will be surely welcome on TWD, it is actually following suit from its sister show. The most recent episode of Fear the Walking Dead saw Frank Dillane's Nick say what everyone was thinking, and utter a simple "F*uck" as a horde of walkers approached him. Speaking to Comicbook.com, Fear's showrunner David Erickson revealed that although the use of the F-word was a step forward, fans shouldn't expect it to be freely tossed around like death is on the show:

"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. 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."

Erickson went on to promise that the "F" quota will be filled before Season 3 of Fear reaches its climax, but that it has also allowed The Walking Dead to use the word too:

"I don't know at what point AMC corporate decided to allow it, but they did."

As we enter arguably the darkest years of TWD, it would undoubtedly become increasingly obvious if #JeffreyDeanMorgan's Negan started calling everyone a "mother-fluffing screwball" — it doesn't exactly give the Big Bad the formidable reputation he deserves. Looking back over the history of the show, you might not notice the lack of certain words, but heading back to Season 4, remember that Rick Grimes's "they're f*cking with the wrong people" was toned down to say "messing." Although the uncensored version made it onto the DVD release, the more powerful version was deemed too controversial to air on AMC.

That being said, it is most definitely Negan who has been the biggest victim of the swearing cull. Turning the pages of #RobertKirkman's comic book of the same name, you can barely move without the leader of the Saviors punctuating his sentences with the F-word. Someone did the math for Issuea #100–#148 and Negan says "f*cking" a mere 282 times, followed by the abridged "f*ck" at 117. Other favorite words included two utterances of "c*nt," three "p*ssy," and a singular "d*ckhole."

Although Morgan is more than happy to swear on set, the Season 7 home release contains sparse Neganisms and leaves us with a decidedly clean version. Whether you are forced to cover your ears or are more than happy with a more lewd and crude version of the show, it is a puzzler that it has taken AMC so long to bring the bleeps to TWD. Personally, I can't wait for Baby Judith's first utterance to be the C-word.