Now that The Walking Dead is taking its Season 7 promotional campaign into high gear, we're finding out more and more about what we can expect when the show returns this fall. And newest big bad Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been particularly vocal about what fans will see (or not see). Here's what he has to say about how the entire series is essentially getting reformed for Negan's existence in Rick's world.
It's a reset on The Walking Dead world. It's fucking Negan's world now. . . . What you're going to see in the first half of this season is Negan wreaking havoc. And some of your characters that you've grown to love are not going to be on the show anymore, and it's going to end badly for them. It's going to be a whole new beginning for The Walking Dead. Really, we've taken the show and just flipped it upside down.
You'll recall that the cast and crew were saying similar things before Season 6 started, and they definitely were't kidding back then, either. The first half was a time-flipping attempt to thwart a zombie horde, complete with Glenn's death scare, and then the second half was a slow-burning thriller introducing the Saviors and others. Season 7 will bring Negan out of the shadows and to the forefront of the action, where he will likely remain for a good long while. And as Morgan points out to EW, things will go very wrong for some of the show's other survivors.
And let's not ignore the elephant in the quote, there, when Morgan says "characters" won't be on the show anymore, instead of just the singular use. Does that mean that the show, as I've hoped, will indeed be taking out two main characters in the season premiere? Or is that more of a hint that Negan will not only bring Lucille to someone's skull in the premiere, but will also kill someone off in later episodes? Or is it a combination of the two?
Negan entering the show will be so much more effectively harrowing than any villains in the past, such as The Governor or the Terminus crew, and his unseen set-up throughout Season 6 has built him up into a monolithic tyrant whose power and bravado know no bounds. If it's anything like the comic transition, the impending season will indeed look different from everything we've seen before. Just look at how his Savior minions react when he's around in this shot from the trailer.
Rick probably wouldn't want people bowing down to him and washing his feet and stuff, since that's not the kind of leader he is, but I'm not sure that he could even command that kind of reactions from his group. I doubt Enid bows down for anyone.
We're still some months away from being flipped on our heads, as The Walking Dead Season 7 isn't scheduled to hit AMC until Sunday, October 23. To see everything else making it to the small screen later this year, check out our fall TV schedule.
