The core survivors in The Walking Dead have come a long way from the Atlanta outskirts, and the outside world around them continues to grow, with more characters set to come and go as the war with Negan heats up over the course of Season 7. Unfortunately, some of those characters will inevitably be children and teenagers, age groups The Walking Dead haven’t quite mastered yet. A casting call has revealed the show is adding a new non-adult for next season, so if we can all now hold hands and chant “He can’t be as bad as Sam and Ron. He can’t be as bad as Sam and Ron.”
The code name this teenager goes by is “Blake,” and while I’d like to go off on a multi-paragraph tangent about how that might be a connection to Philip “The Governor” Blake, that doesn’t sound like it’s the case here. This guy sounds like the opposite of all the hardnosed and emotionally stunted characters in this show, as he’s described as warm-hearted and scruffy, and one whose sarcasm is as close as he gets to antagonizing others. (Scruffy is a direct quote from the casting notice, so if he’s not scruffy, we riot!) “Blake” cares deeply about others and wants to protect them, aiming to take on more responsibility and duties. He, like everyone else, has also been privy to huge losses.
The casting call, which comes from Spoil The Dead, doesn’t sound like it’s describing anyone specific from the comics, but it could be some amalgamation of other characters. Although really, those are a lot of good attributes for one person, and it’s hard to think about anyone in this entire franchise who lives up to all that.
“Blake” will show up for one episode early on, and will then recur in more episodes in the back half of Season 7. That schedule ties into other recent casting, so it’s likely this will be the episode when viewers are introduced to The Kingdom and King Ezekiel and that batch of characters. Hopefully this area will get more attention in live-action, so that we can get to know these survivors better than they’ve been developed on the page.
Based solely on written descriptors, I think “Blake” sounds like he would pair well with Carol if she returns to her former state of domestic warrior who doesn’t run off. Hopefully he’ll have some other compatible survivors at the Kingdom that he gets along with, too. Suddenly I really care for this scruffy kid’s friendship situations.
The Walking Dead won’t return to AMC to reveal Negan’s villain and kick Rick’s ass until October. But in the meantime, check out everything else premiering in the next few months, check out our summer TV schedule.
