When it comes to zombie apocalypse life on The Walking Dead, viewers and characters alike should have learned not to get too comfortable in any one location. After five and a half seasons that have seen Rick Grimes and his merry band of survivors basically destroy every safe haven that they've discovered, Season 6's midseason finale ending with the Alexandria overrun with zombies seemed like it would be sending the survivors off into the wilderness once more. According to Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln, however, Rick and Co. won’t be leaving Alexandria anytime soon for a few very good reasons.
Because it is a functioning community and it was functioning perfectly well before we showed up, which is generally the way. It’s secure. We have the capability of growing things. And we don’t have any other options. There is that. But also, there are substantial houses that work. We have solar panels and electricity and there are certain things that are the beginnings of a civilization, so it would be strange for us to look for somewhere else because I’m not sure if there would be anything as contained and secure and environmentally sound.
Andrew Lincoln’s chat with Entertainment Weekly is somewhat surprising, considering the events of the most recent episode back in November. Although we already knew that the midseason premiere would be picking up right where the midseason finale left off and would definitely be spending at least a little bit of time in Alexandria, it seemed unlikely that the settlement could be recovered by just Rick’s handful of survivors and the mostly useless Alexandrians. With the key characters in Alexandria last seen moving through a horde of zombies wearing zombie-gut ponchos to escape, and the key characters on the road running into some of Negan’s followers, the safety of Alexandria seemed like a thing of the past.
Of course, staying in Alexandria doesn’t mean that the brutal foul-mouthed Negan and his crew aren’t going to pose a major threat to the good guys. Negan has been described by producer Robert Kirkman as an “atomic bomb” to be dropped on the survivors. If Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan is even half as brutal as the Negan from the Walking Dead comics, Rick and the other good guys will be needing the Alexandria safe haven as intact as Andrew Lincoln promises.
It’s been a rough couple of months of hiatus waiting for The Walking Dead to return to the airwaves. While we still have a wait before we see Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, the show will finally air its midseason premiere that will take us back to Alexandria on February 14. What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than by watching Rick Grimes take back Alexandria from a horde of zombies? I know what I’ll be doing.
