There's a lot of anticipation surrounding the seventh season of The Walking Dead. The show returns to AMC in the US and FOX in the UK this October, with new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) taking the life of at least one of the gang we've grown to know and love through some highly dramatic episodes.
Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes / Credit: AMC
Whilst the identity of his first victim has been kept a secret so far, something said by Negan about Carl (Chandler Rigg) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in the final moments of season six would suggest that the pair make it out of this particular predicament alive: "If anybody says anything, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father."
So, with 99% certainty that Rick will be alive during season 7, we've got to thinking about how the show's leading man will be treated not only by characters on the show, but by writers, directors and producers with Negan on the scene.
Speaking to Deadline, producer, director and makeup artist Greg Nicotero addressed the topic, explaining: "I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better for our group, and it's pretty intense. I mean, the show, we're sort of opening a new chapter. I mean, it's really, Rick is now, if you really think about his journey in the comic books, he shares the spotlight with Negan in the comic book. Negan now has some ownership over what the show is about. It's the anticipation and the excitement of new worlds that we're going to, like the Hilltop, like the Kingdom, like the Sanctuary where Negan lives. Everybody's putting so much of their heart and soul into it.
"You know, after directing the premiere episode, I was f**ked up for two weeks, you know? I really felt like I dragged a lot of my dearest friends into these really deep, dark places shooting that episode, and it's been definitely an experience unlike anything that I've ever handled before."
He also spoke about the upset some fans of the series were left with following the season six finale, commenting: "You look at the 20 million viewers, and the people that were upset, they were upset because they cared, because they want to know. I still believe that the story that we're telling warranted that cliffhanger, and I think if we would have showed who Negan killed at the end of that episode, it wouldn't have had the same impact, because people were expected it. Everybody knew that Negan was going to kill someone.
"It's one of the best episodes I feel like I've ever directed, because I was able to capture that sense of dread and fear that Rick Grimes felt. Rick has never felt fear, and you never see him scared in the entire series until that episode."
With it looking like Negan will be a part of the show for the foreseeable future, and Daryl Dixon actor Norman Reedus saying that the 'Ricktatorship' was coming to an end, it's going to be very interesting to see a brand new dynamic unfold where Rick isn't the leader of the pack.
The Walking Dead season 7 premieres on AMC in the US on October 23, returning to the UK on FOX soon after.
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