‘The Walking Dead’ Sneak Peek And Rick’s Right Hand Man [Spoilers]

Finally! The Walking Dead will return to AMC in just over a week, and we will finally have an answer to the Season 6 cliffhanger. We will finally know who Negan killed.

AMC recently released a “sneak peek” video for the new seasons, and, of course, Walking Dead fans have spent hours watching it over and over trying to find clues about the identity of Negan’s victim. The video shows us footage we haven’t seen before, some of it seeming to include some shots that may point us in the right direction. Let’s break it down and see what we can learn. First, the video.

The first thing we can see right away in the Walking Dead sneak peek is that a dazed Rick Grimes has blood across the right side of his face. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that Negan’s victim was to Rick’s right. That would mean either Rosita, Michonne, Abraham, Maggie, Daryl or Glenn are likely dead. It’s also possible though that the blood isn’t a splatter from Negan’s infamous swing of the bat in last year’s Walking Dead finale, but rather is from him laying Lucille across his cheek, taunting Rick after murdering one of his friends. This could be possible. The splatter is awfully clean to be from the beating someone took. And if it were someone right next to Rick, he would have more blood on him. Not just on his face, and not with such a defined pattern.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLeDUxXgnlY/

At about 1:40 in the Walking Dead video, Negan starts talking about his right-hand man.

“Simon’s my right-hand man. Having one of those is important. I mean, what do you have left without them? A whole lot of work. You have one? Maybe one of these fine people still breathing? Oh, or did I *clucking sound with tongue*? Sure, yeah, give me his axe.”

This is soon followed by Negan dragging Rick to his RV. This has been interpreted two ways.

The first is from people who have read the comics upon which The Walking Dead is based. They believe that this may foreshadow what’s going to happen in that RV. Much earlier in the comics, Rick lost a hand. It was cut off by the Governor. Some readers believe that Season 7 of The Walking Dead will begin with Negan chopping off Rick’s right hand with his axe. Photos from the set disprove this theory, however, showing him clearly with both hands, free of any kind of special glove that would be required in order to make it possible for his hand to be edited out in the final version.

Andrew Lincoln filmed an intense #WalkingDead scene today with Danai Gurira! New pics: https://t.co/DyyIBUGQy5 pic.twitter.com/QmsygHXUzZ

— JustJared.com (@JustJared) August 19, 2016

This scene was chosen by Walking Dead for a reason. It wasn’t random. It likely was intended to stir up conversation again, and so this comment about Rick’s right-hand man probably is relevant to solving the mystery about Negan’s victim. It most likely is another hint that this person was to the right of Rick.

So who is Rick’s right-hand man? More importantly, who is his right-hand man from Negan’s perspective? Probably either Abraham or Daryl based on his experience with the group so far.

The last clue from the Walking Dead video is Rick’s clothing as he’s being dragged to Negan’s RV. It’s free of blood from what we can see. If the person receiving the deadly blow from Lucille were right next to him, he wouldn’t have blood only on his face. He would have it on his clothes and in his hair. That likely eliminates Maggie as the one who dies. Based on the photo from the Walking Dead set in the tweet above, we can also eliminate Michonne. So who’s left? Rosita, Abraham, Daryl and Glenn. Check out this Facebook post from The Spoiling Dead.

https://www.facebook.com/SpoilingDeadFans/posts/672166322938509

Glenn and Abraham both appear only in Episode 1. The death of these two characters at the hand of Negan fits with everything we currently know (or think we know) about the Walking Dead Season 7 premiere. We even had producer Greg Nicotero all but coming right out and saying that there’s more than one victim when Entertainment Weekly asked him if viewer anger about the Season 6 cliffhanger surprised him.

“… in retrospect, I don’t think we would have changed anything. I would have still supported doing it the way that we did it, because of the fact that the story doesn’t end there. If we would have shown the deaths, then they wouldn’t have felt our characters in season 7 the way they need to. And the thing that I think a lot of people will get out of it is how that moment changes the entire makeup of our universe within a split second. And it’s that moment that launches our entire season 7 into that direction.”

Yes, he said “deaths.”

And one more thing from the video. At the very end of the Walking Dead video, the camera pans down and shows the ground. If you look close, you’ll see a ring on the ground on the right. It looks a lot like Maggie’s ring from Glenn. Did she put it there after Glenn died? Maybe.

All clues seem to point to both Abraham and Glenn as the most likely character who will die in the Walking Dead Season 7 premiere. But it could all be intentional misdirection as well. Luckily, we’ll know the truth soon. The Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead will air on AMC on Sunday, October 23 at 9:00 p.m. ET.

[Featured Image by AMC]