Melissa McBride Says Season Finale Of ‘Walking Dead’ Left Her Speechless

Walking Dead fans have been speculating for months who might die at the hands of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his barbwire-covered bat “Lucille.” Reports from Walking Dead cast members about a gruesome season finale have fanned the flames, and the latest to weigh in on the impending season finale is Melissa McBride, who plays housewife turned warrior Carol.

Last night’s episode of The Walking Dead featured Carol and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) fighting to escape their captors from Negan’s group. Once again, Carol displayed how tough and smart she really is, but even the actress who plays Carol had a warning about the final episode of the season for fans, according to Comicbook.com.

“It was so very dark. I couldn’t say anything after I had finished reading it. I felt like I had dropped into a blackhole.”

As reported by EW, Cohan agreed that the season finale was so brutal it made her feel physically ill.

“[Hearing] the word ‘finale’ gives me a physical reaction because it’s the hardest day on set that I’ve ever had in my life. I never even imagined that as an actor you could have that experience. It’s one of the most raw experiences that I think any of us have ever had. Andy talks about being late to work; I didn’t want to go to work that day. It took a really, really long time for everybody to feel okay again after the finale, let’s put it that way.”

Andrew Lincoln, who plays the group’s ring leader, Rick, said that filming that final episode of the season was the only day he’s been late to work in six seasons of The Walking Dead. This is an actor whose character has literally ripped out someone’s throat with his teeth and whose wife died in childbirth, with his own son putting the bullet in her head to prevent her from coming back as a walker. Then there’s the heartbreaking scene were Hershel (Scott Wilson) was decapitated by The Governor (David Morrissey) despite Rick’s inspiring plea that “we can come back” to their humanity. Lincoln also watched Jessie (Alexandra Breckenridge) and her two sons die while they were trying to walk through the Alexandria compound, when it was overrun with walkers.

We’re talking a little boy ripped to shreds by walkers, but Lincoln wasn’t late on the set that day. So when a guy who’s been through all of that says the season finale is the worst yet, Walking Dead fans should listen.

Some have speculated that the darkest, most horrific death imaginable would be if Negan killed baby Judith. While that certainly qualifies as dark, it’s hard to imagine the Walking Dead writers going that far. Or could they?

In the comic book series for The Walking Dead, even those who don’t read the books know that’s Glenn (Steven Yeun) is the one who falls victim to Lucille. And in the slaughter of Negan’s men, Glenn was looking at Polaroids on the wall of people who had their heads bashed in by Negan’s bat. Will the writers throw us a sort of double curve and actually keep Glenn as the victim?

Perhaps, but I’m still standing by the theory that Maggie is the most likely on the chopping block, based on some foreshadowing in her comments about the costs of going after Negan, her pregnancy, the cruel irony of the show’s writers making her the victim instead of her husband Glenn, and her rise to more of a leadership status within the group, which is never a good sign on The Walking Dead. One could also argue that another possible foreshadowing of a cruel twist that Walking Dead writers love so much is how the women in last night’s episode had such a long discussion about having children in this post-apocalyptic world, with some saying that “children are the future.”

So killing the pregnant Maggie would be a metaphoric statement of how bleak the future is in this world. That would be mighty “dark.” But perhaps the biggest question Walking Dead fans may ask themselves is if Rick’s group has gone too far, and whatever consequences they suffer in the season finale are karma coming back on them for their new role in playing assassins. One of Negan’s gang even told Maggie last night, “You aren’t the good guys.” According to what McBride told EW, she may be starting to agree.

“Carol said to Sam, ‘The only way to keep from becoming a monster is to kill.’ Wait a minute. This is getting serious.”

So, Walking Dead fans, who do you think is going to die in the season finale? Below is a preview of next week’s episode of The Walking Dead.

[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]