‘The Walking Dead’: So How Much Worse Can It Get For The Characters In Season 7? Apparently, A Whole Lot More

If fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead thought the Season 6 cliffhanger was horrendous, get ready for a lot more misery moving forward into Season 7. According to the show’s director and special effects make-up artist, Greg Nicotero, the characters have plenty of hardship to work through yet.

Spoiler Alert: This article discusses Season 6 and 7 of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid potential spoilers.

The Season 6 finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead saw the introduction of the feared comic character, Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the TV series). Along with that was the knowledge that when the show returns for Season 7, at least one of the long-standing characters of The Walking Dead will be brutally murdered by Negan. This means, moving forward into Season 7, the remaining characters will have to come to terms, not only with the loss of one of their friends, but life under Negan’s “new world order.” This will, likely, be particularly hard for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), the leader of the group and one of the main reasons they all ended up captured by Negan.

Moving forward into Season 7 of The Walking Dead, we know Rick survives Negan’s lineup thanks to Negan stating so in the Season 6 finale.

“Anybody moves, anybody says anything, cut the boy’s other eye out and feed it to his father and then we’ll start again. You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell you’re all going to be doing that.”

Considering Negan also states that he is willing to start all over again if there is too much commotion when he kills the first person, there is the suggestion, certainly, that more than one person could die in the Season 7 return of The Walking Dead. But now, Greg Nicotero, who is not only the show’s special effects artist and one of the directors, he sometimes stars in the show itself as a walker, has stated that the show will get a “lot worse” for the characters.

“I think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better for our group, and it’s pretty intense,” Nicotero recently told Deadline.

As i09 pointed out, considering The Walking Dead is expected to run for at least 12 seasons, this means the characters may not just be suffering through episodes, but — potentially — seasons before things improve for them. Although, realistically, will it ever get better for them? It is the zombie apocalypse after all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGm2zwg_-NY

Greg Nicotero also explained that, up until this point, Rick has been the main character of The Walking Dead, but, with the arrival of Negan, he will have to share the limelight now.

“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.”

The Season 7 premiere episode will be directed by Greg Nicotero, and it seems it is not only the characters that will be suffering for a long time. Nicotero explained to Deadline that he was drained for two weeks afterwards.

“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.”

Are you looking forward to the Season 7 premiere of AMC’s The Walking Dead? How bleak do you think it could get for our favorite characters before things improve? Let us know your thoughts and theories by commenting below.

The Walking Dead returns with Season 7 on Sunday, October 23, 2016. If you can’t wait that long, the show’s companion series, Fear The Walking Dead, returns with the second half of Season 2 on Sunday, August 21, with Episode 8 (entitled “Grotesque”) at 9 p.m. ET.

[Photo by Gene Page/AMC]