AMC’s sixth season of its massively popular survival series The Walking Dead may have left fans on tenterhooks with a real clanger of a cliffhanger, but if today’s first peek at season 7 is any indication, October’s batch of episodes won’t waste any time in rolling out the answers.
Set to claw its way back onto the airwaves on October 9, Entertainment Weekly has unveiled the first image for The Walking Dead season 7, and unsurprisingly, it places Negan in the limelight once more.
Wielding his gnarly weapon of choice, Lucille, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s marauding narcissist will once again spearhead the ragtag Saviors. However, if you’re apprehensive that TWD season 7 will linger over the climax of April’s finale worry no more; Walking Dead director Greg Nicotero revealed to EW that “yes, who was at the receiving end of Negan’s bat will be revealed in the first episode.”
Going one step further, and now that Morgan’s vile character has secured his status as a series regular, AMC is primed to delve deeper into the fractured psyche of Negan – replete with rambling, disconcerting monologues.
“Negan is that kind of guy,” says Nicotero. “He’s the kind of guy who imagines himself on stage at a high school production and he loves every second of it. So, I don’t really see a lot of quiet contemplative moments with Negan. I feel like with Negan it’s really going to be about him gesticulating and him sort of relishing in the sound of his own voice while he commands the stage in front of whoever’s alive.”
The Walking Dead season 7 will premiere on October 7.