【Belgium】

Fans ofThe BelgiumWalking Deadhave been in a state of agonized suspense for the past six months, but our long national nightmare will soon be over -- on Oct. 23, we'll finally learn who fell victim to Negan's beloved baseball bat, Lucille, in the Season 7 premiere.

As the hours tick down to the big reveal and its sure-to-be devastating aftermath, executive producer Greg Nicotero (who also directed both last season's finale and Sunday's premiere) has offered Mashablesome insights into what awaits us.

The expectations are sky-high for this premiere after last season’s cliffhanger -- did it feel different from other premieres in terms of breaking the story?

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Each premiere has a very different flavor and feel to it, and this one obviously picks up seconds after -- even almost overlaps a little bit -- last year’s finale, so it’s different than anything we’ve done in the past. Sometimes people expect big explosions and action scenes, and last year our premiere was very epic; we had 30,000 walkers coming out of the quarry, so this one’s very different because we’re picking up directly where we left off in a very heightened emotional moment.

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You've always made interesting stylistic choices with the episodes you've directed. Did you try anything new for the premiere or approach it from a different aesthetic angle?

There’s a lot of emotion, but we did play a little. The timeline isn’t as traditional -- we like getting a sense of jumping around just a little bit because it kind of heightens the storytelling. There’s probably not as much playing around as there was in the Tyreese episode ["What Happened and What's Going On"] or even in last season’s premiere where we had the black and white flashbacks, but there’s a little bit of unique storytelling, for sure.

There have been some cast quotes out there that spoiler hungry fans have apparently misinterpreted in regards to how many regulars get killed in the premiere -- care to clarify?

It’s been very interesting, listening to what everyone’s been saying, because people are fishing – they want to know what happens and they want specifics. Syntax errors or quotes, I think a lot of times, people on the cast or crew are talking globally about the season as opposed to the specific episode. But you just have to wait!

We know that Rick survives at least the initial beating, but how does his worldview shift after this first encounter with Negan?

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The clip definitely speaks for itself. The fact that Negan is grabbing him and dragging him away, we definitely get the sense that, by Rick stating very cleanly and very plainly, "I’m gonna kill you," whatever Negan has done may not have had its desired effect. Negan even says in [episode] 16 last year, “we usually just start off by popping one of you so that you know that we mean business.” Clearly Rick’s response to that ... he doesn’t seem very fazed by it, he still feels like he’s the defiant Rick Grimes that we know and love, and I don’t know how that’s going to fit with Negan, who clearly is a guy who wants to be in charge.

A lot of fan focus is on those first few minutes of the premiere, but what can you preview about the aftermath -- what does episode 2 or 3 look like in this new status quo?

I don’t want to give too much away because I want the audience to go on this journey with us, but one thing I think we’ve spent a lot of time setting up is these different worlds. By seeing where Carol and Morgan end up in the finale -- they’re met by the guys on horseback -- I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll get into that storyline within the first few episodes because we want to be able to check in with all our characters, and we’ve got a lot of people on the show. There’s a lot of storylines that we have and between Alexandria and the Sanctuary and Hilltop and now The Kingdom, there’s a lot of people in a lot of places and a lot of dynamics that we’re gonna explore, and clearly the events of episode 1 have a ripple effect into all these communities.

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Carol and Morgan are thankfully out of the firing line -- are you utilizing their story as a kind of reprieve from the bleakness of the Negan plot thread?

Based on how emotionally draining the first episode is, you do need that. This show has never been as relentless as it is now, and we have to be aware of the trauma that we are putting our viewers through. You gotta give ‘em a moment, you gotta give ‘em a break to catch their breath. It’s one thing to knock ‘em down and keep pummeling them; that’s not really our intent. But Negan’s not a good dude and our world is not in a good place, so you need that.

I think it’s safe to say that having Carol and Morgan not be in the direct line of fire certainly provides a little opportunity to take a breath and again, visit with characters that we love. We love Melissa McBride as Carol, and we love Lennie James as Morgan; they’ve been with us since the beginning, so there’s a great familiarity with them, and we’ve watched these two characters go through a myriad of emotions and fantastic character arcs.

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Where do we find Carol and Morgan mentally at the start of the season, given that they spent much of last season grappling with the morality of their choices?

We teed it up pretty well last season; Morgan spent the entire Season 6 refusing to pull the trigger and wanting there to be another option, and in that last episode, he’s forced to pull the trigger – either he pulls the trigger or Carol dies. He does what is needed to be done, and the repercussions in terms of what his beliefs are, what his challenges are, that’s a great place for us to find him this season.

Carol’s made no attempt to hide her agenda, she’s left before. She’s always had it in her mind that if she can’t kill anymore, she can’t be around people that she cares about, because it’s taking its toll on her. So she’s willing to walk away from the people that she loves to try and save her soul and try to stop killing, to the point where in the finale last year, she was like “kill me, I don’t care.” All that did was infuriate the Savior. So I think we have some great opportunities and some actually mind-boggling performances from the two of those actors, because of who they are and how they interrelate. I can’t wait to see people’s reactions to the first time Carol sees Morgan after she wakes up, ‘cause it’s interesting.

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What does The Kingdom add to the tapestry of the show that has been missing?

I think The Kingdom brings a different vibe because you have Ezekiel (Khary Payton) who has basically chosen to take on this role of king, specifically because he recognized that people need someone to believe in. It seems outrageous and far-fetched for someone to look at a guy and refer to him as “King Ezekiel,” but he’s willing to do that because he realizes that that’s what society would require in order to continue. He sees this void and he’s willing to fill it for the good of the future of the human race, and that’s a very noble position to take. We haven’t really seen much of that before – Hilltop’s Gregory is not the most warm and fuzzy leader, and with Rick we always get a sense of who he is in terms of protecting his own group of people, but The Kingdom just has a different vibe going on.

After watching, read our recap of The Walking DeadSeason 7 premiere and what the cast had to say about who Negan kills.

Topics The Walking Dead