Walking Dead returns with bloody beating
Whose blood meets Lucille? Cliffhanger to play out on Sunday’s Season 7 premiere
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for The Walking Dead.
Let’s get one thing straight: Rick Grimes is not going to die in Sunday’s Walking Dead premiere.
He’s no Eddard Stark and this is not Game of Thrones.
But the question preoccupying Walking Dead fans is just who meets their demise in the Season 7 premiere (Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC).
When last we saw Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his fellow survivors — in April’s Season 6 finale — new character Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was bludgeoning someone with his barbed-wire-covered bat, Lucille. But we didn’t see who, setting off a summer full of speculation and even a petition by fans enraged by the cliffhanger.
AMC has done its best to keep the secret, refusing to allow TV critics an advance look at Sunday’s episode, which has only ramped up the fan theories.
All we know for sure is that Carl, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, Sasha, Aaron and, yes, group leader Rick were at risk from Negan’s bat.
In a Variety poll, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) was the top pick for death, followed closely by Glenn (Steven Yeun). Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Eugene (Josh McDermitt) rounded out the top five. Personally, I’ve been going back and forth between Glenn and Abraham all summer.
Here’s a rundown on potential victims and why they might, or might not, be ripe for extinction.
Glenn Rhee A former pizza delivery guy who’s been around since Season 1, Glenn was at the centre of one of the biggest Season 6 controversies. He appeared to die after a fellow survivor shot himself, knocking Glenn into a swarm of zombies. Four episodes lat- er, we learned Glenn had implausibly saved himself by crawling under a dumpster. So, killing off Glenn now would make a sick kind of sense. There’s also the fact Negan kills Glenn in the comics on which the TV show is based.
Abraham Ford The former military man has become an important character since appearing in Season 4. There has been speculation Negan would choose Abraham because of his great physical strength and the defiant look Abraham gave Negan as he brandished his bat in front of him. Also, Abraham’s character is already dead in the Walking Dead comics.
Plus, he just found love with Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and was talking about starting a family, and we all know domestic happiness is an anomaly on this show. Maggie Greene Farm girl Maggie first appeared in Season 2 and has already endured the violent deaths of her father and sister, as well as the presumed death of her husband, Glenn. Plus, she’s pregnant and at risk of losing the baby.
The main reasons for suspecting that Maggie dies have to do with Lauren Cohan not being seen on set beyond filming of the premiere, and what looks to be her wedding ring spotted by eagle-eyed fans in a pile of guts in a Season 7 video teaser.
Walking Dead producers can be cruel to their fans, but cruel enough to have a pregnant woman beaten to death in front of her husband? I’m still not convinced.
Daryl Dixon You’ve probably seen or heard of those T-shirts that say “If Daryl dies we riot.” Daryl, who went from antisocial loner in Season 1 to Rick’s right-hand man, is the most favourite of fan favourites. That in itself could provide a reason to kill him, since Walking Dead has pulled its punches when it comes to offing original characters (see Glenn, above).
There’s also the fan theory that Negan holds a particular grudge against Daryl after he blew up a big group of Negan’s followers, the Saviours.
Realistically though, I doubt Daryl’s going anywhere.
Eugene Porter Since he appeared in Season 4, the quirky, pompadoured Eugene has gone from coward and liar to useful member of the survivor group.
Killing him off would make a certain sense: He volunteered to drive off alone in the group’s camper to try to throw the Saviours off the trail of Rick and the others; his death would complete the sacrifice. It would also deprive viewers of the comic relief that Eugene provides, but it wouldn’t satisfy calls for TWD to give up an original character.
Michonne Since her introduction in Season 3, Michonne (Danai Gurira) has become one of the leaders of the survivor group.
She’s a key adviser to Rick and recently became his lover. Rick has already lost his wife, who died in childbirth in Season 3, and a girlfriend, killed by zombies in Season 6, so Michonne’s death would be devastating to him, probably the best argument for killing her. And then there’s Gurira’s other career as a playwright. Still, I’d like to see “Richonne” roll along a little longer.