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Walking Dead producers discuss graphic premiere episode

Warning: This post refers to plotlines from the Season 7 debut.

2016-10-25_0220Warning: This post refers to plotlines from the Season 7 debut.

“The hardest thing about it was starting the script and thinking about what would break Rick,” Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple said of the shocking Season 7 premiere. Both he and (executive producer Robert Kirkman) had this episode planned for two years. “It was all in issue 100 but [also] looking for a way to break the audience, too, but not in a way to hurt them but for them to believe that Rick Grimes is under the thumb of Negan.”

The season premiere, which included the deaths of Glenn (Steven Yuen) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) left fans in shock.

Yeun said he recalled when issue #100 came out at Comic-Con a few years ago and asked Kirkman not to give that moment to anyone else.

“Robert wrote such a messed up and incredible way to take something away to make a story as impactful as it is and when you read that comic, you kinda don’t want that to go to anyone else. It’s such an iconic moment,” he said, noting that keeping the secret was a challenge. “Living that out was very wild but at the same time, that moment happening and being realized on television in a different medium and to do it in the way that we did it is brave and at the same time super-affecting and that for me was motivation.”

Cudlitz, who joined Walking Dead as a recurring player in season four before being promoted to regular in season five said he knew he was on borrowed time with the AMC series extending his character’s life beyond the source material.

“Denise (Merritt Wever) took his death graciously two episodes prior,” Cudlitz said. “At that point, I knew I had gone beyond where he was in the graphic novel. Kirkman said he was not happy with how he took Abraham out in the graphic novel so I was curious to see where we would go from there. I think in the group, he made it very clear to Negan that if he were going to take somebody, take me if it’s going to help protect the rest of the group.”

Meanwhile Jeffrey Dean Morgan dismissed the idea that he has to play Negan as a villain.

“I can’t play him like that certainly because then you have only one note to go with,” said Morgan. “In my mind, he’s not a bad guy. He’s still letting these guys off easy at this point. Remember they took out quite a few of my folks. If it weren’t for Daryl, Glenn would still be alive.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter, Variety.

2 Responses

  1. Loved it. Can’t say I’m ever put off by graphic violence on TV or in movies yet I never can stand watching real life things like when you get an injection. I find it puzzling that most people are the other way around.

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