The Walking Dead Season 7 production aimed to push boundaries, not emotionally scar its viewers.
Once again, showrunner Scott Gimple has come to the defense of The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere, where the series killed off not one, but two fan-favorite characters: Glenn and Abraham. Fans saw Negan repeatedly crush Abraham’s skull and then turn his attention to Glenn.
Gimple explained to Entertainment Weekly they stand by their creative decisions and don’t ever strive to be brutal just for the sake of shock value.
“Listen, you’re going to direct the episode that introduces the Kingdom, and that’s probably the lightest episode that we’re going to have in the entire first half of the season, which was seeing Shiva and seeing King Ezekiel and Carol and Morgan,” Gimple told EW. “So airing that episode directly after the premiere really gave the audience an opportunity to catch their breath; otherwise, we would have had them in the rope, in the corner, and just been pummeling them, and that’s not our intention. Our intention isn’t to be sadistic. Our intention is to put the audience in a similar mindset that our characters are in.”
Again, The Walking Dead has always been a violent show. We’ve seen Carol shoot a little girl in the head to keep her from going psycho and killing others. We’ve seen Rick rip out a man’s throat with his teeth to protect Carol. We’ve seen Rick’s group murder people in their sleep to protect their own. We’ve seen Michonne whip out her katana and slay walkers left and right. Carl’s been shot twice and had gruesome injuries. Negan’s introduction shouldn’t have come as such a big shock, especially for comic fans.
What would’ve been the alternative here? Have Negan sit down with Rick and have a stern talk? We’ve said it many times before and we’ll say it again; the show needed to solidify Negan’s status as a villain. There is no grey area with Negan, at least not during the first part of the All Out War storyline. We will eventually see more colors from Negan, but for now the production wants fans to hate the guy.
What do you think about the current direction of The Walking Dead ? Has it gone too far? Let us know in the comments below. The Walking Dead Season 7 returns Feb. 12 on AMC.
