Danai Gurira had a lot to say about Negan during The Walking Dead panel at New York Comic Con 2016, and most of it was not good.
Gurira compared Negan to another infamous The Walking Dead villain: The Governor. While the Governor had a strong hold on Woodbury, he didn’t have a network of communities working for him like Negan does. There’s no way for Rick’s group to know how far Negan’s reach is or who is on his side, which makes the Governor “small potatoes” in comparison, according to Gurira.
“Because he has a structure in place. He doesn’t have one town of Woodbury, he has outposts in various places we don’t even know about yet. We know it’s more than one at this point. He’s also extremely smart,” Gurira told the audience. “He gets Rick on his knees in many ways… [he has] an indoctrination process which is far beyond what The Governor was doing… there’s a whole other level of creating a system and an order where you can reign supreme as a demagogue in a way that’s deeply insulated in a way that no one has touched before.”
And the latest The Walking Dead Season 7 teaser shows what Negan is capable of doing. Rick had the nerve to threaten Negan after he killed one of his own. Rick looks at him with the crazy eyes and says, “I’m gonna kill you.” And Negan doesn’t take that well. He drags Rick into an RV and we don’t know what he intends to do. We already know Negan killed at least ONE person from the teaser; why Rick would push his luck is beyond us. If there ever were a time where Michonne needed to punch Rick back to his senses, it’s now.
To make things worse, Negan’s victim(s) in the premiere is only the beginning of the shit storm coming to The Walking Dead Season 7. The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple told the NYCC 2016 panel crowd the Negan kill isn’t the worst thing that happens this season.
What do you think will happen to Rick? Will Negan find a creative way to teach him a lesson? Let us know in the comments below. The Walking Dead Season 7 premieres Oct. 23 on AMC.
