If you're like me you've probably been catching up on past seasons of the AMC Original Series The Walking Dead leading up to the big Season 7 premiere on Sunday night. For many of us "Walking Dead" faithful the anticipation for this premiere is unlike anything television viewers may have ever experienced, especially knowing that within the first 5 minutes of the show, audiences are going to have to bid a fond farewell to one of the long-running shows most favorite characters.
Introduced in the final act of the Season 6 cliffhanger is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan perhaps the most notorious villain to come out of the The Walking Dead mythology as established in the graphic novels conceived by creator Robert Kirkman. As the story goes, Negan is the leader of the brutal Saviors, a group of marauders that operate out of the Sanctuary. Negan rules with his trusty barbwire bat he's named "Lucille" (the rumor is after his wife), but after Sunday all bets are off!
I've kept my distance from the online message boards, blogs and spoiler sites that may have gotten in early on the big reveal -- exactly which one of our heroic survivors -- gets some fatally personal attention from Negan and Lucille. The one things that we can all be assured, it won't be Rick (Andrew Lincoln) at least not in the first episode. At the conclusion of the 2-hour retrospective leading up to the new season, we were given a glimpse of Rick dragged away by Negan, and laying at this feet a bloody mess.
Whatever the outcome, it will be unlike anything anyone has ever experienced in primetime. We've waited an entire season, wondering, waiting to learn which one of our heroes will not be returning this season! And then begins perhaps the most outrageously frightening season of The Walking Dead ever. Producers have promised it will be the toughest one yet, and that there might be more fatalities before the year is through. One thing is for certain...it's a whole new world! The Walking Dead is just getting started!
Tune in Sunday, Oct 23 @ 9pm EST on AMC.