The Season Premiere Of ‘The Walking Dead’ Was A Ratings Bonanza

In the first preview of the next episode, “The Well”, group leader Rick-who was nearly forced to chop his son Carl’s arm off in the premiere-appears to have been broken by Negan and bent to his will. Glenn’s death has a lot to do with Rick’s future story, and Maggie’s future story, and certainly Daryl’s story.

How challenging was it to occupy Rick’s headspace in the midst of such a dark episode?

In a recap, The Wall Street Journal said the brutality “was a new level of blunt-force trauma for even this show”. A lot of the crew just left us alone for it.

Come to think of it, you might want to avert your eyes anyway.

“More than anything, for me as an actor, it’s about challenging myself and doing as many different things as I can”. I feel relieved. We’ve known for so long, and in this day and age-with how social media works, and how people get information in an instant-it’s harder to keep secrets. “But you know what?”

It’s so true, it’s been very hard. I knew that it was coming eventually, and I was excited about it.

“I understand violence is inherent to the storytelling here but the manner in which the depictions were made … it crossed the line, with The Walking Dead, the creative team has resorted to the graphic violence as a crutch for what used to be better storytelling”.

“In the show that aired, there’s no let up, and it was like that for 10 days for us”, he added. It’s interesting, because some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen has not been on screen – although it’s been really good acting on the show – it’s been at conventions and Comic-Cons. A misery they clearly love or this wouldn’t be the top rated show of its era. “When we wrapped the episode I felt as shellshocked as some of the characters in dealing with that”, he said. I think we were a little more focused on how to to make it look as authentic as possible. And while Glenn and Abraham morbidly died with a gruesome attack, he did the opposite with Rick.

Also, previously cuddly Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes an fantastic Negan, and now that I’ve kept my dinner down, despite everything, I’ll be turning back to future episodes in just to see him villain it up.

Of course, the antagonistic dynamic in the conflict with the Saviors has been set primarily as a rivalry between Rick and Negan, with the latter’s constant attempts to break the spirit of the former. It was also hard for the cast to say goodbye to actors Steven Yeun, an original cast member, and Michael Cudlitz, who joined the series in season four.