First off, major spoiler alerts if you haven’t yet watched the season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. For those who have, and have recovered from the trauma, read on.
Last night, Walking Dead fans finally got to find out who Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) killed in a violently ferocious fashion with his barbed wire bat, Lucille. And it wasn’t pretty. As many had suspected, there were two victims, not one. And as this writer also earlier predicted, it was Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) first, followed by a surprise kill of Glenn (Steven Yuen). Both were brutal in every sense of the word, but most brutal will likely be the aftermath to come.
As also earlier speculated, the death of these two characters is sure to cause a bit of rage to boil up inside not just Rick (Andrew Lincoln), but, more significantly, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green). Maggie watched her father get beheaded in season 4, and saw a dejected Daryl (Norman Reedus) carry her sister Beth (Emily Kinney) out of a hospital with a gunshot wound to the head in season 5. Now, she sees her husband and father of her unborn child bashed to death so hard that his eye actually popped out of his face? A girl can only take so much. We get an inkling of the brewing need for vengeance when a direly ill Maggie insists the group leave her be while she continues the journey to see a doctor on her own, and tries her best to collect Glenn’s dead body.
Meanwhile, we get a early glimpse into what will likely be a significant partnership between Maggie and Sasha when the latter tells the group she’ll go with Maggie, then lets Rosita (Christian Serratos) know that she will collect Abraham’s lifeless body. This will be a sisterhood brought together by the most awful of circumstances. Chances are, however, the group will need it. After what Rick just went through, he won’t be in any shape to be a leader. As for Negan, Morgan’s performance proves that the character may just give The Governor (David Morrissey) a run for his money as most awful villain of the series.
What about the viewers? Abraham provided much-needed comic relief for the show with his many clever one-liners (Bisquick, anyone?) while Glenn has been a staple since the show’s first season. Don’t forget that it was this young pizza boy who saved Rick from a herd of walkers early on, first addressing him as “dumbass” over a walkie-talkie.
Both cast members received a wonderful send-off during a live taping of Talking Dead that aired immediately following the episode. Hosted by Chris Hardwick, all cast members from the episode were present for the special 90-minute event, which took place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, along with executive producers Scott M. Gimple and Robert Kirkman, and 2,000 audience members. Oddly, it was pouring rain — something that rarely happens in Los Angeles. Hardwick noted that the first drops began to come down immediately following the first kill. Coincidence?
The Walking Dead airs every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Next week, Gimple promises we’ll get to know more about the Kingdom, King Ezekiel, and his tiger. And the episode will actually be funny. After last night’s events, fans will need a bit of a break. RIP, Glenn and Abraham.
