The Walking Dead is an AMC television adaptation from showrunner Scott Gimple pulled from the pages of the hit Image comic series by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. The series stars Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chandler Riggs and Melissa McBride. Season six just concluded and season seven is set for Fall, 2016.
Based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman, this gritty drama portrays life in the weeks and months following a zombie apocalypse. Led by police officer Rick Grimes, his family and a group of other survivors find themselves constantly on the move in search of a safe and secure home. But the pressure each day to stay alive sends many in the group to the deepest depths of human cruelty, and Rick discovers that the overwhelming fear of the survivors can be more deadly than the zombies walking among them.
In a conference call with the press, Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple revealed that the maddening cliffhanger at the end of season six will be addressed right at the beginning of the season seven premiere and that the gore and violence “Will be pushing some boundaries”. “Things are going to start of very, very, very dark, But that won’t be the whole season. It’s not going to be darkness upon darkness upon darkness.” said Gimple.
Gimple on the cliffhanger ending for season six and why it’s justified as season seven kicks into gear:
“If you approach it from a place of skepticism or with the idea that there’s some kind of negative or cynical motivation behind it… it’s difficult to convince you otherwise. I do think we’ve done enough on the show and we’ve delivered a story that people have enjoyed [to warrant fans giving] us the benefit of the doubt. I truly hope that people will see [the Season 7 premiere] and feel it justifies the way we’ve decided to tell the story.”
“When we reveal who’s on the receiving end, that’s going to be the start of another story. The kickback effects from that, what it makes everyone into, how they react, how the world changes for everyone — that’s the next part of the story.”
“We have to do an episode that justifies [the cliffhanger] to you. We have to do something so great and so intense that you’re like, ‘OK, all right, fair play.’ That’s the challenge that we have, and we’re going to do it. We’re going to deliver you something fantastic.
“We want you to be one of those people in that lineup. We want you to feel that suspense and that terror and that pain. We’re going to deliver you a story next season that justifies it.”
Robert Kirkman added on Talking Dead that the character who was murdered is indeed a fan favorite but that’s not revealing much considering that nearly the entire cast was in the lineup.