The Walking Dead has managed to keep the attention of its army of loyal fans for the better part of a decade now, and anticipation for the season 6 finale is growing by the hour as rumors float around online that the infamous Negan will make his first appearance in the last episode.
Now that the final hour is growing near, more and more of the show’s stars are speaking up about their reaction to reading the script, including Melissa McBride, who plays Carol. While there are many, many fan theories as to who might not make it to see season 7, it certainly doesn’t soften the blow to hear that McBride had such a hard time after finding out the fate of her castmates.
“It was so very dark. I couldn’t say anything after I had finished reading it. I felt like I had dropped into a black hole,” Melissa said.
Theories have ranged dramatically from Daryl to Glenn to Maggie being the characters to get killed off, and all for their own good reasons. But because the show veers pretty hard from the comic book story lines, it’s difficult to tell just what Negan will bring with him…and who will pay the price. Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, has been fanning the flames after she got a dramatic haircut, leading fans to wonder if she cut it off because she left the show.
Playing this season’s Big Bad is none other than Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who actually looks like the character of Negan as he’s drawn in the books. Besides that, says showrunner Scott Gimple, he tapped right into Negan’s energy from the start.
“It isn’t just that, physically, he resembles him. Jeffrey’s enthusiasm mirrors the character’s enthusiasm. Negan is an extremely enthusiastic character; he’s not subtle. There really aren’t a lot of half measures. He’s a bull in a china shop, and the china shop is the world. And he’s not very concerned about what he breaks. I saw Jeffrey’s smile and I said, ‘Oh, that’s Negan’s smile,'” Gimple told Nerdist.