The Walking Dead Season 7 Shows a Power Shift Between Rick and Negan

The new season of The Walking Dead promises big change. And we may feel it even in who we thought would be the most powerful and reliable character in the show.

If anyone asks who they think is the most powerful person in the show, any long-time fan or follower of the show will give a unanimous answer: Rick Grimes. It's not that he used to be a sheriff. Or that he was the one who always did a lot of saving and zombie-fighting.

It's because he always took the lead—whether it's in proving that The Governor was the bad guy or in moving his family towards better shelters in prison or towards Alexandria. He was always confident that he can protect all of them, no matter what.

Sadly, the "no matter what" there became Negan, and suddenly, he's not so sure anymore. Rick's actor Andrew Lincoln shared with Entertainment Weekly just how far the change will be in Rick's life. And from the looks of it, it's a lot.

"As the season finished, the story was about Rick being broken and realizing that basically everything that he thought has been turned upside down in the space of pretty much a day. The world that he fought and strove for so long has irrevocably changed. And he realizes that there's a new world, a much bigger, scarier, and formidable world."

I think this was delivered perfectly towards the end The Walking Dead's season 6. Even when they were getting cornered, Rick wasn't one to back out. He thought that they could still find a way to push through.

Even Daryl Dixon actor Norman Reedus had previously hinted that the world as the mainstay cast knows it will change. A previously released trailer pretty much summed it out: it's Negan's way or the highway. And by highway, it's pretty much Lucille's barbed end.

For the most part, this is a refreshing pace of the story. Just when we feel that Rick and the gang are slowly changing, becoming the hunters instead of the hunted, their entire new way of life gets twisted around and shoved back in the mud. Good or bad, lose or lose some more (because we know there will be more victims and deaths), hopefully they are able to deliver a story that will keep challenging the Rick we've come to know.

The Walking Dead will be back on AMC on Oct. 23.

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