The Walking Dead Producer Shares Upcoming Battle with Negan

It had been a long road towards getting back to their feet. But from last night's episode, it feels like everyone, including the audience, has finally stood up from weeks' long worth of grieving and trudging (in more ways than one) to prepare for the fight ahead.

This was very obvious the moment Daryl handed Rick that gun, which for me was the best rare subtle scene in a mid-season full of head-on violence and spelling-it-out-for-ya. And that little teaser for The Walking Dead's remaining episodes for season 7 has fans looking forward to the show again.

But just what exactly are we looking at? Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd talked to Deadline and shared that, indeed, Rick and the gang are heading off to war. According to Hurd, the gang is no longer willing to be under servitude, and we saw that in the way Rick shifted from crybaby to crouching leader.

"In Negan's world, he just says kill somebody and you never know whose number is going to come up. That's not a world that the rest of our Survivors are going to want to continue to live in."

Recalling that The Walking Dead has seen a rather alarming slip in numbers during this season, Hurd also stated that they are trying to up the stakes, not for shock, but rather to tell the story in a complex way.

"The only way you can deepen the stakes and wake up Rick from his stupor was through loss. It really is more about setting up the back half of the season rather than what's the death count going to be. The whole point is about the overall storytelling and not doing something just for the shock value. It's a complex show."

I am going to want to keep that in mind, seeing as how this feels like what the earlier half of the season felt like: shocking us with the death of two core members, then trickling in piece by piece of the broken survivors.

Here's to hoping that that mid-season finale is the start of the game-changer for The Walking Dead.

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