Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes and clips and puts it all in perspective.
The Walking Dead season 7 trailer was released at Comic-Con today, and it features new footage of comics standout King Ezekiel (and his poorly rendered tiger). But what we're most interested in is the conclusion of cliffhanger that many people found ridiculous: who is Negan going to kill? Since the producers don't want to give it away, most of the trailer depicts the bat Lucille (inanimate though she is) considering each kneeling character with an accompanying flashback. This story has taken too long to be horrifying anymore. At least the comic took us by surprise. We have all summer to picture each character getting beaten to death and Chris Hardwick helping us through it, so put us out of our misery already.
Here's who I think Negan's bat Lucille should kill for the sake of the series. Wait for it. Wait for it. Waaaait for iiiiit. Carl. Obviously. It's not Carl's fault. And it's not the actors fault, it's Rick's fault for screaming his name all the time. “Caaaarl! Caaaarl! Caaaarl!” As a parent, I find myself shouting my son's name a lot. It's just part of parenting. If imagine myself as a single parent in a post-apocalyptic world, of course, I'd be shouting my son's name all the time, I'd be so worried about him wandering off. Maybe if you have more than one child, you can scream “Kiiiids! Kiiiiids! Come on kiiiids!” and maybe that doesn't split the eardrum as much. The problem for Rick is Baby Judith isn't old enough to respond to calls yet (not that Carl ever responds, hence the yelling) . Also, a doctor should really take a look at Baby Judith because Baby Judith has been a baby for a long time. Carl's old enough to vote now, if voting existed in this cruel world, while Judith remains a baby. My experience with babies is that they grow. So this might be an overlooked problem amongst our intrepid survivors.
Anyway, imagine a Rick that didn't yell “Caaarl” all the time. Sure, in the episode after Carl's killed, Rick will sob “Caaaarl” and we'll have to endure that for a bit. But soon after, we'll have a rejuvenated Rick Grimes. A Rick Grimes we can get behind. Especially if the show is going another 18 more seasons.