AMC released a new clip from the season seven premiere of The Walking Dead this weekend at New York Comic Con, and it gave us the first real glimpse of the scene after Negan has bludgeoned his victim to death with his baseball bat, Lucille.
“Was the joke that bad?” Negan asks a distraught Rick.
“I’m going to kill you,” a horrified Rick tells him. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But I’m going to kill you.”
The scene also gave us the our first look at Negan’s victim, or rather his or her ghastly remains.
There’s not much we can tell from the bloodied remains of a bashed-in head, except that Negan likely beat his victim many, many times with his bat, which suggests that the seventh season premiere will be as horrific and disturbing as we have been warned.
But what clues did the clip offer as to the identity of the victim?
I think the most obvious is one the blood splatter on Rick’s face, indicating that — unless Rick turned his head all the way around Linda-Blair stye — the victim was situated on the right of him. That suggests that the victim is either Maggie, Abraham, or maybe Michonne.
If it’s Maggie, that fits nicely into my long-held theory.
However, in the clip, Negan also strongly suggests that the victim is Rick’s “right-hand man.”
“Simon’s my right hand man,” Negan taunts Rick. “I mean, what do you have without one? A whole lot of work. Do you have one? Maybe one of these fine ones still breathing? Oh … or did I [kill him or her]?”
“Right-hand man” probably most befits one of two characters: Abraham or Daryl.
Moreover, the blanket lying in front of the bludgeoned remains of the victim looks like the same blanket Daryl was wearing at the end of last season.
I think they definitely want us to think that it’s Daryl, but I really don’t think it’s Daryl. He’s too popular. Moreover, if it is Daryl, there’d probably be visible blood on the blanket. There is not.
Abraham, on the other hand, has been a popular prediction over the last few months. There’s only one problem with that: Michael Cudlitz seemed to have ruled himself out in an interview, telling Popsugar that “we get to see what a world with Negan and Abraham both in it will be like.” There’s also a brief glimpse of what looks like Abraham in the season seven trailer that takes place after the Negan kill.
It’s possible that Michael Cudlitz was trolling us in that interview. It’s also possible that that’s not Abraham in that image — or that it is, but it was planted to mislead us. Moreover, Negan has no idea who Rick’s “right-hand man” is, but if he was trying to make an educated guess based on the line-up, he’d probably pick Abraham because of his size. Abraham was also considered Rick’s right-hand man in the comics.
Or it’s possible that the “right-hand man” had a sly double meaning, suggesting that Negan is going to take that hatchet, drag Rick into his RV, and cut off his right hand. After all, Rick did lose a hand in the comics. (This is unlikely, as the producers have stated on several occasions that it would be too expensive to cut off Rick’s hand).
In my favored scenario, maybe Negan bludgeons Maggie to death, Daryl gets up and tries to intervene, and Negan has his people drag Daryl away and Daryl drops his blanket as he’s being dragged away. That would explain the blanket, and it would explain why Rick’s “right-hand man” is missing — because they took him away.
So, there you have it. It’s definitely Maggie. Or Abraham. Or maybe Glenn, but possibly Daryl. SOLVED.
