‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7: Showrunner Promises A Second Half With A Different Vibe

The Walking Dead Season 7 has been a difficult one for fans, but Scott Gimple is promising a new vibe when the show returns. Many fans feel like the first half of the season strayed from many of the things we’ve always loved about the show. Hopefully the promised new vibe will reignite the enthusiasm of long time fans who found 7A’s episodes difficult to watch.

This year started with a resolution to the Season 6 cliffhanger. It was a premiere that was graphic in its violence and gore, and it angered many fans. Although The Walking Dead is admittedly a violent show at times, it is about a zombie apocalypse after all, part of its appeal has always been that at its heart it’s about the people, not about gore. The premiere of Season 7 was a radical departure from this, and lots of viewers were not pleased with the change. Showrunners claimed that the opening episode was intended to shock people. It was intended to be a sort of division between the pre-Negan world in which Rick and his clan had some amount of power and the post-Negan world in which they serve the villain out of literal fear of their lives. It accomplished that, but fans have struggled with how to deal with it.

In an interview with the website Comic Book, Gimple was asked if the style of the last half of Season 7 of The Walking Dead would be different from the first half. His answer was a definite yes.

“I will say 7B’s vibe is very different from 7A’s vibe. The ending of 7B is very different than the beginning of 7A… I was just talking about it with Andy [Lincoln] last night. It’s just a very, very different half season than the half season that preceded it. Even with structure, what we’re doing right now with the episodes and seeing where everyone is at, the structure is very, very different than the back half. There’s a lot more variety to the structure.”

He added that the next eight episodes of The Walking Dead will build on the 7A finale. That’s great news for fans who have grown weary of Rick being under Negan’s thumb. As 7A closed, we saw Rick, Daryl, and the rest of the clan reunite and gather their collective resolve to rise up against Negan and the Saviors. They seem committed to taking him down and taking back their own power. This is what we’ve come to love about TWD. This could be exactly what’s needed to bring back viewers who have part of the ride from the beginning, but began to lose faith this year.

Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes, agreed with Gimple’s assessment of the next eight episodes of The Walking Dead when he spoke to The Wrap.

“I will say episodes eight through 16 — I’m more excited than I’ve ever been before, just where the story is headed. Eight and nine are unbelievable. Unbelievable. They’re some of the best episodes I’ve read and when I was filming, it just got bigger and more epic and more insane every day that we shot.”

That’s saying a lot given some of the scenes TWD has brought us previously.

The Walking Dead has been on AMC since 2010. In that time it has aired a total of 115 episodes. The Walking Dead received a Golden Globe nomination for its first season for Best Television Series – Drama. It has also received 15 Prime Time Emmy nominations of which it won two, both for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special. It is scheduled to return on Sunday, February 12, 2017.

[Featured Image by AMC]