The Walking Dead Season 7 Premiere Recap: Who Died?

The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere recap

So was that worth an eight month cliffhanger? I don’t know. I was kind of pissed that it was 21 minutes into the episode before AMC finally revealed who died. I won’t make you wait in this recap. Ready?

SPOILER ALERT…

Abraham dies. Then Glenn dies. With that out of the way, let’s go to the recap.

Rick is on his knees, vowing to kill Negan. He is in shock, and Lucille is dripping with blood. Negan is calm, asks Rick if he has a right-hand man – or had one. He takes Rick’s hatchet and drags Rick roughly onto the RV. The camera pans down to reveal a mushy, bloody pile of bones and brain matter. No identifying marks are visible.

In the RV, Negan takes Rick for a ride. He eyes his hatchet, embedded in the table. Negan knows what he is thinking, and suggests his best chance is to grab the hatchet and drive it into his head. So Rick grabs the axe, but Negan is fast and faces off with a gun. Rick drops the axe and Negan sucker punches him. “Dawn is breaking. It’s a brand new day,” Negan says – but not in an optimistic way. “Think about what happened, what can still happen.”

They drive, and Negan hits walkers, causing Rick to flash back to his friends who were lined up with him. An annoying taunt to the audience. Negan stops the RV and tells Rick, “You are mine. Those people back there are mine. This axe is mine.” He opens the RV door, hacks at a zombie, and tosses the axe out the door. He sends Rick to retrieve the axe. When he doesn’t move, Negan threatens to get Lucille involved. Rick goes outside, and is immediately overwhelmed in a swirl of fog and zombies. He fights the zombies, hand-to-hand, while still seeing images of his friends. Rick climbs atop the RV and doubles over in sorrow. The axe is beside him, and Negan tells him to think about what happened.

So he does. We pick up the end of season six from Rick’s point of view, with Negan doing his “eeny meeny miney moe” bit. Negan hits Abraham over the head with Lucille, but Abraham isn’t dead. “Suck my nuts,” he spits. So Negan begins pummeling Abraham. It is total overkill, beating Abraham until his head is just a wet mushy puddle. “He just took one – or six, or seven – for the team!” Negan announces gleefully. Daryl jumps up and punches Negan, then is swiftly taken down by two of Negan’s men. Negan tells him that is a “no no” and Dwight comes forward with Daryl’s crossbow, offering to kill him. Negan declines; that’s not how this works. He rambles on about first impressions being important and “I need you to know me.” Then he bashes Glenn over the head. Twice. Glenn is not dead, but he is badly messed up. His eye has popped out of his head, and his language center is nearly destroyed. He tells Maggie, “I will find you.” Negan takes another swing at Glenn, then another and another. Negan laughs as pieces of Glenn’s scalp drip off Lucille.

Back in the “present” time, Rick is laying on the RV, crying. Negan demands again and again, from inside the RV, that Rick bring him his axe. Negan shoots the roof, and Rick jumps off the RV, onto a hanged zombie dangling from an overpass. The rotting corpse begins to separate from its head, sped up by the zombies pulling at Rick. Negan guns down the zombies just before the head and body separate, and tells Rick the clock is ticking. “Think about what can happen.” Rick envisions the rest of the group getting a taste of Lucille, and he rushes for the axe. Negan opens the door and shoots a bunch of walkers, allowing Rick into (relative) safety. He hands over the axe, and gets an enthusiastic “atta boy!” from Negan. They drive off.

The RV returns to the clearing, where Negan’s men and Rick’s friends – including the dead ones – wait. Negan understands that “this must be hard” for Rick; he has been “king sh*t” for so long. “Losing two of your own like that, in front of your boy… that’s some screwed up sh*t.” As he cleans the axe with alcohol, he pontificates about how Rick was addicted to being in charge, but how he can lead a productive life producing for him. He gives Rick the clean hatchet. “I think you’re going to need it.”

Negan drags Rick from the RV, dumping him in front of his friends. Time for another lesson. The trip they took was about the way Rick looked at Negan. “I wanted you to understand, but you are still looking at me the same way, like I sh*t in your scrambled eggs. That’s not gonna work. Do I give you another chance?” Rick shakily answers yes, but Negan isn’t so sure. “What you do next determines if this is your last crap day, or just another crap day.” He has his men put guns to the back of everyone’s heads, and beckons Carl to come beside his dad. He wraps his belt around Carl’s forearm, like a tourniquet, and gets a pen from Simon. He puts Carl on the ground, rolls up his sleeve, and draws a line on Carl’s arm. Rick begs Negan not to hurt him, but Negan assures him he won’t. Rick will. Negan wants Rick to take his axe and cut off Carl’s left arm, or else everyone dies. Michonne begs him to stop, but Negan ignores her. He assures Rick they have a great doctor who will patch up Carl. “Do it or I will crush his skull.” Rick volunteers his own arm, but Negan doesn’t want that. “Not making a decision is a big decision,” he warns. Rick cries, begs to take his son’s place, and Carl tells his dad just to do it. Negan starts a countdown, and Rick raises the axe, crying hysterically. Negan stops him at the last possible second. “You answer to me, provide for me, belong to me.” He makes Rick repeat it. “That is the look I wanted to see,” Negan proclaims. He has broken Rick.

Negan takes the axe and proclaims that today was a productive day. “I hope you get it now, you understand how things work.” Negan directs Dwight to load Daryl up into the van. “I like him, he’s got guts. He’s mine now.” He then threatens to cut off pieces of Daryl and leave them on Rick’s doorstep. He gives them a truck they can keep and promises to be back for his offering in a week. “Welcome to a brand new beginning, you pieces of sh*t.” Negan and his men pack up and roll out, leaving our shattered heroes mourning their dead.

Maggie struggles to stand, ignoring Rick, who begs her to sit. Maggie is frantic, manic, telling Rick and everyone else to go home and get ready to fight Negan. She will go to the Hilltop on her own, while Rick prepares the troops to fight. She feels guilty because they were out there for her. “We still are,” Rick assures her gently. Michonne, Rick, and Sasha all rally behind her. They won’t let her go to the Hilltop alone. Sasha will accompany her, and doesn’t give her a choice in the matter. Maggie wants to take Glenn’s body. “I need to do this,” she sobs. Rick begs her to let them help – “He’s our family too” – and Maggie acquiesces. Sasha tells Rosita she is taking Abraham’s body. Rosita agrees silently, and Eugene joins them to take his body. Carl hugs Maggie, then helps Rick and Aaron carry Glenn’s body. Maggie stays behind, crying between two big, bloody puddles on the ground.

Rick takes his hatchet and boards the RV. A zombie wanders out of the forest, but Rick doesn’t have the strength to kill it. He drives away, watching it try to lap up the blood on the ground.

I have to admit I was not particularly invested in Abraham’s death. I guess he never really “spoke” to me. But when Glenn died, I was a little taken aback. I had (incorrectly) assumed that only one would die, and that Glenn would be safe because it is he who dies in the comic book, and we already had a dead Glenn fake-out last season. Plus, I like Glenn a lot more. With him gone, we are down to just four characters from the very first season: Rick, Carl, Daryl, and Carol. Five if you count Morgan, but I feel like he was so sporadic throughout the series that he doesn’t have the same emotional hold as the other four.

You can watch a preview for the next episode by clicking here.