7 Things We Want From The Walking Dead Season 7

The Walking Dead Season 6 was a rollercoaster ride, with some really strong moments for the show and some pretty weak ones, too. And, of course, there was that cliffhanger ending that was met with rage from a lot of fans.

After last year’s divisive season, we have some thoughts on what we want to see when Season 7 returns.

1. Reveal Negan’s victim right away

This may seem obvious, but honestly, would you be that surprised if the writers put off revealing who died until, say, halfway through the episode? Or even the final minutes of the premiere?

No one wants to immediately know what happened to Carol and Morgan or see new characters in a scene that will make more sense later on in the episode. We don’t want to start the episode a few days later and have to figure out who died ourselves by process of elimination.

Start the premiere right where the finale ended. We want to see who was on the other end of that baseball bat before the strings kick in and it cuts to the opening credits.

Fans have been talking about this for months, there’s so much speculation all over the internet… Making us wait any longer than 10 minutes to find out who died would be cruel and unusual, even for The Walking Dead.

2. Keep the group together, or at least in one or two big groups

It’s something that inevitably happens with any large ensemble show. The group gets split up, and now episodes have to jump back and forth between the clusters.

Sometimes only one group will be seen per week. In that case, it can feel like it takes forever for the groups to meet up again, and the pacing can feel glacial. In other cases, writers will try to feature everyone during a 42ish-minute episode, which doesn’t allow a lot of time per group.

Season six ended with the majority of the group together in Negan’s clutches, but Morgan and Carol were off on their own, and Tara and Heath were still on a supply run.

Plus, TVLine reported in July that Tom Payne, who plays Jesus, and Xander Berkeley, who plays Gregory, have been promoted to series regulars for Season 7. Both will presumably still be back at the Hilltop.

After Negan’s victim is revealed in the season premiere, the show will have twenty (20!) series regulars. With that many characters, it’s unlikely they’ll keep everyone together in one place all the time, but splitting time between two larger groups rather than a bunch of small ones would definitely keep the story moving forward at a decent pace.

3. Let Richonne’s romance continue

The zombie apocalypse is no reason to put one’s romantic life on hold in The Walking Dead. Rick and Michonne’s friendship and trust has been slowly building for a while now, and the vocal “Richonne” section of the fanbase got their wish midway through Season 6 when the two finally got together.

The couple has only been together for six episodes, so if they were to end their relationship in Season 7, it would be a major disappointment.

In their bleaker-than-usual situation, the pair will hopefully continue to lean on each other for support and comfort. Breaking them up, or killing one of them off, would probably spark some anger and frustration amongst fans.

4. Find ways to up the stakes without shocking “deaths”

Anyone can die at any time on The Walking Dead. The show has made this abundantly clear.

Sometimes you can see the “shocking” death coming from a mile away. Or, for that matter, a fake-out death. The Walking Dead drew some criticism from fans in Season 6 for having not one, but two fake-outs.

Fans debated for almost an entire month about whether Glenn was alive or not. Daryl was shot at the end of the season’s penultimate episode and not really revealed to be alive until close to the end of the 90-minute season finale.

And then, of course, there’s the much-discussed season finale cliffhanger, when someone was definitely beaten to death by Negan. No fake-out there. We just don’t know who the victim was.

For any other show, constant twists and cliffhangers might seem like the only way to get viewers to stick around after six years, but fans of The Walking Dead aren’t going anywhere. Compelling, well-paced stories can be enough to keep viewers interested without making them wonder whether or not their favorite character is actually dead.

This, obviously, isn’t to say there shouldn’t be any deaths. Someone has to die at some point. But if someone’s going to die, at least give them a proper death scene, and don’t make fans question if their death is going to stick.

5. Put all the female characters to good use

Have we mentioned yet that there are 20 series regulars on this show? Of those 20, only 6 are women: Carol, Maggie, Michonne, Sasha, Tara, and Rosita. There have been plenty of recurring female characters in the past, but you can’t deny, it’s a very dude-heavy cast.

Carol, Maggie, and Michonne, who have been on the show the longest out of the 6 women, do tend to get plenty of individual focus. While Sasha, Tara, and Rosita all had moments where they kicked some ass, they had slightly smaller roles in Season 6.

With a large ensemble cast, not every character can get juicy storyline every season, and with 5 new men joining the cast, you have to wonder if some of the existing series regulars will get less screentime this year to make room for the new guys.

But when your main cast is only 30% female, it would help if half of that 30% wasn’t pushed to the background or reduced to being love interests.

6. Don’t spend more time on recurring characters than necessary

Judging from the teaser trailers that have been released and surmising based on the new series regulars, there are at least three communities that are going to be featured this season: Negan’s camp, the Hilltop, and a new place called The Kingdom. With those new communities come new recurring characters and extras for our series regulars to interact with.

It’s happened in the past. The main characters settle down somewhere new, meet a whole slew of supporting characters, and then by the end of the season, those supporting characters are dead or left behind as the main characters move on. It can be frustrating when too much time is spent getting attached to supporting characters, knowing that they probably won’t be around for very long.

We don’t need to know the detailed backstory of everyone we meet. In fact, after six years, we still don’t know the complete backstory of some of our main characters. Let supporting characters serve their purpose, and then move on.

7. Let people grieve when they lose someone

We know it’s the zombie apocalypse, and you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. That doesn’t mean losses don’t still hurt, or that people don’t deserve some time to grieve.

There have been a lot of important characters who have been killed off in the past, and sometimes it feels like their deaths are forgotten after an episode or two. We’re not asking for five episodes of everyone sitting around crying, but let them talk about their losses amongst themselves.

After all of the build-up about who Negan killed, let his or her death weigh on the characters for a while. And when our characters inevitably rise up to fight, let it be not just in the name of whoever Negan killed, but in the name of Beth, Tyreese, and everyone they have loved and lost while fighting for the safety of their family.

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What are your hopes for Season 7? Share in the comments below!

The Walking Dead Season 7 premieres Sunday, Oct. 23 at 9/8c on AMC.