The Walking Dead’s Negan Takes Half, Rick Has 2 kids, will he take Carl Or Judith in The Midseason Finale? Watch Preview And Interview with Chandler Riggs

The final moments of The Walking Dead Episode 7×07 featured a sinister giggle from Negan as he held baby Judith in his arms on an Alexandria porch.

Fans were immediately going wild, worried about Judith’s safety in the hands of such a maniac. Could Negan kill Judith? A baby?

According to executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, it’s a possibility.

“He could do anything with Judith,” Hurd said on Talking Dead. “He could kill her. He could not. He could show a tender side that’s gonna throw even more people off balance.”

Judith was killed in The Walking Dead comics but not by Negan. In fact, Judith died much earlier on the pages of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novels. It was the Governor who was responsible for Judith’s death.

The baby’s death came over 100 issues earlier than the most recent. In issue #48, Lori ran from the prison with Judith in her arms during a battle with the Governor’s army. A stray bullet from one of the villain’s soldiers hit Lori, killing her, and causing her to fall on top of baby Judith — killing her, too.

Not only was Lori’s death altered for The Walking Dead TV series but Judith’s death has, so far, been completely removed. It was teased during the same prison battle when the survivors saw an empty car seat covered in blood.

Given Judith’s current situation, it’s possible the reaper is near, but our money is on Spencer, instead.

Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 7 follow.

Spencer’s death in the comics was very much self-inflicted. The character chose not to trust Rick Grimes and, in doing so, made himself untrusthworthy. The new oppressor of Alexandria is not a fan of people he can’t trust.

Spencer is showing all sorts of shades of realizing his comic book death on television and the pieces are all in place for his fate to be exposed in the show’s midseason finale in one week.

In issue #111, Rick is at the Kingdom speaking with Ezekiel but Negan makes a visit to Alexandria. While Alexandria tells Negan that Rick is out on a supply run, the menace chooses to post up on a vacant front porch where he is approached by Spencer Monroe. Of course, Rick has not found the Kingdom on television (yet) but he is outside of the Safe-Zone on an adventure with Aaron at the moment.

“I understand what you’re trying to do… To build here, with all these people,” Spencer said to Negan in issue #111. “I can’t say I agree with all your methods, but I get it. You’re building a network, and you’re making people work together, contribute to a greater good… It all makes sense. Rick Grimes is not someone who works well with others. I’m just warning you.”

The words appeared to have nabbed Negan’s attention as Spencer went on.

“Rick wasn’t originally the leader here,” Spencer said. “It was my father and he was doing a much better job of it. Rick came along, with his group, and really wrecked things for us here. He’s… Well… He’s a maniac. That’s the best way to put it. He may even want to work with you, but I’m telling you… This guy can’t not be the boss.”

It was all a play to get himself into a position of power.

“I am my father’s son,” Spencer said. “I think I can be the leader he was.”

Negan heard Spencer out before walking around with him, disguising his anger with interest. He leads Spencer to believe he wants to talk about Rick’s supply run but ultimately questions whether or not the last remaining member of the Monroe family has any guts. He rules that he doesn’t before using a knife to slice Spencer’s stomach open, leaving his guts hanging from his stomach.

He had guts along, Negan realizes.

Spencer has had similar conversations with Rosita, several times now. The son of Deanna Monroe wants to take Rick out of a position of power, that much is clear, but, now, Negan is sitting on the front porch in Alexandria ready to be approached by last remaining Monroe.

Speaking to ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview, Austin Nichols weighed in on his character earning such a death.

“I remember reading the comics and going, ‘Oh, my god. That death is f—ing awesome,'” Nichols said. “I sure hope he doesn’t die, but everybody does eventually. If that was his death I think I’d be pretty proud of that death, a pretty cool death by Negan.”

However, Episode 7×07 went one further to foreshadow Spencer’s death in its 90-minute run time.

While Spencer was running around in the woods by himself, he found a dead man in a tree. The man was very much dead. His guts were emerging from his stomach as he was hoisted up on his perch with a bow next to him. As Spencer looked to him, he saw the guts. When Negan kills Spencer in the comics, we all see his guts.

All things considered, The Walking Dead has certainly been teasing Spencer’s sendoff. It could, of course, turn out to be one big mislead, but this one seems to be pretty inevitable, at this point.

AMC’s The Walking Dead continued its march toward war with Sunday’s supersized episode in which Carl (Chandler Riggs) got a close-up look at Negan and the terrifying ways in which he rules his army of Saviors.

After gunning down two members of the Saviors upon his arrival at Negan’s compound, the baseball bat-wielding villain took the teen under his wing and offered him a personalized tour of the horrors of their home. That included Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) attempting to emotionally break Carl — after doing the same to his father Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and friend Daryl (Norman Reedus). During the visit, Carl was forced to remove the bandage covering his missing eye and sing for Negan. He also watched in horror as Negan burned a man’s face with an iron — offering a backstory for what happened to Dwight (Austin Amelio) in the process.

But what may have been most interesting was the fact that Carl seems newly empowered after his run-in with Negan. Rather than being embarrassed by his missing eye, Carl now seems to wear his injury as a badge of honor and strength. And that, as scary as it seems, is thanks only to Negan.

Elsewhere in the episode, Michonne (Danai Gurira) goes after Negan in her own way, Rick and Aaron find another opportunity to arm themselves in the pending war against the Saviors and Spencer’s list of enemies grows as the latter further distances himself from Rick’s loyalists including Rosita and Father Gabriel.

Here, THR catches up with Riggs to break down the episode, preview next week’s midseason finale and discuss his future with the AMC drama as he prepares to go to college.

This episode followed a lot of the events of the comics and featured Negan really doing his part to try and break Carl. What was it like filming this episode?

It was awesome. Jeffrey is such a cool guy. It’s easy to play off him because he does such an amazing job. I’ve been looking forward to this storyline for years now because I’m a big fan of the comics and to finally get to make this come to life was really cool. The hardest part to endure was the extreme makeup rounds [with Carl’s missing eye]. The first couple of test runs we did took like three to four hours to put it all on and we were able to get it down to an hour each day.

What was Carl’s game plan when he left Alexandria to find Negan? Was he setting out to kill him?

He for sure wanted to kill Negan. The moment he left, he knew it was a suicide mission because he didn’t expect to survive. He didn’t expect to kill Negan; he thought he’d either be taken prisoner or be killed. That scene in episode five was the final goodbye for him. He knows that and he was prepared to sacrifice his life to kill Negan.

He had the opportunity to shoot and kill Negan. Why did he pause?

In the moment, he only has one eye so he knows if he does fire, he’ll miss or Negan will duck behind other Saviors. After he kills two Saviors, he says, “No one else needs to die.” It shows that he realized that these are people, too. They have lives and their own relationships. A lot of times, they do bad things but it’s ultimately Negan who coordinates the whole thing. So for Carl, the fewer people dying, the better.

Negan forces Carl to remove his bandage — and finds that it makes Carl more of a badass. How will this interaction change Carl going forward? In the comics, he never goes back to the bandage. Is that fair to expect on the show, too?

In that scene, Carl does consider leaving the bandage off because up until that point, no one had seen him without it. Carl sees it as a weakness and it hinders his ability to accurately shoot — as we saw when he was throwing darts — and he is embarrassed about that. So for Negan to respect how it looks, it’s a pivotal moment for Carl. That is when Carl starts to soften up to Negan. Then the next scene with Negan and the iron, Carl remembers the true reason he’s there: to kill Negan, not to let Negan feel bad for Carl. Carl is on a mission and at that point, even for a moment, he gains respect for Negan. That’s why the next moment when you see them in that room together, Carl is not unhappy with Negan.

Negan forced Carl to sing as part of his efforts to emotionally break him. What was that like?

It was mortifying when I found out I was going to have to sing. Everyone is really respectful and tries to keep the set quiet during those emotional scenes. But it was really surreal singing “You Are My Sunshine” while Jeffrey pretends to bash someone’s head in behind me. It was really weird.

The episode ends with Negan holding Judith, pondering life in Alexandria — and killing Carl and Rick. What might Rick’s reaction be to finding Negan holding Judith?

It’s a very surreal scene. Seeing Negan making baby voices to Judith and talking about killing her older brother and dad is really creepy and unnerving. For Rick, the minute he sees that Negan knows about Judith, he’s going to be terrified because that is the one thing he has been trying to protect from Negan. That was the one thing that Rick had on Negan: Negan didn’t know about Judith.

Carl has now seen what the Saviors’ compound and numbers look like as well as gotten a first-hand account of how Negan rules (as well as his many wives). How might he use this information going forward?

Both Carl and Daryl (Norman Reedus) have that information and a few people in the group share that common goal [of killing Negan]: Rosita (Christian Serratos) wants to take Negan down and Michonne is starting to want the same as well — as we saw with her scene in the car. People are starting to rally on the side of wanting to fight but you have to get everyone on that side otherwise people are not going to be willing to sacrifice their own lives trying to kill this guy.

Could Carl, Michonne and Rosita work together?

It’s definitely possible. They have to get Rick on their side because although he says Negan is their new leader, Rick still runs Alexandria so they have to figure out a way to persuade him [otherwise].

That shouldn’t be hard now considering Negan has held Judith. Speaking of that uprising, Tara as well as Rick and Aaron have found weapons stashes. How could those weapons as well as Carl’s knowledge of the Saviors’ compound play a role in the rest of the season?

As long as they can get the Alexandrians on their side [that uprising shouldn’t be hard] — but they would have to find out about the Kingdom and try to join forces with them and convince Gregory [at the Hilltop Colony] to fight the Saviors. That’s if they actually want to fight the Saviors. Then they have to get the guns from the Oceansiders — and if Tara decides to go back and get them, it would be a difficult task. If they were to try and fight against the Saviors it would be a lot of work and really hard to get everyone to cooperate.

Spencer (Austin Nichols) feels as if he would make a better leader at Alexandria. Will Rick and Carl get a chance to set him straight?

I hope so! I love Austin but I feel so bad for him because I hate his character so much! The things Spencer is saying about wanting Rick to die? I think he’s just lost. Spencer blames everything on Rick, which is what a lot of people in Alexandria have done. [Spencer’s brother] Ron blamed Rick for his father’s death and tried to kill him when his mother and brother died. It’s common for the Alexandrians to want to kill Rick after their family dies.

How would you describe next week’s midseason finale?

It goes out with a few bangs here and there and there’s a lot of stuff from the comics, which is really cool.

Looking ahead, congratulations on your college acceptance to Auburn. How might that impact your future with the show?

You never know how it will go. I really do hope it works out because that would be really cool. I like to be in The Walking Dead and I like to play video games and just hang out with my friends and try to be as normal as possible so going to college would be another really cool, normal experience in my life. I want for it to work out.

Is there a way in which you can be a full-time student as well as a series regular on The Walking Dead?

Yes. Theoretically, I could take one or two classes on campus and maybe an online class. My professors would have to be willing to cooperate. It wouldn’t be easy but I think that could be possible.

Is that something you’re trying to do?

Yes.

Do you have a contract for season eight?

I can’t answer that.

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