The Walking Dead season 7 episode 1: character deaths revealed as fans react in horror

This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead, season 7, episode 1, and reveals the names of the "Lucille victims".

The sixth season of AMC's  The Walking Dead ended with an upsetting scene of murder...and a frustrating cliffhanger.

As the season's final episode came to a close, viewers watched in horror as new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) used his baseball bat, nicknamed "Lucille", to rain blows down upon one unfortunate victim.

But, because the scene was shot from the victim's POV, viewers were unable to tell which character was being killed...and were forced to endure months of suspense.

Was the big reveal (and the episode itself) worth the wait?

The show teased us for as long as it reasonably could - and then some

Thanks to the episode's non-linear structure, viewers had to wait until the end of the first ad break to find out who the victims were. While this helped build a sense of dread, after months of waiting, it also arguably felt like one tense, teasing step too far.

Abraham was Negan's first victim - but the show played a nasty double bluff with Glenn

Michael Cudlitz as Abraham in The Walking Dead
Michael Cudlitz as Abraham in The Walking Dead

Ahead of the episode, speculation was rife that Glenn (Steven Yeun) would be the unfortunate Lucille victim, due to the fact that the character is killed by Negan's bat in the comic books (albeit at a very different stage of the story). Instead, we were misled into believing that Glenn might be safe, after it transpired that poor, brave Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) was the victim depicted at the end of season six.

Furthermore, the show had previously suggested that Glenn had been killed, after being pulled into a horde of walkers, only to reveal a few weeks later that he'd miraculously survived. Surely The Walking Dead wouldn't be so cruel as to kill him twice?

The answer, sadly, was a bloody, emphatic yes.

After dispatching Abraham, Negan was challenged by Daryl (Norman Reedus) and decided that it was time to teach the entire group a lesson. Rather than punishing Daryl directly, he decided that the best way to prove his point and to further break everyone's spirits would be to arbitrarily murder Glenn.

Fans are outraged on Maggie's behalf

We can kind of see their point: even by post- zombie apocalypse standards, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has had a pretty rough deal. After losing her entire family (let's not forget that her father was beheaded in front of her, and her sister shot just before a long-awaited reunion), Glenn, the father of her unborn child, really was all she had left in the world.

 That said, some fans are still managing to see the bright side.  And others are eagerly suggesting that Maggie may be the one to eventually take down Negan.

Could Negan be the scariest villain yet?

For us, the most frightening thing about the character was the way he managed to psychologically dominate the group, systematically setting out to "break" them...and succeeding with a sort of grim flair. Watching leader Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) succumb to this type of mental torture felt particularly soul-crushing, and it was difficult not to be affected by the episode's ever-present sense of dread.

The Walking Dead continues Mondays at 9pm on FOX

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