Looking forward to the season premiere of The Walking Dead? Well, thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we have our first photo from season seven. Spoilers ahead — oh. Wait. This… this is actually the “exclusive” “first look” above. Uh, sorry?
Actually, I’m not sorry, because this is a picture of the same scene that ended season six, the one that was unnecessarily and annoyingly split, with the interesting part of it being postponed to season seven. Not only does it reveal absolutely no information about season seven — characters literally haven’t even moved since the finale — but it is completely indistinguishable from any photo that may have been taken of the first half of the scene, which was of course part of the season six finale. Literally the only reason we have to believe this is a photo from next season is because Entertainment Weekly assures us it is.
And maybe it is, but there’s something so insulting about being given a photo containing essentially nothing and being told we should be excited by it. After the widely decried misstep that was the season six finale, you’d think they’d be trying to win back the fans they irked. Instead, they’re handing us another pile of crap, and assuming we’re still going to eat it up with gusto. A picture of one of season seven’s utterly random zombies would be more informative than this.
Maybe they’re saving the good stuff for Comic-Con next week, but in that case, why release an utterly unexciting “preview” photo that previews nothing? Why taunt fans by giving them a picture that does nothing but remind them of how infuriating the finale was? What has any of this achieved?
[Fun fact: Given that season six very famously ended with Negan beating someone to death with his bat, and the bat here seems to be 100 per cent blood-free in this photo, I don’t actually see how this is possibly a photo from the season seven premiere. Maybe there’s a scene where Negan thoroughly cleans his bat immediately after murdering whichever main character he selected? Somehow I find that… unlikely.]