Andrew Lincoln opens up about brutality on The Walking Dead; what's in store for Rick Grimes?

The Walking Dead is known for its violence, and there seems to be no end in sight for the brutality depicted on the show. But all the violence and gore will definitely start making sense in the Season 7 finale, promises Andrew Lincoln, the actor who plays Rick Grimes.

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"This season made a lot more sense once we got the last role of film in the can for episode 716," Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly, adding that the first half of Season 7 was painful for him as well.

The current season opened with the deaths of two key characters – Abraham and Glenn – who lost their lives when Negan decided to teach everyone a lesson for disobeying his command. Fans did not take well to the multiple deaths featured in the premiere, with many complaining that it was unnecessary to kill off two main characters when Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comics, the source material for the AMC drama, featured just one death.

But Lincoln, too, believes the brutality was justified. "[Showrunner Scott M Gimple] explained it to me in one way, which I found very helpful, which was that rather than just have a very cool exciting build-up to war between between Negan and Rick, he wanted people to want more than that — to really feel that they wanted justice, and then to also acknowledge the cost of what had happened and why they were willing to risk it all again while realizing that they were putting many, many, many lives back in the firing line," he told EW.

"I think he really wanted it to feel like the audience, rather than just baying for blood, wanted justice for what had happened. And that, for me, was quite a helpful way of understanding why it had to be so immersive and so painful — certainly for all of us on set and acting in it, but also, I think, for the audience."

The Walking Dead will return to AMC on February 12 and the second half of Season 7 will see Rick gearing up to take down Negan, who is considered one of the worst villains to be featured on the show. Viewers will also see how the other new communities that were introduced in the first of the season help in this plan to dethrone Negan and take control of The Sanctuary.