The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln talks about the new season

After an anticlimactic midseason finale, The Walking Dead seemed determined to make up for lost time in its 2016 return, resulting in a veritable bloodbath that dispatched Jessie and her sons Sam and Ron in typically brutal fashion – simultaneously satisfying our bloodlust (because no one appreciates whiny kids at the best of times, let alone in a zombie apocalypse) and leaving Carl permanently maimed, after a horrified Ron took a shot at Rick and hit his son in the eye instead.

This precipitated a rapid descent into chaos, filmed with frenetic energy (if not much art) by director and executive producer Greg Nicotero, who made some bold aesthetic choices in the action-packed hour that didn’t always pay off.

But the episode’s standout moment came from one of its simplest scenes – a terrified father sitting by his son’s bedside, as Rick begged Carl not to leave him.

The Walking Dead has always been strongest in those intimate, character-driven beats, and as Andrew Lincoln recently told Variety, “it makes me so happy that (the episode) is impossibly huge and epic but then it finishes in such a tender, small, emotional way with a father and a son.

“When I watched Greg Nicotero film it, it was so moving, because you have the new family outside, waiting in vigil, and then the camera goes inside and you’ve got the inner circle – the originals, the family – and then Michonne at the door, and then the inner-inner circle of the father and son, and I loved the fact that everybody stood together in this crisis, willing this boy to pull through.”

Variety spoke to Lincoln about the emotional fallout of the premiere, how Carl’s injury will affect both him and Rick moving forward, and how the introduction of comic book villain Negan will change the dynamic of the show.

Michonne (Danai Gurira) takes care of her own and hacks down a large number of zombies if they get in the way.

Michonne (Danai Gurira) takes care of her own and hacks down a large number of zombies if they get in the way.

Obviously the biggest moment out of many big moments in the premiere is Carl being shot – which will clearly have lasting repercussions for him both physically and emotionally. How does that experience shape Rick in the back half, and perhaps alter their relationship?

Certainly if we’re going to echo the comics, which I hope we do, I think it marks a very interesting turning point in Rick and Carl’s relationship. If he makes it, which we hope he does, in the comic books he’s disfigured, and you know, he’s a teenage boy.

He’s a boy and with one eye, he’s an uncompromising presence, and certainly it’s hard enough parenting an adolescent – so I hear – in the millennium, let alone a zombie apocalypse.

It’s not going to be without its problems. I also dig, particularly, the relationship – which is almost a triangle – between Negan, Rick and Carl. I think that’s a really interesting psychological battleground; the father figure and a parent that cares desperately about and would give his life for his son, sometimes can be smothering and not value the son enough or not listen to the son as a true leader in his own right.

Whereas someone else may offer that, which is very interesting. All of this ground is the stuff I’ve been waiting for, certainly in that relationship. I think it’s really interesting; it’s touching upon the same moral ambiguity of The Grove (Season Four, Episode 14) and episodes like that.

I think we’re getting into muddy, deep and dark waters, and as an actor, for my taste, it really excites me, I’m really interested in that area.

In short, I think it gets very complicated, very quickly.

Rick also lost Jessie; they were only just starting to get close – how does that affect him when piled on top of all this other trauma he’s had to deal with?

When I read that scene, when all of us did – Sam getting bitten, Jessie getting bitten, me having to chop her arm off and then Ron shooting at me and then shooting my son and then Ron being stabbed by Michonne – we all read it and laughed.

We just went, “this is an impossible scene, thank you! How are we supposed to do this?” And I think, like most times on the show when we have to put ourselves through emotional marathons, you look around and everyone just goes in and commits.

We’re very fortunate that all of those actors are just brilliant.

In the No Way Out episode, the sheltered survivors of Alexandria proved their worth resulting in a triumphant team effort.

In the No Way Out episode of The Walking Dead, the sheltered survivors of Alexandria proved their worth resulting in a triumphant team effort.

Rick began the season determined to keep his distance from the Alexandrians and demonstrating a very “us versus them” mentality – how will that position evolve in the back half of the season now that they’ve been through this gauntlet together?

It’s a massive watershed episode, and it marks a real change in Rick’s leadership and his feelings about Alexandria, the people within it, and also their future. It’s a huge, huge departure from where he’s been.

The final moments of the episode can almost be day zero, it’s almost civilisation begins from this point, for the first time. Because I think the key thing that’s been missing for so long is hope.

It’s the first time that Rick, in spite of the trauma and the carnage, (Carl surviving) has given him his first feelings of hope since he was shot two years ago.

We’ve seen Rick’s core group very fractured in the first half, as has been the case in previous seasons – will we see more of a united front in the remaining episodes?

Yeah, the back eight is exciting, and we move very quickly. It’s different and we’re gunning towards one of the best, most appalling and brilliant season finales we’ve ever attempted.

It made me physically sick when I read it, and if we’ve done it right, you will (be) too. You’re gonna be made nauseous!

The story moves very quickly, you see very much a unified front, but what happens is, loosely speaking, so much of the stories for the last couple of years have looked inwardly, towards group dynamic and how we assimilate, whether or not we can or can’t, and that question is not in doubt anymore.

We turn our eyesight outside the walls, and in one direction we see an incredibly exciting, beautiful, optimistic vista.

In the other direction, we see hell (laughs) The world opens up and the world just got a whole lot bigger.

How would you contrast Rick’s leadership style with Negan’s?

I can’t really go into great detail about that, but all I know is that from the comic books, he’s an incredibly funny, incredibly charming and lethal leader, and I know that we’ve got Jeffrey Dean Morgan who is all of those things, and … all I will say is, I think people will be very happy when they see his entrance.

What makes Negan different from other enemies they’ve faced in the past, like The Governor?

He’s unashamedly psychotic (laughs). He’s unapologetic about his means, his ways of getting his points across and getting thing done. He’s absolutely unapologetic, I think that’s the closest I can answer that. – Reuters

The Walking Dead S6 airs every Monday at 9.05pm on Fox HD (Astro Ch 724).

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