Did Greg Nicotero Just Reveal Multiple Deaths In The Walking Dead Season 7 Premiere?

The Walking Dead's season 7 premiere has been one of the best kept secrets of the summer. Much like Jon Snow's fate on Game of Thrones, the team has managed to keep Negan's victim's identity from surfacing ahead of the upcoming episodes.

From now on, though, we might not be asking who the victim is but rather, who the victims are.

The Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero may have slipped a bit and revealed that more than one main character is going to die in the Season 7 premiere in a recent interview with EW - the same one where he described the significant lengths the team has gone to protect the cliffhanger.

Being asked about the fan reaction to the season six finale's cliffhanger, Nicotero stood by the choice, claiming that the moments we will see in the coming episode will send a message to the audience which would have fallen flat premiere would have been underutilized if they had come before the off-season.

"If we would have shown the deaths, then they wouldn't have felt our characters in season 7 the way they need to," Nicotero says.

Catch that? "Deaths."

Not "death," but "deaths."

Before we go any further, be warned that theorized spoilers are fair game from this point forward.

Earlier this summer, the popular Walking Dead spoiler group The Spoiling Dead Fans claimed that Negan killed not one, but two members of Rick's group before the iconic introduction scene ended (which prompted a lawsuit from AMC). The claim was based on the fact that a pair of actors hadn't been seen on set since the wrap of the premiere's production.

Nicotero's statement only seems to back the theory.

Of course, there is the possibility that Nicotero misspoke or is alluding to other deaths coming later in the episode. There's also the chance that the transcription of the interview has a typo in the sentence but that would be a pretty incriminating mistake.

"Listen, it was the hardest two weeks of my life," Nicotero, who directed the premiere episode, tells ComicBook.com. "You take these actors and you drag them. You illicit the deepest, darkest fears that they've ever had because our actors, they're f---ing in it. So, you spend two weeks taking them to this place and it's horrific."

Sounds like it may have been twice as horrific as any of us could have imagined.

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We'll see who the victim(s) are when The Walking Dead returns on October 23 at 9 PM ET on AMC. For insider info and updates in the mean time, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.