The Walking Dead: Greg Nicotero Explains Negan’s Sadistic Logic

Several groups of villainous foes have come and gone on The Walking Dead. The Governor’s army and the Terminus cannibals were some of the more notable enemies to come along in the show’s six seasons to date but they were from the biggest threat Rick’s group would ever face.

Introduced in season six, the Saviors will be wreaking havoc in the world of the undead when the show returns for its seventh season. However, there is a method to their madness according to The Walking Dead‘s executive producer Greg Nicotero.

“The Saviors, as sadistic as they may appear, they have a system that works for them,” Nicotero tells EW. “Yeah, they’re f—ed up and they’re a little weird, but they’ve been doing this for a long time and they have a very large group. It’s not like it’s a pocket of 10 or 12 people. They have a good thing going and the most interesting thing about them for me is there’s mythos involved with them. It’s like, you hear about this guy Negan, just like you hear about this guy Rick, and you hear about these people. There’s a lot of that involved in Season 7.”

“It’s the mystery and the word-of-mouth that has spread along the countryside about these people, because that’s just as much a character point as it is meeting these guys, is hearing about them,” Nicotero goes on. “Negan even says to Rick in the finale, ‘Oh, so you’re the guy that went out there, and you’re the guy that took out my guys, and you’re the guy that did this.’ So, Negan has heard of Rick. Rick has recently heard of Negan. So there’s a little sort of caste system of this castle over here and this castle over here and these guys have heard about them.”

Those castles will be fighting over their throne when season 7 rolls around and it will be a key factor into how things play out between the communities. “The nice thing about this season is you will get a chance to see some of these inner workings of these different worlds and these communities and really get a chance to see how much they know about the rest of the world,” says Nicotero. “I think that’s a really good theme for season 7 which is, nobody really knows what the world has in store for them out there. So, the audience, just like these people, goes through these journeys.”

The Walking Dead will return for its seventh season in October but in the mean time we will get our first look at upcoming episodes on Friday, July 22 when The Walking Dead takes of San Diego Comic Con’s Hall H. I had the chance to talk with Nicotero about Comic Con and the upcoming season, so be sure to check back to ComicBook.com on Monday morning for the inside scoop and follow me on Twitter, @BrandonDavisBD for the quickest updates from San Diego!