With so much controversy and in many cases anger surrounding the way in which The Walking Dead season 6 was brought to a close, actor Andrew Lincoln who plays Rick Grimes in the series has now had his say.
Credit: AMC
Speaking to The Wrap, he comments: "I'm sorry the fans are angry about it because I think it's a very thrilling and shocking way to leave a season.
"And conversely, from a writing standpoint, it's daring what they're doing. As a returning episode, to kill one of us to start the season? It's not the usual way one would start off as a writer."
Lincoln adds: "People are well within their rights to feel whatever they want. If they feel robbed, it's a completely valid thing. But a guttural reaction, an upset, that's the point of drama. I don't go to a theatre or movie and not feel things. I want to feel things."
In the final episode, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) made his big debut, announcing he would be killing one of the group viewers have fallen in love with as revenge for the members of his group, the Saviors who have fallen due to Grimes' group's actions.
As Negan beat one character to death with barbed wire baseball bat Lucille, the camera changed to the point-of-view of the victim before fading to black, literally leaving viewers in the dark as to who was on the receiving end.
Chatting about Morgan's first scenes as Negan, Lincoln says: "It's an amazing entrance. What he did was so brilliant. Obviously, I hated him during it. I sort of bore holes into his very heart for two nights.
"But it's an astonishing entrance by all accounts. He's this phenomenally accomplished brilliant actor and he came and he brought it. He knocked it out of the park - which is a sloppy expression here given the events of the episode."
The Walking Dead will return for its seventh season on AMC in the US and FOX in the UK this October.
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