'The Walking Dead' Season 6 Premiere Postmortem: Greg Nicotero Talks the Herd, the Horn, and Who Just Became Shane
Warning: Spoilers ahead for this week’s season premiere of The Walking Dead.
What was that horn at the end of the Season 6 premiere of The Walking Dead? Episode director and TWD EP Greg Nicotero knows, but he’s only willing to tell us what it isn’t for now. He also tells Yahoo TV about the fun of having walkers run into metal walls, of watching star Andy Lincoln tackle someone on the edge of a deep quarry, and of seeing Norman Reedus continue to evolve one-time loner Daryl, and hints at Maggie and Glenn’s secret and Rick’s struggle for the first half of Season 6.
The herd: It has never looked more fun to be playing a walker, strolling down the road, running headfirst into metal fences. Did any of the cast and crew want to sit in the chair and get made up to be a part of that?
Not for this episode, because everybody was so busy. And I’m still trying to find an opportunity to be in zombie makeup and direct at the same time, but I haven’t been able to accomplish that. I am a walker in Episode 3. But one of the fun things with shooting the scenes where the walkers are being mashed into the wall at the intersection, we had a bunch of puppet heads that we were smashing into the wall. We were basically going into a big conga line in a big circle and bashing their heads … At one point, me and the makeup effects guy and the crew, we’re throwing water balloons filled with blood at the fence as zombies are walking past, so all of a sudden there were explosions of blood next to the zombies. It was so much fun.
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Will we recognize you in Episode 3 as a zombie?
You might. It’s funny, because evidently when they put the episode together, they used a lot of shots of me, and I don’t think they realized that it was me. But they’re like, “Wow, this guy’s a pretty good walker.” When I looked at the cut, I’m like “Hey, look at that, there I am.” I’m in like five shots in a row. But we’ll talk about that after Episode 3.
Will we continue to see the herd in the scope we see them in the premiere?
The herd is a supporting character now. I’m very confident in saying that this is not the last time that we’re going to see the herd. We left Sasha, Daryl, and Abraham leading that herd, and Daryl on his motorcycle, Pied Piper-style, leading the herd away from Alexandria. Without a doubt, that’s going to factor tremendously into several episodes.
My new favorite badass Rick moment is his running/flying tackle of Ron at the edge of the quarry. Can you talk a little bit about that, about directing that?
That sequence was basically the big reveal of the quarry. And both of those actors — Andy Lincoln and Austin Abrams — actually did it. We had stunt people there on the day, but Andy is like, “Oh, no.” So Austin and Andy did the stunt together, and we had a pad off to the side, but Andy literally ran at him full speed and tackled him. By the way, on the edge of a real quarry that has like a 200-foot drop.
We had to have little safety harnesses and all that kind of stuff. That location, where we shot, was the real quarry. We had the camera right on the edge of the quarry with the Technocrane arm end out, and turned back towards us, so we were able to get that shot of Ron running to the edge of the cliff, and then Andy running full blast and tackling him. I just love the choreography of that scene, because we were able to build more and more of that layer of suspense. Then of course, the two walkers that were right behind them, the momentum just takes them right over the edge, and we go to that cool over-the-edge shot where they just tumble down away from us and explode when they hit the bottom.
This was such a huge episode for Rick. Are the Alexandrians finally going to get his point now about how they need to learn to survive, or is there going to continue to be fear and resistance on their part?
I think what’s important about the first episode is, Rick lays down the law. “If you guys can’t learn how to survive on your own, we’re going to survive, and you’re not going to make it.” That’s just the bottom line … As long as his people survive, he doesn’t care if the other Alexandrians survive. I think that’s in direct competition with the whole concept of “It’s not just about surviving, it’s about living.” I think in this season, the shift that Rick needs to learn is, you can survive in a prison, you can survive in a church … You can survive, but you can’t live.
The reason why I think Rick basically goes off the deep end at the end of last season is because he realizes there’s an opportunity in front of them to not just survive, but for them to live. It’s the first time in five years of our show that our group is exposed to an opportunity to continue living. I think it’s that unfathomable, incomprehensible idea that, “Wait a minute, we can have a life again, not just a hiding place for three episodes.” I think it’s just too much for him to comprehend.
In the Season 5 finale, when Deanna says “Do it,” shoot Pete, we realize that Deanna basically is giving a lot of her control of Alexandria over to Rick, and allowing him to co-manage Alexandria. Now he has the means to make this place habitable for the future of his family, and if the other people there aren’t down with it, then too f–king bad for them.
And he’s right, ultimately.
Of course he’s right. He’s Shane. Shane said the same thing in Season 2. Shane confronted Rick and said, “You’re not capable of doing the things that need to be done to protect your wife, to protect your son, to protect this group.” Now Rick basically becomes the exact same person that Shane said he would never become, which I love.
But it’s a little scary when he and Morgan are bonding on the porch with Judith, and Morgan thinks he’s seeing his old friend Rick, but then Rick tells Morgan that, essentially, he let Carter live because he’s such a dumbass, he’s going get himself killed eventually anyway.
And that’s a very negative view to have, because that’s not living either … Allowing other people to die is a warped interpretation of how you live, and that’s something we will see Rick struggle with for the entire first half of the season, at least.
Is Morgan going to be key in that, in how Rick comes out the other side of it?
I think everybody has a bit of a hand in that, but everybody is on their own very different journey right now. Carol is on a very different journey, Daryl … after where we left last season, Sasha found redemption, and Abraham is spiraling in this weird, darker place. People are all going in different directions, and now they have this gigantic, formidable force that they have to deal with. Everyone is going to be going through these emotional beats in the midst of all this other stuff that’s going on.
It was great to see Daryl feel comfortable and confident in disagreeing with Rick about whether or not to bring more people in. Where is Daryl’s head at right now?
I think what Daryl learns at the end of last season is that he understands that survival is people. Basically, what we were saying earlier in terms of Rick’s perception, which is, “As long as our group is fine, I don’t give a s–t what happens to anybody else,” Daryl’s the one going, “Wait a minute, you don’t understand, it’s not just surviving, it’s living.” The more people that we bring in, the bigger this community becomes, the stronger we become, which means we then live. I love that scene that Norman and Andy did, where they come out and Daryl disagrees with him. It’s good that they can actually stand up and face each other and go, “You know, I don’t agree with you.” It’s important.
As you were saying, about Rick becoming Shane, it’s cool to see Daryl, who was initially this loner, has become the one who’s now saying, “We need as many people as we can to rebuild our world.”
Norman’s storyline has been, to me, one of the more fascinating ones, because of his protective nature with Carol in Season 2, and then the idea that maybe Carol was dead in Season 3, how he processed that, and then in Season 4, when Carol is vanished … Daryl’s storyline has been very intricate, and the beauty that Norman brings to that portrayal is that he makes it look effortless. When he’s reeling from the loss of Beth, and he breaks off from everybody else last season, and he sees the barn, and just as he’s going on his own to be away from everyone to deal with his grief, he sees the barn, and the barn is what saved all their lives from the tornado … This is something I was talking about with Andy two days ago. Norman’s performance is so nuanced, and so delicate, he never raised his voice or [screamed]. It’s really instinct, and it’s pretty fascinating to watch what he does with … Daryl doesn’t have a lot of dialogue in a lot of the episodes.
At the town meeting, Glenn tells Maggie he wants her to stay behind and watch Deanna, and she suggests there’s another reason she’s staying behind. Do we know what that is yet?
We do not know what that is yet.
But we could guess that it’s something that only the two of them know?
[Laughs.] Sure.
Okay, the horn at the end. We know it’s coming from Alexandria, which could mean one of two things: Either some emergency has happened back in Alexandria that they have to get them to come back with some loud noise, or someone knows about Rick’s plan and is trying to sabotage it. What can you say about that?
Ooh, those are both great ideas … [but] you’re not close. But they’re both good ideas.
I guess we’ll see soon enough, then.
You’ll see in a week.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
