‘The Walking Dead’ season 7, episode 2 video: Morgan, Carol prepare to meet Ezekiel

In our mind, there’s no denying that the premiere episode of “The Walking Dead” was violent, brutal, and difficult to watch (we will admit that we had some pretty gnarly nightmares afterwards). While it may have been successful in showing that Negan is one of the most terrible people imaginable, at the same time it made us feel like we needed a break — which is odd, given that we’ve only had one episode so far.

While we cannot guarantee we’ll be getting a long break from Negan going into Sunday’s new episode, the sneak peek below is an opportunity for us to catch our breath as we arrive to the Kingdom, and we see Morgan do his part to explain to Carol what he knows about the place and its ruler in King Ezekiel. You can see the famed character in the photo above, which clearly gives you a sense that he is far from your average man. You’re not keeping a pet tiger otherwise.

Morgan and Carol also do their part to formulate some essence of strategy in terms of dealing with him. Both are aware of the fact that they carry with them a tremendous amount of baggage, and as a result of that, need to have a separate, simple story as they enter the community. They cannot think in terms of “maybe we’ll get back to the others.” They have to live in the now, and that is what makes this scene so powerful to us.

Also, we’re hard-pressed to think of many performers who are consistently better than Lennie James and Melissa McBride. In putting these two together for an extended period of time, we have a chance for them to build further chemistry, and even have their characters work through some of their past differences.