‘The Walking Dead’ season 7 gets extended episode 4

While the premiere episode of “The Walking Dead” season 7 ventured slightly past the 60-minute mark, no episode so far this season’s gone crazy with the run time. We’d heard stories that this past episode in the Kingdom was going to run around 75 minutes, but that didn’t end up being the case.

With that said, it does appear that there is one episode coming of a far more substantial length. The upcoming fourth episode of the season is currently slated to run around 85 minutes including commercials. Per an AMC release, this episode is going to be geared around Alexandria and a visitor to the town. Who could it be? The idea of Negan being there is pretty terrifying, but that does seem to be a fairly reasonable possibility given that he probably would want to visit the place that could be producing some new resources for him under the Savior “trade agreement.” The Kingdom is able to make it work with some degree of success, so in theory, so could Rick’s community.

Of course, we don’t exactly imagine that it’s going to be quite so peaceful. The real point of interest moving forward for us is that we can’t imagine Negan living until the end of the series. The question is precisely how long he lives, and who is the one to take his life. Also, what would killing Negan do? So far, the presumption is that this is a snake that could just get a new head. Maybe they’re not as terrible, but they could be terrible nonetheless. Maybe Rick is the new head and he goes from tormentor to tormentee. It’s too early to tell what the specific ramifications of losing Negan and Glenn will be.

One other point of curiosity will be seeing if the ratings stay steady; the show lost a ton of steam during the second episode, but it also had substantially more competition with the World Series and the Dallas Cowboys game airing on network TV.

Want more “Walking Dead” coverage? Then head over here and check out our archive. (Photo: AMC.)