Our Worst Fears Have Come True... AMC Has Made Major Changes To The Walking Dead

The second half of The Walking Dead Season 7 will be a little more tame than the first part, according to a show executive.

Variety moderated a panel with AMC Networks President and CEO Josh Sapan and The Walking Dead Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd at the NATPE conference. Hurd was asked during the event if the production team scaled back on violence after the brutal The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere.

So what does this mean for the show?

The show already cut back a little of the intended violence with Fat Joey’s death. According to the departing actor, they edited a major portion of the scene that was much bloodier than what made it to television.

Parents Describe Series As “Graphically Violent”

A large majority of the audience is upset and this includes The Parents Television Council who described the show as “graphically violent.” In order to respond to the cries, AMC plans to take action when The Walking Dead started getting labeled as “torture porn.”

This could mean editing current footage and not shooting future footage.

In a recent conference, The Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd said that proper adjustments are being made. “We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence. We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming.”

What Will Happen Next Season?

While these limitations will please the parents, what will true Robert Kirkman comic fans think of the new direction? It’s understandable that Hurd doesn’t want the show to be thought of as “torture porn,” but what does that mean for next season?

Let's recap things.

In case you forgot, The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere featured two brutal deaths. The first person to die was Abraham after he lost a game of Eeny Meeny Miny Mo. The new bad guy Negan beat Abraham to death with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Viewers saw the impressions left by the barbed wire on Abraham's skull.

The bulging eye was too much?

The second to die was Glenn. The viewers saw Glenn’s eye bulge out of his skull after the first swing from Negan’s bat. Glenn tried to say his final words to Maggie when Negan continued to beat him to death as well.

Comic accurate was too much for some fans.

The Lucille scenes were straight out of the comic book. Sure, Abraham’s death was new, but Glenn’s eye is right there on the page. It’s not clear when this PG-mode began on the series, but it could be one of the reasons why the first eight episodes were so mild other than the premier.

The show has always been violent.

“This is not a show that is torture porn,” Hurd added. The Walking Dead producer also told Variety the production worked hard to make sure they “don’t cross that line.”

The Walking Dead has always been extremely violent. Did people forget this is the same show where Rick killed a man by tearing his throat out with his teeth? Or what about Carl's eye? Still, Glenn and Abraham’s injuries left many people disturbed after the episode.

Conflicting reports?

Soon after Hurd acknowledged that the negative response to the extremely graphic show’s seventh season premiere caused them to tone down on the violence for the following episodes, two other executive producers deny that happened. So someone has to be lying.

So what is the truth?

Hurd's statements seemed to be backed up by a show that was noticeably tamer throughout the rest of the season. Save for one graphic disemboweling in the midseason finale and a character getting shot in the eye—and that is pretty tame for The Walking Dead, which usually puts dozens of deaths on screen and lingers on both the trauma and the gore. Plus, as noted by Entertainment Weekly, actor Joshua Hoover (who played one of season’s victims, Fat Joey) has said that a graphic bit of violence he filmed was cut from the final product.

The showrunner speaks.

Showrunner Scott Gimple and executive producer Greg Nicotero are saying that none of what Hurd said is true. Gimple claims that the over-the-top violence of the premiere was always meant to stand out and wasn’t ever meant to be a baseline. More particularly, asked if a scene where a character gets an iron pressed into his face was cut around because of the complaints, Gimple answered, “Specific to that scene, I guess specific to everything, no.” Which is a pretty definitive answer to whether the complaints affected how things were cut.

Greg Nicotero sounds off on the matter.

Nicotero also went with a solid “No” when asked if negative fan feedback affected the violence for the rest of the season. “I think—even after looking at that episode 1 again—as tough as it was for people to watch, I don’t think we would have done it any differently,” he added. “I don’t think we’ll ever pull ourselves back. There is definitely a difference between violence against walkers and human on human violence, but truthfully, we’re serving our story.”

Someone isn’t telling the whole truth here.

So, on the one hand we have Hurd saying that yes, they heard the fans and responded to their complaints. And certainly the rest of the season showed less violence overall, On the other hand, we have Gimple and Nicotero saying that everything we saw was always what they planned, that the show’s artistic integrity wasn’t affected by outside forces, even when those forces were fans.

The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Which one you believe is going to rest on which version of these events you believe—that the show is in flux or that there is an overarching plan that was never touched. In all likelihood, it was something in the middle. I bet the premiere was meant to be over-the-top, but I also bet Hurd probably did ask, and get, some changes based on audience feedback. But given how The Walking Dead crew has handled things in the past, I doubt we’ll get a straight answer anytime soon, if ever.

Keep watching.

How toned down will the Negan war be? Is The Walking Dead torture porn? Judging by Spencer’s guts on the streets of Alexandria, hopefully not too toned down.

Do you think The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere was too violent? Let us know in the comments below. The Walking Dead Season 7 returns Sunday, Feb. 12 on AMC.