The Walking Dead: Exclusive photo teases new character and location

The Walking Dead type TV Show network AMC genre Thriller Where to watch Close Streaming Options

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Alexandria. The Hilltop. The Kingdom. Possibly even Oceanside. Some, if not all, of these communities will be banding together to take on Negan in the second half of The Walking Dead’s season 7. But is there yet another group that could join the fray?

AMC’s official synopsis for 7B said, “We’ll meet new survivors in incredible places,” and we have your exclusive first look at one of those survivors and one of those places right here. In this new photo (see the full image below), we see Rick conversing with a woman — at least it looks like a woman, judging from the back — in what appears to be a junkyard setting.

Who is she? What is the deal with her group, which you can see looking semi-menacing behind Rick? Is this junkyard their home or just an intimidating meeting spot to deal with strangers like Mr. Grimes? Also, are these people related to the mysterious stranger in the boots spying on Alexandria at the end of the midseason finale? So many questions!

Predictably, showrunner Scott M. Gimple will answer precisely none of them. But he will give us this: “I’m just going to say that Rick is going to meet this person and/or persons pretty quickly,” says Gimple. “The answers are just around the heap. I cannot wait for people to meet this character and to see this actor. There is some formidable fun coming up.”

Formidable fun? We’ll take it! While fun is not a word often bandied about on The Walking Dead, Andrew Lincoln already told us that the tone of the second half of season 7 will be dramatically different and that “the thrill of the fight” is back. How this person and group will fit into that fight remains to be seen.

Image zoom Gene Page/AMC