When Season 6 of Walking Dead ended, it ended with the brutal character Negan launching an assault on an unidentified character with a baseball bat. In the Season 7 sneak peak, we learn that ‘Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) has at least survived. You can check out the full sneak peak in the video above.

Different cast and crew spoke about the upcoming season during this weekend’s New York Comic Con, check out what they had to say below (via Mashable).

Scott Gimple (Writer): “Putting together these episodes this season, the performances this year areastounding… Be on the lookout for some amazing performances, some unbelievably creepy, strange, weird walkers, and if you can do that in the seventh year of a show that has walkers, you can hold your head high.”

Gale Anne Hurd (Executive Producer): “It really is a larger world; there are new worlds were going to be exploring with new characters, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Shiva (his tiger) being two of them. Even though the show has been a big show, it’s essentially been contained [in previous seasons]. We now have a Walking Dead universe thanks to Mr. Kirkman.”

Norman Reedus (‘Daryl’): [On shooting the final scene of Season 6 and the beginning of Season 7] “It’s a weird feeling to be that powerless when we’ve always fought so hard — to be put on your knees. I hated shooting a lot of that, it was miserable. It sucked, it really did.”

David Alpert (Executive Producer): “Negan really is a sign of the new world, they thought they could take him, they thought they were the baddest people out there, but then they run into someone better, stronger, more organized… there’s very little hope for our characters, because Negan wields that power perfectly for the apocalypse.”

Danai Gurira (‘Michonne’): “The Governor was small potatoes compared to this guy… He has outposts in various places we don’t even know about yet. He’s extremely smart … earlier in the season, his followers saying ‘I am Negan,’ this whole idea of ‘who is Negan?’ It’s an indoctrination process far beyond what the Governor was doing.” 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (‘Negan’): “As much charisma as Negan has, there’s a big element of fear, a lot of his followers follow him for fear of getting an iron to their face or worse, but he’s kept a lot of these people alive for a long time. He’s unlike a character that I’ve ever seen — I’ve played some dastardly motherfuckers but they don’t hold a candle to Negan… people follow him because they’re scared shitless of him, as they should be.”   

Lennie James (‘Morgan’):  [On Morgan’s attempts to be a pacifist] “The path he’s walking is a path he’s trying to walk — he’s out in the world … When he shoots that Savior [to save Carol], I think one bullet would’ve done it, but he emptied the clip… for those people begging to go back to Morgan the killer, be careful what you wish for.”

Melissa McBride (‘Carol’): [On Carol’s journey] “Every step she’s taken up to this point has devastated her, she just needs to get her head together and try to find some sense — what we have to do is so monstrous and we’re becoming the monsters we’re fighting… what is it about this world that makes us want to survive so much? That’s a huge question, I love that question.”

Greg Nicotero (Makeup Effects Artist): “Every season, the premiere has a very different tone… because everybody knows how the season ended last year and that someone’s gonna go, it was more of a challenge going into it and knowing what people are going to expect. My favorite moments were found not where you’d expect them. There are some unbelievable moments that come out of the fog and the haze of the post traumatic stress after that moment… When we were finished, it took me a few weeks to recover from it.”

Lauren Cohan (‘Maggie’): “What’s so rare about this episode… it’s so unexpected, jarring and destabilizing in a way we’ve never had. The story that comes from this year is insane, we were completely knocked off our feet, literally. We’ll see how people deal with what they could and should and would have done as we go through.”

Season 7 of The Walking Dead premieres on AMC Sunday, October 23rd at 9:00pm.

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