'The Walking Dead' Bosses Spill on the 'Horrific' Savior Massacre and Glenn's 'Heartbreaking' Choice!

By
AMC


The Walking Dead
just upped the ante with the most violent and vicious episode in the series' history!

In this week's all-new hour, "Not Tomorrow Yet," Rick led a bullet-fueled raid on The Saviors' turf and -- to make matters even more stomach-churning -- his team savagely murdered Negan's people while they were sleeping.

"The big thing with this episode is that they're doing something pretty horrific: They're attacking sleeping people." TWD's co-executive producer Denise Huth spilled in a behind-the-scenes clip on The Talking Dead. "The important thing for [showrunner] Scott [M. Gimple] and us with telling the story is that the characters feel that weight and we'll particularly see that with Glenn."


MORE: Your 8 Biggest Questions About the Hilltop Colony Answered!

For the first time in the smash AMC drama, Glenn killed a living, breathing person and not just a flesh-craving zombie.

"Glenn never actually has killed a living person and there's just a beautiful scene where he has to do it for the first time," Huth explained, "It's heartbreaking and tragic, but you know why they're doing it. We, the audience, know that The Saviors are bad guys, but taking a life should always be a big deal. They can't just kill and not feel it."

AMC

When prepping for this week's machine-gun heavy chapter, the entire Walking Dead team had to be meticulous with the scene's choreography to avoid accidental injuries.


EXCLUSIVE: Why Negan is the Most Manipulative 'TWD' Villain We've Ever Met!


Walking Dead
's stunt coordinator Monty Simons said, "When you’re in a very small space and you've got automatic weapons going off, there's hot shells flying everywhere. You have to protect your actors, you have to protect your crewmembers, and you have to tell a story and make it look good on film."

All of these concerns were especially challenging to balance given that The Saviors' hallway was only roughly 32 feet long.

"There's going to be more machine gun fore in the next four days than we've had in six years," the episode's director Greg Nicotera revealed on set. "It'll basically be Diehard."


The Walking Dead
airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.