Andrew Lincoln would love to see his Walking Dead co-stars win an Emmy for keeping quiet about Negan kill

While the world is still mourning the events of The Walking Dead's seventh season premiere, the show's star Andrew Lincoln thinks we should be celebrating it.

Especially his fellow actors Steven Yuen and Michael Cudlitz, who he quite frankly thinks deserve Emmys for their performances keeping the whole 'who Negan killed' secret under wraps for so long.

That's probably fair, since we can imagine guarding those spoilers wasn't easy.

Hearts broke everywhere when it was revealed that it was Abraham Ford and Glenn Rhee who met their maker, courtesy of Negan's beloved baseball bat, Lucille, after the gang were surrounded by the Saviours at the end of last season (although you may have missed this final farewell gesture from Abe).

And speaking to Mashable, Andrew, who plays Rick Grimes on the show, said he thinks his fellow castmates pulled a blinder and *certainly* deserve Emmy nods – for their lack of candour, if nothing else.

It's interesting, because some of the finest acting I've ever seen has not been on screen – although it's been really good acting on the show – it's been at conventions and Comic-Cons," Andrew said.

"These people have to bite their tongue and pretend that they're not off the show; this show that they love dearly.

"If we can't get an Emmy for [the show], they deserve one for the panels we do at Comic-Con."

The Walking Dead's gruesome seventh season premiere 'The Day Will Come When You Won't Be' was watched by over 1.4 million viewers in the UK.

It certainly divided opinion, with some fans swearing off the show for good for its graphic content.

The Walking Dead season 7 premiere review: A truly grim hour of television

SPOILERS! If you don't want to know what happened, look away. But you clicked on it, so it's your own fault.

"Welcome to a brand new beginning, you sorry shits!"

You can say that again. We are now living in The Walking Dead AN. After Negan. And it already feels like a different place.

After months of speculation and wild guesses, it turns out the majority of us were correct. It WAS Abraham who took the hit. Well, hits.

But, just as we thought that was it, longtime favourite Glenn also suddenly got smashed to pieces in the most brutal way possible. Seeing his eye bulge out his socket while trying to communicate with Maggie will stay with us for days just like Oberyn's skull-crushing in Game of Thrones or Edgar's pathetic death in 24.

We essentially feel just like Eugene:

We don't know what we were expecting really. It was never going to be a pleasant hour of television. But when it came to it, it kinda felt like an Eli Roth-directed collection of torture porn, Saw style. We've seen shocking deaths on The Walking Dead before, but this felt different.

Yes, this is The Walking Dead – it's not Downton Abbey. But it just felt needlessly grim and mean-spirited. We need a bath now.

The episode didn't exactly go anywhere or provide anything other than"Eww, that was horrible" and "Isn't Negan a prick?". His whole little "adventure" with Rick in the van was a big load of nothing, but then it's not as if they could have just switched the action over. We doubt ANYONE was thinking "This is all well and good, but what is Father Gabriel up to?"

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is truly fantastic as Negan, and provides something completely different and exciting that The Walking Dead has badly needed for a long time. At the same time it feels like Negan is perhaps TOO different and so over the top that he doesn't quite belong in the same show – but time will tell with that one.

It was also great to see Andrew Lincoln properly challenged as an actor, giving potentially his best-ever performance. The same goes for Lauren Cohan as Maggie.

It was probably a good move not to chop Rick or Carl's arm off, mind, as comics-readers speculated. Although Game of Thrones proved you can do it with Jaime, it's still a ballache for both the production team and the writers. Plus, Carl without an eye OR an arm? That's just harsh, even for Negan.