[This post contains SPOILERS for the Walking Dead season 7 premiere.]

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It’s the stuff of legend now: in the Walking Dead season 6 finale, the tyrannical Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) picked an off-screen cast member to execute, leaving the identity up for debate for the seven-month off-season. Then, just this week, in the season 7 premiere, 'The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be,' the curtain was lifted, revealing not just one, but two victims: powerhouse Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) and the lovable Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun), who’s been a main character since the first day of the series.

Now, however, it looks like that – just perhaps – showrunner Scott Gimple and the rest of his writing-producing staff didn’t always have that lineup in mind.

We Got This Covered has managed to get its hands on a short video showing another venerable series stalwart, Maggie Greene (Lauren Cohan), being beaten to death by Negan and his beloved baseball bat, Lucille. It’s a short clip, and it’s clearly unfinished (as evidenced by the green screen in the background), but it’s nonetheless just as heart-wrenching as the finished ep.

It’s been noted before by the producers that several different alternate takes were filmed during last year’s finale, “Last Day on Earth,” showing nearly each of the 11 or so assembled characters at Negan’s feet biting the big one – an apparent security precaution to keep the actors, or anyone else on set, from leaking the big surprise.

But there just may be more to Maggie’s death sequence here than simply being a red herring. As we’ve previously noted, there’s actually a small-but-substantial difference in the two versions of the sequence (as it was aired in the season six finale and the season seven premiere): when Abraham is beaten, he spits back some defiant words, prompting Negan to respond in kind. In Mrs. Glenn Rhee’s case, there is (essentially) no deviation, making us (and We’ve Got This Covered, as well) ponder whether she was the originally intended victim.

Whether Maggie was ever really on the drawing board, it’s perhaps a good thing that Gimple and Co. opted to not brutally kill a pregnant woman, given the fact that “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” has already drawn much ire from both fans and, even, the Parents Television Council for its excessive amount of gore and violence (poor Glenn!). With such a huge amount of backlash hitting the series – and so many fans threatening to never watch Walking Dead again – this was one additional controversy that AMC is probably breathing a big sigh of relief over not having to weather.

The Walking Dead continues next Sunday with 'The Well' at 9pm on AMC.

Source: We Got This Covered