The Walking Dead season 7 is 'more Lord of the Rings than Lord of the Flies', assures Andrew Lincoln

The Rick Grimes actor has teased a 'much bigger vista' this year

The Walking Dead returned last weekend with its most traumatic episode yet as two of the series' main characters were brutally killed off by new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

Following its airing, the discussion has surrounded the levels of violence on display in the season 7 opener with Parents Television Council deeming it "too much for TV."

Lead actor Andrew Lincoln, who plays the show's protagonist Rick Grimes, has waded in on the episode's events and teased what's to come in the process.

"The way I’ve very glibly tried to encapsulate it is that we’re more sort of Lord of the Rings than Lord of the Flies - a less insular sort of family group and a much more expansive geographical sense of different communities and how they relate to one another. You’re going to see a much bigger vista this year."

"From where I was kneeling it was an incredibly brutal episode and I think the intention was to reinforce that this is the most formidable, brutal and terrifying person that the group has ever met to date."

The Walking Dead continues in the US every Sunday with its UK premiere arriving the following evening at 9pm on FOX.