The Walking Dead just finished up season six with the long-awaited debut of Negan, but another major comic book character might be on the way for season seven.
On the show’s official Instagram account, a post was made in honor of Monday being National Pet Day. Since pets are scarce in The Walking Dead universe, they dropped this bit of forshadowing. Pay close attention to caption.
Comic fans will recognize that as Ezekiel, leader of The Kingdom, which is another settlement of survivors that has not yet been introduced to the show. Ezekiel does indeed have a pet tiger, named Shiva, from when he worked at a zoo before civilization collapsed. He saved Shiva from a pack of walkers and the fierce cat has been loyal to him ever since.
The thing is, Ezekial and The Kingdom have not been confirmed to be joining the show. We did expect them to show up eventually, but maybe not as soon as next season. To make matters more confusing, that Instagram post was quickly deleted and replaced with one that has a different caption, removing the “next season” reference.
What does this all mean? We have no idea. But if there isn’t an awesome tiger on our television screens when The Walking Dead returns to AMC this Fall, we are going to be very upset.