'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Trailer Is a Vicious Tease

The creators of The Walking Dead live to toy with our emotions. They know how we feel watching our favorite characters hug and kiss and wax poetic on their zombie-infested existence because, if one of them died at the hands of last-minute villain Negan in the Season 6 cliffhanger, it would destroy us. They also know that they can intensify the feeling of dread by holding every morsel of information about Season 7 as close to the chest as humanly possible.

Really pretty evil, no?

Lucky for them, we're masochists. Premiering at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, a new preview of Walking Dead Season 7 is all work and no play. The trailer opens in montage, segues to that fateful moment with Negan and "Lucille," his spiked bat, then sprinkles new footage across our eye-line in purposefully random order. It's a very Dwight-centric trailer, the disfigured Survivor running amok with a pistol in his hand. We see what will likely be every zombie scene from the next wave of episodes. We see a little of Carol wondering what the hell is going on (audience proxy?). And then the big reveal, which sent comic nuts into a tizzy: King Ezekial, leader of "The Kingdom," and his tiger Shiva.

What does the inclusion of The Kingdom mean for our band of heroes? Who will stay alive long enough to make it here? The trailer seems designed so you have zero clue, with back-of-heads that resemble Daryl and Rick, only to be revealed in freeze frame as lookalikes. Can't fool us entirely, Walking Dead writers. We are keen.

Predictions? We made some. Now watch this trailer and make a few of your own.

Sign up here for our daily Thrillist email, and get your fix of the best in food/drink/fun.