'The Walking Dead' season 7 premiere spoilers: Morgan, Carol meet the 'King'

(Facebook/TheWalkingDeadAMC)Ezekiel will be introduced in "The Walking Dead" season 7.

King Ezekiel, one of the most colorful characters in the comics, will be brought to life in the upcoming season of "The Walking Dead." AMC has tapped Khary Payton to play the eccentric leader of Kingdom.

Recent spoilers claim that Ezekiel, who has declared himself as ruler of a community called Kingdom, will finally meet some of the survivors. In the comic book, he struts around carrying a scepter with his pet tiger Shiva always a step behind.

Payton spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his character and he could not hide his excitement in bagging the role. According to him, what he likes most about Ezekiel is his positivity amidst the carnage and unrest. The "king's" fascination with the undead is also intriguing, since he allegedly does not consider them as scums of the earth.

"He's a guy who doesn't think of them as having a physical disease. It's more that their joy was robbed from them, and that he's one of the few people left on earth whose joy hasn't been robbed, and to him, that's the difference between the living and the dead. ... So to him, it's kind of a weird philosophy of life that he's developed living in this apocalypse that you don't let this world turn you into something that you're not," Payton said in the Entertainment Weekly interview.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel is set to meet Morgan (Lennie James) and Carol (Melissa McBride). Both are heading toward Kingdom, but it remains to be seen how they will fare in the journey.

Morgan also has a lot of reflecting to do. He vowed to never kill a fellow human being, but he did so last season. Carol, on the other hand, has been given a new chance at life. Will she lose it all by going against Ezekiel's wishes?

Elsewhere, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is ready to take over Alexandria. In one of the promo photos released by AMC, he is shown lazily walking around holding his baseball bat.

"The Walking Dead" returns on Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. EST on AMC.

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