'The Walking Dead' boss on the finale and the show's new villain

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers from Sunday's mid-season finale of The Walking Dead. 

The Walking Dead wrapped up the first half of its sixth season on Sunday, and while the mid-season finale answered some of the fans' burning questions, it raised just as many (or more). USA TODAY talked to executive producer Scott Gimple all about "Start to Finish," what's next for the show in the season's second half and why the new villain, who will be played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is so very different than anything you've seen on the show before.

Can you talk about DeAnna’s death? It’s one of the few times the moment itself isn’t shown onscreen in the show.

I think Deanna is a character from the beginning who was a fighter. She through a trick of history, her own history, didn’t have all the information about what the world really was. But what when she was shown what the world is, she immediately got with the program and continued to fight. And how do we show her at the end -- despite being bitten, despite being given a one -way ticket she was still fighting.

What was the hardest part of the episode to shoot? There were so many moving parts.

The cop out answer would be all those moving parts. The stuff in the house was very challenging. I have a ton of walkers in a house. That’s the worst house party in the world.

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The zombie camouflage trick worked so well for Rick and Glenn in season one, why did it take so long to revisit that?

In some ways Michonne had been using it to a degree with her two walkers. It’s an extreme thing. It’s certainly not the last time we’ll see it. I think there would be limits on doing it whenever. ... For example, Carol had used the guts of walkers in 501. It happens every so often. It’s a pretty extreme measure.

Why did you decide to end the episode where you did?

That was a point when all of the characters’ stories were set. That’s when everybody was either in their most precarious position or when they had keyed in on what they need to do. The table was set for the next part of the story.

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You said episode nine is ‘one of the biggest episodes’ you’ve ever done on Talking Dead. What makes it so special?

Well, tons and and tons and tons of walkers inside the Alexandria walls. Some incredibly emotionally loaded situations. It’s just incredibly explosive stuff. We had 30,000 in 601, I shouldn’t give the numbers of walkers in 9, but they are all in Alexandria walls. It’s a very different situation. Shooting all those walkers in alexandria was no joke.

The prologue scene began set up for Negan to enter the show. He’s a big favorite from the comics. How is Negan different from the show’s earlier villains?

Negan is pure id. Just unmitigated id. He’s not a psychopath. He’s not crazy. But he is driven and he is very much a character totally unique to the landscape of the walking dead that we’ve seen thus far.

How was Jeffrey Dean Morgan cast as Negan?

Jeff was very much aware of the character and knew when his agents were calling him, he instantly knew what about. He knew it was Negan. I believe what he said, “is it effing Negan. I’m effing doing it.”

Anything else?

I do believe it will be worth the wait.