The highly anticipated debut of “The Walking Dead” Season 4 is a couple of days away, but if you haven’t watched the first three seasons, proceed cautiously because spoilers do follow.
Writer Robert Kirkman and new showrunner Scott M. Gimple have been teasing about a new threat this season that is neither human nor walker. However, the question that still looms in the minds of the legions of fans of “The Walking Dead” going into the fourth season premiere on Sunday is: After you’ve had a major showdown between good and evil, killed off a major character and broken ratings records, what do you do for an encore?
CNN sat down with executive producer Gale Anne Hurd to learn what viewers should expect this season:
CNN: After all of the events of last season, where do we find our survivors now?
Hurd: The survivors have essentially taken residence in the prison and realized that, at the moment anyway, that is the safest haven. They need to integrate new members.
CNN: And where is Rick’s head at now?
Hurd: As we like to say, Rick spent a little time in “Crazytown” last season. But he’s always someone who will step up if necessary. This season, he’s in a very different place. He realizes that perhaps the most important role in the zombie apocalypse is that of a good father. He needs to raise Carl not to be a trigger-happy child soldier, and his baby, Judith, he’s taking that responsibility very seriously.
CNN: Last we saw the Governor, he massacred many of his followers from Woodbury and drove off to parts unknown with a few loyalists. Will we find out what became of him?
Hurd: We definitely get a sense that he is out there. No one has forgotten and forgiven what he’s done. Some people have moved on. As to what he’s up to, as the season develops, we’ll certainly get some insights into that. I can’t say when we’ll find out, but we’ll find out. The Governor is pretty formidable. We know he’s out there, and he’s not one to give up a grudge.
CNN: With a good number of the original main characters deceased, we’re seeing the possibilities of new characters emerging, like the Woodbury survivors now living in the prison.
Hurd: Some of the people are already significant characters in the comic book, people like Tyreese. We didn’t have enough bandwidth last season to spend much time getting to know him. Now we have the time to do that. We will also explore those who used to live in Woodbury.
CNN: Will we learn new things about the nature of the walkers?
Hurd: What hasn’t changed is they haven’t developed into super-fast walkers. We have very much the same rules for them, but some of them are more desiccated than ever. They’re more ravenous than ever, and there are a lot more of them. We’ll get to see how that plays out very quickly.
Read the rest of the interview here.
