Warning: Spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The Walking Dead…
The Walking Dead closed out its third season this past Sunday and fans are already wondering how it’s going to play out in the fourth season, which begins this fall. IGN spoke with The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman about what we can expect in the upcoming sixteen episode season. Here are some excerpts from the interview:
“Rick has had a success. The people at the prison have survived this conflict with the Governor, he brought people from Woodbury into the prison, and hes kind of had this big win. Hes had this moment where hes brought people together and hes doing good things. But hes had this tremendous loss in that Carl has lost this piece of his humanity. This has been Ricks main mission throughout the show, to protect his family. Weve seen two very big failures on that front this season.
“Moving into next season, were going to see a very different Rick, but one of his main goals is to manage this situation with Carl and see if he can bring him back from this darkness thats crept into him. Whether or not hes able to do that, well have to see. But this is a big change in the character of Carl, but its something thats going to be weighing heavily on Rick next season.
“Were working out Season 4 right now were halfway through writing it and we know exactly where were going. Whos dying and when theyre dying is all worked out very early on as were plotting out the entire season. Its something that we always know where were going with it.”
The most surprising part of the season finale was that The Governor survived the whole ordeal and lived to fight another day and Kirkman assures us he will be back.
“Thats certainly not the last that well see of him. When we see him again and where we see him again, thats the big question. Its not going to be like it was in Season 3; its not going to be Rick and the Governor on a collision course with a conflict between them. Hell be used in very different ways next season.”
All we’ve previously heard about the fourth season of the series is that it will feature a momentum shift from the third, and Kirkman confirms it will be different.
“Ill say that there are a lot of familiar elements that are remaining. Michonne is still around, Rick and his group are still in the prison, the Governors still out there so there are a lot of things that are carrying over from Season 3 to Season 4, but I cant stress how different things are going to be. There are going to be some radical changes to those elements that are going to bring in a lot of new storytelling. While [Season 4] does seem somewhat familiar, its going to be vastly different from Season 3.”
The Walking Dead will begin production on its fourth season this May and will return to air in October.
