by Sarabeth Pollock:
Season 4 of The Walking Dead doesn’t begin for several months, and yet fans are already scouring the Web looking for juicy tidbits about the surprising end to Season 3 and what’s ahead for Season 4. There’s no better place to get the inside scoop than from Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd, who gave an interview to IGN last week.
The Season 3 finale, “Welcome to the Tombs,” shocked many fans when Andrea died and the nefarious Governor lived to fight another day. When asked how the decision to kill characters is made, Hurd insisted that it’s less about killing characters off for shock value and more about how their deaths impact the people around them. “It really is based on how a death will affect the future storytelling. In other words, when Lori died, we got to see how that affected Rick and Carl.” With Andrea gone, Hurd predicts that fans will see another side of Michonne in Season 4 as she and the Grimes Gang come to terms with her death.
Hurd also talked about how The Walking Dead really is a show that allows for multiple interpretations of the “moral compass.” This past season, Carl made connections between how not taking action led other people to lose their lives. When Rick was indecisive following Lori’s death, Carl suggested that his father step down to allow someone else to lead the way. Carl and Rick currently have diametrically opposing viewpoints and it will be interesting to see how this plays out next season. “That’s, I think, what the show allows; it’s for people to debate whether these choices are right for them, right for the world. The fact that there are consequences for doing the right thing, and that unfortunately is reality. But does that stop you from doing them?” She suggests that death has the ability to change a character’s moral compass…sometimes.
And now that it seems like the entire town of Woodbury has moved into the prison, can we expect to see a return to the comfortable confines of Woodbury? “Who knows? The Governor is still out there with…significant firepower. If they go to Woodbury, at this point, Woodbury’s not as safe as it used to be.” She believes that the Woodbury refugees will most likely feel safer at the prison.
While Season 3 focused more on the dangers that humans pose to each other in the post-apocalyptic world, no one should ever forget the threat that the zombies will always pose a threat. With every death comes a new zombie, meaning the supply will never diminish. “So I think it would be a good bet to say that the zombies become more threatening in seasons to come,” she says. On the popularity of zombies in the media, she continues: “I think that they tap into the fear…that something awful—even more awful than what’s been happening now—is right around the corner….I think it’s the fear that we won’t escape, that we won’t escape some sort of cataclysm and that we will be reduced to living in fear, and even greater fear that it’s going to be personal.”
The appeal of The Walking Dead is that the characters depict the different ways people respond to real-life crises. “There are people who are all in it for themselves, there are people who are trying to do the right thing, there are people who are holed up by themselves, there are people who are giving up—all of that I think is reflected in our characters.” She describes Daryl as the one character with the perfect skill set to deal with the post-apocalyptic world. At first he wanted to be by himself, and now he’s firmly rooted in the Grimes Gang, and some fans have called for him to take charge of the group. But, she ventures, “Is he someone who really wants that responsibility? We’ll have to see.”
Hurd acknowledges that there will be new faces in Season 4 as the prison population expands but stays decidedly quiet when it comes to details of how they’ll be introduced and how they’ll interact with the existing characters. “You’ll see. We have a few interesting things up our sleeve.”
Of that the fans have no doubt. Tune in when The Walking Dead returns in October.
Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, Fringe and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy. She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness. Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com
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