Kirkman Talks Season 4 of "The Walking Dead"

After talking with a few people about the season finale of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” many have said that they felt cheated and let down, that the episode prior to the season finale was by far better. And in truth it was. However, I have been hearing a vast number of complaints since the beginning of season 2 of just everything. And some are rightly so. As with any adaptation from book, or in this case comic, the story, while start out roughly the same, tend to take on their own life on screen. I mean, where is the sense that it is a good idea to follow what is exactly on the page? there would be no reason for fans to continue to watch it long term because there would be no mystery. I know a lot of you will say that you would because you would want to see your favorite characters come to life, but in the end I think most of us would be bored by season 2, knowing full well what is going to happen and how it is going to play out. So a little deviation is a good thing. Because in truth we already know quite a bit of what is going to take place. Or at least we did.

Along with how the story is changing another of the complaints has been about pacing. That the show is too

slow. And at times that is a valid argument. However, when the show starts to be ALL ACTION a lot of these same people say that there is NO PLOT. Just random deaths and action. Another complaint is there are not that much in the way of zombies. Again a lot of these same people will go back to the NO PLOT argument when the show IS ALL zombies. And while I try to explain that the zombies are actually really just backdrop of how the world is, that the show is really a character based drama that happens to play out in a world plagued by zombies, it always seem to fall on deaf ears. However, if we look back at some of the greatest zombie films we see the same thing. That the zombies are more window dressing for the story, an extra element of hardship in the struggle to stay alive. All of George Romero’s zombie flicks are character based, 28 Days Later (I know, 28 Days is not really a “zombie” flick per say) is another that mostly focuses on the plight of the characters. We need all of it to equal out. And when we are dealing with a 16 episode ark ike season 3 was and what season 4 is going to be, we are going to have slow parts for the sake of character & plot development.

With that said and how season 3 of The Walking Dead played out many fans of the show are wondering where does it go now? Now that the showrunners are really taking the story away from the comics. IGN sat down with the creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, to discuss just that.

IGN: The last two seasons ended with this definitive change of location for the group, but they seem to be sticking in the prison for now, albeit with a bunch of new people. With the Woodbury threat out of the way, what other kinds of challenges might they be facing at the prison?

Kirkman: A bigger group brings with it bigger problems. They are certainly going to need a lot more resources, and they already have a lot of rebuilding to do, just from the things that happened in this battle between Woodbury and the prison. I don’t think there’s going to be a shortage of conflict and danger coming into the fourth season, despite the fact that they are still in the prison... there are a lot of familiar elements that are remaining. Michonne is still around, Rick and his group are still in the prison, the Governor’s still out there… so there are a lot of things that are carrying over from Season 3 to Season 4, but I can’t 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, it’s going to be vastly different from Season 3.

ING: We didn’t really get any closure with the Governor in the finale. Is it safe to assume that he’ll have a big role to play next season?

Kirkman: Yeah, he’s still very much in the mix. That’s certainly not the last that we’ll see of him.

When we see him again and where we see him again, that’s the big question. It’s not going to be like it was in Season 3; it’s not going to be Rick and the Governor on a collision course with a conflict between them. He’ll be used in very different ways next season.

IGN: Carl and Rick seemed to have almost switched roles to some degree, with Carl being incredibly cold and Rick finding a sense of optimism to some degree. How does that inform their relationship from this point forward?

Kirkman: 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 he’s kind of had this big win. He’s had this moment where he’s brought people together and he’s doing good things. But he’s had this tremendous loss in that Carl has lost this piece of his humanity. This has been Rick’s main mission throughout the show, to protect his family. We’ve seen two very big failures on that front this season.

Moving into next season, we’re 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 that’s crept into him. Whether or not he’s able to do that, we’ll have to see. But this is a big change in the character of Carl, but it’s something that’s going to be weighing heavily on Rick next season.

The Walking Dead resumes production in May with season 4 set to air in October.

The Robert Kirkman interview was taken from ING (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/02/the-walking-dead-kirkman-talks-season-3-finale-teases-season-4) written by Joey Esposito.

Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. If he could, he'd run away to live amongst wild cats for the rest of his days.

Until next time...