Did you see last night’s The Walking Dead? Man, it was crazy how Rick decided to abandon the prison to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional opera singer. And Michonne and Daryl are actually twins? And Carl’s their (time traveling, of course) father? Didn’t see that coming.
I kid, I kid. But some intense stuff did go down in last night’s midseason finale, and showrunner Scott Gimple sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about it. Be ye warned: Major spoilers are under the jump.
The short version is that the Governor and his pet tank attack the prison. Hershel ends up dying, as does the Governor himself, killed by Michonne. Full disclosure: I actually stopped watching The Walking Dead after season three. It seems a bit weird to me that they dragged the Big Bad’s storyline out through another half season, when one of the biggest flaws of season three (in my view) is the way it stretched out a whole lot of nothin’. If you think the repetition was a bit much, Gimple has a response for you:
This season has been criticized for telling the same story as season three. Why not start the season with this conflict and avoid what’s been labeled as a repetitive story?
I hadn’t heard the repetitive charge so much. We wanted to fulfill those two Governor stories, plus this last episode was very much about a man struggling with who he was going to be and finally being defined as who he was going to be by his actions. Rick was someone who was trying desperately to become another person as well, and when he extends that offer to the Governor — which takes everything for him to do — to essentially join him at the prison, that was the end of that story. Both those storylines featured all the characters fulfilling their stories and that took eight episodes.
Gimple also spoke about the show’s similarities to and differences from the comics. While the famous tank scene was always going to be in the show, for example…
The tank was something amazing from the comic that I wanted to see and knew others wanted to see. It meant a lot when I read it in the comic. That goes back to the first time we talked about — taking this iconic moment from the comic and using it in the framework of the story we’re telling.”
…comic readers might not know what to expect as season four ambles on:
If you know the comic, there are a lot of differences from the comic that we do and a lot of differences that we have to do. There’s going to be a lot of familiar stuff, brand-new stuff and remixed stuff. There are some things where you will totally know them and hopefully be expecting them, and then there will be stuff that’s brand-new that you have no idea if it’s coming but it will circle around to moments from the comic. It’s very much like these eight. Comic fans once again will absolutely see a lot of iconic moments.
As for those “iconic moments,” Gimple didn’t get into specifics, but he did confirm that Carol, banished from the prison by Rick, will “appear sooner or later… [it] could be a long bit, but she will return at some point.” We’ll find out who was feeding rats at the prison, but we won’t be seeing more of the mysterious cabin that comic readers will recognize as part of Abraham’s backstory. “That’s part of the Governor’s story,” says Gimple, “and that story is over.”
And then there’s baby Judith, who at of the end of the episode may or may not be dead (but she’s totally not, c’mon). Gimple played coy as to exactly what happened with the missing baby, but it definitely sounds like things aren’t over for her:
”There are a lot of walkers around there… It did not look good, and I don’t want to say one way or another but what you see tells a story.”
Zombie baby?
What’d you think of the episode? Are there people out there majorly disappointed by season three who like season four better so far? Should I give the show another shot?
(via: The Hollywood Reporter)
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