Robert Kirkman Talks The Walking Dead Season 4

Warning: Spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The Walking Dead…

“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.

“We’re working out Season 4 right now – we’re halfway through writing it – and we know exactly where we’re going. Who’s dying and when they’re dying is all worked out very early on as we’re plotting out the entire season. It’s something that we always know where we’re 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.

“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.”

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.

“I’ll 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 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.”

The Walking Dead will begin production on its fourth season this May and will return to air in October.