By Dan Murray | Follow on Twitter
Right, The Walking Dead has ended for another season (in America at least) and now there’s only one thing to do until it comes back. Talk about it incessantly and wonder what’s going to happen next. Thankfully to help us with our speculation we have some information from Glen Mazzara, the series show-runner (he took over after Frank Darabont left/was fired) from interviews he has been doing since the show ended. (we’ll have the sources at the bottom in case you want to check them out in full for yourself)
Here’s what he had to say:
On Michonne:
“Michonne is one of the lead characters in the graphic novel. We are excited to finally introduce her. She is a loner. She is a very kickass character. She is very dynamic. We really see her as an important addition to the cast. She is a significant character, and she will be carrying a lot of the story. We are excited about her, and we are excited about Danai Gurira, who is going to play this role. We are lucky to have her, and we look forward to seeing what she does with it.
Also, you didn’t see her face in the finale because they hadn’t cast her yet. But this is Danai Gurira. She looks like she can handle a Katana.
On the prison (and how they’ll stop it bring as much of a drag as Hershel’s farm):
“Right now I do see that prison as a significant storyline for Seasons 3 and Season 4. I do think that’s a major story line. You know, and I know we were on the farm for longer than perhaps people wanted. There were reasons for that.
”I think what we want to do is make sure that that prison does not become claustrophobic. I think the farm played a little claustrophobic for people. The farm — now that the entire landscape has fallen to the zombie apocalypse and zombies are literally at the gate of the prison — if you see the graphic novel, that prison is really, you know, a very, very small, safe corner and there’s a lot of danger around. So it won’t feel like we are bottled up in the same way that we were on the farm in Season 3. So I do think that prison is a significant storyline. But we’re interested also in opening up the world. You know, the Governor has the world of Woodbury. There are other factors out there in the world, other groups. So I think that Rick’s group is really stumbling into a much larger world.”
On the introduction of The Governor:
In the comic, the Governor is a villain. Our Governor is also, clearly, a villain. He may not be as readily apparent as what’s in the comic book. We will certainly put our spin on that. But we have a dynamic, compelling character that we’re excited to bring into season 3. We expect to tell a story about two different groups of people: Rick’s band of survivors, and the Governor’s world of Woodbury.
On tackling controversial comic moments (I’m quite interested in seeing what they do here as the comic came under alot of fire for one of the story-lines that happens during the prison arc)
“There’s no place we won’t go. Everything is on the table. This is a cutting edge cable drama. I’m comfortable with that material and we answered a lot of these questions on say the Shield and when I worked there, so I’m comfortable dealing with very, very edgy material.
That being said, you want to make sure that things are not gratuitous, that things are not offensive for the sake of being offensive. I don’t ever want the show to get too bleak. I think we’ve done a good job of creating characters that people care about. I think there’s a heart to the show.
So we will, you know, tackle issues in our own way but right now everything is on the table and I think if you take a look at those last few episodes we’ve been making some pretty bold choices and that’s where the show lives and that’s where we will feel we get the most entertainment value out of the story we’re telling.”
On IronE Singleton’s T-Dog ever getting to do anything beyond being a background character who maybe gets one or two lines a week:
“I’ve been surprised at this. I have worked on shows before that have characters in the background, and they have been on a slow burn. With T-Dog? I will admit, he has been off to the side and all but forgotten. Part of my job as showrunner has been to really address and develop Rick’s character. And some other stuff. Poor T-Dog was left by the fire. Now that he has survived the finale, we’re going to correct this. I think IronE Singleton has done a fantastic job of establishing a character, and making people interested in him, with very little to say. That is a strength of the show moving forward. That is a character we are looking to develop in a significant way. We haven’t done our work with T-Dog yet, but we are going to roll up our sleeves and get through it.”
On whether the Zombies will play second fiddle to the old “Humans are the real enemy!” storyline (especially with the introduction of The Governor):
“Zombies will never take a back seat. We will always have the human drama and we would like to introduce a significant human threat. But we love writing the zombie material and I think those zombies are now fully integrated into the world. We’re not waiting for the zombies anymore to reach us. They are there. They are within in our eyesight, all the time. They are part of the landscape. So we expect, there to still be a balance of zombie and human threat but the zombies will never take a back seat on this show.”
He also heavily hinted at a return from Michael Rooker’s Merle Dixon. I wasn’t too keen on this as there would literally be no way for Merle to find the group but I suppose he could have fallen in with the Governor so they could run into him when they meet them.
I’ll say this: I believe that Merle is alive and kicking, and he’d be a great addition to the show. I don’t want to confirm it, but I would answer that question with a wink.
On other elements they’d like to incorporate from the comics:
Well, certainly. There is a lot of great material from the comic book. This show would have to go on for twenty years to get to all of it. I think the Tyrese character is someone we are interested in introducing at some point. We still have Morgan and Dwayne, who are out there from the pilot. We are interested in them. There are new characters that will be original too the series. Not coming straight from the comic book. I think the first two seasons have served as a prologue. Now we are hitting the ground running. I see Season 3 resetting the show in terms of what I really hope to convey.”
Once again, I’d love to see Idris Elba as Tyrese.
Lastly, on whether he will ever Zombie-up and been seen shuffling about in the show:
“Yes, I would love to do that. Unfortunately, I would probably be horrible at it and get fired day 1 because I am a terrible actor. But I do want to do that. I’d be crazy not to. That’ll be fun. So I’d certainly do it. I was thinking of doing it for TCA but I thought that would be hard to explain. So we’ll see what happens.”
There you go, that’s all welcome news to my ears. In fact, if could only have been made better had he announced that Lori and Carl were going to be feed to Zombies at the start of Season 3.
I’m kidding…… Sort of. Though in this season Carl recovered from a bulletwound in a matter days and seemingly had the power to teleport when he found Shane and Rick (who’d been wandering in the woods for hours) so I’d rather not make an enemy of him.
Sources: fearnet.com, insidetv.ew.com, movieweb.com, screenrant.com
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