With the second season barely three days behind us, heated discussion has popped up regarding the future of THE WALKING DEAD. While the image of a cloaked Michonne and the Danai Gurira casting news has been the big talk so far, the closing image of the prison is what fans should be focused on.
Showrunner Glen Mazzara held a conference call yesterday to discuss the next season and had this to say about the prison.
"Right now, I do see the prison storyline lasting through both Season 3 and 4. I do think that is a major storyline. I know we were on the farm, perhaps, longer than people wanted. There were reasons for that. What we want is for that prison to not feel claustrophobic. I think the farm played a little claustrophobic for some people. Now that the entire landscape has fallen victim to the zombie apocalypse, zombies are literally at the gates of this prison. That prison is a very small safe corner. There is a lot of danger around. It won't feel like we are bottled up, the way we were on the farm. I do think that prison is a significant storyline, but we are also interested in opening up this world. The Governor has the world of Woodbury. There are other factors out there, other groups. I do think that Rick's group is stumbling into a much larger world."
Without spoiling the major events that occur in the comic book at the prison, we are in for some serious drama. Many fans of THE WALKING DEAD comic hail this plot arc as the high water mark for the series, including myself.
Mazzara went on to describe the upcoming season as a "reset" of sorts.
"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."
THE WALKING DEAD as a comic had twenty pages a month to convey the storylines, with each arc covering just about six issues. With the comic currently having crossed 100 issues, they have quite a lot of material to mine. A reset is absolutely the word that should be used here, as the entire prison and Governor storylines will need to be drawn out.
Time to get excited.
