A new The Walking Dead: Season 4 featurette has been released via TVLine and it presents some new information and ample new footage from the upcoming new season.
As has been previously revealed and now reiterated via co-executive producer Denise Huth, there’s a new threat at the prison that is neither walker or human. I have my suspicions based on the new footage in this clip and will present them in the last paragraph below.
Per new showrunner Scott M. Gimple, approximately six to seven months have passed since the Season 3 finale and the prison has become a more stable and safe place. Rick and the survivors, who now include the surviving members of Woodbury, are building a community together. Crops are being grown, and Carol is running a school that teaches important lessons during the zombie apocalypse such as knife use for self defense.
After Sofia’s death, Carl has been growing up all too quickly surrounded by adults and forced to make tough decisions. In Season 4 he will get to mingle with more age appropriate acquaintances, though I can’t possibly imagine all of the kids surviving.
The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman talks about how the show will push every character to their breaking point, though it is hard to imagine how much further Rick can be pushed than he already has. Rick’s arc will continue to push and pull him between his responsibilities as a cop and leader, and as a father of two children.
Getting back to this new threat inside the prison, I think it’s an invisible killer that pops up in the news every now and then. One new scene revealed shows a pipe being unearthed on the prison grounds. What if there is a carbon monoxide leak in the prison that is spreading? That would “kill 12 of our people,” as Hershel exclaims in one clip, and is not something that is easily defended against. Carbon monoxide leaking on the inside and walkers slowly pushing down the fences on the outside would surely push Rick’s group toward their breaking point.
The Walking Dead: Season 4 premieres at 9/8c on Sunday, October 13 on AMC.
