The Walking Dead is currently on hiatus, but you know it’s going to be a big ratings blockbuster when the series finally returns on February 10.
It’s remarkable how the show, and the zombie phenomenon in general, keeps going, and while no one’s going to give away the story of what’s to come, several Dead denizens have definitely dropped some interesting hints along the way.
As Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Green, told SciNow and Giant Freakin Robot, “Some of the stuff that’s happening is going to make television history – I’m not being funny, to read a lot of it, it gave me a visceral reaction. I can only say that it’s going to be an intense ride for the viewers.”
Greg Nicotero, the make-up genius and executive producer of Dead, also told The Hollywood Reporter, “We’ll probably end our season minus a cast member of two.” The show’s already lost a few people of course, but as Nicotero continued, “We’ve established a certain scenario on our show where nobody is safe – and certainly in the back-half of our season, it doesn’t get easy for anybody.”
As Glen Mazzara, the former showrunner of Dead, told the Huffington Post, “All I can promise is there will be major character deaths throughout Season 3, but I can’t possibly say who or where, but I guarantee all of them will be surprising.”
The big key for a lot of horror stories is setting up an environment where nobody is safe. This worked very effectively in Jaws where in the first half hour the shark eats a naked woman, a dog, and a kid. But at least with a shark you know he can’t attack you on land. Zombies are a much different story although we’ve never really seen them in the water, except in the Lucio Fulci movie Zombie where one of the walking dead fights a shark.
But as we’ve seen in scenarios like The Thing, in situations like zombies taking over the world, a lot of paranoia can take over as well, and you don’t know who you can trust to look out for you anymore. As Laurie Holden, who plays Andrea, told the Reporter, she eventually comes to the realization that she got “completely hoodwinked” by the Governor, and that “[her] eyes are now opening; she had no idea that Rick and the others were still alive. Now she’s learning that the group is not only alive but that one of her friends has been captured by the man she’s been romantically involved with.”
Right as this story was being finalized, the trailer for the rest of season three debuted, with headlines all over the net about it. The report on i09 reads, “New Walking Dead season 3 trailer hints everyone’s more doomed.” The Huffington Post reports, “More season 3 bloodshed ahead.”
After all, what’s an undead saga without death, and this is a big reason why we love zombie stories. The struggle of life and death is what’s drama’s all about, and the fans are sure to be back in droves when the Walking Dead returns in just in a few more weeks.
