Walking Dead Season 4 New Heroes, No More Prison?

Walking Dead Season 4 is shooting as we speak and it will introduce a whole slew of new elements including new heroes, new villains and a brand new location. The new location has me really puzzled.

Robert Kirkman already told TV Line that although the Prison would be in Season 4 we should expect a new location saying;

There’s always going to be new locations and new places to discover and explore. I don’t want to reveal too much; Season 4 is still five months away. But I will say that as we see at the end of Season 3 we’re definitely going to start Season 4 at the prison.

We may be there the whole season and we may not be… But there are going to be some big differences from Season 3.

Season 4 of The Walking Dead will be set a few months after the events of Season 3 and SpoilerTV has posted new photos from the set of Walking Dead Season 4 which seem to show a military base. This is leading to speculation that the Prison will not be the main background in the next season of The Walking Dead which pretty much confirms what Robert Kirkman has already said.

Candidly I felt the Prison was never used to its full potential and I am quite surprised that the writers and producers are so quickly moving on from it. The word is that the Governor won’t be the main adversary in Season 4 and perhaps that is part of the reason for the potential location move or perhaps the writers feel its time for a fresh start. That said the Governor will still make an appearance.  Robert Kirkman in relation to the Governor returning in Season 4 said quote;

That question will be answered [in] Season 4. We always had a plan for this guy. We always knew that it was a bigger story than would fit into one season. There’s still a lot more to be done with this guy. We’ve known from the very first minute of Season 3 that we would be keeping the Governor around for a while.

As far as the villains go I truly hope that the writers will have the balls to build Rick’s son into a twisted shadow of his former self and build upon the conflict between Rick and Carl.

When it comes to the greatest anti-hero a scorned and under parented teenage boy who also is the group leaders son is about as solid as a storyline can get. Robert Kirkman talked with TV Guide about the struggles that Rick will have with Carl in Season 4 saying;

Rick’s got his work cut out for him. He’s aware of this and he sees what allowing his son to become a child solider has brought, which is a very big part of Season 4. Moving forward in the show, this is a guy who’s working as hard as he can to maintain a life for this child.

[In] the process of surviving… he’s allowed his son to lose a pretty substantial piece of his humanity. It’s now a question of: Is there going back? Is this now status quo? These are the things that a father will have to deal with.

With Beth now being bumped to a full-time character as well not only will the father son conflict be exciting but so will the potential love angle. That said having Carl ‘turn to the dark side’ will be the biggest shocker of the entire show if it plays out.

As far as new heroes go there will actually be two. Lawrence Gilliard who will play Bob Stookey and Chad Coleman who plays Tyrese. Tyrese is not a new character but up until now has been a fringe character. Season 4 will see Tyrese step up to a leading role.

In the graphic novel Tyrese and Daryl both were Rick’s right hand men after the death of Shane so it should be interesting to see how Tyreses’s character transitions in Season 4. [ CORRECTION: Daryl is not a character in the graphic novel thanks to all who corrected me ]

Probably the funniest comment I have read so far is that Lori will have a cameo in the upcoming Walking Dead Season 4. Thats right some fans think that she will and the proof is the photo which was released for Season 4 by AMC.

The photo features Rick and a wayward zombie which if you quint at the already blurry photo might be Lori. Wasnt Lori ripped to pieces though? A huge stretch there if you ask me.  I have to say its hard to tell but I think that this is a huge stretch considering Lori was zombie bait in Season 3.