SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t watched he mid-season finale of ‘The Walking Dead’ ‘Too Far Gone’, stop reading as there are spoilers aplenty!  (But if you have Twitter or Facebook and had everyone spoil it for you (Jerkwads), read on.)

For those who have witnessed that bloodbath , Scott Gimple, the series’ showrunner had some remarks to clarify what went down at the prison and what the future holds for the cast:

“We threw the ball around on all possibilities last year and threw them around this year; it’s part of the writers’ room experience. I don’t think that there was big push last year for the Governor story to end, and I certainly agree that there was more story I wanted to tell with the Governor. I do believe that this episode — and both the story from the first five episodes and the Governor’s two episodes after that — was those stories crashing together. Those were also the endings to those individual stories. This episode was very much an ending for those two episodes — “Live Bait” and “Dead Weight” — for the Governor’s story, not simply because he died but what he was trying to do at the prison and how everything went down. How he finally was defined to be a person who did what he did.”

Gimple draws a parallel between The Governor’s story and Rick’s.  As everyone has noticed, Rick has abandoned his leadership role to basically become a farmer.  Both leaders have tried to turn the page and become more passive.

“Rick was someone who was trying desperately to become another person as well, and when he extends that offer to the Governor — which takes everything for him to do — to essentially join him at the prison, that was the end of that story. Both those storylines featured all the characters fulfilling their stories and that took eight episodes.”

As far as the tank assault on the prison, Gimple says:

“When the Governor drives that tank in, it’s different than it was in the comic; it’s very much closing up this guy’s story. When he goes into the prison in this episode, it’s an incredibly a self-destructive act. He’s lost Megan, Lilly has seen him kill Hershel. Why does he drive that tank into the prison? Rick says, “Without the fences, the place is worthless.” But the Governor has lost everything; so when he says that iconic line from comic — “Kill them all!” — he’s just a force of destruction at that point. Everything he wanted the prison to be is over. And that very much fit into the story we were telling.”

Perhaps the most significant death in this episode was that of Hershel, the show’s moral compass.  Here is what Gimple had to say regarding that:

“From a story standpoint, they lost the prison, they lost their home, civilization and Hershel was the embodiment of a civilized and humanistic approach. This episode and where the story is turning is what happens when all that is taken away, especially for Rick. Hershel was the driving force beyond — Carl and Judith — to Rick’s change when we join him at the beginning of the season. Everything he tried to achieve had been taken away from him over the first five episodes, and now he’s lost the person who walked him through that. It’s a very important part of the story that Hershel died; it isn’t just shock death. We’re going to see now with all these things taken away from Rick if he can come back from this. Moving into the next season and a half, the loss of Hershel will be felt and will be this driving element in Rick’s character.”

Of course if you are a reader of the comics, these recent events aren’t that alien to you.  But Gimple states that the show (as it has in the past) deviates from the comic book storyline:

“If you know the comic, there are a lot of differences from the comic that we do and a lot of differences that we have to do. There’s going to be a lot of familiar stuff, brand-new stuff and remixed stuff. There are some things where you will totally know them and hopefully be expecting them, and then there will be stuff that’s brand-new that you have no idea if it’s coming but it will circle around to moments from the comic. It’s very much like these eight. Comic fans once again will absolutely see a lot of iconic moments.”

So what do you think is coming up for the survivors?  They’ve already done the telephone storyline, so that’s out.  I predict the cannibals will factor in, coming up even though Dale is already dead.  That didn’t stop Hershel from taking Tyrese’s part in the whole beheading thing.  They can kind of mix things up between characters on the show.  So… which other character seems most edible?

Can you stand the wait until February?

Source THR