As the tension builds towards the premiere of The Walking Dead Season Three I thought I would give a possible preview into what may be in store this season courtesy of the original comic book material and some personal hopes for this season.
Michonne
Michonne is an interesting figure within the book as many fans are divided on their opinion of her but either way I’ve found that it is exactly the same reason as to why some love and some hate her, she kicks ass. Whilst our survivors havn’t had an easy life since the start of the zombie apocalypse, Michonne has had it worse. She has been on her own since the start, she has not had a community, she has not had a safe haven to settle down temporarily, she has been continuously fighting alone for survival since the start. This means that when she arrives she is already skilled in the art of killing zombies. Due to her prowess she may come across as an overpowered unrelatable character but her introduction should be a lot of fun as we’ll get to see some zombies finally get some comeuppance in the form of a skilled zombie hunter, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the rumoured large zombie body count in the premiere is mostly thanks to Michonne. She actually arrives at the perfect time in terms of the plot, Michonne enters the world of our survivor’s and makes the zombie threat almost manageable providing they have a safe haven. The biggest threat is becoming less intimidating, even more so with the arrival of Michonne. Then they enter the prison, discover a place called Woodbury, a man called ‘The Governor’ and Michonne’s ‘power’ becomes meaningless as the bigger threat to our survivors is revealed.
The threat
The prison begins an arc that defines the rest of The Walking Dead, if anything this is where the series truly begins. Everything so far, the zombies, the struggle for survival is just an introduction to this new world. The arc begins with Shane’s death which as most fans know by now happened a lot earlier in the book, but Shane’s villainy/death was required before this arc could truly begin, the much more intimidating threat in this new world isn’t the walking dead but other human survivors, in this new world humanity has become the villain. In true post apocalyptic style civilisation has ended and people are now free to do whatever they want. To amplify this, some of the first ‘other survivors’ that they will meet are the sort of people who want to do very bad things and have done very bad things in the pre apocalyptic world, they’re in the prison for a reason.
Character death at this point is not only becoming less surprising but almost expected, this is why the prison arc onwards brings some more complicated and shocking deaths. Most of which I've questioned as to whether it could or will be shown on television since episode one and now we’ll finally get an answer. Zombies are a mindless force of nature which are simply killing for food, for their survival, but a human consciousness chooses to kill and some of the first deaths in the prison are graphic murders of children by someone who is killing for ‘fun’ which is a disturbing introduction to this latest ‘threat’. Later on this will become even more terrifying as we go from humans murdering other humans to despicable crimes of torture and rape, however I don’t think this will happen until after the break between the season, if at all.
Most of the characters that even survive the Prison/Woodbury arc end up with terrible life altering injuries, two main characters will lose limbs and one will have to face a large distinguishing scar for the rest of their life. However, one of those characters is Dale who was killed off in the television show before he could sustain his injury so will the writers give his injury to someone else? That is an exciting development as a fan of the book as they are going down a familiar road but it is still relatively new for fans that already ‘know’ what happens. Bottom line, the prison is bad news for our survivors and will ultimately change the face of the television series.
Abraham, future character and hopefully the surprise introduction in the premiere summing up the new threat in a nutshell.
The survivors
This season should and will be the season of great character development. While Shane’s death happened sooner in the comic, the television series has actually made Rick’s development alot smoother by bringing Shane’s death closer to the prison arc. Rick now understands that to continue surviving in this world he will probably have to kill other humans, this is a key realisation that will certainly follow through the Prison arc and beyond. Rick will have to make decisions for the good of the group that will blur the boundaries of morally right and wrong, which will have a grave impact on his well being as time goes on.
"You kill, you die."
One of Rick's morally ambiguous laws that begins his descent into a questionable authority figure.
A personal anticipated story arc and character development is for Andrea, she to me is one of the most relatable characters in the book. From the start she doesn't represent a leader, she isn't ‘the brains’ of the group and she isn't ‘the muscle’, she is simply defenceless in the new world like most would be. I am currently not a fan of how Andrea is portrayed in the television series but that’s because I have already seen how much she has grown, I've already seen her journey, and the character that she becomes is nowhere near the character we saw at the end of Season One, she’s a fighter and I hope this season we start to see her building up to this. Andrea completely adapts and changes from her first introduction in the book; this to me is what makes her stand out from the group of survivors as the majority develop their role in the group and develop their survival skills, Andrea becomes almost unrecognisable from the defenceless girl at the start and becomes one of the most vital assets in the protection and survival of the entire group so I look forward to the moment in the television series where she is no longer recognisable as the girl who sat and waited for death.
This season should be the season of change. The aftermath of Dale's and Shane’s deaths should dramatically change the group dynamic and push the remaining characters into new roles. Rick will not only feel guilt over his best friend’s death, but will feel guilty for allowing someone so unstable within the group to begin with which will push him into taking the leadership role more seriously which extends to him making decisions for the group, and pushing Rick to the boundaries of what should and should not be done in the face of human evil. Both of those character deaths should hopefully be the push for Andrea to evolve into the groups protector and having left her with the shows newest strong female at the end of Season Two she has a good chance of becoming the character her journey deserves. If the first two season’s were just the warm up, consider Shane’s death the starting gun to an eventful taboo breaking third season that will promise to surprise and shock faithful viewers, new viewers and even fans of the original material.
