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http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/02/09/walking-dead-danai-gurira-michonne-flashback-dream/

'The Walking Dead': Danai Gurira discusses Michonne's past and THAT scene

















By
Dalton Ross
on Feb 9, 2014 at 10:01PM















































[SPOILER ALERT! Read on only if you have already watched Sunday night’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead.]

Well, I guess we now know why Michonne started freaking out and
crying while holding Baby Judith back at the start of the season. In a
flashback dream scene in tonight’s Walking Dead midseason
premiere, we saw a pre-apocalypse Michonne clutching her young son while
having a conversation with her “lover” Mike and some other guy who may
or may not be Mike’s friend Terry (if the show is indeed following the
story from the comics). Then, in the middle of the
dream-turned-nightmare, Mike and the other guy’s arms suddenly appeared
chopped off, inferring that they ended up becoming the armless, jawless
“Pets” that we saw Michonne dragging around in chains when we first met
her back at the end of season 2. What does it all mean? We talked to the
woman who plays Michonne, Danai Gurira, about that and the rest of the
katana-wielding warrior’s emotional journey in tonight’s episode.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start with that surreal flashback
dream you have about your son, your boyfriend Mike, and another guy who
I am assuming is Mike’s friend Terry, if this follows the story from
the comic. Is that who that other guy was?

DANIA GURIRA: Ummm…I’m not sure I can say.


EW: I see! Very cagey, Ms. Gurira! So there may be more with
him coming up later. Well, at least tell me what it was like playing a
pre-apocalypse Michonne.

GURIRA: I loved the concept of the flashback as a dream. It’s
her subconscious forcing her to metabolize her pain and her loss and her
grief. Her conscious mind won’t let her do that because she just shuts
it down, which is deadening her and making her the shell that she was at
the beginning when we met her. You couldn’t read her and she didn’t
want you to. Her subconscious is really forcing her to face her pain and
her loss. For the production, it was really fun. The makeup department
had fun. We were trying to decide what nail color and what make up to
use. And then we had great fun with the outfit. Everyone had their
thoughts and we found the one we loved. With the hair I had the idea of
crimping it up. We had so much fun putting together who Michonne was
before. She had an alternative vibe to her but liked to be cute. She
wasn’t trying to wear Gucci or Prada. She had her own hip energy.

EW: Who knew Michonne had such strong feelings about modern art?

GURIRA: She is from a middle class academic realm family. She
was from a family where art and literature were observed. But that’s not
something that she’s going to share.

EW: That’s a weird scene because it has elements of the past
merging with more recent events and time jumping around all over the
place. And it’s all, of course, a dream, so that’s a lot to process for
you as you act that out.

GURIRA: I looked up the interpretation of dreams and I had already
decided what the dream meant and I looked it up and I was right. Her
subconscious is forcing her to metabolize her grief and if you won’t do
it when you’re awake then your subconscious might force you to do it
when you’re asleep. The idea of remembering holding her son or having a
loving moment with her man is not something that she’s willing to
revisit in her consciousness, and she’s shut it completely down. So
that’s why she keeps away from Judith. But the idea is there is too much
trauma going on, so you have to process it or you might just die.

EW: And then you have the scene later where you crumple in
the corner and start talking to Mike and you say, “I know the answer. I
know why.” What is she talking about there? What is the answer? What
makes her carry on?

GURIRA: I think that it’s what she goes on to do. Find the people she
cares about. As long as people you care about still exist then you carry
on for others. And there will always be others. She thought there was
going to be nobody after the loss of her son and her man, but she finds a
group of people that she deeply cares about. She finds the Carls, the
Ricks, the Daryls, the Hershels. She finds a group of people who she can
devote herself to again, which she’s good at. She takes care of
business. She protects people well. When the rubber hits the road, she
goes and takes care of the Governor before he can cause any more
destruction. She knows it’s part of her DNA, it’s part of her strength,
to take care of Andrea. She knows she does that well. The answer is: you
keep taking care of people. You keep being a part of people of a
community because if you don’t do that, if you isolate, then you start
to die.

EW: What about the scene where you’re walking with your new
pets among all these other zombies, you look at another zombie that has a
passing resemblance to you, and then you just go nuts and start slicing
everything in sight? What’s that about?

GURIRA: Well, what do you think it’s about, Dalton?

EW: I think it’s about her being pissed off and choosing to be aggressive as opposed to passive.

GURIRA: For me, that’s her fighting for her soul. That’s not going to be
me and that could’ve been me. If I hadn’t been a fighter from the
beginning, I could’ve been this woman, walking out with the dead with
blood on her face, wearing the same clothes that she was wearing when
the apocalypse hit. That part of her, that is a fighter, that is fierce,
that was starting to harden and deaden and die because she was so sick
of the pain and the trauma, that woman triggers it. She’s like, why am I walking around with a bunch of zombies. This is not who I am.
This is about her fighting for herself, her fighting for her will.
There is a part where she’s killed all of them at the end and it’s
really emotional for her. She’s cracking, she’s open, she’s having this
catharsis. She knows she has to carry on and fight. She doesn’t lay down
and die. She’s not that person and she doesn’t want to become that
person.

EW: For me, the most disturbing part of this entire episode
was seeing the decapitated zombie Hershel head. How hard was it filming
that and finally putting poor Hershel out of his misery?

GURIRA: It was very hard. The head really looked like him. It
was very dark and traumatic. It was painful. She was not going to leave
him. She just finishes business. There’s no way she is going to let
Hershel be a snapping, zombie head into eternity. She can’t do it. She
has to find him and put him down, like she did with the Governor. So it
was very dark and walking up to it, it really looked like him. There was
a moment touching it where it was just a pain, a grief. It was really
hard to look at a man who was so great and so wonderful and to see how
he went down.

 

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/02/09/walking-dead-robert-kirkman-midseason-premiere/

[h=1]'The Walking Dead': Robert Kirkman breaks down the midseason premiere[/h]















By
Dalton Ross
on Feb 9, 2014 at 10:01PM



@DaltonRoss











Image Credit: Gene Page/AMC

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[SPOILER ALERT! Read on only if you have already watched Sunday night’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead.]

[h=3]Related[/h]




The Walking Dead: See Full Coverage




'The Walking Dead': Andrew Lincoln offers insight into the midseason premiere





'The Walking Dead': Danai Gurira discusses Michonne's past and THAT scene






It was an episode that featured a father and son’s relationship at
perhaps its lowest point, followed by a reconciliation. For most of The Walking Dead’s
midseason premiere tonight, teenage Carl sought to establish
independence from a clearly weakened Papa Rick, only to realize that
when the moment of truth arrived, he himself was not as strong and
independent as he thought. But that was only half of the story this
week. We also got a glimpse into Michonne’s past as a freaky flashback
dream showed a pre-apocalypse version of the woman holding her son and
watching in horror as her boyfriend and companion morphed from cheery
buddies into armless victims, seemingly on their way to assuming their
identities as Michonne’s first Pets.

And as if that was not disturbing enough, we also were treated — if
that is the right word, and it most certainly is not — to the image of
Hershel’s decapitated zombie head, cementing his horrible fate. We
chatted with exec-producer Robert Kirkman, who also wrote the episode,
to get his take on everything that went down. (Also check out our midseason premiere Q&As with Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First off, let’s talk about Rick and Carl. Are we watching a fundamental shift in their relationship?

ROBERT KIRKMAN: I feel like this episode is the episode where we’ve seen
the most growth in Carl. This is Carl becoming a man. At the beginning
of the episode, he’s the biggest brat, he thinks he’s smarter than his
dad, he thinks his dad screwed up, he thinks he knows everything, and we
see he’s very capable, but at the end of that episode he crumbles. And I
think that while this episode is kind of the Rick and Carl relationship
at its absolute lowest point, I think by the end of it you may have
seen a strengthening of this relationship. It may now be at its highest
point. And I think seeing these two work in tandem or working in a team
in a way they’ve never really done before is going to lead to
interesting things coming up in the back half of this season.
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EW: I love how you show Carl taking the reins of leadership
here, yet you also show him as a typical teenager in that for the
majority of the episode he feels completely bulletproof, as all teens
feel, and how that almost gets him.

KIRKMAN: Yeah, it’s interesting because he seems at his most mature and
his most immature at the same time. He seems to be handling things
really well, but he’s actually oblivious to the actual situation that
he’s in. And it’s coming to that realization at the end of the episode
when he thinks he’s lost his father, and he knows that he can’t go on
without him, and he’s completely incapable of surviving on his own, and
that’s actually him maturing and recognizing facts for the first time.
I’ve often said one of the most interesting aspects of The Walking Dead
for me is analyzing how children would grow up in this world and how
accelerated their growth would be, and this episode to a certain extent
could be seen as the entirety of Carl’s teen years crammed into one
episode.

EW: As horrible as it was to see Hershel executed, I think it
was even more horrible to see his decapitated zombie head this week.
That was just plain mean, Robert. You’re a big meanie.

KIRKMAN: We recognize how hard it is to see this stuff and we certainly
go through it ourselves. We’re not gleefully playing with people’s
emotions as much as people think sometimes. We feel this stuff too. And
that helps us in knowing how these episodes pack an emotional punch.
We’re always very emotional about this stuff. Having Michonne fight her
way into that prison in order to give Hershel true peace and allow his
soul to rest, that was a big, emotional journey as well and a very
important part of the episode. But none of us like looking at that
severed head either, so we understand.

EW: And then there was Michonne’s nightmare flashback. This
is a weird one because it is jumping around timewise. Tell me about the
decision to show that and fill in the blanks a little bit with her past
and the origin of the Pets, because you all don’t do that a lot.

KIRKMAN: Michonne’s back story is an extremely important part of who she
is, and the fact that we kept that very close to the vest was very
important to us. But now that we’re at this position in the show, it’s
important for people to know the things that we’ve always known. You
start to get a glimpse of who those Pets were, and it’s true that it’s a
dream, so there are certainly elements there: Are they real? Are they
not real? But this also ties in to the scene in the prison to Michonne
and baby Judith in episode 2 of this season. There’s a lot of layers to
this and a lot more that’s going to be revealed coming up this season.
People are going to know Michonne very soon.

EW: The closing line where Michonne knocks on the door and
Rick tells Carl, “It’s for you.” That was a really nice lighter touch at
the end of a very heavy episode.

KIRKMAN: That’s a key element to The Walking Dead. If hope’s
not there at the end of the episode, it’s always just around the corner.
This was a very bleak episode, seeing Carl kind of lose his father, we
go to some pretty dark places, and to have that spark at the end, to
have that that moment you can see where maybe these people are going to
find each other or maybe these people are going to come together is
important to us. And I love how Rick is almost unaware of all the things
Carl has said to him and how he’s just so hopeful and friendly and is
just so accepting of Carl in that moment. I love the way Andrew Lincoln
handled that.

 

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/02/09/walking-dead-andrew-lincoln-midseason-premiere/

[h=1]'The Walking Dead': Andrew Lincoln gives his take on the midseason premiere[/h]














By
Dalton Ross
on Feb 9, 2014 at 10:01PM



@DaltonRoss











Image Credit: Gene Page/AMC

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[SPOILER ALERT! Read on only if you have already watched Sunday night’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead.]

[h=3]Related[/h]




The Walking Dead: See Full Coverage





'The Walking Dead': Danai Gurira discusses Michonne's past and THAT scene





'The Walking Dead': Robert Kirkman breaks down the midseason premiere






Has Rick Grimes ever looked worse? Seriously, homeboy is MESSED UP!
His face looks like it was on the receiving end of a relentless barrage
from a one-eyed maniac…which, technically, it was. The guy can barely
walk. The guys can barely breath. What CAN the guy do?!? In tonight’s Walking Dead
midseason premiere, the answer was pretty much nothing. And Rick’s
failure to protect both his family and the prison finally wore on young
Carl, creating a tension between the pair as they sought safety and
shelter. Combine that with Carl’s feelings of teenage invincibility and
you have an episode that tested the father-son dynamic like never
before. We spoke to star Andrew Lincoln to get his take on the episode,
which also included a freaky Michonne flashback dream and an even sadder
end for Hershel than we could have ever imagined. (Also check out our midseason premiere Q&As with Danai Gurira and episode writer Robert Kirkman.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There’s really an interesting shift in
the father-son relationship here in terms of Rick not being able to take
care of Carl. It starts at the very beginning with Rick not being able
to keep up with Carl and then continues when Rick can’t kill the walker
and his son has to save him.

ANDREW LINCOLN: It’s almost shot-for-shot from the comic, and it was
always the most emotional part of the comic when I read it. I think
everybody relates to that. Every man relates to that story because
someone said to me years ago, “You never get bigger to your father.”
That’s the secret to a happy life, but everybody has to. So much of
being a teenager is about finding your own voice, finding your own way,
including your parents. So I loved it, I felt charmed by it, it was very
moving to be involved in it. I spent most of my time on the couch — it
was beautiful! I kicked back and let the kid work. I’m hoping this is my
future! [Laughs] But it was an amazing moment, this child
turning into this young adult. And you see the crew all watch him and
have these satisfied smiles and see this young man lead the show. It was
a very cool experience.

EW: I liked the way Robert Kirkman wrote it and Chandler
played it – he’s doing it the way teenagers do, feeling reckless,
thinking he’s bulletproof.

LINCOLN: I loved it. That’s the thing that Robert’s got in him, it’s a
real, bulletproof cynical humor. He’s actually a sweetie. He’s got a
very soft heart and he really taps into that in the graphic novel. And I
thought it was a wonderful script, so balanced. And also the story of
Michonne in there as well and the extraordinary dream sequence which
we’ve never done before and I’m curious to hear what you thought about.
GET EW ON YOUR TABLET: Subscribe today and get instant access!

EW: I talked to Danai, and it’s so interesting the way it was
done, because not only is it a dream sequence, but it’s jumping around
in time. It takes you a moment to figure out what’s going on and to see
her in that environment — or several environments intersecting at once,
actually — was fascinating.

LINCOLN: That’s what I’m excited about with this back eight — there’s a
boldness to some of this storytelling that I haven’t seen before and
it’s really thrilling. For us, the actors that have been on it for four
years, to have that and be able to play these things on a tangent is
really exciting stuff.

EW: What about this scene at the end when Rick tells him
“You’re a man, Carl.” Has there been that fundamental change in their
relationship?

LINCOLN: Yeah, I think so. It’s a massive thing, to feel that you’re a
failure in your son’s eyes. And behind all the fear and leaving him
behind is the fact that he knows, he calls him out. He knows exactly
what the boy thinks: He thinks I’m a failure and that I made the wrong
call again and I cost everyone’s lives. Of course, he carries it. That’s
Rick, that’s what he does. He takes responsibility for everything on
the planet. It’s part of his curse but also his strength. That’s why
people follow him. But yeah, in that beat, I think that’s what I loved
about the episode — it’s come the full circle. Throughout all of this,
he has this fear, and he realizes he can’t kill him. But I do think
there’s an unspoken space between them and both of them are willing to
concede. That’s what I love about this back eight, there’s so much space
in it, but it’s all filled.

EW: I loved the line at the very end to Carl after you see Michonne at the door: “It’s for you.”

LINCOLN: It’s one of my favorite lines. Someone asked me what my
favorite line was in Atlanta, at a comic convention, and I said, “It’s
for you.” And they said “What?” And I said, “Wait, you’ll see.” It’s the
perfect line. It’s the f—ing perfect line! The only problem with
perfect lines is that you can only f— them up.

EW: It was so rough watching the whole Hershel death scene in
the last episode, but what was even worse was seeing the decapitated
zombie Hershel head here, just to know that he indeed had to suffer that
terrible fate.

LINCOLN: That was always the intention, that we return and that’s what
left. And it’s beautiful, when I read the script…its so moving, you have
to kill somebody twice. It’s a degrading kind of hell that you’re left
in. But I agree, I’m just fascinated to see how people view these back
eight, because there’s something so incredibly beautiful and soulful. I
mean, it’s still badass as anything, and there’s crazy s— up ahead,
believe me. There’s a couple of things where I went to [showrunner]
Scott Gimple and asked “Are we gonna do this? We’re really going to do
this?” And Scott said, “Yep, we’re gonna do this!” But I do think
there’s more poetry in this back eight than we’ve had in awhile.

 

[MENTION=3700]H5N1[/MENTION] merge this with yours please

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/walking-dead-spoilers-michonnes-past-678733
[h=1]'Walking Dead' Dissection: Scott Gimple on Michonne's Surprising Past, Rick and Carl's New Bond[/h] 7:00 PM PST 2/9/2014 by Lesley Goldberg

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[h=2]The showrunner breaks down season four's midseason return and looks ahead to next week's episode, which he says contains a lot of big answers and new pairings for the ragtag group.[/h]


[Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Walking Dead's season four midseason premiere, "After."]
AMC's The Walking Dead returned with the first of its final eight season four episodes Sunday with "After," the first of several stand-alone installments as the series focuses on character exploration now that the group is divided.
This week's episode centered on Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Carl (Chandler Riggs), who were both still reeling from the loss of the prison and Hershel's death. A battered and bruised Rick is constantly trailing behind his son, who is still furious with his father for his role in Hershel's death and the apparent loss of his baby sister, Judith.
The duo finds salvation in an abandoned home and it's not long before Rick passes out. With his dad out of commission, Carl hits the road in search of food -- and in an effort to prove that he can take care of himself. What he finds, however, is that his father's lessons have proven invaluable and after several close calls, makes his way back to the house. After several jabs at his father -- including a Shane nod! -- Rick, unaware that his son had just wished for his death, declares Carl a man.
Meanwhile, Michonne (Danai Gurira) is fending for herself and taking down walkers left and right. She uses new "pets" -- walkers without their jaws and arms -- to make her way through the hordes. Exhausted and alone, Michonne has a flashback to before the outbreak and her back story is finally revealed! The episode, written by comics creator/EP Robert Kirkman, takes a page directly from The Walking Dead's Michonne Story, a special one-shot first published in 2012 that portrayed the katana-wielding warrior's boyfriend, Mike, and his best friend, Terry. Only this time, Michonne has a son. It fills in a major blank in the character's back story and explains why Michonne began to cry while holding baby Judith in the first half of the season.
The episode ends when Michonne decides to track two sets of footprints and winds up at the door of the home where Rick and Carl are staying. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with showrunner Scott M. Gimple to break down the episode (written by comics creator Robert Kirkman) and preview what's to come.
You're a longtime fan of the comics and this episode -- more than any other yet -- contained so many key moments from them. Was this something you've wanted to do for a long time?
It's largely issue 50 -- with aspects of 49 -- of the comics. That was a very tight issue with a beginning, middle and an end. It was always in the back of my head even before I moved to [showrunner]; we were just waiting to pitch in the room. Going into this season, I knew what the structure would be and I knew I wanted this to be the midseason opener. I knew what the story was with Rick and Carl in the first five episodes, and though there are lots of iconic moments from comics, there also is invention in the show as well. I knew this would be really a cool way to circle back to those issues of the comics. That was one of those examples of story moving in a different direction to get back to the comic.
Rick didn't seem like he was going to make it at one point during this episode -- a direct nod to the comics. Can we expect more of these pivotal moments from the comics in the back half of the season?
Absolutely, but in different contexts. Kirkman wrote it and even though he wrote these issues of the comics many years ago, there were lots of brand new aspects he added this year. When Greg Nicotero was directing it, he was using a lot of panels from the books for his shots. There are other panels that will be coming to life this season.
Rick has now declared that Carl is a man. How can we expect to see their relationship change going forward? Will Rick treat his son as an equal?
Not only have they gotten to that place emotionally but where they are in the world, without any protection, he has to treat him as an equal. The way they went into that barbecue joint together, they were equals there. In some ways, Carl was a bit ahead of his father because of the bad shape that Rick is in. Moving forward, they're much more partners than father and son now.
Carl had an epic outburst at Rick while he was unconscious. Did Rick hear Carl saying he wished his father was dead?
There was so much that was being said between the things that were said leading up to that. There was so much tension that I think Rick could feel the resentment. Even when Carl says, "I'd be fine if you were dead," he didn't mean that but that was said out of anger and resentment. And that was radiating off his son. Rick knew about it before he was passed out.
At this point, Rick and Carl are behaving as if Judith didn't survive the prison attack and he's largely to blame for Hershel's death. How will Rick's grieving process this time be different?
That's it right there -- for all these characters in fact. It' a very different situation -- they don't have the luxury of grief. They don't get to feel it all the way through because of the very fraught situation they've found themselves in. The prison was a place of safety that allowed them to be real people and to have a moment to feel. There will be moments in these back eight but these are so much about survival. It makes those moments of grief that much more concentrated. It also makes sweeter moments that much more sweet -- like when Rick smiles when he sees Michonne at the end.
We also learned why Michonne cried when she held baby Judith in the first half of the season: Michonne was a mother and had a son.
This, in some ways, is completing a story from last season. Last season, we saw Michonne, with help from Daryl, Rick and Tyreese, figured out that she was running away. She was going off looking for The Governor even though she knew she wouldn't find him. She was doing it to step away from people and to avoid getting close. The moment she decided to get close, that's when all those people were torn away from her -- not in the least Hershel. In this episode, we start her with that loss of Hershel and the prison and all the closeness she'd achieved. She took that as a message from the universe that, "I was right, you can't get close to people; that's how you get hurt. I lost Andrea and I lost all these people so forget it. I had right idea. Let me get some new walker pets and walk the earth alone because that's how you stay safe emotionally." She's haunted by her dreams but more importantly, she finds that her plan leads her to become a dead person. She's walking among the dead and basically dead inside and she can't do it. She knows she can't go back to being a dead persona and isolating herself. In this wonderful moment, she rejects death and she chooses life. It's this very cathartic action moment and that's one of my favorite things from the show -- when you see action and emotion explode at same time and feed each other and have meaning.
How will having temporarily lost her new family change her going forward now that we know how valuable family is to her?
We'll see her open up that much more. We're going to hear more about Michonne and she's going to be bound to Rick and Carl like family.
Now that Rick and Carl have reunited with Michonne, where do they go from here? Rick will heal -- will they look for the remainder of the group? Try to live as a family in the house?
That would be giving too much away but we will answer that quickly.
How would you describe the remainder of the season? Who else may be getting more of a back story?
There's more flashback stuff but not a lot. That said, these characters are separated from one another and it will be focusing on each character in different ways. Some will be more deeply though they're not all like this episode. By the end of this half-season, people will know these characters that much more and have a very good idea of who they were at the beginning after that.
What can you say about next week's episode, who is the central focus?
Next week's episode has a really cool structure that affords us to not really have a central focus. There are a lot of answers next week -- at least a few major ones. You get other big answers next week and different parings we haven't seen yet we well as stories that fold into each other. The deck gets shuffled. This week's episode was one of those moments in the show where we've told stories that have departed from the comics jut to arrive exactly where the comic is and that was a great deal of fun to do. I love the amount of story in next week's episode. I love structure and variety of story in next week's episode. There really are a lot of answers in next week's episode; not all of them but there's a few big ones!
What did you think of the midseason premiere? Where do you see Rick and company going next? Sound off in the comments below. The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

 

http://www.thewalkingdead.com/episode-409-post-mortem-with-robert-kirkman/

[h=1]Episode 409 Post-Mortem with Robert Kirkman[/h]


by Brian Huntington
February 9th, 2014







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I managed to snag the boss-man, Robert Kirkman (who wrote tonight’s
episode as well), for a few quick questions about tonight’s episode of
The Walking Dead. If you’ve seen the episode continue on to see our burning questions answered!

TheWalkingDead.com: Hey Robert! So I just finished
watching episode 409. I felt like it followed the comic really closely,
maybe more so than any episode since the very first episode. Do you
think that trend will continue, and you’ll stick closer to the comic
this season?

Robert Kirkman: Things are gonna kinda continue as
they always have where sometimes we’ll follow the comic very closely and
sometimes we’ll veer a little bit. I think this episode is an example
of those times where we stay extremely close to the comics.

There are certain events in the comics that absolutely have to happen
on the show, or else the show is not The Walking Dead, and I think the
events in this episode between Rick and Carl set up things that are
absolutely essential for these characters going forward. From the very
beginning of this season, Scott Gimple, the showrunner, knew that he
wanted to build to this story and do it exactly as it had happened in
the comic. He always wanted me to write this episode because he said, “I
want this episode to be so close to the comic that it would basically
be plagiarism for anyone else to write it!” So it was kind of a fun
process for me since I usually push to write the episodes that are the
most different. That’s one of the reasons I wrote episode 403. This one
was a bug change of pace for me. I had to keep the comics close to me
the entire time and really reference them and use them to bring it to
life. It was a fun change of pace.



TWD: I think that some of the best stuff for comics fans to see the panels brought to life.

Kirkman: Yeah, and Greg Nicotero directed the
episode, and he’s been with the show since the beginning and was a fan
of the comics before the show actually started. When he got this script,
he said it was basically impossible for him to not picture the comic
every time he would get to one of those moments. He also definitely used
the comic book to frame a lot of those shots exactly as they appear in
the comics which I think is really cool. And I will say that there’s
actually a scene coming up in the next episode that is modeled exactly
after the comics.



TWD: This episode contained almost an entire volume
of The Walking Dead [Volume 09 for those keeping track]. Will we be
seeing an accelerated pace this season, or will it slow back down again?

Kirkman: There’s still some material from Volume 9
that hasn’t appeared yet and will probably soon, although I won’t say
what. We truncate some things and expand some things. If you look at the
events of The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye, a lot of that stuff
took two complete
seasons to get through. It’ll always be malleable as to how much time
and space each issue takes, but there’s certainly not going to be an
acceleration where suddenly Volume 12 is over by the end of Season 4.
We’re going at a very deliberate pace.



TWD: There’s a dream sequence with Michonne that
touches on some of her backstory that we saw in her one-off comic
special. Are the backstories of different characters something you want
to explore more on the show or is Michonne special?

Kirkman: We’re gonna be exploring the backstories of
all of the characters a lot more in these last eight episodes of Season
4, although not necessarily as flashback sequences. We’ll be doing it
in various different ways. But I think that Michonne’s story is actually
a big part of what’s going on in the entirety of season 4 and I think
that people can recognize that this scene in episode 409 ties very
closely to the scene in episode 402 where Michonne has to watch Judith.
That’s part of a longer story that will be revealed as we go on.



TWD: Carl did a lot of growing this episode, kind of
having to learn to live on his own and then in the end realizing he may
not want to when he thinks Rick has died. Will there be a big change in
their relationship?

Kirkman: I like to say that Carl went through his
rebellious teen years in this episode. The thing that’s always
interested me about kids growing up in this universe is that the world
is going to accelerate how fast they mature and grow into adulthood. So
while Carl is still very young, he’s living through so much horrible
stuff that’s changing him and affecting him, and he has to grow up to be
able to survive. I think the two of them—Rick and Carl—are definitely
going to be coming out of this episode with a vastly different
relationship that I actually think is going to bring them much closer
then they ever have been, which again kind of speaks to the accelerated
nature of this episode. I think there’s going to be a lot of cool stuff
coming up with this relationship before the season finale.



TWD: Speaking of growth, at this point Chandler
Riggs is a lot older than the Carl of the comics. Do you enjoy that
aspect of getting to write Carl at a few years older?

Kirkman: That’s another one of the cool changes that
differentiates the television show from the comics. Time moves very
slowly in the comic, here we’re adapting issues 49 and 50 from the comic
when Carl is much younger. Not as much time has passed in the comic as
in the show. That’s just another element that changes the kinds of
stories that we’re telling and also leads to those small differences
that makes the show that much more interesting for me to work on.



TWD: Last but not least, Hershel’s head was amazing,
was there ever any thought of keeping that alive for the spin-off? “The
Adventures of Hershel’s Head in Zombie World?”

Kirkman: (Laughs) I can’t reveal anything about the
spin-off, although I will say now that you’ve brought that up I am
considering a Hershel’s head spin-off. We’ll just change the zombie
rules and say that swords don’t damage enough of the brain to actually
kill them. I think you might be onto something there.

All joking aside, it’s such amazing work by Greg Nicotero and all of
KNB. And it’s just really hard to look at. He sent us some test videos
of that thing as it was being constructed and, I mean, I’ve hung out
with Scott Wilson, and I know Scott Wilson… and I live a life where I
see a fake version of a guy I know’s severed head… on my phone… in the
middle of the day? It’s completely bizarre for me. And I think for
viewers it’s going to be a very heartbreaking and emotional moment, and
it’s an amazing piece of technical craftsmanship on the part of Greg
Nicotero’s team.



TWD: Thanks so much, Robert!

 

Danai Gurira, who plays Michonne on AMC’s The Walking Dead, talks about Michonne’s chances with Daryl and her most enjoyable walker kill scene ever.


Q: What was different for you playing Michonne this year?


A: Well, one of the things that’s really fun about Michonne is that she can be peeled back like an onion. It was really kind of interesting to allow walls to come down, and that does involve a whole different process. Seeing who that chick is, that was really fun.


Q: We see a lot of that peeling in the Mid-Season Premiere. Did you have any input into that?


A: Me and Scott [Gimple] have been conversing about this stuff for a while. He definitely had the lion’s share of it down. And it would concretize exactly what her story was. But it was really great because he had given a lot of understanding and thought to what her background was, and I materialized it.


Q: The dream sequence in Michonne’s apartment is memorable. Did you enjoy the chance to shoot a scene back in civilization?


A: Yeah, I got to be clean and pretty! That was great fun for all of us: great fun for Donna, the makeup artist; great fun for Taylor, who does hair. The more I read it and got into it, I’m like this is really deep and powerful. In her psyche, she’s so caught up on pushing down everything. And that’s what she does after she leaves the prison — she decides to go back to the old Michonne and that’s how she copes with pain and loss. But her conscious and her subconscious won’t let her do that anymore.


Q: There’s a great moment when Michonne blends in a with a crowd of walkers. Have you ever hidden in plain in sight before?




A: I’ve never really been blended in with a crowd of walkers before! But I live in New York City, and there are many times when you’re one in a million and everyone is doing their own things. So I did feel and have a connection.

http://blogs.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/2014/02/qa-danai-gurira-michonne/

 

http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/walking-dead-boss-defends-carl-talks-michonne.html
[h=1]Walking Dead Boss Scott Gimple on Defending Carl and Michonne’s Dreamland[/h]

• 
  By
  
  Denise Martin

Think trigger-happy teen cowboy Carl is the worst? Want Michonne to stop scowling? The Walking Dead seemed to take critics head-on in “After,” Sunday's mid-season premiere, which was reminiscent of last season’s “Clear,”
focusing on the two characters who’ve been met with more grumbling than
any of the other remaining survivors. Since the fall of the prison,
Carl’s been resenting Rick for making him farm, giving up the
Ricktatorship, losing Judith, getting Hershel killed, and basically
everything that’s gone wrong since the world was overrun with by the
undead — but after a day on his own and 112 ounces of pudding, he
realizes he needs his dad. Michonne also tries to go it alone,
reverting back to life with a pair of armless and jawless pets, until a
dream (featuring Michonne as a mom and art critic!) shakes her out of
zombie mode. Vulture checked in with series boss Scott Gimple to talk about giving Carl his own episode and Danai Gurira's wordless feat.







Ballsy choice kicking things off with a Carl episode. I don’t find him annoying, but there are others, including some of my colleagues, who do. Why go that way?
I
had a very good idea of the structure of this whole season from the
outset, and I knew I wanted to do this as the episode coming back from
the hiatus. The Carl story is pulled directly from issue 50 of the
comic, which is one of my favorites. It just fit really well with where
we’ve been headed. The first part of this season was about Carl and
Rick’s relationship: Rick pulling back from brutality, pulling back from
going out in the world, pulling back from leadership, principally for
Carl and Judith. Now he’s lost Judith and the prison. All this stuff he
did to bring Carl back from being such a brutal child soldier eventuated
in this. It seemed organic to emulate what was in the comic and other
than maybe the pilot, it’s the closest to an issue we’ve done. Executive
producer Greg Nicotero, who directed it, even recreated some of the
really iconic panels, like Rick’s bandaged hand reaching out from the
darkness like he might be a walker.








It still seems like a tricky thing to pull off, devoting
an episode to a polarizing character like Carl. People are still mad he
wouldn’t stay in the house! And for most of this episode, he’s acting
cocky, trying to prove he’s a man.
There have been times that almost every character on this show has been sort of polarizing. People go, Oh, I’m annoyed with them,
and then they’re psyched about them. I’m not going to mention any of
those characters, but I will say whenever I’ve been on set and whenever
I’ve talked to Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl, I see him growing up. I
think he does an amazing job,
and he’s got amazing poise for his age. I knew this story was coming
down the line for him, and I knew that he was ready for it. This was his
graduation into being a young man on the show and not being a kid.








Has it been challenging to write the character though?
Carl’s young and trying to be taken seriously, which can be tough on a
TV show where misbehaving can get other characters killed.
I’ve actually always enjoyed writing for him [laughs].
It’s a pretty overwhelming world, and growing up isn’t always pretty.
Carl is definitely much tougher than I am, so writing for him is like
writing for the hero I’d like to be. I think even in the first half of
this season you’ve seen him grow up quite a bit. He recognizes what his
father was doing for him. I wrote “Pretty Much Dead Already,”
the season-two mid-season finale, and in that episode I had Carl
confront Shane about looking for Sophia. I remember I had him swear,
which was a whole standards and practices thing, when he told Shane that
giving up on looking for Sophia was bullshit. I remember being there
that day and talking to Chandler, and he was maybe 11 or 12, and I
remember thinking, This kid is pretty mature. I think he’s handled all of this really well.








Michonne’s on her own in this episode, and she goes
through this significant transformation over the course of the hour
almost entirely without dialogue. How did that come together? Was it
also something you pulled from the comic?
Michonne’s story
was not from the comic, and I was so psyched that it came together.
Initially we were just doing Issue 50, but we knew we wanted to do this
story for Michonne, and we knew we wanted her to wind up with Rick and
Carl because of stuff coming up later. In the first half of this season,
she was essentially running away from the prison, running away from
being close to people again. She was still gun-shy. Then the moment she
decides to be all in is the moment it all falls apart. The message from
the universe was: Be with people. Get hurt. So at the beginning
of the episode, she’s decided to go back to how things were before she
met Andrea, and we get to tell this basically wordless story.








Except, of course, for her dream. Or rather, her nightmare.
Right,
and even the words in the dream aren’t really important. They’re just
part of this sort of surreal mish-mosh of memories illustrating the
relationship she has to these guys. Although their final exchange is
hugely important.








Michonne’s boyfriend Mike asks what the point of living is.
Something
awful obviously happened there. I will say Danai Gurira, who plays
Michonne, was so excited about doing that scene. Things get very
horrible very quickly, but she got to wear a dress. She got to wear
makeup. She was holding a bottle of wine and a cheese plate. She had a
good thing going for awhile.








Michonne goes on another walker-killing bender, and I
loved how it felt entirely different from the time she went to town on a
cage of zombies in Woodbury. This time it wasn’t bloodlust.
That’s all Danai. Without words, she goes from Okay, I’m going to reject people. I’m going to go back to how it was to Oh my god, I’m living like a dead person. No, I’m going to be alive.
To see her arrive there in such an explosive and cathartic way is the
exact kind of moment I love on the show — the height of action meeting
the height of emotion. That’s how it was in “Pretty Much Dead Already” when Sophia came out of the barn. When Michonne is taking down those walkers, it’s the climax really of a character change.








When we last spoke, you said this half of the season would involve experimenting with the structure of the episodes. The teaser for next week’s episode looks like it will involve a lot more characters than this week’s. What else can you say about it?
Next
episode has a really cool structure, which is just something that came
out of the writers room when we were talking about how we were going to
tell all these stories at once. It allows for a lot of information and a
lot of different stories to happen at once. We’ll see a lot of people
in different pairings. It’s very different from this episode, which went
deep with two stories. It was maybe one of the quietest episodes since
the pilot. I’d say next Sunday’s episode ain’t so quiet. There’s a lot
of loud in it.