The Walking Dead makes its mid-season return this Sunday night on AMC. When last we saw them, the survivors were scattered after the fall of the prison. The finale prior to the break left viewers with several questions, and looking ahead to the planned introduction of Abraham, Eugene and, Rosita.

We had the opportunity to speak with series producer Gale Anne Hurd to talk about how and why they made the decisions they did heading into Season 4, and what we can expect from the final 8 episodes.

IGN TV: Did it feel important and necessary to close out The Governor’s storyline, to have that definitive closure on him?

Hurd: Yes it did. And that was another thing, being rather bold to take two episodes to build up his character, to understand who Brian/The Governor had become, and that he was unable to outrun his demons.

IGN: Was there ever discussion about peppering his story throughout the season? What ultimately led to the decision to focus in for those two episodes, rather than weave him in throughout the season leading to the ultimate showdown?

Hurd: We knew that we needed to get to the point in his character where the mid-season finale made sense, and there simply wasn’t enough time to cut back and forth and follow him for a few scenes here and a few scenes there. We really wanted to be rich and complex and see this new family that he had found, that he had bonded with. It’s really difficult to get that same level of understanding of who he is and who is within his new family if it’s only interspersed with the story of the characters in the prison.

IGN: Did it also feel like a necessary thing to play out that great final battle that maybe we, the audience, didn’t see as much of in the conclusion of Season 3, that we wanted to see?

Hurd: Yeah, and that’s a part of the character development, how he was able to turn on his own people, and that he was the leader that he thought he was. I suppose in his own mind, he didn’t take responsibility for the mistakes that were made. It’s always someone else’s fault with anything that goes wrong. Then he’s left completely bereft. In fact, he’s left behind at the beginning of this season. I think all of us, even though I read the scripts and knew where it was going — because David Morrissey is such a fantastic actor — you really wanted to believe that he could have been redeemed.

IGN: Was that ever discussed as a possibility?

Hurd: No, no.

IGN: One of the fun and interesting things is how show hints at things from the comic or ties them in, but creates a unique twist. Carol’s story was a standout in the first half of this season. How did the team come to the decision to focus on her and how are we going to see it play out?

Hurd: The development of Carol as a character is a real tribute to Melissa McBride’s ability as an actor. Everything we that threw at her, she was able to transform it into something absolutely amazing. She’s riveting. She created such a well-rounded character that you completely bought all of the choices that she made when she went from an abused wife to rather a neat character. It’s funny too, because in the first couple of seasons, it was her honesty that we were all for. She forced Darryl to confront some things about himself. Then of course she had to begin to create a facade so that she could save the kids, to teach them the skills that they needed to survive, when they were forced to take up arms. It’s a tribute to her that they did survive, that so many of them did, because of the skills that she taught them. And yet, she becomes almost unrecognizable as a character through that evolution from the abused wife of the first season. It’s really organic storytelling to serve all of the characters in our ensemble cast and to challenge them, and to complicate the story for the characters who remain.

IGN: There have been a lot of theories popping up about Carol and those girls. Do you guys pay any attention to the fan speculation?

Hurd: No, nope!

IGN: [Laughs] You just ignore it?

Hurd: Yeah. You just can’t — because, first of all, we have crafted an entire season long before we even start shooting, and we start shooting in May, we start airing in October — at that point, everything has been written and filmed, essentially.

IGN: How tricky is it to balance making sure you hit the big notes from the comic and stay faithful, yet bring in some new elements that may be surprising like some of what we saw in that final showdown at the prison? I was out of my chair when Lizzie pulled that trigger.

Hurd: Right. You know, that’s why the writers room process is so important. AMC understands that, so we open up our writers room in February, and yet we don’t even start shooting until May. It gives us an opportunity to thread these character moments all the way through so that it’s the character driving the plot. If you don’t have that much time, you really can’t create the nuance. I mean, it’s a happy accident when you get something like that. But these are things that were crafted as the stories for the season took shape, and woven throughout — building up to that moment so that it didn’t seem like it was coming out of left field. It is a shocker, but you go, “Okay, I get it.” I’ve seen her, I’ve seen the interactions that she’s had with Carol, and the impact of that on Lizzie.

After school activities include scrap-booking and human target practice.

IGN: Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing more of that unfold with Lizzie. Do you feel, though, that it’s necessary to hit those big events like Alexandria Safe-Zone, things like that? Do you feel like, “Okay, we’ve got to get there”? Is that the endpoint and then it becomes about the pathway to get there?

Hurd: You know, we shake things up as well. We haven’t followed the roadmap exactly. We didn’t have huge sequences in Wiltshire Estates from the comic book. Since our characters are not always the same characters as the comic book — obviously the relationship between the Dixon Brothers doesn’t exist in the comics; that became a huge driver for last season. So you have to accommodate those stories as well. Darryl’s such a significant member of the cast of characters that you have to make sure that his stories evolve — and you’re not going to find any roadmap for that in the comic books.

IGN: We know that aid Abraham/Eugene/Rosita are set to be introduced this season and Robert Kirkman has said it’s going to be very similar to the comic book. So is that the kind of thing where you lay the groundwork and then it veers to the left?

Hurd: Yes.

IGN: Right. It takes a sort of new, surprising turn?

Hurd: Exactly. You know, obviously, the character of Lori Grimes died, but she died in a much different way. When Shane and Rick fought, that was clearly different because ultimately Shane comes back and Carl shoots him as a walker. That’s very different from the comic books, but there’s a similar dynamic.

IGN: You talked last year, before heading into this season, about the big question being, “Can you come back?” [from past mistakes]. We saw how that played out in the first half of the season. For The Governor, ultimately the answer was definitely “No.”

Gale Anne Hurd: Yes.

IGN: I’m wondering how that’s going to play out in the second half of the season, or what new questions or themes are going to start to be introduced?

Hurd: It continues to play out because all of our surviving cast members, all of the characters have lost everything. They’ve lost the prison, they’ve lost the sense of community, they’ve lost loved ones, like Hershel. Now they’re split up on their own, without a sense of security. Some of our characters were already traumatized before this happened. They were just starting to get back on their feet again, and they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them. Going back to Robert Kirkman’s comic book — which is still the underlying source, even though we deviate — there’s always the sense that there is no real safe haven and that survival takes a commitment to live. It takes using the resources at hand, and it takes hope. Being separated means that you have to find the leader within you. You have to find the will the survive. You have to find belief in yourself, or you won’t make it.

IGN: At what point is survival for survival’s sake really enough?

Hurd: I think, as we’ve seen throughout this season, each character comes to a different decision about that. The character of Jacqui in the first season in the CDC decided that she really didn’t want to go on — and the same is true for Dr. Jenner. We saw Andrea want to stay behind as well, but Dale essentially made her leave by insisting that he would stay too. We’ve seen people make choices all along the way, and the ones who choose to survive are revitalized by that decision. We saw that with Beth.

IGN: Whenever the characters are in one place for a period of time there’s a big battle cry in the fanbase to get them moving and on the road. It’s interesting, because some of that is a desire to see events from the comic unfold, but not all of the viewers have read the comic, and most shows feature characters in one location for an extended period of time. What do you think it is about this series, these characters, this world, that makes the audience want to see them on the move so much?

Hurd: That’s a really good question. I think that a lot of people that have read the comic book know that there are new places and new characters once they do hit the road, and that’s not something that most TV shows ever have to deal with, because they’re not based on existing material; or many of them, you’re just not on the road because you don’t have that kind of ongoing threat that you do with the life-or-death stakes of a zombie apocalypse.

IGN: It has to be challenging for you guys from a production standpoint, because it has to be so much easier when you’re in one location. How do you balance that? Are you aware of that battle cry, that sort of seem need to keep them moving?

Hurd: Well, obviously we have to tell the best character-driven stories that we can, but even at the prison, there were forays out for supplies. So even when they’re in one particular location for a number of episodes, you’re never just based there. You’re always gonna see characters on the road — or we will introduce new characters who have come from some place else and need to be integrated within our community. That’s why I think we’re able to keep a fantastic cast and crew of great writers on the show, because they are able to craft compelling stories that make not only the audience think, but really challenge the actors. Their characters are never static. In a lot of TV series, what you see introduced in the pilot is what you see going into Season 5, and that’s not the case with our show, because the stakes really are life and death, and because we lose characters along the way; that has an enormous impact. But that’s what keeps it fresh, and I think that’s what keep our writers honest, in that respect.