Although there’s still a while to go before the premiere of The Walking Dead’s third season (presuming that FX will once again be airing episodes within a few days of their US transmission), the Comic Con trailer and next week’s release of the Season 2 boxset have kept the show floating in the public consciousness during these zombie-free days of summer – and with it, some queries as to what direction the next sixteen episodes will take Rick, Lori and the gang.
During the midseason gap in January, we posed some questions for the second half of the series. Some were subsequently answered, either in the episodes themselves or in the subsequent trailer (we’re aware of what Dr Jenner whispered to Rick at the end of season one and we know that everyone’s favourite one-handed hillbilly racist Merle Dixon is returning at some juncture, for example) but others, such as the paternity of Lori’s unborn baby, remain a mystery. But that’s just for starters…
Is Rick going to end up as bonkers as Shane?
After an eternity of being the kindly, level-headed and (let’s face it) unappreciated leader of the gang, the conclusion of Season 2 saw Rick finally snap. He murdered Shane – ironically displaying precisely the kind of decisive, authoritarian action that his former best friend constantly demanded of him – and announced to the rest of the group in the wake of the Greene Farm’s destruction that he was, to paraphrase Ray Winstone in Scum, now the Daddy.
The democratic approach he favoured for so long no longer measures up; from this point on, it’s Grimes’s way or the highway. But does this mean he’s simply had enough of being whinged at, or is this the start of a full-on, Shane-styled nervo with head-shaving and madness at the end?
Why does Michonne drag the undead around with her like unruly pets?
After being separated from her friends after the battle at the Greene Farm, Andrea was saved from a gaggle of walkers by a mysterious, hooded figure who was – bizarrely enough – leading two zombies around on chains, their arms and jaws gorily removed.
What we do know – thanks to the Comic Con trailer – is that she’s a woman, played by Danai Gurira, and it isn’t too much of a spoiler to mention that her name is Michonne. But that’s pretty much all anyone (who doesn’t read the comic book series) knows about her. Why she has armless, harmless walkers with her is just one of many mysteries that need solving.
What is going on at Woodbury Jail?
Glimpsed briefly in the final shot of Season 2, it’s clear from the Comic Con trailer that the prison is going to be the principal location of the show for some time to come. But what’s actually going on there?
The Governor (David Morrissey, who sounds like he’s going to be fighting it out with Andrew Lincoln for the coveted, ‘Best British Attempt at a Southern American Accent’ award) is obviously in charge of part of it, but other areas are the kind of dark, decrepit, zombie-ridden places that The Walking Dead successfully converts into television terror. How did it become thus – and what’s going to happen when Rick and the Ravens (as nobody ever calls them) barge in?
Will Lori’s baby be infected with the zombie virus?
Jenner’s revelation to Rick was that everyone in the world is infected with the pathogen which turns a dead human being into a living(ish) walker, and Shane’s brief resurrection proved that one doesn’t have to be killed by a zombie to become one. But does this apply to the unborn children of parents carrying the disease?
If Lori’s baby is free of the disease – although how this will be determined scarcely bears thinking about – then there’s hope for the human race. If not, it’s Goodnight, Homo sapiens, thanks for coming.
Will Daryl and Carol ever get it on?
Everyone’s favourite rhyming-name buddies have been growing steadily closer throughout their mutual traumas – Carol has tragically lost the final surviving member of her family; Daryl, unfortunately, hasn’t lost the last of his – but are they going to remain unlikely friends or progress into something more?
To be honest, it’s more likely they’ll share a kiss and then something bloody and awful will happen to one or both of them. Or maybe Merle will turn up and ruin his baby brother’s brief moment of bliss. The bastard.
What are your hopes for Season 3? Let us know below…
> Buy the Season 1-2 boxset on Amazon.
Watch the Season 2 trailer…