‘The Walking Dead’ Showrunner Explains The Show’s Focus On The Governor

The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple recently opened up about the need for standalone episodes featuring series villain the Governor.

Before we begin, a word of warning: This article contains a few spoilers. In short: If you haven’t seen this week’s episode of the hit AMC show, then do not proceed.

According to Wet Paint, Gimple made the extremely risky decision to devote two fourth season episodes of The Walking Dead to The Governor. To prepare for the character’s upcoming encounter with Rick and the gang, the showrunner wanted to explore the character more in-depth before the surprises hit the fan.

“I wanted to get to know the character better. I like the character a lot. He’s a great villain, but I wanted to know what made him tick and what he’s looking for — and tell a story of a guy fighting his destiny to be a villain — or at least to be brutal or violent, which is very much what Rick is going through,” Gimple recently explained to The Hollywood Reporter.

He continued, “Rick is fighting his destiny to be a leader in this world and facing brutality. Seeing characters try to change, everything they have to change, and still falling short, and if they can even achieve that change — I love seeing stories like that.”

However, Gimple stressed that the Governor-oriented episodes of The Walking Dead aren’t designed to set up a showdown with Rick. Gimple explained that the story they’re building is something a little different from what fans might expect.

The showrunner explained to THR:

“Without even getting into the Governor and what he’s doing in the finale, this isn’t about a couple of guys lining up head-to-head. There’s a Rick story in the first five threaded throughout, and then there are a lot of character stories within that. And [episodes] six and seven are very much a story about the Governor, which is like the flip side of episode five, where at the end of that episode we saw the Governor, at the end of seven, the Governor sees the prison.”

Gimple added that the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead essentially wraps up the story they weaved during the first seven episodes. The showrunner said it’s”very much an ending of sorts for a lot of these characters’ stories. I can’t wait for people to see it.”

Are you looking forward to next week’s installment of AMC’s The Walking Dead? Did you enjoy the two standalone episodes featuring the Governor?

[Image via AMC]