‘The Walking Dead’ Creator Robert Kirkman Talks ‘Clear,’ Show’s Future

I don’t know about you, but Sunday’s The Walking Dead entry (titled “Clear”) was probably the best episode of the series since Season 1 from where I’m sitting.

At this point, I will warn you but once of potential SPOILERS ahead in the article. If “Clear” is still burning a hole in your DVR, this is your only chance to walk away.

Perhaps as a sign of things to come, “Clear” was written by incoming new Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple, who also co-wrote a similar episode for Season 2 called “18 Miles Out.” Both episodes brought Rick away from the rest of the group to deal with his present conflict: “18 Miles Out” was his final appeal to Shane, and “Clear” forced him to confront himself (or at least, the bat-sh** crazy person he’s becoming).

Ultimately, the episode saw the surprising and tragic re-introduction of Morgan from the emotionally charged pilot of the series. IGN‘s review called his appearance “a wakeup call for Rick.”

“He’s been going down his own road of crazy and despair lately, but here he was shown a ‘Ghost of Christmas Future’ look at where he could end up,” they write.

Overall, the episode was fantastic, but who we really want to hear from is series creator Robert Kirkman. He spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the episode, the return of Morgan, his thoughts on Scott Gimple, and other fun tidbits.

Why did it take so long for Morgan to return?

“There were a lot of stories pitched along the way: ‘Oh, Morgan could be here.’ ‘Oh, Morgan could be there.’ There were a lot of plans to bring him back in season 2,” Kirkman said. “But for story reasons everything kept getting pushed. It wasn’t really a matter of Lennie’s availability as much as it was just the story changing around this event and pushing it further and further into the show.”

The episode also left the door wide open for his return at a later date.

Kirkman said “we definitely loved having Lennie on the show and we think Morgan is a cool character to check in on from time to time and we’d definitely like to have him back if the story made sense and the guy is still alive. So that possibility is always open.”

As far as the crazy stuff written on the walls in Morgan’s apartment, Kirkman gave props to the new showrunner.

“I think that was all written by Scott Gimple, who wrote the episode. I could be mistaken but that guy goes to painstaking lengths to make sure every little detail is something interesting.”

And from here on out, all of the episodes will be leading to an epic final confrontation with The Governor and Woodbury.

“They’re going to get back into the prison and start preparing for the coming conflict with the Governor. So we get right back into that. And we’ve only got a few episodes left to our finale. So there’s going to be some pretty explosive things happening pretty quickly.”

Are you a fan of The Walking Dead? What did you think of “Clear?”

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