The Walking Dead: Assault on Woodbury

Spoilers for “Made to Suffer" within. You’ve been warned.

It's hard to believe that we've already arrived at the midseason capper, but here we are. The Walking Dead went into its winter break with a literal bang (tons of them, in fact), as Rick's crew led an assault on Woodbury to rescue Glenn and Maggie from the clutches of the Governor.

To give us some insight on the episode -- including the debut of the long-awaited Tyreese -- we spoke with Walking Dead creator and executive producer Robert Kirkman.

Check out IGN TV’s review of "Made to Suffer"

IGN TV: Holy crap! This episode was great, but right off the bat, I have to call you out on being coy with me last week about Tyreese.

Robert Kirkman: [laughs]

IGN: But really, I’m glad it wasn’t spoiled for me in the end. What interests you most about bringing this character into the show, and what relationships – assuming he stays alive for a while – do you think will be the most interesting between him and the existing group?

Kirkman: I think the obvious one here is: what will his relationship with Rick be like? In this episode especially, we’ve seen that Rick is unraveling at a rapid rate. In the comic book series, Tyreese and Rick become great friends and really work together in a big way, despite some conflicts here and there. We really have to see what kind of head space Rick is in and how they interact once they do interact.

IGN: Tyreese has some other folks with him when we meet him. Is there any chance we’ll get to see any of their adventures, so to speak, before they made it to the prison?

Kirkman: You know, I don’t really like to move backwards in this show. I really like doing backstory through little snippets of dialogue and things like that. I think that their story will be told to a certain extent as they inform the prison group of who they are and what they’ve been through. I don’t think we need to see more backstory on them running through the woods or anything like that; that doesn’t seem like it’d be all that interesting.

IGN: This is one of those episodes that really expands what this show offers, particularly with the really great assault on Woodbury. It becomes almost like a military action show instead of this zombie horror show. Were there any obstacles building such a huge set piece like that, and is expanding the boundaries of the show something you’re always looking to do?

Kirkman: Yeah, I love that we’ve been able to do so much with this show. Sometimes it’s a really heavy drama and sometimes there’s seven guys shooting machine guns at each other in the middle of the night. It’s really kind of remarkable. I think that this episode especially, we had Bill Gierhart who came in and directed – he’s a fantastic director that’s done a bunch of episodes – he’s really a quick, on-your-feet, “let’s make this work and let’s make this work quickly” director. I don’t think we would’ve been able to have these huge scenes come together in the way they did without him.

I’ve really got to give him a lot of credit, as well as the great crew and everybody that works so hard on making every episode of The Walking Dead spectacular. It is just kind of nuts; I was on set for the filming of this at three in the morning in a small town in Georgia while thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition were being fired off. It’s just really crazy to see it all come together and I’m just really happy when people dig it when it comes out.

IGN: In this scene, Rick has a nice moment reminding us of his emotional state when he catches a glimpse of Shane mid-battle. Is there a certain approach to character vs. action in scenes like this?

Kirkman: Yeah, definitely. We have to plug in those moments of emotion. If you don’t care who’s getting shot and who’s shooting the gun, then the actions scenes… your eyes will glaze over no matter how cool they are. So being able to stop the action the way we did and have that surprising moment where we see just how bad off Rick actually is – because he’s starting to have visions and seeing things – and to see how poorly that’s working out for everyone. That did lead to Oscar’s death, which is extremely unfortunate. That is something that Rick maybe could’ve prevented if he wasn’t in the mindset he currently is. That’s really the core of this story.

IGN: I thought David Morrissey killed it in this episode. From his breakdown over Penny to his glare at Merle at the end, and of course his speech, I ate up everything that he did. Does having confidence in the performers have any impact on the writer’s room?

Kirkman: Yeah, absolutely. Once we start filming and we see what these actors can do, it inspires us to push further. Once we see what they can handle and see how they elevate material constantly, it drives us to push the envelope even further. Aside from nailing that speech at the end and having the power, emotion, authority, and all the things that go into that, I have to point out, Morrissey had the flu at the time! So he was not feeling well at all, and we were shooting at night. He was able to fight through that stuff and still deliver. That guy is an absolute professional.

IGN: I did think it was interesting that the Governor was so wary of letting Andrea know who they were holding captive, but really just lays all his cards out on the table at the end there. Do you think there’s a chance of her “understanding” his position or motivations for everything he’s done?

Kirkman: I think at this point the Governor is absolutely driven towards a goal, and that is to dominate Woodbury and completely be in control of his domain. He definitely has feelings for Andrea and sees her as a valuable member of that community, but now he is flaunting Daryl in front of her to try and instigate her to see where her loyalties actually lie. I think that he’s confident if he shows Daryl as an attacker and is able to explain to her that these people she knew are very different, maybe – just maybe – he’ll be able to keep her under his spell.

But I think that Andrea is certainly starting to see the cracks in the Woodbury veneer; she’s starting to see that things aren’t quite what she has been thinking that they are. Where her head space is and where her relationship with the Governor and Woodbury are after the events of this episode remain to be seen. It’s something that’s going to be something that’s going to be a big part of the last half of the season when we come back in February.

IGN: And speaking of February, it’s a long way away – can you offer any teases for what’s to come in the second half in the season that can tide us over until then?

Kirkman: All I can say is that we’ve got new characters on the stage with Tyreese and Sasha and all this cool stuff, and we’ve been leading to this conflict and now we have seen the assault on Woodbury and that’s activated the Governor in a way that we haven’t seen before. We’re definitely going to see things, believe it or not, intensify and ramp up as this conflict grows bigger and bigger. It’s going to be a crazy bunch of episodes when we come back.

Joey is IGN's Comics Editor and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He thinks  knows the world needs more horror comic books.

Source : ign[dot]com