With the third season of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” behind us, it’s time to start looking forward to Season 4. And one of the guys that has his eye on the prize in that regard is Robert Kirkman. And he recently spoke with IGN about his plans for the future and his thoughts on the Season 3 finale.

We already know that for October’s return David Morrissey will return as a series regular as The Governor. The British actor initially signed on for a one-season role to play the famed villain from the comics created by Robert Kirkman on which the TV series is based. In the Image/Skybound comics, the Governor fails to survive a brutal showdown at the prison with Rick.

What are your thoughts on how the season ended? Head inside for Kirkman’s!

On the deaths in the Season 3 finale, “ It’s really hard for the audience to judge whether or not a character death was worth it, just because I think the main deciding factor of whether or not to kill a character is what comes out of that death. What story elements, what changes to our overall storytelling, what differences in characters, and things like that come out of having that character not be around and having those characters lose that other character.

In the case of Milton, Andrea, Merle, Lori, and everybody that we lost this season, it’s all about moving these characters forward and where we go from here. Often times, the audience doesn’t really know where we’re going from here, so it’s kind of hard to see that death was necessary or at least valuable. But we know what we’re doing!”

On The Governor in Season 4, “Yeah, he’s still very much in the mix. That’s certainly not the last that we’ll see of him. When we see him again and where we see him again, that’s the big question. It’s not going to be like it was in Season 3; it’s not going to be Rick and the Governor on a collision course with a conflict between them. He’ll be used in very different ways next season.”

On Rick in Season 4, “Rick has had a success. The people at the prison have survived this conflict with the Governor, he brought people from Woodbury into the prison, and he’s kind of had this big win. He’s had this moment where he’s brought people together and he’s doing good things. But he’s had this tremendous loss in that Carl has lost this piece of his humanity. This has been Rick’s main mission throughout the show, to protect his family. We’ve seen two very big failures on that front this season.

Moving into next season, we’re going to see a very different Rick, but one of his main goals is to manage this situation with Carl and see if he can bring him back from this darkness that’s crept into him. Whether or not he’s able to do that, we’ll have to see. But this is a big change in the character of Carl, but it’s something that’s going to be weighing heavily on Rick next season.”

On Season 4’s tone, “I’ll say that there are a lot of familiar elements that are remaining. Michonne is still around, Rick and his group are still in the prison, the Governor’s still out there… so there are a lot of things that are carrying over from Season 3 to Season 4, but I can’t stress how different things are going to be.

There are going to be some radical changes to those elements that are going to bring in a lot of new storytelling. While [Season 4] does seem somewhat familiar, it’s going to be vastly different from Season 3.”

Head to IGN for more!