*The Walking Dead *is back. Last night, the mid-season premiere "After" aired on AMC, an episode scripted by the show's creator and executive producer Robert Kirkman. WIRED spoke with the television and comics writer about last night's big revelation about Michonne, the major format shakeup that he says will re-energize the show, and how Daryl Dixon helped create an alternate universe.

WIRED: The last time we saw the survivors of The Walking Dead the prison had fallen, which closed a major chapter of the story and also brought us full circle to one of the pivotal moments in the comic, the death of the Governor. We've seen a lot of changes and remixing of the comic plot; moving forwards, how closely should we expect the story to track with those original stories?

Robert Kirkman: I think The Walking Dead show is a very cool adaptation, because people who have read the comic never really can guess what's going to come. I was really excited early on in Season 4 when I heard people online saying things like, "Oh, they've completely abandoned the comic." "Oh, they're totally out in left field now." "Oh, maybe they're always going to stay in the prison." Then we're at the mid-season finale, and that episode is almost directly adapted from the events of the comics season. The mid-season premiere is very close to the comic. There are always going to be those key moments from the comics series that I feel make The Walking Dead [be] The Walking Dead, and you wouldn't have the same story without them. But I love the fact that those events always come when you least expect it, that we kind of meander and then suddenly you're thrown back on the path to the comic book. We'll continue that throughout the series, and definitely in this back half of Season 4.

WIRED: In the midseason finale, you beheaded a completely different major character than the one who died in the comic. Seeing a change that big really made me feel more fear during the midseason premiere—when Rick and Carl were in danger, it actually felt possible that the worst could happen.

Kirkman: I love that the audience gets those feelings and I also think it's important to note that those are valid feelings, because anything can happen and any character is on the table. I love the fact that you never will really know who's safe.

WIRED: Both you and showrunner Scott Gimple have talked about using a new format for the second half of the season, and it's been suggested that this might involve flashbacks to the time before the zombie apocalypse.

Kirkman: The main thing about the big format change in the back half of this season is that we are following our cast, and our cast is separated. They're in very different parts of the region, going through very different experiences and dealing with very different threats. In a sense, instead of telling one big story about 13 or 14 people, we're telling 13 or 14 different stories. That's going to play with the format in some very different ways moving forward that I think is really going to energize the series and shake things up in a way that will be very cool for the fans.

WIRED: In the first episode, we learn a lot about Michonne's pre-apocalypse life, thanks to a flashback dream sequence that reveals the fate of her boyfriend and son. Was this the backstory you'd always had in mind for her?

Kirkman: I'm not sure how much I can reveal. It is somewhat in line with what her backstory is in the comic book series and there's definitely more that will be revealed as this season goes on, but this is what we've had in mind for this character since the very beginning. There've been other ideas and plotlines thrown out in the writers' room, but it was always the plan to reveal that the Mike and Terry characters, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friend, were her [zombie] pets. There are going to be more layers revealed about how that came about and what lead to that. But that has always been our backstory and it's great to finally have that revealed on the show.

WIRED: There was a shoutout to The Walking Dead video game earlier in the season when Michonne planned a trip to the city of Macon. Was that just an in-joke, or should we expect more crossover with the Telltale game?

Kirkman: That door is always open for us, though whether or not we step through it remains a big question. I certainly wouldn't want to spoil anything cool like that if we had it coming up. Scott Gimple, our showrunner, is certainly a huge fan of that game series as well and very familiar with it. That was a little nod to those fans, to let them know that we're aware of the greater Walking Dead universe. It's always fun to come up with those little things.

WIRED: One of the big changes between the comic and the TV show over the last year or so was that TV Rick didn't have one of his arms chopped off by the Governor. You've said that the loss of the hand has often made writing scenes with Rick more complicated in the comic. Do you see the show as a way to remove narrative obstacles you've discovered further into the story?

Kirkman: Yeah, there are certain things where I can look back with hindsight having done the comic. That's one of the most fun aspects of being in the writer's room. I can say, I did the story this way and the audience reacted this way. Deconstructing things from that point of view and really being able to game them out long-term is a lot of fun. There are a lot of times in the comic book where people don't notice it because the panels don't move, but Rick is standing on top of something he would not have been able to climb on without a hand... It'd be more difficult to do that in the television show. All that being said, I'm not ruling out the possibility that he may lose the hand eventually.

>As a geek, I like to think of the television show as this alternate dimension parallel to the comic book universe. Robert Kirkman

WIRED: Will we get a chance to see more of Carol this season, despite her earlier exile by Rick?

Kirkman: We'll definitely see more of Carol, especially a character as important as Carol. But whether or not that happens this season remains to be seen. I will say that having lost the prison that all the characters are technically in the same area that Carol is, so logically it's very likely that we'll see her at some point.

WIRED: Carol is a very broken character in the comic, which caused her storyline there to end in a very broken way. But she's grown into one of the toughest and most interesting characters on the show. And her relationship with Daryl, who is an original creation of the show, is completely new as well.

Kirkman: That's one of the best aspects of the show for me, seeing how things evolve. Daryl Dixon not existing in the comics series is a really cool element to writing the show because his presence always changes the story we're trying to adapt whether we want it to or not. Those are really exciting things in the writers' room, when the story starts to take over. When you do the logical thing that all these characters would be doing, it evolves naturally. I think for Carol's character in particular a lot of those differences from the comic book version and a lot of that growth that she experienced, the strength that she's found, has come from her relationship with Daryl Dixon. As a geek, I like to think of the television show as this alternate dimension parallel to the comic book universe, and it's the Daryl Dixon catalyst that changed her character so much. I think it's cool to think about that. If Daryl Dixon had been present in the comic, maybe we would have seen this character emerge. But that character wasn't there for her, so she suffered the fate that she did.

WIRED: You also have another story on the way, Outcast, which is going to exist as both a comic and television show. What's it like working on both simultaneously without the time delay that you have on The Walking Dead?

Kirkman: They're not exactly concurrent, but I am the one writing the pilot for Outcast and I am the one writing the comic. The way you tell stories in comics is vastly different from the way you tell stories in television. So when Outcast makes it on the air, you'll read the comic and watch the show, and you'll say, “This guy changed all kinds of stuff!” But I changed all kinds of stuff because there are certain things that work better in television that don't work in comics and vice versa. Mining those differences and playing to those strengths has been a really fun experience for me.