'The Walking Dead': Robert Kirkman says season 5 will 'hit the ground running'

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The Walking Dead began filming for season 5 a little over a week ago, and since we are desperate to find out what’s going on there, we checked in with our spy on the set. And that spy happens to be none other than Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman. So, how’s it going so far down in Atlanta, Robert? “You feel like you never left,” says Kirkman. “Everyone’s happy to be back together, so it’s been pretty great and everybody’s bringing their A game still, 5 years in. We’re doing new and different and crazy and exciting things and now I think the atmosphere is that we can’t wait until we can start sharing things with people and start showing things to people because we’re really excited about what we’re doing here. We think we’re making another magical season.”

We’re going to assume he means magical as in awesome, and not magical as in Doug Henning returning as a rainbow jumpsuit wearing zombie…although that would be pretty awesome in its own right. Kirkman also talked about how this season has already been a bit different by the fact that the show will be picking up again after its first ever season finale cliffhanger. “There’s been a lot more secrecy on set,” says Kirkman. “Just because any images that get out of any kind of things that are seen do in a sense spoil that cliffhanger, so we’re trying to keep things a little more tight this time around. There’s always people crowding around where we’re filming and trying to get spy spots of what we’re doing and stuff, but for the most part we’ve been able to avoid that. This is the first time we’ve really finished a season and gone back to the same place for the next season, so that’s kind of cool.”

While the pacing slowed a bit in season 4 as we got smaller, more personal stories, Kirkman confirms that due to the cliffhanger of Rick and company being trapped inside train car A by the possible cannibals of Terminus, that the action will definitely be heightened when the show returns for season 5. “I think this show works best with a cycle or ramping up and ramping down,” says Kirkman, “and lulling people into a sense of security and speeding things up and keeping them on guard. I will say that we definitely start this season in an up cycle, whereas last season we definitely started the season in a down cycle. So we’re certainly changing things up in that respect and we’re gonna kind of hit the ground running this season.”

Well, there’s some food for thought. Ah, but if only thought could suffice as sustenance for the captors at Terminus. We have a sneaky suspicion they prefer to ingest something else entirely.

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