EW: Tell me about the decision to make the virus storyline such a central part of the first half of the season. Where did that idea come from?
SCOTT GIMPLE: When we were making the episode “Clear” it was kind of a long drive to the town that we were shooting it in. And I was like, you know. I’m going to better myself. I’m going to listen to Camus’ The Plague. You know, it’s not just gonna be comics. I’m gonna get back into literature! And from The Plague my mind just drifted off to The Walking Dead. I was like, man, that’s a cool book and that’s a pretty cool idea. So there was that, and it was in my mind and I was thinking about how in third world situations, things break out — cholera and dysentery and bubonic plague. Then I had taken a trip to Edinburgh shortly after that at the end of the season to visit my wife’s family and there was this tour underneath the city and there was a lot about the bubonic plague and how it had broken out, how it was treated, and how they burnt the bodies. And it all sort of came together with the theme of safety in this place. It was just one of those things where you’re like “Oh, wow, that could be cool.”

-From the EW.com piece by Dalton Ross

Well, I don’t know how “cool” the infected characters think it is to have blood dribble from their ears, nose, eyes, and mouth before their lungs finally fill with blood until they drown choking on it, but it is a good way to raise the stakes. I kind of laugh a little when Herschel talks about elderberry tea helping the symptoms–it’s not just a flu. This horrible thing is on a par (on my list of Diseases I Don’t Even Want To THINK About Getting) with Ebola or a flesh-eating virus as nasty as the one in Cabin Fever. Sure, herbal tea is just the thing for that. Hey, if it works for some of them, great, but I’d be yelling for someone to please get their hands on some morphine for me NOW, even if it made me cough to keep yelling until I got it. Or some vodka. Anything! Just seeing the people in the middle stages of infection coughing makes me wince in sympathy and think God, where’s Merle‘s narcotic stash from Season 2 that Daryl ended up keeping on him?
Anyway, I hope Carol will be back, in fact I think it might happen this season. Let’s just hope she’s not a zombie when we see her again… read the EW.com interview with Scott Gimple for more!

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• The Walking Dead Cast and Creators Reveal Changes We’re In Store For (dreadcentral.com)
• ‘The Walking Dead’: Melissa McBride says she was ‘floored’ by what happened to Carol (insidetv.ew.com)