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Gale Anne Hurd On The Walking Dead’s Shock Factor

By Adam Carlson

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AMC’s The Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows to ever air on television.  Much of that success can be attributed to the great story surrounding the group of survivors and some of the crazy situations that these characters find themselves in.

However, a recent interview that Zap2It had with Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd revealed that it isn’t those moments of shock and awe that The Walking Dead goes after.  Instead, it’s all about telling the story of these people trying to overcome the odds and survive in a world where people are now the minority.  Here is what she told Zap2It about the show’s shock factor following the season 5 finale of The Walking Dead:

"“I think what people mistake is that we make decisions based on shock value. We don’t. We really did want to wrap up the story of how our survivors were going to be affected by rejoining civilization, and how they would impact Alexandria. The characters who had survived [were in] something that truly was a Shangri-La. They had not experienced the deprivations and the violence and the danger of the world that our characters had been through, and that’s really what the goal was — to top it off with Morgan arriving at a particularly inopportune time to see Rick executing Pete in cold blood.”"

Gale Anne Hurd makes a great point.  None of the “shocking moments” are anything special if they don’t have an emotional connection to the viewer.  If fans hadn’t cared about characters like Beth, Tyreese or Noah, their deaths would have been meaningless and disposable events on the show.  However, it is because of the excellent storytelling and great character development that these storylines hit us so hard emotionally.

Speaking of being hit hard, it appears as though season 6 of The Walking Dead will be the show’s most ambitious yet.  By now, the undead overwhelmingly outnumber the living and the threat of walkers has intensified because of that.  We can expect to see massive numbers of zombies when the popular show returns from break, and Gale Anne Hurd explained where all these actors come from to play the walkers:

"“Every year we still do Zombie School. So we’ve got our core group that we’ve been using since Season 1, and then we augment it and we continue every season in pre-production to have Zombie School so that we can enlarge that group of reliable, fully-vetted walkers. They are just so into it. I give them huge credit, especially considering the heat, the humidity. Especially now as the seasons have worn on, they’re wearing some very significant prosthetic makeup.”"

The Walking Dead will return for their 6th season during the fall of 2015.  In the meantime, stay tuned to Undead Walking for updates regarding the progress on season 6, the new companion series “Fear The Walking Dead” and other great news related to the show, its actors and its fans.

Next: Walking Dead 50 most shocking moments and deaths

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