Exclusive interview: Director Michael E. Satrazemis talks The Walking Dead ‘Guardians’

While watching my screener I commented on social media that if The Walking Dead had a rulebook, they just threw it the hell out with this episode and with Alpha’s brand of justice.

It’s a major game-changer. In 908, I felt like that right at the end of the mid-season when Jesus is killed you flip everything, every possibility, every rule, it’s all thrown away. We were starting to be able to define ways of living around the walkers. If you’re not in a confined space and there’s a way out and there are a couple of walkers then it doesn’t matter because they’re very easy to kill or you can outrun them. Big herds can be dangerous, and so long as you aren’t trapped you’re pretty good. But now that’s all gone. Any walker could be a Whisperer. There’s an entire civilization of people that no one has been able to find. It’s terrifying. And when you peel the layers off and realize that they’re willing to cut each other’s heads off…it’s a whole new game.

A lot of people thought that 910 showed Alpha’s origins, but the brilliance of LaToya Morgan’s script was that moment when Alpha talks about watching Lydia almost suffocate. It makes it seem like something was already off with her before the apocalypse came along.

That part is truly horrifying and it owes everything to the writing. There are certain scenes you just set up and let everybody take you for a ride. That scene was very much that. There’s a hypnotic quality to [Samantha Morton] that you can’t stop looking at, even though the more you look at her the more uneasy you feel. Everybody needs to know she is the most beautiful human being. It is all true acting. With some actors they play it close to how they are, but she’s just an amazing actress and human being and creator.