On the prison:
“There is no safe haven in this world. I want to make that clear. At the end of our season 2 finale that farm is overtaken and that farm was that last safe haven, and there’s no safe haven in that world. I want to be very clear about that. No one is safe. There is no safe haven.
"The prison itself will be a threatening, malevolent character. It is a challenge to live in the prison. And I think we’ve really been able to get a lot of story out of it. So it will not feel like a safe corner keeping our characters away from central action. It will really play that they are in a shark cage. Life in a prison is life in a shark cage."
Mazzara goes on to talk about characters and storylines from the comic book series and how they fit in with the upcoming season:
"We’re taking the major tent-pole characters and storylines from the comics and adapting them to our alternate universe of the TV shows. So it will be just as surprising to comic-book fans as to non-comic-book fans as to how all of it lays out.
"He (The Governor) makes a surprising appearance. I don’t want to give anything away as to the exact episode, but the audience will certainly be ready for his appearance — and they won’t have to wait too long.
"Certainly there’s challenging material in the comic book, and I would say there’s equally challenging material on our TV show. I think at the end of season 2 we showed that we don’t pull punches… We’re not going to get soft now. However, we’ll do things on our own time, or when it makes sense for the show. And we’re definitely looking at this Governor-Michonne-Woodbury-prison storyline as a long-term arc."
