'Walking Dead' Season 3 Spoilers Revealed

AMC's The Walking Dead has never shied away from revealing spoilers, as comic book writer and series executive producer Robert Kirkman demonstrated just last week when he teased the cover of The Walking Dead Issue 100 — a drawing which featured the dead bodies of certain key characters who are still alive on the series.

Shane's (Jon Bernthal) death at the end of Season 2 was also prematurely given away in a special Blu-ray / DVD release that referred to "Shane's last episode" before he had actually been offed on the show. Recently, however, producers and cast members alike — including Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes) Laurie Holden (Andrea), Steven Yeun (Glenn) Lauren Cohan (Maggie), Scott Wilson (Hershel), Kirkman, and Bernthal — all dropped teasers about what's in store for The Walking Dead survivors in the upcoming season at a TV Academy panel in North Hollywood on Tuesday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Among the things addressed were Lori's relationship with Rick. "His strength and resilience is extraordinary," Lincoln said of his character, though he hinted that Rick and Lori were "not at a particularly healthy point" at the beginning of Season 3 after the death of Shane.

As for their son, Carl (Chandler Riggs) is the "anchor of the series," reports the magazine. "There are days when Lori thinks the best thing I can do for this kid is find someone else to raise him, and then there are days when she thinks I have to keep this guy [Rick] away from him, then there are days where I think I have to keep this guy [Shane] away from him," Callies said. "Every day it's a sense of being unearthed and uprooted from yourself."

For now, however, Hershel will live, as the producers felt that his death would not serve a purpose or move the story along. "It felt too violent, too gratuitous." Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), however, had to be sacrificed to the walkers. Showrunner Glen Mazzara noted that The Walking Dead "really needed a zombie death" and "Dale was the only worthy sacrifice." He added, "People would see Shane's death coming but no one would see Dale's death coming."

Now, Kirkman says, "the good stuff is coming …. The really intense stuff with Michonne (Danai Gurira), the Governor and Woodbury [prison] really defined the comic book series and we haven't even gotten to that stuff yet."

Season 3 of The Walking Dead returns to AMC in October 2012.