Michonne (Danai Gurira, center) and two walkers on "The Walking Dead." New episodes will reveal more of her backstory.
You know things are getting even uglier than usual on "The Walking Dead" when the show's resident badass sounds scared.
"Keep the lights on and stay near a loved one," warns Danai Gurira, who plays sword-swinging Michonne on the AMC zombie apocalypse hit returning from hiatus on Sunday at 9 p.m.
All bets are off during season four's final eight episodes, which see the battered survivors scattered after the Governor (David Morrissey) destroyed their fortified prison sanctuary in December's explosive midseason finale.
Rumors are burning up the Internet that a key character still breathing in Robert Kirkman's graphic novels (the series' source material) will die horribly onscreen this spring - and the cast keeps stoking that fire with cryptic hints.
"The second half is going to be something astounding that people are never going to see coming," teases Gurira, who takes center stage in the midseason premiere. "There's some stunning episodes that really tap into how dire this world is."
Norman Reedus, who plays zombie-killing machine Daryl Dixon, adds that, "It's some of our best episodes, some of our darkest and some of our best written. People are really going to lose their minds on this one. It's really bananas."
That should please fans. The darker the dystopic show has gotten over the past four years, the more hungry viewers have eaten it up. "The Walking Dead" remains the highest-rated show on cable - and most of television for that matter - thanks to its intense blend of creature feature and character study.
"The focal point of this show is, what happens when society is stripped down to its bare bones?" says Steven Yeun, who plays fan-favorite everyman Glenn, who's on a bus and desperately seeking his wife Maggie (Lauren Cohan) when we catch up with him next. "It masks itself in something fun like zombies, but the core is about people."
The upcoming episodes serve to almost reboot the series, shuffling different characters together and undoing a lot of the personal growth we've watched over the past four seasons.
"They've all lost their home, they've lost each other and their sense of safety," explains showrunner Scott M. Gimple, who specializes in pivotal moments - like when the long-lost child Sophia (Madison Lintz) emerged from a barn as a walker in season two's midseason finale.
"How is this going to change everyone? There's a lot of different stories that come out of this, and we've got one for every character," says Gimple.
For one thing, expect a leaner, meaner Daryl, who returns to his surly redneck roots. "He found a family, and he found a sense of self-worth through these people, and at this point he assumes everyone is dead," says Reedus. "Now it's back to square one. He's going to become a feral creature again for a while."
The premiere sees Michonne, another hard-core loner, struggling with whether to stalk off on her own again or to try and track down her friends - and viewers are finally treated to more of this secretive character's backstory.
"She made herself a one-man army. She didn't want to rely on people, she didn't want to have any vulnerabilities," explains Gurira, "and after she actually opened up, it was all taken away from her again. So there's a couple of ways she can go. It really is a crossroads."
Gimple delves even deeper into the characters and experiments with story structure in the next eight episodes, sometimes zeroing in on a single person or two (like Michonne and young Carl in Sunday's premiere) or subtly connecting stand-alone episodes.
"You have eight little movies coming up with a beginning, a middle and an end," he says. "However much these stories are individual ... they do add up, and they do play off one another, and even affect each other."
As much as viewers love seeing Michonne decapitate ghouls with her katana or watching Daryl get off an amazing kill shot with his crossbow, the real drama comes from witnessing their struggle not to become monsters themselves. The core group gets tested more than ever this spring, so keep the tissues handy.
"Everything in this world is telling our characters to abandon their humanity, and they still hold on to it, however difficult it is," says Gimple. "It's incredibly hard, and we make it even harder for our characters, and painful."
Take Glenn, who must struggle to fill the void that Hershel's (Scott Wilson) tragic death left in his life with Maggie - that is, if he ever finds her.
"It's definitely going to be rough," says Yeun, "but I think the beauty of this particular season that Scott Gimple has orchestrated is the fact that he's not playing hard, loud notes over and over again ... it's this whole opus of small moments, large moments, quiet moments and loud moments really beautifully woven together."
But even he threatens that, "It's going to be some rough going from here on out."
Fans can breathe a sigh of relief over one thing: The show finally resolves some big mysteries that have left viewers hanging all winter, like where is the banished Carol (Melissa McBride)? Is baby Judith really dead? And who was baiting walkers at the prison fence with dead rats?
"All of those questions and more will be answered ... and some of those answers crash together," hints Gimple. "We've been biting our tongues and trying not to say anything for months and months. People won't be waiting for those long, but they might get some new questions. Get ready!"
npesce@nydailynews.com
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