Spoilers (show, video game, and comics) ahead, you’ve been warned.

The Walking Dead kicked off its fourth season last night. After a sleeper third season finale, fans were hoping for an amazing premiere. The episode “30 Days Without An Accident” shuffled its way along. It spent the whole episode building up the rest of the season. Not that it’s entirely a bad thing, since that’s what premiere episodes are supposed to do.

Most importantly, the group is quickly going to discover a whole new problem. This time, it isn’t a horde of walkers or a gang of crazy survivors. Not yet, at least. It seems that the animals are finally being infected. Whether it’s by the same infection or a whole new strain has yet to be determined. It started with one of the newer group members (aka walker food) thanking Daryl for the deer he hunted earlier. By the end of the episode, he mysteriously turns into a walker. Throughout the episode, Rick noticed that there were some sick animals in and around the prison. Hershel had stated that they have enough food to feed all of the people in the prison. Well, not anymore.

This episode made a nod to the cross-media series. Michonne mentioned that she wants to go to Macon, Georgia. Fans might recognize this as the setting for the video game. While it’s highly unlikely that we will get to see real versions of the video game characters since more time has passed in the show, it would be great to see Macon come to life.

The show didn’t make a lot of allusions to the comic book. It is great to see that it is evolving its story lines to match the show. Around this time in the comics, Glenn and Maggie were trying to start a family. Since Lori survived giving birth to Judith and The Governor was probably dead, Glenn and Maggie thought that it was time. In the show, Lori died during childbirth so Glenn expressed worry that Maggie might be pregnant. Thank goodness she’s not because I know what happens when she finally does get pregnant.

Nothing developed with season three’s main villain “The Governor.” There is a long period in the comics where The Governor is in recovery. Now that everyone from Woodbury is either in the prison or dead, The Governor no longer has a group. He will probably spend most of the season building an army to take over the prison. This is a bit of a long shot, but Hershel did say “too far gone”, which is the name of the volume that takes place in the Alexandria safe zone. This could be hinting at The Governor’s last stand and next season’s locale.

One aspect that I hope develops into something more is Rick’s main story line. He spent the entire episode following a crazy Irish lady through the woods. Upon getting to her camp, he finds out that it’s a hastily made trap to turn him into zombie food. I’d rather not see Rick blindly following strangers and welcoming them into the prison. If anything, it looks like Rick is going to learn the hard way that he has to stop trusting strangers.

This episode was rather slow. According to show runner Scott Gimple, the next episode is supposed to be rough. Gimple, along with every other show runner for The Walking Dead, like to remind fans “no one is safe”. Especially our precious Daryl. This could be a hint that there is going to be a major character death. It has happened every season so far. Although now there are a plethora of no-named characters that can easily bite the dust. Let’s see if this season will give us a heart-wrenching death that will put Lori’s to shame.