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We’re just a rotting corpse away from a new season of “The Walking Dead.” The Season 4 premiere, “30 Days without an Accident,” debuts at 8 p.m. CT Oct. 13 on AMC and is followed by a new episode of “Talking Dead,” hosted by Chris Hardwick. Here are five things you will learn in the new season.

No more Ricktatorship
The show resumes a few months after the events of last March’s finale. Rick, reeling after his son, Carl (Chandler Riggs), killed the boy who was surrendering, has relinquished leadership and denounced violence. You could call him Farmer Rick now, because he’s tending to pigs and working a garden in the prison yard while focusing his attention on raising Carl, who has rapidly morphed into a child soldier. “He’s returning to being a parent and trying to find a way to contribute that might not involve the brutality of both going out there into the world and the brutality you need to have in leadership,” new showrunner Scott Gimple told Entertainment Weekly.

Not everything is better with bacon
With the prison group welcoming the former residents of Woodbury, those pigs definitely come in handy to feed the masses. But the settlement faces a new threat this season that is neither human nor walker, and the pigs could be a key to learning more about it. “You can’t stab them in the face, you can’t reason with it,” Gimple told Latin Times. “It’s a force that would be dangerous in this world and in the world of ‘The Walking Dead,’ it’s terrifying.”

Michonne looks great on a horse
The sword-wielding warrior woman (Danai Gurira) looks great most of the time, actually. In the new season, though, she’s preoccupied with hunting down the Governor (David Morrissey), who fans won’t see until sometime after Episode 2. His location will be revealed in two flashback episodes later in the season. “[Michonne has] some unfinished business that she needs to confront,” Gurira told TV Guide.

Zombies and wine don’t mix
Gimple and his cast promise more character development this season, but that doesn’t mean fans won’t get plenty of head-smashing, slashing, bashing and stomping. The show’s makeup guru and producer, Greg Nicotero, directed the season premiere that features one of the series’ most elaborate battle sequences set in an abandoned gorcery store our survivors decide to scavange. Zombies literally drop like flies. The zombies will once again pose a major threat, Nicotero hinted. “We’ve devised ways to put our characters in instantaneous jeopardy without them being prepared for it,” told The Hollywood Reporter. “Danger could come from anywhere, and it was really important that we re-establish the rules of our world.”

Daryl’s a good leader
Well, sort of. With Rick giving up leadership, Daryl (Norman Reedus) is part of a small leadership group making decisions for all the growing community. The influx of new people isn’t always a positive, Reedus told Entertainment Weekly. “I think the internal fear has always been something hanging in the wind, and who’s gonna [bleep] over who and who can you trust?” he said. “So now having that fear back inside the camp is just as scary as season 1. … I think the fear is back in season 4, which is awesome to see people afraid again. That’s really the dynamic that we’re playing with this whole season so far.”

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