‘The Walking Dead’ season 4 spoilers: Robert Kirkman opens up about … hope?

Here is something that we were starting to think was not possible when it comes to “The Walking Dead”: Someone saying something to suggest that there could actually be a future for these characters that is not completely and utterly miserable.

At the moment, we could not imagine some of these people in a more miserable place if we tried, thanks largely to their present circumstance. You have characters that are completely separated from each other, and equally important to that, you also have them without any sort of home or protection. The only thing that they really have to rely on is each other, and to also potentially hope that they are going to be able to make it through all of this without zombies starting to eat their flesh.

Here is your dosage of hope, and it is coming from someone whose currency is more often than not death and depressing: Executive producer Robert Kirkman. Just take a look at what the man said as a part of a new interview with TV Guide:

“We started the season pretty hopeful and pretty optimistic … We’ll open our last half of the season pretty bleak and we’ll move them to something a little more hopeful by the end.”

While all of this is well and good, it still does not really serve to answer something that has been a hot question for us personally since the very beginning of the show: Is there really hope for these characters to make it through the zombie apocalypse? Something that would make this experience at least to us more enjoyable is that there is a possibility that they would be able to go back and live something resembling a normal life again … if possible.