‘The Walking Dead’ “Live Bait” Preview: What Has Become of the Governor?

Last night's 'The Walking Dead' took us past the halfway point of the AMC drama's 2013 run, reintroducing us to a villain we've not dealt with since season 3 finale "Welcome to the Tombs." While next week's "Live Bait" will fill us in on what the Governor has been up to in his isolation, what does returning series regular David Morrissey have to say about the evolution of his character?

"He’s looking for safety, and the main thing for the prison is it’s the safe place to be," Morrissey tells Entertainment Weekly of the character's ominous observation in the closing moments of Sunday's latest episode. "It’s the alternative of our world in the zombie apocalypse. The prison is a place of protection, not a place of incarceration, so that’s why he’s looking at it."

Whether or not the deposed Woodbury leader has learned to control his anger over the course of his over-eight-month sabbatical remains to be seen. No doubt the Governor would have few noble reasons to linger so obviously outside the prison fences, but Morrissey believes the character to be a very different man than we last left him, for good or for ill:

He is a man that has lost everything. And I think what we see coming up is how he deals with that loss. He’s a dangerous man still and he knows how dangerous he is. He knows what he’s capable of and that is a very dangerous thing. And like I said, it’s about whether he embraces that man and how dangerous he is, or whether he fights him. That’s the question coming in — which character is he happy to be? Which character is he trying to be? We see him at the end of episode 5 and he’s standing outside that prison and looking at that prison and we don’t know whether he’s come in peace or come in war.

Our guess? Yeah, probably war. We'll have more on the dastardly Governor's return leading up to next Sunday's all-new 'Walking Dead' installment, "Live Bait," but in the meantime, what say you? Are you happy to have 'The Walking Dead''s resident villain return, now that the threat of the plague has abated, or would you rather see the group leave the prison and the Governor behind? Check out a clip from next week below, and give us your predictions in the comments!