‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Spoilers: Is Proctor John Returning For Season 4?

Season 3 of “Fear the Walking Dead” ended with Madison, Nick, Alycia, Strand and Daniel dealing with powerful gang leader Proctor John. But will the relatively new character be returning for Season 4 of the AMC series?

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, new showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg were asked if Proctor John (Ray McKinnon) is still in the mix of adversaries that the protagonists will face in the new season. While the duo didn’t give a concrete answer, Chambliss and Goldberg talked about the show’s capability to reinvent itself, suggesting that they decided not to continue Proctor John’s story.

“One of the things that we love about this (‘Walking Dead’) universe … that relates to ‘Fear’ is that there is an element of reinvention,” Goldberg said. “Every season, even every eight episodes, where we find our characters in different places, facing new adversaries. I would say that there will be some adversaries that our characters will come into conflict with that are very different than any that we’ve seen before in the ‘Fear’ universe.

Former showrunner Dave Erickson, who exited “Fear” at the end of Season 3, told Deadline last October that Proctor John was a character he would love to see explored more.

While fans might not be able to see Proctor John on the show again, Erickson was still thrilled that they were still able to create a character like him. “I definitely think he’s the closest we come to a big bad [in Season 3],” Erickson told Entertainment Weekly last October. “So [even though] I have no idea what the plans are for that character moving forward, … it was important that we had somebody who could manifest that [violence is the new currency] and could embody it, and we got lucky because Ray just happened to be available.”

Aside from introducing new adversaries, Chambliss said that they are also pushing some of the genre elements a little bit more in the upcoming season. “Walkers will have a big role,” he said. “And there will be characters who are a little bit larger than life, because as we get deeper in the apocalypse, very often the people who survive and do well in the apocalypse are people who have out-sized personalities or have really interesting ways of living.”

Despite all the changes and new additions to the show, Goldberg said that they’re also honoring all the things that happened in the past three seasons. “We came in and our approach was to come at it first from an emotional place,” Goldberg said. “So it was talking through the emotional journeys that we wanted to take these [returning] characters on, honoring everything that’s come before, but taking them into territory that we haven’t seen explored on this show yet.”

“Fear the Walking Dead” Season 4 premieres on Sunday, April 15 at 10 p.m. EST on AMC.