The Walking Dead's David Morrissey Returns As Season Four Regular

Warning: There are spoilers ahead (and in the headline if you really think about it) for last night's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead.

David Morrissey, who plays the Governor on AMC's The Walking Dead, will return as a series regular next season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Having originally signed on to a one-season contract, Morrissey will now return for at least one more year--further, as a series regular, the casting suggests that his role will be substantial. Dallas Roberts's Milton, for example, was not a regular but "recurring" in the third season prior to meeting his end last night. Series regulars who died in season three include Michael Rooker's Merle and Laurie Holden's Andrea. the nature of Morrissey's role next year is not yet clear; when last we saw him, he had decimated his own "army" and left for parts unknown with his two closest associates, Martinez and Shupert. No casting news yet on those two characters, but they may have signed multi-year deals to begin with. That's common practice on the series, in part so that major character deaths aren't revealed ahead of time, and while the Governor signing a longer-term deal may have raised some eyebrows, having it be the standard contract for recurring players like those wouldn't be surprising. With Andrea's death and the survival of the Governor following his failed attack on the prison, the series has taken a major step away from the comic book source material, arguably making the conflict and nature of next season harder to predict. While the Governor will apparently be a big part of the series, AMC has said that they hope to get the threat of the walkers back to the forefront after two seasons in which the human villain was a more immediate menace.