'Walking Dead' Season 3 Recap Video: Season 4 Begins Tonight!

The big night that all of The Walking Dead fans have been waiting for is finally here and the show’s highly anticipated fourth season begins tonight!

The hit AMC series has been breaking ratings records all throughout its run and the season three finale went to a record high of 12.4 million viewers. We’re very curious to see how many people tune in for the premiere this evening!

[SPOILER ALERT] At the end of the previous season, we lost some of the major characters like Andrea (Laurie Holden) and Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker). It also ended with the demise of Woodbury and all of the survivors heading to the prison along with Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) group. We still don’t know the whereabouts of The Governor (David Morrissey) though.

Click inside for a full recap of The Walking Dead‘s third season…

The third season starts off months after the group escapes the farm following the attack by the huge herd of walkers. Lori is in the final days of her pregnancy and the group comes across a prison overrun by walkers and decides to make it their home. They have to first clear the prison of all the walkers and in the process, Hershel is bitten in the ankle and Rick has to amputate his lower leg to save him from being infected by the bite. The group then finds out there are some inmates from the prison who had survived and are trapped in the cafeteria. Most of the prisoners are killed while a cell block is being cleared for them to live in and the two prisoners who survive are invited to join Rick’s group. Later on, there is a breakout of walkers and the group is split up. T-Dog is bitten and sacrifices himself to save Carol. Lori goes into labor and she makes Maggie do an emergency c-section to save the baby, but the operations kills her and Carl is forced to shoot his own mother to prevent her from turning into a walker. The group mourns for several days, but they eventually name the baby Judith.

After the walker breakout on the farm at the end of season two, Andrea got separated from the group and was saved by the mysterious Michonne. They are captured by a group and taken to the town of Woodbury, which is a safe haven for people staying away from the walkers. They are introduced to the town’s leader, The Governor, and they learn that Daryl’s older brother Merle Dixon lives there as well. Michonne decides to leave the town as she is suspicious of The Governor, but Andrea decides to stay there as she starts to have a romantic connection with The Governor and trusts him. Merle is told by The Governor that he must go on a mission to capture Michonne, but on the mission he is only able to wound her and instead captures Maggie and Glenn who are out trying to find supplies.

Michonne then finds her way to the prison and tells the group what she saw. She then leads Rick, Daryl, and the prisoner Oscar to Woodbury to try and rescue Maggie and Glenn. During the rescue mission, the couple is saved, Oscar is killed, and Daryl is captured. Michonne stays briefly and tries to kill The Governor, but is only able to stab him in the eye with some broken glass. She does kill his undead daughter Penny, who had been chained in a back room closet in his apartment. After all this, The Governor calls an assembly meeting and accuses Merle of treason. He is then reunited with his brother Daryl in an arena of angry people. Rick and Maggie come back and rescue them, but tell them Merle is not allowed to stay with their group. Daryl decides to leave with Merle.

While the Woodbury rescue mission was going on, Carl meets another band of survivors (led by Tyreese and his sister Sasha) back at the prison. When Rick comes back, he speaks to the group but hallucinates and sees his dead wife Lori and his sanity cracks in front of everyone. He expels the group and they end up at Woodbury. The Governor leads an attack on the prison the next day and the other surviving prisoner gets killed. An outer fence around the prison gets breached and the walkers swarm again. Merle and Daryl return to the group and help fight off the attackers.

Andrea decides she wants to make some peace between the groups and she arranges a meeting between Rick and The Governor. The result of the meeting is The Governor declaring a truce if Michonne is handed over to him, but he secretly plans on killing the group either way. When she discovers the plot, Andrea escapes from Woodbury and heads over to the prison to warn her old friends, but she is captured by The Governor. Merle learns about the deal and he decides to take control and kidnaps Michonne on his own as he doesn’t think Rick will follow through. After Merle and Michonne talk, he has a change of heart, releases her, and then goes on to foil The Governor’s planned ambush and gets killed. His reanimated body is later found by Daryl, who is forced to kill his own brother.

The Governor decides to finish off Andrea by stabbing his former adviser Milton and leaving him in a room with Andrea, to die and reanimate. He then leads an assault on the prison, but Rick’s group is prepared for this and stages and ambush to repel the attack. The soldiers from Woodbury are frightened by the ambush and suggest they leave the prison alone. The Governor then guns most of them down for disobeying his order and there is just one survivor, Karen. She is found by Rick, Daryl, and Michonne, who are on their way to Woodbury to finish off The Governor. They bring her with them and Karen is able to convince Tyreese and Sasha to allow them in when they arrive. They then find Andrea, who had killed the zombified Milton, but she had been bit by him. She takes Rick’s pistol and commits suicide with her friend Michonne by her side.

Rick and his group leave Woodbury and take the remaining survivors with them to the prison. The Governor’s whereabouts remain unknown.