[quote="Panpardus"][quote="zerodix"]
Animation is finished, this season is ready to air. There will be 18 episodes.[/quote]
Not to mention the double-length episode à la "Return of the Roar" and "The Rise of Scar".
[quote]A rumor (not checked if it is true:) there will be an episode about the former lion guard. Does anyone know if this info is correct?[/quote]
Askari -- leader of the first lion guard (he's been mentioned a couple times in recent episodes) -- is confirmed to appear as a character with a speaking role, voiced by Michael Luwoye. I don't know if this means he'll appear in spirit form or in a flashback episode, though the latter would be pretty cool.
It's been implied by various people behind-the-scenes that Zira and her pride will appear again, although Ford Riley implied they're unrelated to (and possibly even unaware of) anything going on with Scar, so they probably won't be a major presence in this series. Exact words from a comment he made on his Instagram post (
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgo3m9ggQED/): "As for Zira’s pride? I can’t say anything other than she has her own scheme for revenge, which you can see in Lion King 2."[/quote]
That makes sense regarding Zira however at the same time when a writer says I can't say anything followed by something else it often means they are hiding something and trying to direct away from it. Something I have noticed is that usually a storytellers efforts to keep spoilers hidden results in them dropping them by accident due to their words. The as for Zira comment implies he is excited, I can't say anything is often said to avoid spoilers but it also implies excitement over the topic they are referring to.
I think Zira's role in 3 is going to completely change the context of everything in SP including her motive in fact LG already has changed quite a bit about the context of SP. Simba was forced to exile the outsiders because Zira tried to kill him, which makes his distrust of Kovu different as another member of Scar's family already tried to backstab and kill him. It makes fear a much larger part of Simba's motivation paranoia that so many want to kill him and he fears one day they might succeed. It makes Simba a lot more primal and instinctive.
This is something that excites me most about the final season how much it will change the context of SP how much it rewrites certain scenes and arcs. LG has already changed SP building on the arcs in it so whatever Zira's part is the idea of how it will change the context of her role in SP excites me.