It looks like The Walking Dead will be experiencing a time jump when season 9 debuts later this year…
The Walking Dead will be undergoing a lot of changes during season 9 including a time jump when the show returns to AMC later this year.
New show runner Angela Kang confirmed this week that The Walking Dead would be jumping ahead from the end of season 8, which saw Rick Grimes and the survivors finally defeat Negan and his Saviors after all out war. The season ended with Negan chained to a hospital bed while Rick and the other survivors started to put the pieces back together again after a grueling and bloody battle took a lot out of them.
“We’re working on a season that has a really fresh look and feel,” Kang said during the Kick-Ass Women of AMC panel in New York. “We’re playing with time in this season, so we get to kind of jump forward in the story.
“We come in [to season 9] on some really fun stuff. I’m really focusing a lot on the core character relationships in the show that have kind of been long lasting as well as servicing all of our wonderful series’ regulars.”
It won’t be a shock to Walking Dead comic book readers that the story will jump ahead after the original storyline for ‘All Out War’ resulted in a multi-year time jump between the end of the fight against Negan and when the story picks up again with Rick much older and a lot grayer while Carl is a teenager.
Obviously that will be altered for The Walking Dead television series as Carl Grimes was killed during season 8 and plenty of more changes are coming during season 9.
Series star Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes, is expected to only appear in a handful of episodes before leaving the show entirely during season 9. Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Rhee, is also rumored to only appear in a few episodes during The Walking Dead season 9 after fighting with producers over a pay increase, which eventually led to her signing onto star in a new series called Whiskey Cavalier that was picked up by ABC.
The Walking Dead is currently filming outside of Atlanta, GA with a debut date expected in October on AMC.
