Season 9 Of The Walking Dead Heralds A “New Era” For AMC Zombie Drama

AMC is currently bracing for a “new era” of The Walking Dead. Or so says Angela Kang.

The newly-appointed showrunner took over from Scott M. Gimple during the show’s summer break, when it was revealed that Andrew Lincoln and The Walking Dead were about to go their separate ways – ditto for Laura Cohan, whose Maggie Rhee is expected to be phased out of the ongoing zombie saga come October.

All of this leaves AMC facing a somewhat tricky transition period, and while there are still many questions to be answered between now and October, Angela Kang outlined where The Walking Dead season 9 kicks off now that Carl Grimes is out of the picture and Negan is behind bars.

There are several things we’re dealing with story-wise. One of the major themes we’ve been talking about is what it means to have a civilization. What are the ways in which different communities develop different philosophies about governing and about dealing with other people? What are the things that we owe to each other as human beings? That’s one of the major thematic things that we’re playing with this season.

She continued:

It’s in line with the way that [creator] Robert Kirkman structured his comic, where it goes from this one man alone, to he’s looking for his family, he finds his family, but actually finds this larger group –– there’s this nomadic group, they wind up in a community, they finally find a community and the world opens up to them; it’s like finding different little villages. Now, it’s that stage of figuring out what it’s like to be a larger civilization. They may face some large challenges related to that, so that’s what we’ve really had fun playing with this season.

Further details on The Walking Dead‘s ninth season will no doubt be revealed next week, when AMC’s flagship will be among those in attendance at San Diego Comic-Con. A concrete premiere date is all but certain, though we may also get our first look at season 9 in motion, too.