The much-anticipated ninth season of The Walking Dead returned tonight and brought with it a renewed enthusiasm and interest in the series.
The shake-up of showrunner, with Scott M. Gimple climbing up the ladder and being replaced by Angela Kang, has seen the show go back to basics with the help of a time jump that allowed the story to be reset and begin again. All things considered, it was an excellent opener to the season that promised good things to come. Well, when we say good we mean emotional, heartbreaking drama, but good in terms of television entertainment.
Following the premiere, we now have the promo for next week’s installment, prosaically titled “The Bridge.” The previously released synopsis describes it as follows: “The communities join forces to restore a bridge that will facilitate communication and trade; someone is gravely injured at the construction site.”
One the one hand, the plot about constructing a bridge to aid communication and trade is a neat continuation of the premiere’s concept that the communities, under Rick’s guidance, are trying to bring the late Carl’s dream of a more peaceful future to life – literally building bridges instead of causing wars like in the dark days of the Saviors. However, the rest of the synopsis suggests that their noble goals will result in something bad happening to an unknown character. The word “gravely” even hints that the injury will be fatal.
Of course, there’s one death we’re all counting down to this season. Andrew Lincoln’s said to be leaving in the first half of the run, so that likely means that Rick Grimes doesn’t have long for this world. It’d be quite a twist if he was offed as early as episode 2, but who knows with this show?
Be sure to catch The Walking Dead 9×02 “The Bridge” when it airs on AMC next Sunday, October 14th.