The first half of The Walking Dead season 9 came to a close yesterday with the creepy, shocking mid-season finale “Evolution.” Naturally, fans now want to know when the show will be back next year, but it seems viewers of AMC’s top-rated series should be prepared for a bit of a wait. As is typical for TWD, the season will resume in early February. February 10th, to be exact.
The confirmation of the release date, that was previously revealed on last night’s Talking Dead, came in a press release which teased what we can expect to see when The Walking Dead resumes. As you might have guessed from the cliffhanger ending of “Evolution,” the threat of the Whisperers is going to be the main order of the day, and the synopsis below even makes the bold claim that it’s the most dangerous that times have been since the beginning of the apocalypse.
“The second half of “The Walking Dead” season nine finds our groups of survivors, both old and new, continuing to deal with the impact of events that took place during the six years that have passed. Since the disappearance of Rick, many of these characters have become strangers to each other, and in some ways, strangers to themselves.
What they do know is that they are in undeniable danger. They will soon realize the world just beyond does not operate as they thought. The group’s rules and ways of survival no longer guarantee their safety. A whole new threat has crossed their paths, and they soon discover it’s unlike any threat they have encountered or endured before. The group will start to question what they think they see. What may appear to be normal in this post-apocalyptic world could actually be more disturbing and terrifying than when the apocalypse first broke out. All that is certain is the stakes are high and numerous.”
The mid-season finale saw the survivors come up against the Whisperers for the first time. Initially, they believed them to be a peculiar herd of walkers that was smarter than normal. By the episode’s end, though, it was revealed that they were actually humans themselves and are dressed up in zombie face-masks for their own malevolent ends. The Whisperer they encountered cost the group the life of Jesus, too, who didn’t reckon on fighting a living person.
The above press release teases dark times ahead, suggesting that the survivors will be unable to trust what they see anymore – a herd of walkers they cross could be just that or it might be infested with Whisperers who are manipulating them from within. Apparently, we can expect the communities to have to face up to the fact that their “rules and ways of survival” are no longer effective anymore.
We’re about 10 weeks away from The Walking Dead‘s return on February 10th now, so there’s plenty of time for fans to come to terms with the terror awaiting us when the show makes its way back to our screens. But if one thing’s for certain, it’s that things are only going to get more exciting from here.