The Walking Dead Season Nine Time Jump Confirmed

Showrunner Angela Kang has confirmed that The Walking Dead will have a time jump when it returns for its ninth season in October. EW spoke with Kang about the new season, and she said that the time leap will give Kang — taking over for showrunner from Scott Gimple — the opportunity to explore a “back to basics” approach as resources continue to get low and the world crumbles as the zombie apocalypse goes on.

Kang said, “We’ll explore what happened as man made objects and structures break down,” says Kang. “Infrastructure like roads and bridges are changing and crumbling. And we’ll also explore what happens as resources are getting low…There’s a fun Western vibe that has emerged. We are going into a period where a lot of the things that we’ve seen in previous seasons have broken down, so they’ve got these horses and carriages that are being drawn around instead of cars. Things are lit with oil lamps. People are using different kinds of weaponry. There’s a real grittiness to it that I think will be fun and fresh for the viewers.”

Kang said that Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is now working to build the utopia that Carl envisioned before his death, noting that there will be a new unity within the group and that Rick’s vision of a new, peaceful collaboration between communities has “succeeded beyond anybody’s wildest imagination.”

However, this is The Walking Dead so we will also see “the cracks in that” as there are “some changes in the way that they deal with each other.”

The new season bows in October.