The Walking Dead goes Alpha: Season 9B preview

The Walking Dead returns for the second half of its ninth season on Sunday, February 10th. The first image from the episode was released earlier this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re not missing much.

It’s the end of the year. With most of the early award season nominees announced and debated, it was time for entertainment media to turn their attention to something else. A good part of the focus has been on television’s winter premieres. The Walking Dead was, of course, a part of the coverage.

Entertainment Weekly carried an exclusive first look at the season premiere. It was a picture of our heroes, both old and Newbie, carrying Jesus’ (Tom Payne) body back to Hilltop. There are a couple of problems with this being the first image.

First, we kind of saw this already in the season 9B trailer that aired immediately after the Fall Finale. It was a trailer that totally killed the suspense of the cliffhanger ending. In Evolution, we formally meet the Whisperers.

Our heroes are surrounded in an extremely foggy cemetery. Jesus has been impaled from behind after a slow-mo battle that had all the choreography of a Jamiroquai music video.

The episode ends with us not knowing who will make it out alive. That is, until we saw the trailer and discovered everyone made it out alive.

Second, the EW article has excerpts of an interview with executive producer and show-runner Angela Kang. She says there is no time jump between episodes. Our heroes have to figure out an escape route from the cemetery.

But. But. We already know they get out. We have an image and a trailer that proves it. So, this is all pretty anti-climactic.

That lack of a time jump is something that would have been nice in the season five Winter Premiere. Beth (Emily Kinney) had been murdered in the season five Fall Finale.

I was expecting her sister, Maggie (Lauren Cohan), to have an episode revolving around the profound loss. But, nope. We time jumped and killed off Tyrese (Chad Coleman) for no good reason.

The Walking Dead-Alpha Poster-Courtesy of AMC Networks

But that was years ago. Back to our current season. AMC also released a poster for the Winter Premiere. It features the Whisperers’ leader, Alpha (Samantha Morton), wearing a walker face and telling us to shush our face.

This clearly announces that the Whisperers are going to be the big bad for a while. It didn’t do much else. The easter egg that still isn’t getting a lot of coverage is the whole thing where Negan (Jeffrey Dean-Morgan) escaped in the Fall Finale.

Look. Deep down, I still really like The Walking Dead. I want it to work. Although she’s only three episodes in, I’m Team Magna (Nadia Hilker).

I’m convinced that Luke (Dan Fogler) is going to sell everyone out somehow. And, I still want Aaron (Ross Marquand) to have a bigger role. This guy is fully formed and has a real screen presence without a lot of plot directly dealing with him.

I’ll be tuning in on February 10th. You can check out my recaps. Let’s hope The Walking Dead comes back strong.

Are you excited for the Winter Premiere of The Walking Dead? What did you think of the first half of season nine? Let’s discuss in the comments!