The Walking Dead season 9 review: Spoiler-free thoughts on episode 1

You must hand it to The Walking Dead. After starting out with a lowly six-parter back in 2010, no one could have expected the behemoth it would become. 116 episodes and one spin-off later, however, and here we are – a tripled cast, double viewership and the same feverish fan base.

The series has been promising new beginnings for quite some time now. It feels like Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has been harping on about them ever since the prison days in season three, and just two seasons ago, Negan – Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s now-imprisoned big bad – teased one. This promise has increasingly felt like the show’s ‘get out of jail free’ card (you didn’t like last season? Don’t worry, this one will be completely different!).

The good news? The show’s ninth run – based on the comic book arc titled, you guessed it, ‘A New Beginning’ – is the reset fans have deserved for several seasons. Much of the excitement around the premiere comes from catching up with the crowded ensemble and seeing how they fit into the seemingly thriving civilisation they’ve created since we last saw them. Just under two years has passed meaning several notable things are different: Maggie’s no longer pregnant, new relationships have been formed and Rick’s daughter, Judith, is now an actual speaking toddler.

Ironically, the lack of continuing story has supplied this long-running show with an energy that dissipated years ago. Its opening half, which takes the characters on an expedition to a dilapidated Washington DC, feels like the good old days back when the actual undead were the chief threat and not a ring of rogues looking to cook our survivors or bludgeon them to death with makeshift weapons.

Not that everyone agrees. Daryl (Norman Reedus), unhappy with the new world Rick has built, is yearning for those intimate times. He may soon get his wish – this episode kicks off Andrew Lincoln’s Walking Dead swansong (he has just five episodes remaining) and this knowledge creates genuine discomfort. Hilariously, Reedus – who will replace Lincoln as the show’s lead – is given more to say in this episode than the entirety of season 8 combined.

Characters turning against each other after seasons of uniting against opposing threats is the most intriguing idea the show has had in years. New showrunner Angela Kang – a writer on the series since 2011 – clearly knows what the fans want, and it takes someone with a firm grip on the universe and its pool of characters to pull it off.

Kang also finds time to throw in nostalgia (both Carol and Daryl recall fallen family members): this is a season clearly interested in moving things forward while paddling its feet in the past. This is a crucial factor in ensuring that, even after all these years, they are the same creations being steered by a writing team invested in their lives.

The premiere may not be vintage or particularly exciting Walking Dead – and one late plot twist, while genuinely shocking, is overacted within an inch of its life – but season 9 is off to a liberating start. ‘We lost enough,” Michonne (Danai Gurira) tells Rick during one of the episode’s more intimate moments, “It's time we won a little, don’t you think?” The same can certainly be said for fans.

The Walking Dead season 9 premieres on AMC on 3 October with the UK release arriving the following evening on FOX at 9pm