The Smartest Thing ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Doing in Season 9

Fans of The Walking Dead will get one of their long time wishes in Season Nine as the original cast members will be spending solid amounts of time together.

In Season Eight, one frame caught fans by surprise — it featured Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, and Lauren Cohan. Each of the actors and their respective Rick, Daryl, Carol, and Maggie characters have been with the AMC series since its second season or earlier. In recent years, though, the cast and characters had not spent much time together, let alone shared a frame as a squad. Now, showrunner Angela Kang is promising such moments will be delivered in abundance before Lincoln makes his exit in the upcoming episodes.

“The thing that we really thought about was obviously this is going to cause some grief on the fans, so we want to tell as wonderful and as exciting a story as we can while also telling the stories of the incredible ensemble around him, just do service to this great character that we all love so much and this man that we love,” Kang told Us Weekly. “You’ll see incredible work between him and the other great characters that we’ve followed for so many years on the show. We have some incredible, incredible scenes between him, Maggie, Carol, Daryl and Michonne particularly, but really with everybody. That was our hope.”

Lincoln’s time on the series is extremely limited, as he will bow out in the first half of Season Nine. Rick’s fate, however, has not yet been revealed, meaning the question of whether or not he lives or dies will linger until Lincoln’s final episode.

“My relationship with this part is far from over,” Lincoln told ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic Con. “I’m not gonna say anything more than that but I will say, ‘Watch this season.’”

As excited as the actor is to return home to spend more time with his family, San Diego Comic Con was quite a wake up call regarding his departure.

“The strange thing about being here was the fact that I think it really hit me yesterday because of the relationship that the show has with the fans here,” Lincoln said. “As soon as it finished, the panel, I walked off the stage, it was more profound — my sadness — the actually wrapping up on the show. The show, I was so proud of the where the story was going and where the season was going. It’s a brilliant launching pad I think, the episode that I leave, into the rest of this incredible season. All of that was more than just ‘Oh, I’m pleased that I’ve completed it.’ This was, ‘Oh, f—.’ I’m leaving.”

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. The Walking Dead returns for its ninth season on Oct. 7, 2018. For more updates and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!