Former ‘The Walking Dead’ Showrunner Discusses Season 9 Plans

The Walking Dead is primed for a drastically different look in Season Nine, following a Season Eight finale which wrapped up all of its narrative threads.

While appearing on Talking Dead, showrunner Scott Gimple who has officially shifted to the role of Chief Content Officer, addressed the future awaiting The Walking Dead and its surviving characters.

“The show evolves,” Gimple said of Season Nine. “They’re facing different problems with each other. And the world itself will be very, very different.”

Of course, the biggest topic of discussion is whether or not Maggie is becoming one of those problems. Many fans fear she might become a villain in Season Nine. Either way, Gimple admits there might be a bit of a civil war on the horizon.

“It looks like that to me,” Gimple said. “Lauren [Cohan] is so amazing in that scene. She’s full Maggie Corleone. And Jesus, you know, he would not have killed the surrendering Saviors, but he’s not Morgan. Like, he could kill Negan. That certainly isn’t off the menu for Jesus.”

Gimple clearly has a long term plan in effect, if Eugene’s betrayal of Negan was any indication. “It was a very long time ago,” Gimple says about when he came up with the move which saw the bullet maker take down the Saviors. “It was before Eugene was taken, we had had that storyline. We knew that was going to be the final masterstroke. We did not tell him. Because it was very late that Eugene made up his mind on this thing. He was fighting something that was in him. He was always about self-preservation. He was always about keeping himself alive. But he met Abraham Ford. He met Rosita. And those people infected him with humanity. And he kept on trying to fight it, He tried to drink his way out of it, he couldn’t sleep. But in the end, the people around him affected him too deeply.”

The Walking Dead Season Nine will begin production later this month. The first trailer will drop at San Diego Comic Con in July and it will premiere its first episode in October, along with a likely extended clip coming at New York Comic Con just weeks prior.

The Walking Dead will return for its ninth season in the fall. Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC. For complete coverage and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.