‘The Walking Dead’ Executive Producer on “Complicated” Season 9 Relationships

The long-running relationships between The Walking Dead's most integral characters will both deepen and grow more complicated in Season Nine, inspired in part by the growing pains that come with rebuilding society and Alexandrian leader Rick Grimes' (Andrew Lincoln) unilateral decision to spare Savior leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

"All relationships are complicated, but all the sh-t that they've been through ― I mean, look, he slit [Negan's] throat. That's like a big thing, and at the same time you've been in the trenches with this person, you thought you know everything about him and he does something different and really not explained," longtime executive producer David Alpert told Huff Post.

"It's set up, and there's clues, so it's not out of the blue, but it feels out of the blue when you see how that goes. I think they are a little angry. I think there are unresolved feelings there. They've been forced to live together and work together so long, but now there's a little more space, so seeing how that blooms and blossoms, I think is an exciting thing to look at."

18 months later, Rick and his relationship with former right hand man Daryl (Norman Reedus) is at an all-time low: there's a clear distance between the two, with Rick characterizing the relationship as "it's complicated."

Daryl finds himself more and more aligned with Hilltop leader Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who has come into her own as de facto leader of the Hilltop — now the best-flourishing community in a wider network that sees Hilltop, Alexandria, the Kingdom, Oceanside, and the Sanctuary, home of the Saviors, working together.

Rick and Maggie are still close, but have their own tension — she's still dead-set on avenging the death of Glenn (Steven Yeun), her husband and the father of her child, who was mercilessly murdered by Negan — and the five communities find themselves entrenched in conflict, some taking issue with having to play nice with their former enemies.

As new relationships flourish and others deteriorate, the world around the survivors undergoes a similar metamorphosis: while civilization is being built anew, the world descends more and more into disarray as man-made structures fail and nature reclaims the Earth.

"You'll see that there's a pretty significant look change to the show. There's been an evolution as we've gone from the beginning of the zombie apocalypse to sort of stabilizing, and now here's this bigger shift," Alpert said.

"The return of civilization and sort of how do you rebuild institutions and how do you look at the social contract in light of — for all intents and purposes we're somewhere around, not Middle Ages, but pre-steam engine technology with hints and elements of more modern stuff — so how do you actually build institutions when you don't have telecommunications? Who determines the law? Real basic things that are fundamental to all societies, really getting in there from a dramatic point of view. How does that affect people's thoughts and actions? That's the thing that gets me incredibly excited about this year."

The shift makes for incredibly compelling drama — the strongest the show has had in years.

The Walking Dead Season Nine launches Sunday, October 7 on AMC.