'Talking Dead' Guests For 'The Walking Dead' Mid-Season 9 Premiere Revealed

Following Sunday's Mid-Season Nine premiere of The Walking Dead, AMC will air Talking Dead with host Chris Hardwick and a pair of guests.

Recapping The Walking Dead Episode 9x09 will be Norman Reedus and Greg Nicotero. Reedus plays Daryl Dixon on AMC's zombie show, having a key role in Sunday's Mid-Season Nine premiere and future episodes as the Whisperers encroach. Nicotero has long served as an executive producer and visual effects guru on The Walking Dead, also having directed Sunday night's episode.

The Walking Dead Episode 9x09 is titled, "Adaptation." The official synopsis for Adaptation reads, "The group unmasks a disturbing and dangerous new thread. An escaped captive revisits his past."

The Walking Dead is so focused on being scary and horror-driven according to Nicotero, In fact, Nicotero found another opportunity to pay tribute to horror legend George Romero in the opening minutes on Sunday night's new episode. "They went in and did some additional shooting in the cemetery for the end of episode eight, because I think that they realized that we had some great opportunities in this cemetery," Nicotero said. "I mean, I kept saying, 'It's Night of the Living Dead.' We've never shot zombies in a cemetery before, so this is the closest that we're ever going to get to a George Romero homage, which is to have zombies in the cemetery. So a lot of the shots that I did in the [Episode 9x09 opening] are all intended to be evocative of classic horror, and the classic imagery of zombies in the cemetery." He will likely go into more detail on the subject while recapping on Talking Dead.

Meanwhile, Reedus is out making promises about the quality of Season Nine being the best since AMC launched The Walking Dead in 2010. "I gotta tell you, the season that's about to come out, the second half, is our best season since Season One," Reedus told Atlanta's 11Alive during last weekend's Walking Dead-themed Super Bowl party. "The show's kind of like a virus, it sort of adapts and becomes a different thing. I mean, the secret is, we keep moving. We don't do the same thing over and over."

The Walking Dead returns for the back half of its ninth season on February 10, 2019 at 9 pm ET. Fear the Walking Dead will return for its fifth season in 2019. For complete coverage and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter and watch ComicBook.com's After The Dead each Sunday night following new episodes.