Andrew Lincoln On Rick's Ending, 'The Walking Dead' Season 9

If The Walking Dead can keep up the quality of its Season Eight finale, Andrew Lincoln will be happy to ride with the AMC show until Rick's story has properly concluded.

When The Walking Dead returns for its ninth season, it will do so with a brand new feel to it, which starts with Angela Kang stepping in as showrunner. With Kang having written some of the best episodes through Season Seven and Season Eight, her vision of the show's future has Lincoln excited.

"I'm very excited about Angela [Kang]'s tenure," Lincoln told Comicbook.com. "She pitched the first eight a couple of weeks ago. I think we're getting the first episode today. There's a renewed vigor, vitality, energy, and just vision that's happening that is reminiscent, and certainly for me, of the pilot episode. There's a lot of things in there that I kind of dig that she's looking into. The things that I loved about the pilot episode, there's a few ideas in there that she's expanding and running with, which is very exciting."

While Lincoln has been the subject of debate lately, as speculation had questioned whether or not he would stay with the show, the actor seems more than happy to stick with it if high-quality episodes can carry Season Nine and beyond.

"You keep writing episodes like that season finale, Episode 8x14 with Morgan, and a few other crackers," Lincoln said. "The scenes in Episode 8 and 9 last season, I'd be thrilled to hang around. I love the story and I love the characters that make up the story."

Still, Lincoln wants the show to have a proper sense of awareness, as approaches pouring nearly a decade of his life into it. "There's part of me that really wants to complete something," Lincoln said. "How long that takes? I don't know but certainly I really think the fans and my character deserves an end point as some time in the future."

If the Season Eight finale were to have been that end point, Lincoln might have walked away content. After all, it did feel like a series finale to many, with almost all of the narrative threads and character stories being wrapped up nicely.

"I think that when we got the news that Carl was dying on the show, it certainly for me, it felt like very much a bookend of a much bigger journey that began in the hospital," Lincoln said. "Searching for his wife and his son were the two engines that kept this man alive at the beginning of the show eight years. To lose the second engine that fueled him, at this point, certainly did feel, to me personally, not just the end of a chapter but a book, really."

Lincoln returns to the set of The Walking Dead for production on Season Nine on April 30.

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.