What Time Does ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 9 Premiere Start?

The Walking Dead gets its new beginning starting at 9/8c tonight on AMC with an extended season premiere, launching the final episodes starring Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes.

Lincoln said he was "still in a world of denial" when appearing alongside his Walking Dead castmates and crew during a New York Comic Con panel Saturday. The actor wouldn't detail how he exits, but teased a bloody final episode for his sheriff's deputy-turned-zombie slayer.

"I think it was about day two of filming and I asked Greg Nicotero, who was shooting the episode, 'How many pints of blood does a human actually hold? Because I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the credit sequence,'" Lincoln told Entertainment Tonight.

Executive producer and former showrunner Scott Gimple had quietly prepped Lincoln's exit in the eventuality the actor and father of two decided to step away, which the Rick Grimes star nearly did in Season Eight before deciding to return for a handful of remaining episodes to conclude his tenure as the character.

Lincoln and Grimes' exit comes as the series is revamped by new showrunner Angela Kang, who has served as a writer-producer since Season Two in 2011. An 18-months-later time jump finds the survivors living in relative peacetime while ousted Savior leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) rots in an Alexandria jail cell.

Alexandria, Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside, and the Sanctuary are now working together, under the stewardship of Rick Grimes, to forge a better, hopeful future as inspired by Rick's late son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Rick's focus is on a bridge that will literally and symbolically link the five communities, who continue to undergo growing pains as they navigate the new status quo of having to work hand-in-hand — a situation certain parties take issue with.

Tonight's season premiere, scripted by Kang and directed by longtime series producer-director Greg Nicotero, made a concentrated effort to course correct complaints surrounding the series in recent seasons, including punching up dialogue and returning The Walking Dead to feeling like its earliest seasons.

"This season's all really been about going back to what made The Walking Dead great when we first started watching the show. I felt like it's very much back to the DNA that we love," Nicotero told Uproxx.

The Walking Dead Season Nine premieres tonight on AMC, immediately followed by a pre-taped and mega-sized edition of Talking Dead. New episodes follow Sundays at 9/8c.