How Long Is ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 8 Premiere Tonight?

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Tonight is the premiere of The Walking Dead Season 8, and like any good premiere, it’s going to be extra long. So just how long is Season 8 Episode 1 going to be? Tonight’s episode will be 67 minutes long, which means you’ll get an extra seven minutes of air time. The episode will start at 9 p.m. Eastern and end at 10:07 p.m.

This isn’t the only extra long episode of The Walking Dead that we can look forward to this season. Here’s everything we know so far about the schedule for Season 8, including one episode that might be 13 minutes longer than usual.

  • Episode 1 — Mercy — October 22 — 67 minutes
  • Episode 2 — The Damned — October 29 – 60 minutes
  • Episode 3 — Monsters — November 5
  • (Note: There’s a strange extra entry on November 5 in the schedule. It’s unclear if this is a glitch or indicates a longer episode.)
  • Episode 4 — Some Guy — November 12
  • Episode 5 — The Big Scary U — November 19 – This episode might be 13 minutes longer than usual.
  • Episode 6 — The King, the Widow, and Rick — November 26
  • Episode 7 — December 3
  • Episode 8 — December 10 – Mid-season finale

So exactly where did we leave off last season? Although a big battle was brewing between Negan and Rick’s crew, we didn’t end up with a huge number of deaths. Instead, the only main character to die was Sasha, along with many unnamed people in both groups. Shiva took down a couple people in some epic scenes too.

Sasha had taken a poisoned pill from Eugene to commit suicide. Dwight showed up at Alexandria, wanting to be a turncoat so he could help kill Negan. Rick’s group took all of Oceanside’s guns, with Tara’s help. Gregory had left to visit an unknown location.

Throughout the finale, we saw Sasha reliving moments with Abraham or imagining how things might have been.

Dwight volunteered to slow down the Saviors, giving Rick’s group some more time. So in the end, it looked like we had The Junkyard Group, Rick’s group, people from the Hillside, and The Kingdom banding together (along with Dwight) to fight the Saviors. (Although the Kingdom group would be arriving a little late.) But when the Saviors arrive, the Junkyard group — including Jadis — turned on Rick’s group and changed everything.

But then Negan opened the casket that Sasha is in, and was surprised to learn that she was now a walker. She attacked him and everything went a little crazy, giving Rick’s group a new chance to survive. But then Negan got the upper hand again. But right before he killed Carl with Lucille, Ezekiel and the Kingdom showed up and drove the Saviors away.

In the end, Negan is declaring all out war, with Eugene and Dwight by his side. And Rick’s group, the Kingdom, and the Hilltop are working together to stop Negan and survive.