How Long Is ‘The Walking Dead’ Midseason 9 Premiere Tonight?

Tonight is the midseason premiere of The Walking Dead. You might be surprised to learn that tonight’s episode is a bit longer than usual. After you finish this story, join a discussion or sign up to stay updated. Details on how to do both are at the end of the article.

Tonight’s episode begins at 9 p.m. Eastern and is scheduled to end at 10:14 p.m. Eastern. That makes tonight’s episode 14 minutes longer than usual. So yes, the episode is longer than a typical episode of The Walking Dead. Fans are glad, since the episodes are typically packed with a lot of commercials that take up a lot of time.

It’s not unusual to have longer episodes in The Walking Dead world anymore. Rick’s final episode, which was Season 9 Episode 5, was eight minutes longer than normal. The Season 9 premiere was practically movie length, lasting a full 86 minutes and ending at 10:26 p.m. Eastern. It was even longer than tonight’s episode.

Talking Dead will air for an hour immediately after The Walking Dead airs and air until 11:14 p.m. Eastern.

Tonight’s episode is called “Adaptation.” The synopsis reads: “The communities thought they could build a better future separately, but the recent loss of one of their own drives them to band together; new leaders rise when a disturbing and dangerous threat is unmasked; an escaped captive revisits his past.”

The beginning Season 9 kicked off with an 18-month time jump. Then after Rick’s final episode, we had another even longer time jump.

We were left with quite a few questions when Season 9 Episode 8 ended in November. One big question was where Negan went after his cell was left unlocked. At the end of Season 9 episode 8, Negan discovered that his cell had been left unlocked. Negan walked out of his jail cell, free for the first time in more than six years. We’re pretty sure he’s heading back to the Sanctuary, thanks to a really quick shot during the trailer. But we’re not 100 percent certain where he’s going or what’s happening next.

Maggie’s gone, along with Rick, which is leaving a big hole in the second half of the season. But in the midst of these big changes, fans also feel like the writing has improved quite a bit. So the introduction of the “Whisperers” (aka the whispering zombies) is something that’s really exciting to viewers.  The show seems to have picked up quite nicely with showrunner Angela Kang now leading things. She’s already working on Season 10, and she’s made some changes to the show in Season 9 that viewers are really liking. For example, Daryl has more lines than is typical for the character this season, and he even has a dog now. Other characters are similarly being fleshed out, and fans are enjoying the new storylines.

We also still don’t know what those x-shaped scars are about. Read theories in Heavy’s story here.

Let us know what you thought about the episode by tweeting the author of this story or commenting on a Reddit discussion here.  You can stay updated on new stories about The Walking Dead by joining the email list here and choosing the “Scifi and Fantasy TV” category.

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