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Tonight is the second-to-last episode of The Walking Dead Season 9. Episode 15 is called “The Calm Before” and it’s the last episode before the season finale. But if you’re watching tonight, you might notice that tonight’s episode is going on longer than you might expect. Just how long is the episode tonight?
Tonight’s episode begins at 9 p.m. Eastern and is scheduled to end at 10:25 p.m. Eastern, making the episode 87 minutes long. Immediately after the episode, Into the Badlands will air a new episode that will end at 11:27 p.m. Eastern. Then Talking Dead will begin at 11:27 p.m. Eastern.
That means that tonight’s episode is basically the length of a movie, except for the commercials. Sadly, commercials are pretty abundant in The Walking Dead, so the runtime won’t likely come close to 90 minutes. Some fans are saying the runtime might be 70 minutes in the UK, which means we could enjoy nearly 20 minutes of commercials tonight — hurray!
#TheWalkingDead 915 is an episode in 3 acts. Fun. Fear. Tears.
By the way, if you’re on DirectTV you might not get the full episode. :( DirectTV for some subscribers stopped recording the episode at 10 p.m. Eastern, thinking Into the Badlands was starting at its normal 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. (It’s kind of hard to believe that happened this season. It feels so long ago.) The Season 9 premiere was practically movie length, lasting a full 86 minutes and ending at 10:26 p.m. Eastern, just one minute earlier than tonight’s episode. And the midseason 9 premiere on February 10 was 14 minutes longer than normal.
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.
The showrunner for The Walking Dead, Angela Kang, told EW that there will be some big surprises in the last two episodes of the season. She said, “There’s a lot of really exciting things that we do and some things that we have not done before on the show.” She said there won’t be major cliffhangers, but certain character arcs will “have a bit of a closed end to them” that will “feel like part of a chapter in a character’s journey.”
But still, some arcs will carry over to Season 10, she promised. She said the Whisperers, for example, will still be seen next season. New threats will also begin to emerge, she added.
Let us know what you thought about the episode by tweeting the author of this story. 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.