This week, Andrew Lincoln tells NBC Rick is ready for battle, while ComicBook.com and others praise the Season 8 Premiere. Plus, the Smithsonian now has a trove of items from the show in its collection. Read on for more:

• According to NBC, Andrew Lincoln says Rick is "ready for battle. He's very much like a shark in that he needs to keep moving or he dies. And I think kicking Negan's a** is as good a reason as anything to get him focused."

• Previewing the Season 8 Premiere, ComicBook.com says the show is "back in form, pairing the explosive battle fans have been yearning for with storytelling devices unlike any used on the series to date."

• Den of Geek calls the Season 8 Premiere "a return to form. It's intense, action-packed, and heart-warming in all of the right places. Most importantly, it puts Rick Grimes back in the captain's chair where he will hopefully stay."

• Insider looks ahead to the Season 8 Premiere, declaring that "longtime fans of the series will be very pleased with what they see."

• ComicBook.com proclaims, "The Walking Dead has officially cemented its place in history, becoming a part of the Smithsonian Museum's displays," with donations of items like Hershel's head, Daryl's crossbow, Michonne's katana blade and Merle's weaponized arm rig.

• Smithsonian Magazine reports that the objects will be exhibited in the American History Museum's new culture wing, which is scheduled to open in 2018.

• Scott Gimple tells TV Insider that the "All Out War" conflict "just hangs over everything, affects everything and drives everything. It's a very different season for us. It’s gonna make for some really exciting television."

• Checking out a behind-the-scenes featurette, TV Guide comments that the previously-seen Season 8 footage in it "looks so, so nice and the new commentary from the likes of Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus and Jeffrey Dean Morgan is getting me more excited than ever."

• "Season 8 is my favorite season for a long time. It feels likes we are back to the show — and certainly the leader that I loved playing — in earlier seasons," Andrew Lincoln declares to Entertainment Weekly.

• Discussing Season 8, Danai Gurira tells Entertainment Weekly, "It’s a very powerful thing when you think you’re in the clutches of oppression or tyranny and actually come together as a people and decide to stop it. And I loved how that echoes through many a thing we’ve seen — the fight against apartheid, the fight for the civil rights movement."

• People highlights terrifying transformations, including one from The Walking Dead: "From the casting story to the makeup chair timelapse, see how the show’s experts created the pilot’s haunting half-corpse, which just might be one of their scariest zombies ever."

• Season 8's first four episodes are "a battle. The whole thing is a war and the fallout from that," Tom Payne relates to Entertainment Weekly.

• Katelyn Nacon, chatting with Entertainment Weekly, reveals that Enid is "definitely a bigger part of the community and the fight and everything. She doesn’t want to just sit by or be by herself. She’s not just looking out for herself anymore."

• Den of Geek poses "a few questions we’d like to see answered when the The Walking Dead returns," i.e. "Where do Dwight’s loyalties truly lie?"

• Interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, Melissa McBride says one of Carol's most memorable walker kills was the time she was practicing doing a C-section and had to take down a female walker at the prison gate, partly because "that was one of the first scenes I had with Steven [Yeun] — quite possibly the only scene I had with Steven."

• Bicycle Girl was Andrew Lincoln's favorite walker kill, according to Entertainment Weekly: "I’ve always said it was the human behind the monster and the monster behind the human, which is pretty much the essence of the show. So I had to put her down."

• Norman Reedus tells Entertainment Weekly his favorite walker kill -- "a zombie slam dunk that Daryl Dixon performed on an unsuspecting walker" -- was inspired by Michael Jordan.

• Lauren Cohan tells Entertainment Weekly her favorite zombie kill -- "when we get to the prison and we have those riot gear walkers" -- from Season 3, Episode 1 "Seed," was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock.

• Entertainment Weekly learns from Danai Gurira that she enjoyed the scene in Season 4's "After" where Michonne kills 24 walkers, calling it "such a powerful moment of her letting herself grow into the next stage and not just die off because she’s lost people."

• Entertainment Weekly speaks with Josh McDermitt, who confirms that Eugene is "firmly Negan. He either chooses Alexandria or he chooses Negan, and he’s decided to go with Negan."

• Several cast members share memories of their first days on set with Entertainment Weekly: "Some are funny, some are profound, and all paint a picture of why The Walking Dead is such a welcoming — if also hot as hell — set to work on."

• Ross Marquand tells ComicBook.com that Aaron is "still the optimist, but I think he's going to have to move into a much more leadership role, now that, especially pretty much all the main leaders in Alexandria are dead."

• Josh McDermitt teases to ComicBook.com that the Season 8 Premiere is "a big, big episode, and that's exciting. I think that the script does this century mark, if you will, justice and it's exciting to go to war."

• Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Andrew J. West says playing Gareth was "one of the most exciting, fulfilling jobs that I had ever had because it was heavy and it was dark, and I was working with superb actors."

• Yahoo chats with Elaine Montalvo, the show's costume designer, who says that, because of the All Out War, "even some of the characters that may have been a little passive in the past are becoming very confident and strong, now more than ever. And their costumes reflect that empowerment and that strength when they’re dressing for battle."

• Parade spotlights the new The Walking Dead: The Official Cookbook and Survival Guide, which "outlines exactly how our favorite characters foraged, hunted, cooked and even grew food whenever they could—plus the recipes that fueled them."

• Yahoo looks back at "13 times the Walking Dead gang suffered devastating, and sometimes deadly, misfortune."

• Ahead of the release later this month of Bear McCreary's The Walking Dead soundtrack, IGN has "a first-listen for one of its most important tracks, 'The Governor.'"

• Checking out behind-the-scenes photos, Insider notes, "While Rick and company may be all business in the zombie apocalypse, on set the close-knit actors are all smiles, hugs, and even pranksters."

The Walking Dead returns Sundays at 9/8c. Click here to add to your calendar.

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