This week, Angela Kang looks ahead with Entertainment Weekly, while TheWrap reports the show will return on Feb. 10, 2019. Plus, Tom Payne talks about the Midseason Finale with Entertainment Weekly. Read on for more:

• Angela Kang tells Entertainment Weekly that the Midseason Premiere begins "pretty quickly on top of where we left off, and our people are there and they obviously are gonna have to fight their way out. But they will make yet another strange and shocking discovery along the way within the episode, and the story kind of unfolds from there."

• TheWrap reports that the Midseason Premiere will air Feb. 10, 2019 and says it's "expecting this new war to start for Alexandria and the Hilltop. The Whisperers — this new villainous group that worships zombies — have officially made themselves known, and it’s all downhill from here for the good guys.

• Tom Payne tells Entertainment Weekly he enjoyed the Midseason Finale "because I felt like it was going back to the roots of the show. It was horror and it was so atmospheric, and then the twist in the tale at the end was so awesome that I’m just super happy that we managed to tell a cool story that was unexpected and shocking."

• Angela Kang teases to The Hollywood Reporter, "The loss of Jesus is going to have a big impact on our people, because he really did belong with them. We're going to start getting into what the Whisperers believe about territory, too. We'll learn a lot more about their ideas in the back half of the season."

• Asked by Deadline about Jesus' death, Angela Kang says that "it has a lot to do with kind of, the character that Jesus is, and what he stood for in the show. There needs to be a big loss in the introduction of this new threat to our communities. It’s a marker of how serious this problem is, and there’s a lot of story that comes from this loss."

• According to ComicBook.com, Angela Kang and Scott Gimple said in a statement, "Maggie's last episode this season was 905. But it isn't the end of Maggie's story. We love Lauren Cohan and hope to have her back on the big program and or beyond, and we have built a story to service that."

• Looking ahead, Angela Kang tells ComicBook.com, "We will hopefully come back to Maggie's story in Season 10. Lauren [Cohan] and I have been texting about some things, and we're hopefully gonna schedule a conversation, but Georgie's group is definitely out there in the world doing some stuff, and I have some notion of what they're up to."

• TV Insider speaks with Avi Nash, who says that "as Rick is gone, Rick’s remaining family members: Judith, Michonne—they become Siddiq’s de facto family. Michonne and Siddiq have an elder sister, younger brother bond."

• Talking with CinemaBlend about Negan's reduced Season 9 role, Angela Kang explains, "Negan definitely has his moments to shine, and he's got more coming up, but it was a conscious decision, just from a storytelling perspective of wanting to show where everybody was at in the aftermath of that war."

• Norman Reedus explains, "There's something about Carol and Daryl, like she knows him better than he knows himself. If somebody else were to tell him certain things, I don't think he would hear them but, when she says stuff to him, he listens," ComicBook.com reports.

• Screen Rant observes, "The internet has of course taken note of Carol's new hairstyle and a whole meme has been born, in which Carol's look is compared to Lord of the Rings characters Legolas and Gandalf, as well as The Witcher's Geralt and others."

• Michael Cudlitz tells Insider he'd be open to appearing in a The Walking Dead movie, saying, "I had a great time with the people in the show. It by no means defines my career, so I'm not in any rush to run away from it, so I would be fine with any of that."

• According to Cinema Blend, Madison Lintz says of Sophia, "I actually think, because I died, [Carol] developed a lot, and became absolutely amazing. So great, such an amazing character."

• Greg Nicotero reveals to Entertainment Weekly that he asked George Romero to direct an episode: "This was after we’d only aired six episodes. So, the show hadn’t really even caught on. And George said, 'No, listen, you guys have your world, and I have my world, and it’s cool.'"

• For recaps and reviews of Season 9, Episode 8, "Evolution," check out the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bloody Disgusting, ComicBook.com, Den of Geek, Forbes, IGN, Insider, io9, Nerdist, Syfy Wire, TV Guide, TVLine, Variety and Vulture.

Watch Season 9, Episode 8 now on amc.com and the AMC app for mobile and devices.

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