This week, Angela Kang discusses the Season 9 Premiere with The Hollywood Reporter, while Entertainment Weekly chronicles Andrew Lincoln's last day. Plus, Deadline reports on how AMC memorialized Scott Wilson's passing. Read on for more:

• "We're trying to set up where the different characters are at in relation to Rick. In a lot of ways, Rick has shepherded this more positive and collaborative world by saving Negan. It's almost as if he's willed it into existence. But there are still cracks. It came with a cost," Angela Kang says to The Hollywood Reporter.

• Entertainment Weekly chronicles Andrew Lincoln's last day on The Walking Dead: "It is over. Eight years after entering Atlanta on horseback — only to watch that horse get devoured by zombies — Andrew Lincoln is finally riding off into the sunset."

• Deadline reports that Scott Wilson has passed away, noting that AMC said in a statement that Hershel "lived at the emotional core of the show. Like Scott in our lives, Hershel was a character whose actions continue to inform our character’s choices to this day."

• Digital Spy observes that the Season 9 Premiere closed with an "image, which read: 'In Memory of Scott Wilson,' accompanied by a portrait of his beloved bearded character."

• Entertainment Weekly confirms that Jon Bernthal will make a cameo in Season 9 and reports that Scott Wilson's Hershel and Sonequa Martin-Green's Sasha will appear during the first half of Season 9.

• Angela Kang tells Entertainment Weekly that part of Maggie's growth as a leader is "just finding the strength to not just go along with Rick, who was the leader of their group for so long, but she’s got to strike out on her own."

• Entertainment Weekly talks to Greg Nicotero, who explains, "I’m really trying to embrace the genre roots of The Walking Dead. And of the three episodes I’ve directed this season so far, I’m really, really desperately making sure that those genre elements are there."

• Insider interviews Greg Nicotero, who explains why Gregory died in the Season 9 opener: "Because it’s so unexpected, we really felt that it was important to kind of launch Maggie’s story, at that point, and to let the audience know that you can’t screw around with her. I mean, she’s not going to stand by idly while things happen."

• Danai Gurira talks to TV Guide about Michonne's and Rick's ideas for building a community: "The idea is that Michonne is more sophisticated than him [Rick], in a sense, so his mind deals with 'build a bridge' and her mind is like 'create a system of law and order that can last for generations.'"

• Rotten Tomatoes learns from Angela Kang that viewers "really get to see Daryl this season making choices in the way that a leader does, but it’s in his own style. Daryl is always going to be Daryl. But he also still has to really grow up and accept the fact that he is a seasoned survivor and people look to him for cues."

• Angela Kang explains Carol and Ezekiel's romance to Entertainment Tonight, saying, "Carol, who has been through so much trauma and so much grief, really has been looking for sources of joy in her life, and Ezekiel absolutely embodies that."

• Angela Kang tells TheWrap that Gregory's execution "means different things to different people. And so we thought that was an interesting [thing] to explore, the way that one event can just ripple out towards so many different people and in unexpected ways."

• The Huffington Post is pleased to get an explanation for why there's always been a "magical, never-ending supply of gasoline" in a zombie apocalypse: "Fans learned this week that the crops over at the Saviors’ sanctuary are dying and as a result, the characters are turning their dead corn into ethanol."

• According to Heavy.com, Alden (Callan McAuliffe) was singing a musical version of The Last Rose of Summer, a poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore, during Ken's funeral.

• Angela Kang explains to Deadline "the work that Danai [Gurira] does this year, that Melissa [McBride] does this year, that Lauren Cohan does this year, I think is really stunning."

• Teasing Season 9, Robert Kirkman tells The Hollywood Reporter, "There's a lot of great stuff coming. Those changes, while they bring us further from the comic, aren't going to limit us from adapting stories from the comic. You're still getting the Whisperers this season, and it's spectacular."

• Discussing the new opening credits with Entertainment Weekly, Angela Kang says she told the title design company, "There’s this indie Western feel. We’re doing these key moments from the graphic novel. We’re exploring the ways that nature is taken over, so there’s like death into life. And there’s these giant flocks of birds."

• Angela Kang, speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about the new opening, says, "We had fun burying the iconic objects from the show into the titles. Some of them, we made very obvious. Others? They're more like Easter eggs for people to go around looking for."

• According to ComicBook.com, Robert Kirkman notes that Corey Hawkins has "been busy. We are hoping to get him back and tell his story. There are plans in place there, we're just hoping schedules line up...We will eventually show his skeleton if we have to. I'm just kidding!"

• "Over the course of eight, going on nine, seasons, Rick Grimes has had some unforgettable moments that will remain in fans’ minds long after he makes his exit. Before Rick Grimes hangs up his sheriff’s hat for good, check out some of his most memorable moments," PopCulture writes.

• The Young Folks takes "a look back at the top 10 episodes that made this series what it has become."

• For recaps and reviews of the Season 9 Premiere, "A New Beginning," check out A.V. Club, Cleveland.com, ComicBook.com, The Daily Beast, Empire, Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, IGN, IndieWire, io9, Syfy Wire, TV Fanatic, TVLine, Us Weekly, Vanity Fair, Variety, Vox and Vulture.

Watch the Season 9 Premiere for free now on amc.com and the AMC app for mobile and devices.

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

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