When The Walking Dead returns in two weeks for its Season 7 midseason premiere, AMC will continue their recent trend of supersizing episodes with additional minutes above and beyond the 48 or so typically required for an hour-long cable TV program.
For Episode 9, the midseason premiere, AMC will unleash 73 minutes of The Walking Dead. Episode 10 will scale that back a little bit to 66 minutes which is still well more than a typical episode, while Episode 11 reverses the trend upward again to 68 minutes.
We now know three of the eight The Walking Dead Season 7 episodes are extended and the other five are still unknown at this time. Theoretically all eight could be extended episodes and that’s a win-win for us, the audience.
The Season 7 midseason premiere is titled ‘Rock in the Road’ and will be the first episode after Rick finally made the choice to fight back against Negan and the Saviors. Teasers for the back half of the season tell us that Rick will meet Ezekiel at the Kingdom and likely try to forge an alliance for the greater good.
Here’s AMC’s official breakdown of what to expect in the next eight episodes of The Walking Dead:
“Rick’s group will find out yet again that the world isn’t what they thought it was. It’s much bigger than anything they’ve seen so far. While they have a singular purpose – to defeat Negan – it won’t come easy. More importantly, victory will require more than Alexandria. They need the numbers of the Kingdom and the Hilltop, but, similar to how Rick felt, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Gregory (Xander Berkeley) do not want bloodshed. To convince them otherwise will take more than speeches. The lengths Rick and the group will have to go to in order to find weapons, food and new fighters is nothing short of remarkable.
We’ll meet new survivors in incredible places. We’ll see Rick and the group tested in ways we’ve never seen before. We’ll see treachery from people we trust. Rick is confident as he will see his group and many others band together with the common goal of taking down Negan. But no amount of planning will prepare the group for all-out war with Negan and his army.”
The Walking Dead Season 7 midseason premiere goes down Sunday, February 12th at 9/8c on AMC.
