The Walking Dead leaks clue confirming a time jump for season 9

The Walking Dead may move a few years forward in its storyline for season 9, following a slew of rumors and a new behind-the-scenes photo.

The Walking Dead is already facing some major changes next season, with news that Andrew Lincoln is leaving and now, a hint that a time jump could start season 9 off.

At the end of season 8, Rick Grimes and his crew defeated Negan and offered mercy to those at the Sanctuary, concluding on similar notes to the comic’s “All Out War” arc.

With Carl Grimes long gone and news that Lauren Cohan’s character Maggie will only appear in six episodes, we know we’re headed into new and (hopefully) interesting territory for those who survived the war. Things could get pretty interesting, indeed, thanks to a new behind-the-scenes photo teasing a potential time jump for the show.

The photo, which you can view here, was shared by the show’s official Instagram account but has since been deleted. The photo showed a hat with a sticker, reading a message from new showrunner Angela Kang: “Welcome to Season 9. Here’s to a great year ahead and ‘A New Beginning’ – Angela Kang.”

Those final words preview the time-jump possibility. After the events of “All Out War,” the comics jump two years after the big battle to start the next arc, “A New Beginning.” (Plus any photo being hastily deleted by a show’s official account gives us plenty of “oops-we-spoiled-that” vibes.)

Now, the time jump makes plenty of sense, especially since we’ve had several clues already leading to this theory. In the comics, Rick and crew meet a new group of survivors. That big group could be connected to Georgie, who fans think is connected to the large Commonwealth community (and her character is expected to return next season). Characters like Magna and Yumiko are also confirmed for next season, offering a big clue we’re moving forward to “A New Beginning.”

Add this with recent set photos of the cast showing Rick with a fresh, clean look (reminds me of how he looked like in “A New Beginning” in the comics), and other characters riding horses or being in a full-on carriage? Yea, we think a time jump is pretty likely.

Former showrunner Scott Gimple did say this about season 9 a while back:

"Well, I mean, we want to tell the comic story and how the stories just have just very, very unusual and sort of new drives… people are going to see there’s a lot more story to tell."

Maybe Carl’s vision of communities working together will come true after all? *sniff*

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