'Walking Dead' Season 9 Spoilers: New Clip Explains a Big Time Jump Mystery

The Walking Dead returns with the second half of Season 9 on Sunday, and the AMC zombie series has quite a bit to address. Jesus is dead, and the new enemy responsible, The Whisperers, may finally be the thing that brings the communities together. But first, we have to find out what happened that made Michonne keep Alexandria somewhat isolated from the other communities — and a sneak peek from the midseason premiere may provide a hint.

Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 9 below.

Danai Gurira appeared on Good Morning America to celebrate Black Panther Day, and she also promoted the return of the AMC series.

Her appearance even featured a sneak peek of the midseason premiere. Michonne, Daryl, and the others have brought Jesus’ body back to Hilltop, and now that the community is without a leader — Maggie was in charge, then, after she left, Jesus took over — Michonne thinks that it needs Daryl. He argues that Tara can be its leader, but Michonne doesn’t think she should have to do it alone.

“What we did, bringing Jesus back, it’s going to help them move on,” Michonne says, “but after that, it’s about doing whatever it takes to not bury more.”

Could that explain why Michonne was so against bringing in new people to Alexandria in the first half of Walking Dead Season 9? She wanted to send Magna and her group away as soon as Judith saved them and brought them back. When it came time to vote whether or not to let them stay, Michonne reminded the residents of Alexandria of their past, a past we have yet to see or receive more than vague hints about so far.

“Decisions like the one we’re about to make can come with a heavy price,” Michonne said. “I remember, and I know you do, too.”

So far, we can only assume that something happened to the survivors in Alexandria during the six years that passed off screen after Rick’s departure. Both Michonne and Daryl have X scars on their backs, which may or may not be related. Could Alexandria have lost a few people and Michonne closed them off to prevent more deaths?

It sounds like we’ll get some answers in the second half of Season 9.

Gurira also spoke about The Walking Dead Season 9 on GMA, describing it as a transitional one with Andrew Lincoln’s departure as Rick and the subsequent time jump of six years.

“There’s a lot of information, a lot of mystery around what happened in those six years,” she said.

And she called the new enemy, the Whisperers, humans who wear the skins of walkers as disguises, “the scariest yet.”

“We can’t tell when they’re coming at us,” she said.

Fans already saw this in the midseason finale. Jesus thought he had dispatched of all the walkers during a fight only for one of them to stab and kill him. It was only after the others killed that walker that they realized they were dealing with a human wearing a walker mask.

However, it looks like they’ve come up with a way to figure out who’s a Whisperer in disguise and who may just be a member of the undead. In a sneak peek AMC has released from the midseason premiere (above), Daryl puts arrows into the legs of the “walkers” advancing on him and sees how they react. Walkers just keep moving. Whisperers cry out in pain and go down.

Let’s hope this trick will prevent the survivors from losing anyone else.

The Walking Dead Season 9 returns Sunday at 9 p.m. on AMC.

Related video: The Survivors Face The Whisperers in The Walking Dead Midseason Trailer