‘The Walking Dead’ season 4, episode 9 video: Andrew Lincoln and assorted awesomeness

Are you ready for the zombie phenomenon to come crawling back onto TV again? It’s been a long time (or at least a good month and a half) since we have seen “The Walking Dead” grace the small screen, but starting up on February 9, it’ll be back!

Also, the first preview below gives you at least a little bit of an idea as to the action and emotion that you should expect from the show. The first thing really worth noting here is that, once again, Rick and Carl seem to be a direct focus of the marketing campaign. We’ve seen that already from promotional photos, and it hints at a sort of father / son bond that is integral to everything we see the rest of the say. Is the student becoming more of the teacher, or are these two suddenly thrust into the role of catalysts more than they have before? Each is a worthy question.

There are still a few glimpses of some of the other characters. You can see an extremely emotional Michonne, a few tiny shots of Daryl, and Lauren Cohan doing some great acting with her eyes as Maggie seems to be completely at a loss. (Given that she has not had a chance to really mourn Hershel, we understand.)

These eight episodes are going to be meant to really figure out where the group is going to go from here, and to also figure out if there is ever a way that they can be together once again in some sort of settlement. There’s no more prison and the days of Hershel’s Farm are long gone. While some of the readers of the comics may have at least some idea of what is coming up, even they are not completely informed about everything.

For now, we continue waiting, and hope that there is a momentum and a sense of shock throughout the second half of this season that we didn’t see in the first.