Who’s interested in my take on The Walking Dead mid-season opener several days later? Awesome! Let’s find out what happened! On Sunday!

Full disclosure: I’ve watched every single episode of TWD with online friends, I have strong opinions on ALLS the characters and a deep and abiding love for Glenn. It’s been a rotten season so far, honestly, the producers like to mess with us and this year it’s been a Whack-a-Glenn-O-Rama.

We left the Rick and his soon-to-be-blended family covered in walker guts negotiating the massive crowds; Deanna doing her last stand in a crowded hallway; Glenn counseling Enid to never give up in the church; Abraham, Sasha and Darryl cuddling in a tanker and Morgan screwing everyone over by his caged Wolf getting free and abducting their sole medical professional Denise.

We open with Darryl and gang stopping at a blockade of motorcycles and excuse me: you have a big truck. Why stop? They’ll get out of the way, or they won’t. Either way, problem solved. They don’t, though, and the mouthy one at the front of the gang threatens to “end they asses” if they don’t get out. 23 seconds in and I’m already pissed off. Didn’t we already get rid of a HipsterMonolguer? WHY do we need another Gareth exactly?

ANYWAY, there are 8 of them, and 3 of ours, and HM2 tells them to hand over their weapons; ain’t none of it belong to them: it’s all Negan’s. Now I don’t know Negan, but I bet he doesn’t own Darryl’s crossbow! Oh wait, sorry, sore point, that was stolen by the gang of America Apparel models on the run from Negan earlier in the season, along with Darryl’s motorcycle, my bad. As you were.

HM2 relieves our gang of all their weapons, and now they want the rest of their shite. I have to mention this part, because it comes up a LOT, HM2 suggests that when you have to eat shit, bite, chew, swallow, repeat. Get it done. He threatens our ginger after Abraham asks who Negan is, while Darryl is in the back with a big fella digging out the serious weapons. Sasha steps in and HM2 yerks off a bit while pretending to mull over whether he’s gonna kill them or not, just as he decides he is: BOOM. Darryl sorted the big fella and shot up the gang with the rocket launcher Abraham found. Darryl got a stab wound for his trouble, I always worry when I see our gang bleed.

Jessie and Rick are walking their extended family around, they’ve also got Michonne (yay!) and Father Gabriel (boo!!) with them and holee there are a metric tonne of walkers wondering aboot since the fences came down. They come up with a plan, they’ve got to go to the Quarry and grab the vehicles; but Judith? She can’t make it there and back. Father Gabriel says he’ll take care of Judith and DON’T LET THAT AHOLE ANYWHERE NEAR HER!! He has the distinction of being the only character that has made it this far that is a coward AND a moron, so I am super concerned about his ability to take care of our wee bebeh Judith. Jessie tries to send Sam away too, but he’s not having it; he wants to stay with her. That kid ain’t right, though, ever since Carol messed with his melon, he’s been rocking and humming in corners, IYKWIM.

‘Tis a motley crew all together, Ron and Coral holding hands, of all things. Sigh. Over across yonder, Rosita and Tara are arguing about whether or not they will go after Denise, Tara’s girlfriend. Rosita says no, and I get it. It makes sense. That’s just never a call that Rick would have made. Carol is awake, Morgan is coming to (they were knocked out by the Wolf). The Wolf and Denise have made it to the armory and he’s monologuing at her, but her affect is weird and I can’t tell what’s going on with her. Weird direction, Greg Nicotero.

Glenn (squee!!) and Enid are searching the church, he KNOWS there must be a bible gun here, and blah blah Enid’s talking and I zone out a tiny bit. Right until they talk about how the people they love making them who they are, and that they’re still inside them and THEY BETTER NOT BE SOFTENING US UP TO KILL HIM OFF SO HE CAN LIVE ON IN MAGGIE!!!!

The Wolf is creeping at Denise. He is messing with her head or delirious, I can’t really tell yet. He yaks and yaks and yaks about how he wasn’t born this way, but changed and now he wants to help her change. He is so shooting her in the leg as zombie-bait, you know that, right?

It’s dark now, eep, and Rick et. al have still not made it to the quarry. They’re all still joined together by hands, so there’s that. Sam is not doing well. Remember what Carol said to him when he saw her stealing weapons? He sure does, and it’s ricocheting around his wee unstable mind like a lopsided missile. He starts to whimper and then he is et. In the blink of an eye, they’re on Jessie too and that’s it for her. Holy shite.

Rick cries. Really?? Rick just shuts down whenever one of his ladyfriends is in distress, hey? Well, this particular ladyfriend is not letting go of Coral’s hand, so Rick has to hack it off, while flashing back to all their tender moments. Mother of gawd. Just think how you would react if you had to do that; 30 seconds ago she was the new Missus Grimes and now she’s dead weight that has to be removed.

It’s not over, though, Jessie’s son Ron has a gun and a BIG problem with Coral and Rick. He points it at Rick but Michonne spears him with the katana before he can get a shot off properly. The gun does fire, though, drawing attention and… HOLY SHIT shooting our Coral in the eye! Motherfcuk, I will never get that image out of my head.

Ahhhh chivers. An entire family wiped in a moment; the time bomb of Carol’s terror went off and that whole family is GONE as a result.

Eugene tells the gang “sooner or later, we’re fighting our way out” and Rosita agrees, except she insists: not him. She thinks he’s useless, but we know better. Denise and The Wolf are STILL discussing Existential Philosophy 101 and all I got from that is that he is the Last and Lone Wolf. Finally, they do something: they make a run for it! The Wolf makes it to the ladder safely, but there’s this massively obvious part where he makes this giant turn around to come help her instead of climbing the ladder to get the eff oot while Redemption Song plays softly in the hinterland.

He gets bit, of course, and she tells him to get her to the infirmary so she can save his life. But. He’s been BITTEN. Unless she cuts that off super-quick, there is no saving anything. And I will NOT watch another Tyreese play by play of this jackhole’s life, I’m telling you that RIGHT now.

Cut to Carol and Morgan discussing her previous life; I wish I could like Carol as much as y’all do. I don’t like her method, I don’t like her means, and I appreciate the fact that she has grown as a person from an abused woman to a warrior, but I think she acts rashly and needs sanctioning.

The Wolf is confused by his change of heart, he was so close! He totally could have made that! They make a run to the infirmary and… bam! Carol shoots him. That’s EXACTLY the kind of shite I’m talking about. They don’t need loose cannons here! Even while dying, The Wolf does what he can to save Denise’s life, which means, and I don’t like to say this: Morgan was right after all. Damnit. I hate Morgan.

Rick grabs his wee hatchet, goes out and starts SWINGING while Denise works to save Coral’s life. Everyone else soon joins him and they take back this decimated town of Alexandria.

Oh thank FCUK, Judith is okay. I am so glad she’s not alone with Father Gabriel, and then he leaves her with the others so he can go use God’s will to kill a bunch of zombies, yay! Even Eugene wants in on this action; this will be a story people tell!

All hands on deck, the tide soon turns and YAY!!!! Glenn gets to Maggie, she SEES him!! I am so worried for Glenn right now, you just know those show runners like to turn the knife and hurt us when we’re the most vulnerable. He’s drawing the walkers away with gun shots while Enid climbs up the tower and just as he is overcome…Abraham shoots down all the zombies around him. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY TO SEE THAT GINGER BASTARD EVER!!

Darryl knows just what to do. Without further ado, he backs the tanker up to the lake and spills some gasoline on it. Turning it around, he jumps off and fires off another one of those rockets, BOOM: lake of fire. Being noisy and shiny, it draws alll the walkers, the ones not being head-stabbed by Rick and the gang, that is.

After the night is over, we get this lovely picture:

Isn’t that GORGEOUS???? I love Michonne holding Judith for SO.MANY reasons! Of course because that means Jude is safe, but also because of Michonne’s lost kiddo and finally, because I love Michonne and Rick together. She’s a much better match than Jessie, as far as I’m concerned, and not just because she wasn’t just et, Michonne is Rick’s equal and we already know how well her and Coral get along. I won’t mourn the end of Ricky and Jessie; too fraught, what with him killing her abusive husband, and her sons being alternatively shell-shocked and complete arseholes.

ANYWAY, Rick is talking to a non-responsive head-bandaged Coral; Rick has hope for the first time in ages, he saw what the Alexandrians are capable of, with just a little training. I will say that in the beginning of the season, I was as skeptical as Rick, what with a whack of Alexandrians getting killed every time they spoke against Rick or really, got any lines whatsoever (I still hold it against them for killing off my beloved Ethan Embry after 47 seconds of screen time: Can’t Hardly Wait and Empire Records 4EVA!!) or walked outside, I can’t believe we got to keep Dr. Dre this long!

Just as Rick is sobbing, Coral moves his fingers just that little bit…yay!! What a great way to end the episode! We were all worried, season openers are BRUTAL (The Trough, anyone?) and someone important always dies, but I think I can totally live with these losses. The eye shoot-out is brutal, but really, Coral lived and that’s the most we can hope for on a mid-season opener.

The part with Denise was unexpected, she grew a bit and I think Morgan might have found another peace demonstrator to hang with. Carol, well, she remains problematic for me, but since she did save all of them at Terminus, I grudgingly give her a pass. I just think she might be a problem. Of course, the REAL problem is Negan, even a non-comic book reader like myself knows that. In the comics he beats Glenn to death as a lesson to Rick and I am very sorry, if that happens, I will not be watching OR recapping. I seriously love Glenn and I even know he’s fictional and everything!

We oot, see you next week for some very late reviewing! Keep it tasty, y’all.