With the return of The Walking Dead falling on the most romantic of holidays, the midseason premiere episode on Sunday, February, 14, was a primo opportunity for Alexandria's survivors to paint the town red … with blood, obviously.
It was a straight-up St. Valentine's Day massacre, as the tense events of the midseason finale came to a horrifying, violent conclusion. Even if you don't count the zombies (and there were a lot of zombies), this episode boasted one of the biggest death counts in Walking Dead history.
Read on to find out about everything that went down, and who's still standing.
What a Bunch of Flaming Jerks
The last time we saw any of our Walking Dead faves, it was in a post-credits scene after the season finale, when Daryl (Norman Reedus), Sasha (Sonequa Martin) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) were rudely waylaid on their way back to Alexandria by a group of hoodlums on motorbikes. And that's where the premiere kicked off, as the gang leader repeated his famous line: "Your property now belongs to Negan."
What happened next was literal highway robbery, as the group relieved Daryl, Sasha and Abraham of their guns, and then demanded they hand over all their belongings and lead the gang back to "wherever you call home."
"Who's Negan?" Abraham asked, which was apparently the wrong question. Out came the group leader's gun, along with a villainous monologue about how he intended to kill at least one of them. But his big speech ended not with a bang, but with a kablooey, because remember how our survivors found a rocket launcher last half-season?
"What a bunch of a–holes," Daryl said, having reduced the biker gang to a scattered tableau of flaming body parts. (Well said, sir.) But while this is good news for our survivors short-term, they're gonna have some 'splaining to do whenever Negan shows up.
Say Goodbye to the Big Bad Wolf
After being knocked out last episode, Morgan (Lennie James) regained consciousness just in time to confront the awkward truth: that keeping a Wolf (Benedict Samuel) in his house was a really, really bad idea. The escaped prisoner was gone, with Denise (Merritt Wever) as his hostage and personal physician. His plan: to lead her through the zombie-infested streets and over the wall.
But the big escape attempt got completely derailed when Denise was attacked by walkers, and Wolfie, in a shocking turn of events, went back to save her and got bitten himself. With the tables fully turned, Denise tried to lead her kidnapper back to the infirmary for medical treatment — which is when Carol (Melissa McBride) spotted the two from a balcony and shot the Wolf. In her defense, she had no idea that he'd just completed an unexpected redemption arc, so.
You Won't Be Able to Run Away When They Come for You
And speaking of Carol, much as we all loved that superscary season 5 monologue where she used promises of death and cookies to threaten Sam (Major Dodon) into silence, it turns out that there are lingering repercussions to telling a small child that he's going to be eaten alive by zombies.
Namely, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At first, Rick's (Andrew Lincoln) plan to escape using zombie guts–covered sheets as camouflage was going well, as he led a small pack of survivors through the streets without incident. But for the already-unstable Sam, being surrounded by so many decomposing corpses was just too much. He stopped, froze, and started to whimper — and true to Carol's prediction, when the zombies came for him, he couldn't run away. Buh-bye, Sam.
Jessie (Alexandra Breckenridge) couldn't not scream while she watched her youngest eaten alive, which brought the zombies down on her too. Even worse, she died while clinging tightly to Carl's (Chandler Riggs) hand; hence Rick spent his Valentine's Day romantically hacking off his recently deceased crush's arm with a hatchet. And keeping in mind that Ron (Austin Abrams) already blamed Rick and Carl for his father's death, his reaction to all this was to grab a gun and point it at Carl. Fortunately, Michonne (Danai Gurira) put her katana through Ron’s solar plexus.
Unfortunately, this caused Ron to stumble and fire the gun wildly as he died … right into Carl's face.
If you're keeping track, casualties of this episode now include three Alexandrites, one Wolf, half a dozen bad bikers and one eyeball.
Painting the Town Red
After charging through the horde of zombies to safely deposit Carl in the infirmary, there was just one thing left for Rick to do: Go back outside and bury his hatchet in the heads of as many zombies as possible. And when the cowering Alexandrites saw their sheriff making a stand, they were suddenly, finally inspired, pouring out of their houses and into the street with weapons held high.
"We can beat 'em!" Rick shouted. And beat 'em, they did! What followed was a montage of triumphant violence that really could have used Rachel Platten's "Fight Song" playing in the background (but didn't), until finally, Daryl, Abraham and Sasha arrived with machine guns and gasoline. It all ended with the surprisingly gorgeous spectacle of dozens of zombies burning like individual, ambulatory Viking funerals in a lake of fire.
And the next morning, a new day dawned in more ways than one — as Rick, sitting at the bedside of his unconscious son, tearfully admitted that he finally had hope for the future.
"I want to show you the new world, Carl. Let me show you," he said. And in response, Carl's lifeless fingers moved and closed around his father's hand.
Yes, Carl Grimes will live to see the new world — albeit with one less than the usual number of eyes.
The Walking Dead airs on AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST.
