The walkers return from their mid-season hiatus in spectacular form. One of the most cinematic episodes of the series and a shocking final episode for a great character. Beth’s death in episode 8 was a brutal hit to the group and I didn’t think we’d see another one being taken so quickly.

The show is never up-beat per se, but things are looking crazy bleak right now. It’s been a long time since anything positive has happened and it now feels like death is closer to them all now. They’ve been on the road for a long time now and it’s grinding them into the dirt like chalk underneath a boot.

There was a lot of nice foreshadowing this episode, director and all around special FX wizard Greg Nicotero really cranked up the visual story telling. Red hearings for the funeral, bits in the beginning come back to make sense and the overall spiritual and reflective tone worked well despite all the surrounding carnage. There was a lot of shady things about what happened to that neighborhood (the wall being knocked down from the outside, the oddly mutilated walkers all over the place) which means some real psychopaths are close by. Really great touches to raise the anxiety level.

Great return for the show, it’s keeping up the run of this overall great season. Really looking forward to what’s coming next.