Was Sunday’s Midseason Premiere of The Walking Dead the Best Episode Ever?

[SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet watched Sunday’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead, “No Way Out,” consider yourself warned. The following is a recap of “No Way Out.”]

Wow. Director Greg Nicotero and writer Seth Hoffman sure did make up for lost time in Sunday night’s long-awaited return of The Walking Dead. In the first 30 minutes alone, there were several times when I found myself jumping up from the couch to scream, “Holy shit!” at no one in particular.

Things get started with Daryl literally blowing up Negan’s biker gang with a rocket launcher in the tension-filled opening sequence. Back in Alexandria, Sam, that little shit, finally meets his fate and gets eaten by walkers when he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. This leads to Jessie, Sam’s mom and Rick’s love interest, screaming in horror and meeting the same fate, but when her death grip on Carl’s wrist threatens to take him down with her, Rick hacks off Jessie’s arm with an axe, which then invokes Ron to point a gun at our favorite father-son duo. Michonne comes to the rescue with her sword, killing Ron, who manages to get off one fateful shot, which travels right through Carl’s right eye.

*A couple of related thoughts: good riddance to Sam and Ron. Has it ever been easier to root for the demise of two child-age brothers? And for Carl’s sake, did anyone bother to keep the Governor’s eye patch as a souvenir?

Picking back up, Rick and Michonne make a run for the infirmary where Denise, apparently now over her fears, goes to work trying to save Carl. That’s when a maniacal Rick grabs his axe, steps outside with no particular plan or backup, and goes berserk on the entire heard of walkers. Of course, that turns out to be the critical shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment for the rest of the Alexandria community, as one by one the town members join Rick and his crew in slaying the walkers. Even notorious coward Eugene gets in on the action.

Elsewhere, Glenn and Enid return just in time to save Maggie, followed by Abraham and Sasha returning just in time to save Glenn, who avoids his second near-death experience of Season 6. Frankly, the Glenn having nine lives thing is over the top at this point. One has to wonder if the show runners are merely jerking the audience around until the Season 6 finale when Negan reportedly makes his debut.

As for the storyline with The Wolf, I thought it played out well to see the conflicting ideologies between Carol and Morgan about how to go about life in this post-apocalyptic world. Whereas Morgan has come to believe that people can change, Carol is resigned to it being a dog-eat-dog world where perceived enemies must be eliminated at all costs. As it turns out, The Wolf does have a change of heart and ultimately sacrifices his own life to save Denise, only to be shot by Carol. And Carol – her terse words haunting little Sam’s mind – led to, or maybe more appropriately, helped expedite, Sam’s death.

The bloodbath comes to an eventual close with Morgan confronting and finally killing a zombified Wolf, and then Daryl (who else?) shooting a rocket into a gas-filled pond, creating a lake of fire that draws in walkers like moths to a bug zapper, while Rick and company get the upper hand on the rest of the undead.

In the final scene, we see Rick by Carl’s bedside, telling his unconscious son he finally sees what the Alexandrians are capable of and that he wants Carl to see the new world. Carl grasps Rick’s hand, offering hope that he will survive his second life-threatening gunshot wound of the series.

Back in November, creator Robert Kirkman promised that “so many people die” in the midseason premiere, and that promise did not disappoint. Personally, if Sunday’s episode was not the best TWD episode of the series, surely it is in the top-three.

Where do you rank it?