The Walking Dead returned in explosive form – and a sinister new threat emerges

All photos: AMC

The Walking Dead’s mid-season premiere saw Rick and the gang back in fighting form but facing multiple new obstacles along the way to safety.

The Walking Dead has returned in fighting form, with the Alexandrians seemingly waking up from the visceral shock of Negan’s arrival at the start of series 7 (No entrails in sight, though!) Father Gabriel – usually to be found biting his lip in a fit of the moody blues, appears to have gone rogue – stealing the Alexandrians’ supplies and taking to the road before the opening titles even began.

And changes of character seemed to be the theme of the episode. After spending the first part of the series playing nice with Negan, Rick appears to have found his mojo and backbone (finally) again and set about rallying the troops from Alexandria, The Hilltop and The Kingdom to take on The Saviours in a might tussle for survival (we’re guessing further along in the AMC series?)

The only spoke in the wheel came from King Ezekiel, who listened patiently to Rick’s long story about a rock in the road and declared loftily “I shall deliver my decree in the morn” while stroking his tiger (as you do). Sadly for Rick, the moving rock story wasn’t enough to convince Ezekiel, who told him he’d rather not drag his loyal subjects into a battle royal.

And I guess Morgan could have stepped up and stoked the gospel or even a few kind words that would have aroused all those sleeping knights (with King Ezekiel ready to listen to the fighting monk!), but sadly poor old Morgan has let us down again!

But the Kingdom dwellers had other ideas, and now it looks like Rick might now be able to assemble the amateur army he needs to take on Negan (with horses and spears, ane yeah, we’re still waitinf for fire-breathing dragons as well!)

Also, Carol popped up – skulking around in the woods – with a gun too and scaring a young knight in training.

The episode also featured one of the best dramatic set-pieces from the show to date, with Rick, Michonne and the others channelling The A-Team to steal some much-needed explosives from a freeway roadblock and ingeniously chopping up a herd of walkers using a tow rope and two cars. The carnage was amazing; visually pleasing to the eye.

Then we had the odious Saviour Simon showing up at Alexandria with a fleet of trucks looking for the ‘missing’ Daryl, smashing crockery and threatening everyone like a deranged, slippery-jack kinda fellow.

Rick and the others finally realised Father Gabriel had gone missing and set off to find him, following heavy-footed tracks by an abandoned building. But before you could yell “surprise!”, they were surrounded by a silent group of heavily armed, black-clad strangers who didn’t look especially friendly. Could these be the much-vaunted Whisperers from the Walking Dead comic books, or another group of survivors? But Culturedemandsgeeks believe that all those lovely weapons was some kind of present given by ‘our very own’ father Gabriel! C’mon, (it’s worth a shot, anything is possible!)

The episode was riveting and a solid start to the second half of the season, and in an opening episode full of surprises, there was one bigger than all the rest. Rick smiled.