You'll Never Guess Who Totally Owned Last Night's "The Walking Dead" Premiere

Last night's "Walking Dead" season premiere did not disappoint.

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Holy exploding zombies! With the exception of The Walking Dead's pilot (which still might be the series' best episode to date), last night's season five opener, "No Sanctuary," is hands down the zombie drama's best season premiere yet. As each season has taught us, a strong comeback episode does not an accurate sign of the year ahead make—Walking Dead seasons typically start strong, and inevitably get soft in the middle. But the spike in savagery and brutality that showrunner Scott M. Gimple and the cast have been teasing all summer didn't disappoint.

We open, in disorienting fashion, literally right where season four left off—with our heroes in train car A, captives of the mysterious group (of cannibals?) at Terminus. By episode's end, the reunion is finally, fully complete, unless you're the rare viewer who actually cares about Beth. In between is basically one long, intense set-piece between the Grimes Gang, the Terminus crew, and one conveniently timed horde of zombies, as well as a standoff between Tyreese and a Terminus member in a cabin outside of the headquarters.

With so many cool moments to choose from, we're going to rank The Walking Dead's characters by their bad-assery in last night's episode. (Just those who actively contributed to the plot, since half of the group spends the majority of it in the train car.)

7. Bob

1.

Bob's kind of a punk. Just putting that out there.

6. Glenn

Glenn didn't have much to do last night besides follow Rick around and keep him honest. His Jiminy Crickett act wore thin by the end of the episode when he challenged Rick's bloodlust to pick off the remaining members of Terminus. Of course, how could he know that Rick just learned a very sobering and damn near unspeakably horrible lesson about what happens when you leave your enemies alive to fight another day. But considering everything the group went through with the Governor, it's best just to take Rick's word on that regard, yeah?

5. Eugene

Eugene's plan to stop the Zombie Apocalypse, as vaguely described last night, deals with even vaguer-sounding viral warfare delivery systems that apparently only he and the Illuminati (read: high-ranking United States government officials) know about. Sounds pretty flimsy, to be honest, but props to the guy for being the only truly proactive person in this whole goddamned dystopian world. While some are clinging to humanity and others are throwing theirs right out of the window (more on that later), Eugene's the only one who's trying to restore it. (Or, he's a complete fraud.)

4. Tyreese

Whenever Tyreese goes beserker, it's amazing; the barely bottled rage within him is fascinating to watch as Chad L. Coleman plays it. Tyreese completely bodying however many zombies outside of the cabin and then handling the mouthy Terminus guy, all with his bare hands, was amazing.

But he's ranked this low because Mouthy Terminus Guy was absolutely right—there was no reason for Tyreese to keep him alive and endanger poor Judith yet again. Had Tyreese not been a bare-knuckled brawler that situation could've gone way left and it would've been his fault. Keeping dude alive is the type of dumb shit season-two-era Rick would've done. Tyreese needs to adopt season five Rick's doctrine of Fuck Everyone Else.

2.

3. Daryl

Light episode for Daryl—he didn't even have his crossbow! But everyone's favorite redneck is so cool and so good at killing things, it'd be blasphemous to rank him any lower.

2. Rick

Scott M. Gimple, Robert Kirkman, and Andrew Lincoln have promised that the season four finale's still unbelievably next-level throat-ripping was the birth of a new, fearless, no-fucks-given Rick Grimes, and they didn't disappoint. The sheriff was an ice-cold badass last night, with tossed-off one liners ("It's a bag of guns—I'm going to use them to kill you."), clean kills, and a bloodlust that made even his friends a little uncomfortable. It's unclear going forward how much of this New Rick will actually be different, but we're definitely here for this clear-headed, over-protective, no-moral-hand-wringing version.

1. Carol

3.

Wow. Who would've thought back in season one, when Carol was a meek housewife with an abusive husband straight out of a Lifetime classic, that she would make it to season five? Let alone that the entire group's survival would be dependent on her being an absolute badass. She, more or less singlehandedly, saved the entire freaking group, fam.

That's right. Carol. The same Carol who was only good for, like, folding clothes when all of this first started. We saw hints of her dynamic character transformation last year, but last night was the full pay-off. Everything she did, from going zombie-undercover (nice callback to season one's "Guts" episode) to literally setting shit off with a bang, was aces. Your girl Melissa McBride might even demand to be killed off this season so she can get her Female Liam Neeson wave poppin' off. If that does happen, though, the big thing here is, we'd actually care.

The Walking Dead is far from a perfect series, but narrative wins like the unmitigated success of Carol's character arc are what make it worth watching for more than A1 gore. Like this:

4.

Stray Notes


  • So, yeah, those bookends. On one hand, they were unnecessarily bleak moments used to over-explain why the Terminians are douchebags. But any attempt to flesh out villains is a worthwhile one, so we'll see where they go, assuming they continue throughout the season. Then again, last year's attempt to make the Governor a fully realized character was an absolute brick that rendered him more cartoonish than ever.

  • Bonus badass (off the strength of the Traveling Man's Apocalypse Alphet alone): Morgan's back! And on Rick's trail! As friend or foe, well, that remains to be seen, but this is definitely an interesting development.

[GIFs via Warming Glow]

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