Photo by AMC

Welcome back to post-apocalyptic rural Georgia, ladies and gents. With “The Walking Dead” Season 5 premiere’s record shattering 17.3 million viewers on Oct. 12, the time has come to begin a weekly recap and review of, dare I say with great bias, the best show on television. If you are not caught up, please stop reading now (but make sure to ‘like’ this story anyways.)

The Season 5 premiere, ironically titled “No Sanctuary,” picks up immediately after the Season 4 finale. At the end of Season 4, we saw Rick’s fragmented group finally arrive at Terminus, which promised sanctuary via radio to all those who arrived. Unfortunately for Rick and friends, it was a sham. Rick, Daryl, Michonne and the rest of the gang were rounded up like cattle into train cars.

The premiere took a dark turn, arguably the darkest and most disturbing episode of this series to date. Fans of the comic may have had an inkling as to the truth behind Terminus’ motives, but Rick found out the hard way. Our gradually regressing heroes narrowly escape being slaughtered like pigs and devoured by Terminus’ hungry population.

While seeing survivors graphically meet their demise in a slaughter house style manner, the true darkness of this episode was seen in the psychological developments that emerge in these characters.

After Season 4 focused on the return of humanity and civilization inside of a prison, all hope for such a life dissipated in the season premiere. We see just how far the world has gone, with men eating other men without second glance, rounding them up like cattle and slaughtering them. Even Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Bob didn’t seem too disturbed by what they saw. These people have hardened. For Rick, to have humanity crumble due to outbreak is one thing. To rebuild a society in the prison only to have another man destroy everything you have … two times is the charm. Rick realized the foolishness of naïve complacency. Rick can’t take any more chances with people. Every past sedentary survivor civilization (Woodbury and Terminus) that we have run into have revealed to have only the sickest of leaders with even sicker intentions. Contrarily, Rick’s group of genuinely good people, though slowly regressing, is consistently in shambles. The rules are clear: in this world, humanity is a hindrance to survival, and even the best of men succumb to the primitive ways of the zomb— I mean “walker”— apocalypse. This is only further evidenced by the gentle giant, Tyreese, murdering a Terminus scout in a fit of primal rage, verbally fighting with his urge to resists and he does it.

Now there is a new goal. Dr. Eugene Porter, who was on a team working on the Human Genome Project during the outbreak, reveals that he has plans to do something along the lines of developing a biological weapon that will target the specific mutated genome that facilitates the undead and wipe them out. He just needs to get to Washington. Could this mission turn the tides of civilization? With everything our characters lose along the way, will they aim towards making sure future generations don’t end up like they have? Tune in next time.