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If the first four minutes of The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 1 weren’t enough to prove that this season will be markedly different from the last, we weren’t watching the same season premiere.

That might have been the most brutal thing we’ve witnessed in our entire duration inside the Zombie Apocalypse. If you watch The Walking Dead online through slightly parted fingers, we won’t blame you one bit.

After spending an indeterminate amount of time inside their train car preparing to fight their way out, Rick, Daryl, Bob, and Glenn were taken by some of the men of Terminus to be slaughtered.

Yes, finally, we have confirmation beyond all shadows of any doubt that the people of Terminus are cannibals. Or they were.

Seriously. In all the seasons of The Walking Dead so far, all of the deaths, dismemberments, and gore, nothing has come close to being as brutal as watching the Terminus butchers bleed men dry like cattle, and not just because of the physical acts of what they were doing.

The psychology of how far a person would have to come undone to be able to slaughter another human as if s/he were no more than actual cattle is fascinatingly disturbing.

We’ve known for a while that the mantra of this world is kill or be killed, and we’ve seen our characters make that choice time and again, but there’s a new level of crazy afoot when kill or be killed turns into “kill so you can live.”

(By the way, did anyone wonder if a Mad Cow like disease would eventually kill the people of Terminus? If all of the living are infected, wouldn’t eating the flesh of an infected person, like, compound the infection?)

Sasha forced Eugene to tell them how he planned to save them all once they made it to Washington. According to him, the ZA was either an attempt to wipe out the human population or an attempt to wipe out something else that went horribly wrong. Either way, the government is behind it and he knows how to reverse it and kill all of the walkers.

When it seemed like one of ours might not make it out alive, an explosion occurred outside. Carol saved their lives and after they were all reunited, she was eagerly welcomed back into the group.

Carol and Daryl being reunited might have been THE BEST moment we’ve had yet, second perhaps only to Rick seeing that Judith is alive and giving Tyreese a nod of thanks for protecting his daughter.

If you weren’t crying, you might be a zombie.

The real question is whether or not the people of Terminus are actually dead or whether they’ll be coming after Rick Grimes and Co. My money is on the latter based solely on that final scene when Gareth told them they would retake their compound. They might be cannibals, but they’re obviously survivors.

Our survivors are better, though.