The penultimate episode before The Walking Dead’s mid-season finale was lacking the excitement that next week’s episode will likely have in store for fans.

If there’s one good thing to say about The Walking Dead season 5, episode 7, it’s that the show finally brought viewers back into the lives of Rick and everyone else at the church, but the focus on Father Gabriel’s home – which he’s still trying to keep clean – didn’t last long.

Rick, Daryl, Tyreese, Noah, and Sasha

Before heading into Atlanta, Rick’s group tries to come up with a plan of attack concerning the hospital. Everyone has a different opinion about how to handle the situation, but the leading idea seems to come from Daryl, who suggests that they first nab two of Dawn’s cops for an exchange.

An attempt to grab the cops backfires when other cops make a surprise appearance. And Daryl is almost eaten by a zombie – but luckily pulls a cool move where he rips a zombie’s head off and hits one of the cops with it.

Later, the captured cops try to offer tips to the group about how to speak with Dawn, who – as we learned a few episodes ago – is a huge pain in the ass.

Their tips? She’ll act like she won’t compromise, but she will if you try hard enough. Could Rick not have figured that out himself?

One of the cops, Bob, seems to be friendly towards our group, but as you probably expected, he goes rogue when asking Sasha for some help and runs off – probably to alert Dawn about what just happened.

The Hospital

Dawn and her men are looking to find Noah after he ran away the last time we saw them. They also believe that Carol is on death’s door. Beth tries to intervene when they decide to pull her off life support, but her efforts are fruitless – at first. “You just killed that woman,” Dawn tells her while another officer is in the room. When said officer leaves, Dawn shows her true colors: She wants Carol to live. “Why are you doing this?” Beth asks. “I thought you were weak. You proved me wrong.”

Beth takes it upon herself to get medicine for Carol. She asks Doctor Steven – the same person who had given her an incorrect prescription three episodes ago – for medicine advice. It’s not the best person to ask given his trustworthiness, but we have to admit he’s the only person she can ask.

After causing a distraction with an “ill” patient she paid off in strawberries (who looks like Jurassic Park’s John Hammond), Beth takes the recommended medicine and gets it into Carol. We don’t learn if it did the trick (or killed her) this episode.

‘GREATM’

Abraham is still in shock over the loss of his Washington D.C. mission. He’s positioned himself on his knees on concrete (doesn’t that hurt, man?) and refuses to speak for almost the entire hour.

Maggie is fed up with his silence by the end of the episode and tries to offer him some water. He finally snaps out of it, just as Eugene comes to his senses too. In a moment of enlightenment, Abraham grabs the water bottle and — well, we don’t see what happens. We’d like to think that he walked the water over to Eugene who probably needs it more, but we may never know.

The Church

Carl knocks some sense into Gabriel at the start of the episode. This isn’t a game, he tells the priest! You need to learn how to fight.

The priest accepts a machete – but uses it to get underneath the floorboards of his church.

For what? Viewers see him use it as a way to escape the house of worship – right below the “you’ll burn for this” etched onto the wall. He steps on a nail on his way out, affecting his journey from the get-go. Moments later, he resists killing a zombie because she’s wearing a neckless with a cross. Being out in the wilderness isn’t going to be easy for this guy.

Is it next week yet?

Everything that happened in tonight’s episode was just a set up for what happens during the mid-season finale. How will Dawn react to Rick’s arrival? Is Carol finally waking up? Is Eugene okay? What is Gabriel running away from?

All will hopefully be revealed during The Walking Dead mid-season finale on Sunday, November 30.