The Walking Dead season 5 premiered Sunday night with one of its most action-packed and emotional episodes in the series’ history.

Our recap of The Walking Dead season 5, episode 1 breaks down the events of “No Sanctuary,” which began virtually where we left off in March.

Several of our favorite characters are brought inside of Terminus – in addition to a few we haven’t seen before. The first four of these men, from the D train car, have their heads hit hard with a bat and get their necks cut open. A brief interruption in the slaughter to check in on shot counts with Gareth leaves the four characters we know – Bob, Rick, Daryl, and Glenn – with a second chance on life.

Gareth tries to ask Rick where he left his bag of weaponry. He won’t tell, but vows to kill Gareth with the machete once he gets it back.

The killing is about to continue when a big explosion caused by Carol (see below) and gunfire rocks the area they’re in.

Rick uses his homemade weapon to break free of his cuffs and quickly proceeds to kill the two men who are holding him captive. Rick and co. head out to save their own, but not before saving another man (“That’s still who we are,” Glenn reminds them).

On the road to Terminus

Carol, Tyreese, and Judith still haven’t arrived at Terminus, but they’re getting close, and Carol says she’s going to leave after the other two safely arrive.

Right now, their immediate safety is in danger. While walking on the train tracks they come across a large group of walkers. In the distance you can hear the gunfire at Terminus, and the walkers appear to be attracted to the noise.

Despite the potentially dangerous situation at Terminus, they decide to continue heading there. They run into a Terminus worker who’s setting up fireworks and overhears him discussing Michonne and Carl. They capture him at gunpoint and he lies to Carol, telling her those are the only two they have.

As Tyreese (and Judith) waits with the Terminus worker, Carol goes to the fence of the compound and causes a huge explosion thanks to a firework, a gun, and some flammable containers. After causing the boom she’s able to sneak in with the walkers thanks to some just-alright zombie make up.

Carol finds herself in a room where Terminus holds all of their prisoners’ belongings and grabs Glenn’s watch and Daryl’s crossbow. She then makes her way into the prayer room – a room we had a glimpse of during the season 4 finale.

Mary, the meat cook who you’ll remember from last season, surprises Carol and asks her to drop the weapon. She starts to… then swings around and starts firing. Mary says that Terminus used to truly be a sanctuary, but Carol is more concerned about her friends. She leaves Mary for the undead.

Meanwhile at the house where Tyreese is at, things turn dramatic when the Terminus worker threatens to kill Judith if Tyreese doesn’t go outside to deal with a batch of zombies. Left with no choice, he goes outside, kills the zombies, then heads back in and punches the man to death. In this moment he proves he can be bad when he needs to be.

The cure

In the train car, Eugene finally shares a little bit of information about their Washington D.C. journey. He says the cure will be a reverse engineering of systems that are already in place to kill everyone on the planet. In other words, he believes they can change the system so that they can kill just the walkers. This doesn’t sound like a great plan, but it’s the best thing they’ve got to work with, and Abraham seems to believe in it.

The escape

Rick, Daryl, Bob, and Glenn release their friends from the train car and make their exit, then quickly proceed to the spot where they hid all their weapons. Rick wants them to go back to Terminus (remember his promise to Gareth earlier?) and kill all of them – but no one else agrees.

Everything changes when Carol arrives. Daryl runs up to her and gives her a big, beautiful hug. “Did you do that?” Rick asks her. She gives a yes in the form of a hug. “Thank you,” he tells her.

Carol leads them to the house that Tyreese is in, and when Rick sees his child he starts running. Rick and Carl are finally reunited with their family member, and Tyreese reunites with Sasha. This scene made us cry, and it’s probably the one time this writer was personally moved to tears by this show.

The reunion changes Rick’s mind about going back to Terminus. They decide to head on their way.

What did you think of ‘The Walking Dead’ season 5 premiere?

EDIT: Readers have noted that Morgan appears at the very end of the episode. The screener that was provided to media did not include this scene, hence the reason we didn’t mention it. His last appearance was during season 3, and in the season 5 premiere he was walking toward Terminus. Interesting!

The episode was jam-packed with exciting moments, and we can’t wait to see if this level of intensity is carried through the remainder of the episodes. Our favorite character this episode was Carol, but now we’re worried she’s going to be going on her own way.

One interesting aspect was the looks at “Then” at the beginning and end of the episode. In these flashbacks we learn that Gareth truly did want Terminus to be a sanctuary, but the place somehow became overtaken.