SPOILER ALERT

This is the moment fans of The Walking Dead have been waiting for: we find out what happened to Glenn. Better still, we don't have to wait very long.

The episode opens with the words "thank you", spoken by Nicholas just before he blew his own brains out four weeks ago, and then we fade up from the dark at the moment he tumbles into the pit of zombies below the dumpster, dragging Glenn with him. Only it sort of looks like Glenn has grabbed Nicholas rather than the other way round, which should fuel the conspiracy theories for another month at least.

And yes, as the internet suspected, it was Nicholas's guts being torn asunder, not Glenn's. Glenn is beneath him, screaming in horror, and getting covered in Nick's blood and guts, but he's still quick enough to realise this is his chance to escape. He slides out from underneath Nicholas's body and lays low beneath the dumpster, sticking his knife into the head of the one zombie smart enough (can a zombie be smart?) to follow him under there.

We're three minutes in when Glenn emerges from beneath the dumpster – a night has passed, he's thirsty as all hell, but the zombies have moved on – and I'm sorry but calling time out.

I have really mixed emotions about this.

Glenn (Steven Yeun) is one of the best characters in the show – smart, resilient, compassionate but not afraid to make the hard decisions when necessary. He's the embodiment of the tough but humane ethos that underpins its world view (yes, it really does have one), and he's the beacon by which Rick can find his bearings whenever he strays off course and heads out into psycholand (which he does with surprising frequency).

In short, The Walking Dead needs Glenn.

So when he died – or seemed to die – in episode three, I was devastated. Like, seriously. But I was also blown away by the commitment the show was displaying to the logic of its own world. Everyone was expendable. Anyone could die. At any time.

It was brutal but honest. It was like The Walking Dead and the audience were renewing their vows: till death do us part. And it surely will.

But now here we are and Glenn has risen from the (un)dead, and it feels like a cheat. I've known it was coming and part of me is glad but at the same time I feel like I've been cuckolded. And I really don't care that the rumour mill has it that he's going to die – for real this time – before the season is over. That's just messing with us. It won't make things right, because I'll never be able to trust it again. Harrumph.

Right. Let's move on, shall we?

Glenn isn't the only human left in town. Enid (Katelyn Nacon) is there too. She chucks him a bottle of water when she sees him emerge – it's a lousy shot, it hits the ground and splits open, so thanks for nothing Enid – but other than that she doesn't want anything to do with Glenn. Her whole schtick is to avoid attachments because, as she tells him (yelling, from somewhere far out of sight) "the same thing always happens – people die". She plans to JSS (just somehow survive) by moving on. Alone.

Glenn wants to get back to Alexandria, wants to take Enid with him, and he wants to know about the herd. "What herd?" Enid was gone by the time the massed ranks of the zombocalypse started knocking on the door. But Glenn was gone by the time the Wolves attacked, and Enid has some info of her own to share.

Pleasantries exchanged, they hit the road, stopping only fill some green balloons with helium. Even in the end days, you've got to make time to par-tay, right?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Rick (Andrew Lincoln) wants a word with Morgan (Lennie James). This can't be good. It's never good when Rick "wants a word". It's usually code for "kick your ass" or "contrive a situation wherein I have no choice to blow your brains out because, look, I didn't ant to, but really, it was you or me so what choice did I have?"

That sort of thing.

It looks like Rick has staged an intervention – Carol (Melissa McBride) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) are there too – and he asks Morgan if he let any of the Wolves go.

"Yes I did. "I didn't want to kill five people I didn't have to kill."

They're shocked. Not killing people has become a serious offence round these parts.

By way of explanation, Morgan runs through a chain of cause and effect that goes way back. If Rick had killed him, if he had killed Rick, if Morgan hadn't been there to help Daryl and Aaron, maybe the Wolves never would have found Alexandria. Clearly Morgan has spent a lot of time sitting under a bodhi tree out there in the woods, but this kind of thinking can tie a man up in knots.

"I don't know what's right any more," he says. "I did want to kill those men … but I also know people can change. Because everyone sitting here has."

Well, that's true, but I'm not sure anyone should be holding Rick up as an illustration of the Apocalypse as a Force for Channelling the Good in All of Us.

He's clinging to his mantra, is Morgan, learnt in the woods at the feet of the mystic Eastman: "All life is precious".

"Things aren't as simple as four words," says Michonne. "I don't think they ever were."

Or to put it another way: "Making it now. Do you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?"

That's Rick, of course, a man who makes Pontius Pilate look like a total amateur in the blood-on-hands stakes.

"I don't know."

That's some heavy shit, man.

Not everyone is so conflicted. Young Ron (Austin Abrams) – the grieving son of the late wife-beating-alcoholic-throat-slashing doctor Pete – can't wait to get blood on his hands. He's conned Rick into teaching him how to shoot, but Rick hasn't yet been foolish enough to let him have any bullets, putting him off with the not-entirely-spurious claim that the noise will attract the zombies (which doesn't stop him making an almighty racket with his hammer as he tries to reinforce the fence). But Ron knows where the bullets are kept and helps himself to a handful anyway. A showdown is surely looming.

Outside the wall, that wooden tower – what is it, a church? – is falling apart. It's perilously close to the fence and if it come down, well, it won't be good. Which means it will come down, because there's a mid-season finale just around the corner and we've been in a holding pattern since the Wolves were chased out of town.

Spencer (Austin Nichols) – the over-reaching, under-achieving, power-hungry dim-witted son of Alexandria's former leader, the love-light-and-peacenik Deanna (Tovah Feldshuh) – does his best to hasten the end times by setting up a ropes course above the heads of the herd. He's lucky enough to be saved by Rick and Tara (Alanna Masterson) when his rope inevitably breaks, but he still manages to complain that he's lost a shoe to the zombies. Somehow, Rick manages not to shoot him.

As the episode comes to an end, Ron shadows Carl (Chandler Riggs) with clearly malicious intent, Glenn and Enid let their balloons up into the sky to signal that they're alive, and the tower comes crashing down onto the wall.

Yes, Glenn is alive, but I don't much fancy the chances of everyone else.

Karl Quinn is on Facebook and on twitter @karlkwin

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