‘The Walking Dead’ mid-season premiere lives up to expectations

After a prisoner exchange gone bad leaves Beth from Hershel’s farm dead, the ninth episode of Season 5, which aired on Feb. 8 on AMC, as usual manages to do an exceptional job of creating an atmosphere of gloom and doom.

Part of what keeps “The Walking Dead” viewers hooked is its constant supply of ideas from the original comic book series. The other part of what makes the show so good is that each event eventually leads up to another, creating a web like storyline.

The show also keeps viewers guessing, providing plot twist after plot twist. For example, at the beginning of the season, the group entered what they think is a safe haven, but is in reality a trap set by cannibalistic cult.

Finding a show with the same amount of creative content is difficult. One may think “The Walking Dead” and assume the place is overrun with zombies, but very few would think of a place where people are turned into food.

The incident further establishes the fact that other humans can be as dangerous as walkers.

The producers of the show stayed with the strategy that made “The Walking Dead” so great in the midseason premiere.

If four weeks has not been enough for you to watch the midseason premiere, then stop reading here if you are trying to avoid spoilers.

The midseason premiere picks up in a dark mood, and preserves that. Tyreese, who met the group at the prison, has his arm bitten by a child-turned walker. As Noah, who the survivors met in Alabama, runs to get help, Tyreese begins to hallucinate, seeing deceased people he once knew, like The Governor, Bob, Beth, Lizzie and Mika.

They mock him, telling him “it’s better now,” and that he is “earning his keep.” His time spent bleeding out from the bite shows the viewer how Tyreese has grown tired of trying to survive.

When help arrives, the group amputates his arm to save him, but he dies from blood loss as they drive him back to the rest of the group.

It’s safe to say that this show isn’t, and won’t be dead for a long time.