Gene Page/AMC(LOS ANGELES) — (SPOILER ALERT) Season seven of AMC’s The Walking Dead promised to be a dark one, and on that front, it didn’t disappoint.

Fans were left hanging at the end of season six as to whom Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan executed with his barbed wire bat, Lucille. 

Long story short: it was Abraham.  Longer story? It was Abraham AND Glenn.

When the show begins, the executions have already happened, and Rick, still kneeling, vows he’s going to kill Negan. In response, Negan drags Rick away, into the RV, and takes him for a ride, tempting him with his own hatchet within reach.

Rick reaches, but Negan holds him at bay with a rifle, then beats him into submission before parking in a walker-infested area.

As flashbacks of every hero flash by Rick’s eyes — the victims still unknown to the viewer — Negan says of the hatchet, “This is mine,” and of Rick, “You are mine. Those people out there are mine.”

Negan then throws the axe into the walkers and forces Rick to fetch it. Rick fights off the walkers and scrambles to the top of the RV, axe in hand.

Then at the 20-minute mark, the episode flashes back to the execution, revealing Negan killed Abraham. After the first blow, Abraham stands up tall and tells Negan, to put it politely, to suck a certain part of his anatomy. 

Negan smashes Abraham’s head into pieces.  He then teases Rosita — Abraham’s ex — with the bloody Lucille …. until Daryl gets up in a rage and punches him. Negan’s thugs grab Daryl, but Negan orders them to not kill him.  Instead, as punishment, Negan spins around and brains Glenn, who manages to say “Maggie…I’ll find you,” before Negan delivers the coup de grace.

And with that we return to the present, with Rick on the RV roof. Negan fires through the roof, forcing Rick to jump to a walker, hanged from a bridge. Rick is surrounded — walkers at his feet and the walker’s neck about to give way, sending Rick into a sea of them.

But Negan starts shooting, covering him. As he does, Rick sees visions of Rosita, Maggie, Aaron, Michonne, Carl, and the rest getting clubbed by Negan, as Rick scrambles into the RV. 

Negan reveals who was killed — the rest were Rick’s imagination — and cleans the hatchet with alcohol, making it seem Rick’s hand is next. Instead, Negan gives him the axe, telling him it’s his to use to work for him.

Back at the campsite, Negan tells Rick that despite it all, he still sees defiance in Rick. He orders guns trained on the heads of the survivors and Carl to the ground, then wraps his gun belt around the boy’s arm.  He uses a marker to draw a line on the boy’s arm and orders Rick to chop it off with his own hatchet — to prove Rick’s obedience and spare the others, as well as those at Alexandria.

Rick struggles; desperate and trapped. “Dad: just do it,” Carl whispers.

Rick and Michonne plead for another choice. Negan offers none.

As Rick’s axe is about to fall, Negan spares him from making the terrible decision. It was all about breaking Rick — finally, Negan gets the submissive look he’s been wanting.  He orders Daryl into a van, promising Rick he’ll cut pieces off of him if he ever disobeys. 

“Welcome to a brand-new beginning,” Negan tells the gang, before telling them he’s leaving them a truck with which they’re going to get him his stuff. 

Negan and his gang decamp, the heroes are left to mourn in slow-mo. Maggie starts flipping out, understandably, demanding the rest leave her to bury Glenn and get ready to fight Negan’s Saviors.

“They have Daryl, they have an army,” Rick protests.

They all agree they won’t leave Maggie, who says she won’t leave Glenn where he was killed. Rick and the others prepare to take Glenn, while Eugene, Rosita, and Sasha take Abraham.

The show ends with an idyllic what-if: Glenn and Abraham are still alive, eating with the rest of the gang in sunlight.

Rick gets into the RV and drives away, as a lone walker snacks on the two red pools left behind.

The Walking Dead returns next Sunday, October 30 on AMC.

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