‘The Walking Dead’ Season Finale Recap: Reunited, and It Feels So Ominous

Warning: The recap for the “Conquer” episode of The Walking Dead contains storyline and character spoilers.

Reg, we hardly knew ye. Pete, we knew ye, and your rottenness, all too well. Most importantly, hooray that those rumors of Glenn and Daryl’s deaths turned out to be greatly exaggerated. In fact, every member of the Rick Grimes group ends Season 5 alive, and with a new face — to everyone but Rick, Carl, and Michonne — in the crowd: Rick’s first post-apocalypse friend, Morgan.

Here, answers to the questions we hoped the finale would answer:

Morgan… Where Is He?

Taking a nap break in an old car in the woods, as he’s following the map he found at Father Gabriel’s church to try to reunite with his old pal Rick. While taking a nourishment break, Morgan is visited by a gun-pointing baddie with a “W” carved into his forehead.

Related: Take a Bite Out of Our ‘Walking Dead’ Recaps

Who’s Carving Those W’s Into Walkers, and Carving Walkers Into Pieces?

The Wolves, Mr. W tells Morgan. He explains that original settlers to the area put a bounty on wolves, who were then hunted and wiped out. But now they — he says, pointing to the W on his own head — have returned.

And as if the gun he’s carrying and those spray-painted messages in Shirewilt weren’t enough proof, we know they’re a bad bunch when Mr. W demands all of Morgan’s possessions, and then indicates Morgan won’t be alive long enough to need them anyway.

Mr. W even has a friend join him, but since we last spent significant time with Morgan — in Season 3’s “Clear” — he apparently found some still-operational martial arts school. Using his walking stick and his hands as his sole weaponry, he easily takes down both members of the Wolves pack and throws them inside the car he was sleeping in.

Will Sasha Keep Her S—t Together Long Enough to Fend Off Those Walkers at the Walls?

A few of those walkers at the wall snuck in when the gate was left open — more on that below — but Sasha’s mental state is the bigger issue. After burying a pile of the walkers she had killed, she decides to stretch out for a break… on top of the pile of walkers in the grave.

Later in the Alexandria church, while Father Gabriel taunts her about Bob and Tyreese’s deaths, she points her gun at his head. Maggie walks in before she can pull the trigger, and the trio ends the episode together in prayer, but it’s safe to assume both Sasha and Father Weasel are gonna continue having all the feelings about their walker-related traumas.

Related: We Chat With ‘The Walking Dead’s’ Sasha, Sonequa Martin-Green

How’s Tara?

Still conked out after being injured in the warehouse explosion caused by doofus Aiden. But her sick bed is the spark for a bromantic reunion between Eugene and Abraham, who make up while visiting Tara. “You got us here,” Eugene says. “I thank you. I am sorry. And I mean both, emphatically and in equal measure.” Abe’s sorry, too, and later, Tara even wakes up for the first time since she was injured.

We Still Have a Bad Feeling About Glenn… How Much Danger Is He In?

A lot, courtesy of the cowardly Nicholas, who lures Glenn into the woods, shoots him in the shoulder, and then beats him silly. Glenn survives that, and an attack of walkers, to track Nicholas down and return the beating. Glenn then puts a gun to Nicholas’s head, but Nicholas’s begging, and Glenn’s own determination to hang on to his humanity, wins out, and they both return to Alexandria intact.

Speaking of Keeping S—t Together, Rick Didn’t… Will Deanna Toss Him Out of Alexandria?

She’s thinking about it, and even calls a town meeting to discuss the gun-waving and ranting Rick did at her and the townsfolk after his throwdown with Pete. With the full support of his friends — including Michonne, who tells him she supports him even if she doesn’t always agree with him — Rick plans to show up at the meeting and explain why the Alexandrians need to start doing things his way.

Thanks to another loser move by Father Gabriel — more on that below — Rick comes with a visual aid: a dead walker he’d killed after it got in via the open gate. As Rick explains that the community members need to learn to protect themselves, a drunken and disorderly Pete arrives, carrying Michonne’s katana.

Will Rick’s Fight With Pete End in Romance… or Death?

Death, definitely death. Pete was separated from his family and put into another house by himself. But a threatening visit from Carol, and seeing Rick visit Jessie at his marital home, provokes Pete into coming after Mr. Grimes at the meeting.

Tragically, Reg’s throat gets in the way as Pete accidentally stabs Reg, and holding her dying husband in her arms is enough to push Deanna over to Rick’s way of thinking. “Rick, do it,” she says, and Rick makes sure Pete doesn’t live to abuse another day by putting a bullet in his head.

And: When Morgan Met Daryl

Daryl and Aaron are off on a recruiting mission and happen upon a food facility with trucks backed up to a loading dock. When they open the back of one of the trucks, several trucks open, and out pours packs of hungry walkers. Daryl and Aaron make their way into a car, where they get trapped, and as they’re on “two” of a three-count to run out and hope they can make it through the crowd, a helping hand arrives to assist them.

It’s Morgan, who Aaron invites back to Alexandria. Morgan thanks him but declines, pulling out a map to show them he’s on a mission to find his friend… the map on which Abraham wrote, “The new world is gonna need Rick Grimes.” Daryl doesn’t say anything when he sees Rick’s name on the map, but at the end of the episode, he, Aaron, and Morgan show up in Alexandria, just as Rick has killed Pete.

“Rick?” says Morgan, and he and his old pal lock eyes.

Zombie Bites:

* Father Weasel goes off into the woods, alone and without a weapon, where he plans to let a walker nosh on him. At the last minute, he saves himself, but breaks down after putting a half-eaten walker victim out of his misery. Unfortunately, he returns to Alexandria to wreak more havoc: He absentmindedly leaves the gate open, allowing walkers to roam into town.

* When you saw Morgan’s serious ninja-type fighting skills, didn’t you immediately think what an unstoppable team he and Michonne, with her katana, would make?

* Daryl gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “chain gang” when, in one of the coolest kills of the season, he beheads three walkers with one swing of a rusty chain.

* We got a (very) brief first look at Fear The Walking Dead, the TWD companion series that will premiere this summer. The most notable aspect of the clip: It appears we’ll follow the action from the very beginning of the zombie apocalypse, as the action in the preview video partly takes place in a pre-apocalypse Los Angeles.

* In a post-credits scene, The Wolves — who had earlier been flipping through the recruiting photos in Aaron’s left-behind backpack at the food factory — reset their food truck trap, and Michonne is seen planning to hang her katana back on the wall, but deciding to strap it to her person instead. Can we assume this means Season 6 will begin with The Wolves planning a raid on Alexandria, and Michonne being ready to defend her new home in the apocalyptic ‘burbs? 

OK, Dead-heads, let’s hear your reactions to the Season 5 finale: Did it satisfy? Were you surprised there were no further deaths in Rick’s group? Were you sorry to see Reg go? Pete? And how happy were you to (finally) see Morgan’s face again, especially in such close proximity to Rick? Where do you think the action will pick up in Season 6? And how did the Season 5 finale compare to season finales past?

The Walking Dead returns this fall on AMC.