“It’s raining zombies, hallelujah, it’s raining zombies, amen!”

Hats off to you, Mr Gimple! I seriously did not think the "well zombie" could be topped but yet again, everything surpasses my expectations. I am of course talking about the beautifully gory scene during the shop scout when the unfortunate walker turns into a chandelier of guts and body parts - the walker falls through the ceiling, and in the process gets ripped apart at the waist by a ceiling beam, resulting in both halves of the body hanging from the beam by the innards.

The Walking Dead sure knows how to do a season premiere. Welcome back to my favourite group of apocalyptic survivors and of course my favourite redneck in the whole wide world, Daryl Dixon. It is not quite clear in this episode exactly how much time has passed since the end of series 3, although we get to see that the prison camp has become quite established and self-sufficient. Not only has Rick turned into a farmer (commented on by Hershel, who thinks all he needs is a pair of dungarees and a blade of grass to chew on to complete his new look), but he now has a flourishing vegetable patch to grow their own food, a pig pen complete with momma pig Violet and her babies, and a pen for a lovely chestnut mare who Michonne favours as a mode of transport. Going by all this, and the addition of a marquee outside that is used for cooking and feeding the new group members, we can only imagine that it must be a few months at least since they last saw the Governor.

In this opening scene we see that Rick is much more focused on tending to his crops and animals than he is about the mounting horde of walkers outside the fence-line or the other group members inside of the prison. We learn later on that he has decided to not use guns any more, in the hope of setting a good example to his son Carl. As far as we are led to believe, he no longer takes any role in governing the growing group of survivors.

The increasingly worrying thing I noticed about this episode is that the walkers are piling up against the fences, specifically in three locations along the fence line. Although there are group members out there disposing of them by using knives or other sharp objects that can be forced into the walkers' skulls, killing them instantly with minimal noise, the walkers just keep on...well, walking to them. It is strange that they are accumulating at three points - no doubt this is something major.

If anyone has seen a preview that was released a while before the premiere, they may well have picked up on the scene with Michonne just outside the fence-line, picking up a decapitated arm and announcing that 'someone must be feeding these things'. Which I think is exactly what is happening. Just a theory, but maybe someone is planting something at these points along the fence to allow the walkers to build up there? And could it possibly have anything to do with the Governor? There is only so much a chain link fence can take before it will be flattened. And at the moment, with those walkers continually banging and leaning on the fence, the fence will just continue to get weaker before it finally comes down.

One of the most impressive walker fight scenes yet also features in this episode, when Daryl takes a team to do a supply run in a nearby store which, rather unbelievably, is still pretty well stocked. Just as they are minding their own business with their trolleys, one of the newest members of the team, Bob Stookey, gets trapped under a falling shelving unit that was stocked with wine. I found it really odd that they did not take the wine? Surely alcohol is very limited pickings when the world has ended. Anyway, this causes the roof to become weak, which was already pretty weak to begin with, due to the crashed helicopter on top and the walkers who are continually wandering around the roof.

As previously explained, one walker breaks through and guts himself in the process and then walkers literally begin falling from the sky. Did anyone else have an altered rendition of 'It's raining men' going through their head, or was it just me? I'm surprised I have not seen any spoof videos pop up on Tumblr yet for that one! Unfortunately in this scene we see the new kid - Zach - get eaten by a walker. Which was a real shame because he and Daryl seemed close, and of course he was Beth's boyfriend.

Meanwhile, Rick is taking a stroll through the woods to check his animal traps when he comes across a dying animal. He turns to leave and then we see a figure walk towards the animal and drop to their knees as if they are about to eat it. The audience is roped in to thinking it is a walker, before we realise it's actually a living person. She tries to persuade Rick to take her and her husband back to his group because they are starving in the woods alone. Rick is suspicious, which is completely understandable, but what happens next is rather unexpected.

While watching I was sure that this was a ploy by another group, or possibly the Governor, to get Rick on his own and take him back somewhere so they could kill him. Turns out that the woman was taking Rick back to her camp so she could feed him to her husband who is a walker. She ends up killing herself by driving a knife through her stomach and begs Rick not to end it - she wants to turn into a walker so her and her husband can be together forever. A little creepy but whatever floats your boat I guess.

This is a difficult scene as it's clear that Rick was trying so hard to avoid being in this type of situation and witnessing a death again, but this just shows that in a world like this, it’s completely unavoidable, no matter how hard you try. The scene ends with Rick walking away leaving her body on the ground and, to the left of the camera, a bag on the ground with a head inside. I was a little disappointed that Rick didn't investigate further - was the walker buried in the ground with only his head sticking out covered by a bag, or was all that was left of him his head?

And now to the cliff-hanger of the episode. Unfortunately it revolves around another death of a new character, again a kid, Patrick. He was feeling ill earlier on in the episode but nothing was thought of it until it gets to night time and he wakes up from his sleep with a terrible fever. This can be seen by the sweat running down his face and onto his t-shirt. He gets up and goes to the shower where he stands under the shower head to cool himself down. He then collapses and dies on the bathroom floor, with the closing scene fading out to see his eyes open again as a walker. Which raises the question of how did this happen? He had no visible wounds and nothing happened to him to kill him so how did he die?

I think it's in the water.