WARNING: This article contains spoilers from The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead's Sunday midseason 4 premiere is still the talk of the town. The premiere earned the AMC show its second highest premiere ratings yet, with 15.8 million viewers. The zombie drama even outshone the Sochi Winter Olympics in the 18-49 demographic. You don't want to miss out on season 4's last seven episodes, so here's what you need to be ready for the next episode, "Inmates."

Sunday's Midseason Premiere

Sunday's episode, titled "After," saw the father-son dynamic of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) suffer as Rick struggled to keep up with his son.

"It's almost shot-for-shot from the comic, and it was always the most emotional part of the comic when I read it," Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly. "[Rick] takes responsibility for everything on the planet. It's part of his curse but also his strength ... Throughout all of this, he has this fear, and he realizes he can't kill him, but I do think there's an unspoken space between them and both of them are willing to concede."

"...I think that while this episode is kind of the Rick and Carl relationship at its absolute lowest point, I think by the end of it you may have seen a strengthening of this relationship," Robert Kirkman, "After" writer and TWD creator and executive producer, told Entertainment Weekly. "It may now be at its highest point, and I think seeing these two work in tandem or working in a team in a way they've never really done before is going to lead to interesting things coming up in the back half of this season."

"After" ends with a simple, yet memorable line. Michonne arrives at Rick and Carl's door. Rick turns to Carl and says "It's for you."

"Someone asked me what my favorite line was in Atlanta at a comic convention, and I said, 'It's for you,' and they said, 'What?' and I said, 'Wait, you'll see,'" Lincoln explained. "It's the perfect line. It's the f-ing perfect line!"

One of the most talked about scenes from Sunday's episode was Michonne's (Danai Gurira) flashback dream sequence, which gave viewers a pre-zombie look at the character, who incidentally had crimped hair (Gurira's idea).

"It's her subconscious forcing her to metabolize her pain, and her loss and her grief," Gurira told Entertainment Weekly. "Her conscious mind won't let her do that because she just shuts it down, which is deadening her and making her the shell that she was at the beginning when we met her. You couldn't read her, and she didn't want you to."

"You start to get a glimpse of who those Pets were, and it's true that it's a dream, so there are certainly elements there: Are they real? Are they not real?' but this also ties into the scene in the prison to Michonne and baby Judith in episode 2 of this season," Kirkman explained. "There's a lot of layers to this and a lot more that's going to be revealed coming up this season. People are going to know Michonne very soon."

Michonne eventually breaks down to Mike and realizes "I know the answer. I know why."

"I think that [the answer is] what she goes on to do," Gurira explained. "Find the people she cares about...The answer is: you keep taking care of people. You keep being a part of people of a community because if you don't do that, if you isolate, then you start to die."

The fan favorite also has a scene where she walks amongst zombies and is triggered into a violent rage.

"For that scene, I created the choreography," Gurira told AMC. "I was only supposed to do like eight or ten kills, and then [director Greg Nicotero] just didn't call cut so I just kept going. Every take, the first eight or 10 kills was just me going without any specific setup that we'd done before, and the zombies just kind of came at me and accepted that I was going to kill them whichever way. So that was probably my most enjoyable zombie kill scene."

Still Coming This Season

In the last half of season 4, viewers will experience the quiet before the storm.

"I think what's beautiful about this whole season in general ... [showrunner] Scott Gimple really plays a really great complete opus," Steven Yuen, who plays Glenn Rhee, told Entertainment Weekly. "It's not this mashing of action and craziness all the time. It's moments of silence. It's moments of quiet and calm. It's moments of hope juxtaposed with moments of incredible action."

But it wouldn't be TWD without more blood, death and shock value. 

"[The execution of Hershel Green] drives the whole second half of the season for [Maggie Green] because we never see her process anything," Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, told Entertainment Weekly. "...But it's going to be filthy. This is definitely going to be the goriest yet."

The death of Hershel (Scott Wilson) was one of the most shocking deaths in TWD history. Be prepared for the aftermath of departure.

"Glenn doesn't actually know that Hershel is dead," Yuen explained. "He's probably the only one who doesn't know, and for him, where he last left off with Hershel is ... a lot of people have helped shaped him, but none more than Hershel ... and Hershel is the one that keeps hope alive for him."

"This was the worst one," Cohan said. "...It was crazy too because when he died in episode 8, we didn't know what was going to come next, but this one act really is the driving force behind the whole second half. It's so difficult to justify any character deaths in this show, so I'm not going to try ... You get so close on this show, but then no one is ever safe."

On a lighter, note, Glenn fans can look forward to his return.

"I think we can't count him out," Yeun said. "He's a man of action, and he's a man of heart and I think you should expect what you normally expect from Glenn."

Meanwhile, the future of Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) this season is uncertain.

"We'll definitely see more of Carol, especially a character as important as Carol, but whether or not that happens this season remains to be seen," Kirkman told Wired. "I will say that having lost the prison, that all the characters are technically in the same area that Carol is, so logically it's very likely that we'll see her at some point."

With a new tone and set-up, the show creators aim to create a unique conclusion to season 4 that will surprise viewers.

"Yeah, we have no boundaries," Cohan explained. "We have no protection. We have little-to-no weaponry. We don't even have places to sleep. It's very dangerous. There are more walkers. There are people that you want to be able to trust but can't out there. I won't say anything about that. Tonally, each episode goes into its own little wormhole."

"I'm just fascinated to see how people view these back eight, because there's something so incredibly beautiful and soulful," Lincoln said. "I mean, it's still badass as anything, and there's crazy s- up ahead, believe me. ... But I do think there's more poetry in this back 8 than we've had in a while."

Finally, keep your eyes open for new characters Dr. Eugene Porter (Josh McDermit), Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) and Rosita Espinoza (Christian Serratos) who will join the series this season. Rumor has it that the comic book-based characters will debut at the end of the next episode.