This week’s installment of The Walking Dead, “Clear,” is such a departure episode that I thought, for the bulk of it, that all of the happenings occurred in Rick’s head. They’re back in Rick’s hometown where he was Sheriff, which, spatially  is hard to believe, and there is a rather existential reunion between Rick and Morgan (Lennie James), who saved Rick in the first episode. “Clear” was also written by Scott Gimple, who is taking over for Glen Mazzara as the showrunner next season, so this episode is likely a harbinger of things to come in The Walking Dead’s universe. It was a relief that the show didn’t stoop to the low of having an entire episode exist in Rick’s head and while this episode did show a lot of promise, Morgan’s grim fate was a huge downer, to say the least. We open with Rick, Michonne and Carl driving on own a desolate road – they have gone off to collect ammo from Rick’s hometown in order to fight off The Governor for control of the prison. Way to go, Rick, for actually taking Cowboy Carl with you this time! Making strides in parenting!

With massive ratings numbers, AMC has made the call to renew The Walking Dead for a third season. According to the press release, AMC President Charlie Collier was proud of the viewership records being set internationally by the show. That number includes more than 10m that watched the second season’s premiere around the world. Clearly, the zombie invasion is still going strong. This news comes as absolutely no surprise, but it does come with a challenge for showrunner Glen Mazzara to raise the stakes and improve on an already-strong formula for success. There were obvious storytelling differences between the first season and the start of the second, and Mazzara has to find a less ambling direction to drive the story. Not that walking around in the woods for two hours without development isn’t fun. With a third season in the bag, now is the time for them to start tightening up their scripts significantly in order to maintain the level of unease and drama that fans deserve. Taking a television show into a third season is always tricky, so hopefully they’ll get out of their own way, find some ripe stories, and deliver them without resorting to Sheriff Grimes waterskiing over a shark.