'The Walking Dead' Recap: 'First Time Again'

— -- Fans clamoring for an action-packed sixth season premiere of "The Walking Dead" Sunday night weren't disappointed, as Rick and his team -- as well as the other residents of Alexandria -- tangle with the menace of a thousand walkers.

The episode was told both in the present and through black-and-white flashbacks; the latter of which see some residents of the cozy enclave not too cozy with Rick, following his season 5 finale execution of drunken doc Pete for his grisly killing of town patriarch Reg.

Deanna refuses to have her husband's killer buried within their walls, so she instructs Rick and Morgan to dispose of the body. Pete's teen son Ron tails along behind them, he, naturally in the "anti-Grimes" camp.

As the men travel, Rick fills Morgan about the final days of Reg and Pete. As they ready their shovels to bury Pete, they hear something, and find out to their horror that the peace and quiet in the town is owed to a quarry behind it, and some strategically parked semi trucks that funnel the walkers into the pit, and away from Alexandria. Just then, Ron is discovered when walkers attack him and Rick and Morgan dispatch them -- and Rick gives the young man a talking to about safety.

After the discovery, Rick calls a town meeting and tells Deanna that they can't live in peace with the that time bomb behind them, especially because erosion is literally eroding the security, as one of the trucks has fallen away. Carter (Ethan Embry) is firmly anti-Rick, not willing to see his town hijacked by the seemingly crazy-eyed guy who just shot somebody in the face at another town meeting. Deanna, still shaken by the loss of her husband, accepts Rick's mission.

Through the flashbacks, we see Rick's plan to deal with the walker menace come together: the construction of barricades and a series of distractions -- mainly Darryl on his hog and Abraham and Sasha driving parade-float slow to drain the quarry of the brain eaters and instead lead them away from the town.

To that end, Rick's gang -- bolstered with some new faces -- split into groups; Glenn takes newcomer Heath (Corey Hawkins) and Nicholas, the guy who got Noah killed and nearly killed Glenn. Trust between the latter is understandably in short supply. Still, they decamp to a tractor dealership to deal with walkers who could distract the other undead from Rick's plan, and Nicholas gets a chance to redeem himself.

Meanwhile, Carter plots to take Rick out, but the wannabe coup comes to a crashing halt, literally, thanks to an eavesdropping Eugene stumbling into a glass jar, shattering it. Carter then pulls a gun on Eugene, in an effort to silence him, but that plan falls flat when Rick spots him.

Learning about the plot, Rick quickly disarms Carter, and instead of killing him, shows mercy, and asks Carter to help them. He begrudgingly accepts.

In another one of their bonding chats with Morgan, Rick admits he wanted to kill Carter, rather than waiting for him to screw up and endanger the plan. "He's just somebody who just shouldn't be alive now," Rick admits. "But all that hit me is...I didn't have to do it...somebody like that, they're gonna die no matter what."

Sure enough, on the road, and in color, Carter gets bit in the face by a straggling walker, and Carter's screams pique the interest of some of the shambling horde away from Rick's road. Michonne and Morgan split off to deal with the other stragglers while Rick tries to comfort/quiet Carter to no avail. Seeing no other option, Rick knifes Carter in the brain stem, silencing him permanently -- much to the shock of his two companions. The plan gets back on course, literally -- until a truck horn blares in the distance.

The air horn bellows through the woods, confounding the heroes and distracting the parade of walkers, who immediately stray from Rick's path, and stream instead back into the woods towards a relatively unprotected Alexandria.

"The Walking Dead" returns Sunday, Oct. 18, at 9 p.m. Eastern time on AMC.