'The Walking Dead' Recap: What Happened to Glenn

— -- (SPOILER ALERT)

After weeks of waiting and wondering, fans of "The Walking Dead" finally found out happened to Glenn in the opening moments of Sunday night's episode.

Long story short: he's alive.

Long story slightly longer: as some fans surmised, when Nicholas killed himself, pulling Glenn down off a dumpster and into a sea of walkers, Nicholas landed on top of our favorite pizza guy, so it was Nicholas' body getting torn apart in the closing moments of "Thank You."

Covered in gore, Glenn was able to scramble under the dumpster and stay there until the undead got distracted and moved on, leaving him to sneak away.

(If you needed any further proof, Steven Yuen's name, absent in the episodes following his apparent death, was returned to the show's opening credits. So crazed were fans about his TV's alter-ego's apparent demise that Yuen recorded a special message of gratitude that aired later in the evening.)

Glenn scavenges his gun and some water Nicholas left behind -- until he's thrown a bottle of water by Inid, who had left Alexandria behind in an earlier episode. He's determined to bring her back to the town, though she’ll hear nothing of it -- even pulling a gun on him to prove her point. She's quickly disarmed, and falls in line behind Glenn. They come across the green balloons and helium tanks that were part of Rick's walker herding plot, and set about creating a signal to their allies.

Meanwhile, back at Alexandria, things are straining emotionally as much as the town's damaged church steeple is creaking physically:

- Rick, Carol, and Michonne question Morgan as to why he let the Wolves go, only to have them return and raid the town.

- Spencer launches an ill-conceived attempt to commando-crawl on a wire over the moat of walkers surrounding the town, and when he fails, he nearly gets Tara killed trying to save him.

- Carol hones in on Morgan's attempting to treat that Wolf he trapped, and as expected, she's not happy.

- Rick and Carl start giving Ron shooting lessons, despite his rather obvious dislike for Carl -- which becomes even more obvious when Ron steals bullets for the unloaded gun Rick gave him, and begins stalking Rick's boy.

In fact, the only one not on edge is Deanna, though how normal she's acting -- what with new plans to expand Alexandria -- is freaky enough.

The show's closing moments perfectly encapsulate the emotional seesaw to which TWD fans have become accustomed: Glenn and Inid get within sight of Alexandria, but can't get past the horde. They loose their signal balloons, which are spotted by an overjoyed Maggie -- but just as she rounds a corner, to everyone's horror, the church steeple gives way, crushing one of the town's reinforced fences, making all but a welcome mat for the surrounding walker horde.

"The Walking Dead" will return next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC for the show's mid-season finale.