[Warning: The following review contains spoilers.]

Yes, I am still watching The Walking Dead.

The Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead had 17 million viewers on the edge of their seats with their hearts racing to see who Negan would kill with his beloved bat, Lucille. After waiting six long months to see who the victim would be, the time had finally come. [Spoiler Alert!] Instead of killing off just one key character in the show, the writers killed off two: Glenn and Abraham.

The result was shock, horror, and even anger for many viewers, with USA Today even asking, “Has The Walking Dead finally gone too far for fans?”

Not for this fan. I’ve read The Walking Dead comics, so I knew Glenn might die eventually, but I kept hoping that the writers wouldn’t mirror the comics for this part in the series. So like others, I found watching Glenn’s beating and death utterly painful to watch. Aside from the sheer brutality of it, Glenn’s death meant the end of a character who had been around since the pilot, as well as the loss of someone who was the right-hand man of Rick, the show’s main character. As a result, I felt like a big part of the show had just been ripped out.

Despite all this, I’m not one of those fans who walked away from the episode yelling “That’s it! I’m done with this show!” The show is still one of my favorites, and I appear to be in good company: The Walking Dead is one AMC’s top-rated shows and is close to being the number one show on television next to Game of Thrones, a show which also makes a habit of killing off main characters.

In Season 6 of The Walking Dead, Glenn came very close to death but survived, so many viewers had hope they wouldn’t actually kill him off this time either. Others expected it.  I recently  asked some of my fellow students at FCHS how they felt about the episode. Many claimed they already knew Glenn would be killed thanks to what they had read in the comic books. “I knew it was going to happen. But when they killed off Abraham [too] I thought that he [Glenn] was off the hook,” said Sophomore Jared Newman. “I was happy that it was only Abraham who died, but then I was devastated when they killed Glenn. The Atlanta Four doesn’t sound as good as the Atlanta Five,” said Junior Michelle Hammond.

For many viewers like myself, it was still hard to watch them kill off Glenn and have to think about how his pregnant wife, Maggie, is going to deal with it the rest of the season. Seeing them survive together for five seasons, only to end like this, actually hurt. “I feel bad for Maggie. Glenn had been there since day one for her, and now with her baby, she will have to raise it alone,” said Sophomore Savanna Bryant. For my part, I think this loss will make Maggie even stronger because she has already lost her father and sister in previous seasons.

If I have to be honest, I personally like Negan’s character. He is that hard-core, bad-to-the-bone, rebel who really doesn’t care what happens as long as he is happy and his buddies aren’t getting killed. You can’t help watching to see what he will do. Plus, at the beginning of season of Season 6, Rick started losing his own rebellious character and seemed comfortable living within Alexandria and feeling relatively safe. Now that is all gone for him, so this new drama adds another dimension to his character to explore.

So overall, despite Episode 1 of Season 7 being excruciatingly painful, heart-breaking, and sad to watch, it wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, and I’ll still be there waiting every week for the latest episode.*

Here’s one fan who’ll keep walking with the dead.

*New episodes of The Walking Dead air Sunday nights at 9 p.m E.T.