WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 17, "Home Sweet Home," which aired Sunday on AMC.
After a break, The Walking Dead Season 10 is back with six additional episodes to satisfy fans that just can't get enough of the long-running AMC series. The first episode of the extended season, "Home Sweet Home," also signifies a new chapter for the show as the Whisperer War has finally come to an end and Maggie is reunited with the group.
Maggie took off with the mysterious Georgie in Season 9 but returned in the final episode of Season 10B, "A Certain Doom," just when the group needed her help against the Whisperers most. In "Home Sweet Home," Maggie reconnects with her old friends, however Negan's newfound freedom comes as a shock. While the former villain attempts an awkward hello, Maggie responds with a not-so-welcome greeting.
After the opening credits, Maggie introduces her "people," Elijah and Cole, to Carol and Daryl. She explains they were all living together until they lost their village. With nowhere else to go, she decided to take them to Hilltop, but unfortunately, that's no longer possible.
Carol and Daryl escort Maggie to see Hilltop, now decimated thanks to Alpha and her horde. As if one blow wasn't enough, Carol confesses to Maggie that she was the one who let Negan out of his jail cell to kill Alpha. This creates immediate tension in the group, but before things escalate, Maggie announces her plan to retrieve her son, Hershel, and a handful of other survivors from a hideout.
While Carol returns to Alexandria, Maggie, Elijah and Cole are joined by Daryl and Kelly to find the rest of Maggie's people. As day turns to night, the group decides to shelter in a parking lot filled with metal storage containers and littered with walkers. The group makes quick work of the roaming walkers before helping Maggie contain a group emerging from one of the storage bins. Working together, they seal the container, which results in a memorable zombie head explosion.
That night, Maggie and Daryl chat in one of the storage containers. Prompted by Daryl, Maggie talks about her time spent away from the joint communities. She explains she joined Georgie on her community outreach mission. Together, Maggie and Georgie would find new groups and save them, but -- in true Walking Dead fashion -- things always went "sideways." Eventually, Georgie disappeared to check out a group she got word of out West and Maggie hasn't seen her since.
When Daryl asks what happened to Maggie's village, she becomes emotional and responds with, "Not now." Instead, she recounts the "detour" she took with Hershel to her grandmother's house by the ocean. It was a place she had wanted to go with Glenn. While there, her son asked how his father died. Maggie told Hershel that a "bad man" killed him. When Hershel asked if the bad man got what he deserved, she didn't respond. She then tells Daryl that the reason she originally left Hilltop was to free herself from Negan.
The next morning, Kelly wanders off to search for her sister, Connie. Although the audience knows Connie is alive after Virgil stumbled upon her in the woods at the end of "A Certain Doom," the group does not. Maggie is initially angry Kelly left her watch post, but she's sympathetic when Daryl explains why. And later, it helps Kelly bond with Elijah, who recently lost his sister.
As the group presses on, Daryl spots smoke in the distance. Upon approaching the burned barn where Maggie's people were hiding out, Cole says, "It's them. They found us." The group rushes forward to discover two burned corpses and the rest of the survivors gone. Daryl scopes out tracks and follows them. When the path splits, so does the group. Maggie and Daryl head off in one direction and Kelly, Elijah and Cole in the other.
Maggie and Daryl find three of the survivors, who confirm the barn was burned down by the Reapers, the group who destroyed Elijah and Cole's village, leading them to come to the joint communities. Now the Reapers are hunting them one by one. As if summoned by the statement, one of the survivors is shot in the throat. Maggie, Daryl and the remaining two survivors sprint through the forest as the mysterious shooter continues taking (poorly aimed) shots at them.
Daryl and Maggie watch from behind a tree as another survivor is shot and lies helpless on the ground. Daryl hypothesizes the shooter is using the injured woman as a trap to flush them out. Unfortunately, the last survivor falls for the trap and ends up dead just as Daryl predicted.
Maggie, desperate to find her son, flanks the unknown shooter as Daryl serves as distraction. She comes across an empty sniper set up and is then ambushed by a man in a ghillie suit. The two engage in a struggle, and Maggie slams a knife into his shoulder. Reminiscent of a horror movie villain, the man removes the knife without hesitation. Startled, Maggie stumbles into a trap that flips her upside down and suspends her by one ankle. As Maggie struggles with the rope, Daryl arrives in the nick of time, sending an arrow into the man's side. The man then turns on Daryl and manages to knock him down.
The perspective momentarily switches to Daryl's blurry vision -- signifying a nasty head injury -- as he watches the man remove his ghillie suit and retrieve a knife. Meanwhile, Maggie manages to free herself from the trap. Just as Daryl and Maggie face off with the shooter, Elijah, Cole and Kelly arrive for backup. Holding the man at gunpoint or, in this case, arrow-point, Maggie interrogates the sniper. Her questions are met with silence. Without giving up any information, the man pulls the pin from a grenade in his vest pocket and blows himself up.
After recovering from the explosion, Maggie finds Hershel safely in a tree. Now reunited with her son, Maggie and the group make the walk to Alexandria. On the way, they spend the night in the same storage container parking lot. There, Maggie tells Daryl that her people need a home and, therefore, she will return to Alexandria even if it means she has to deal with Negan.
The next morning, the group arrives at Alexandria to discover Carol and the others rebuilding the wall destroyed by the Whisperers. Acknowledging the episode title, Cole asks Maggie if this is "home sweet home," to which she replies, "Yeah, it is." Hershel and Maggie enter Alexandria, hand in hand as Negan watches from a distance. With the freedom and reputation of the "bad man" still very much in question, the closing scene hints that Maggie's return may hinder any progress in Negan's redemption.
The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton and Cooper Andrews. The series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and is available to stream early on AMC+.