I didn’t want to come back to The Walking Dead this year. As a fan since the series premiere that Halloween night way back in 2010, I waited in anticipation each week before diving headlong into the trade paperbacks. The months of reading that followed became both a blessing and a curse.

After watching how the Governor’s arc was handled way back in season three, then the long, drawn out process of the otherwise fast-paced comic book arc for All Out War, I started to look forward to the original arcs the show came up with while waiting for the classic comic plot lines with a borderline morbid curiosity. I was still excited for character reveals and panel recreations, but my hopes that they would surpass their source material continued to shrink. I didn’t want to see the same thing done to The Whisperers.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, news broke that both Andrew Lincoln (Rick) and Lauren Cohen (Maggie) would be exiting the show halfway through the season. Not exactly the strongest way to inspire confidence. Even so, I had been with the show for this long, I felt like I owed it to them to see the direction they chose for Rick’s final moments. After that, I’d be done. At least, that was the plan.

While the ratings dip may paint a different picture, especially if the gap continues to grow, what The Walking Dead is doing under Kang’s guiding hands is some of the best and most interesting that I’ve seen from the show in years. That quick ‘coming up on the next three episodes’ bit after Rick’s farewell guaranteed that I’d tune in again this week. Seeing the new status quo after the 6-year time jump, Negan and Judith’s relationship hinting at some of the Negan/Carl bits us comic readers know, and love and getting the official introduction to one of my favorite factions in the Whisperers, means that I’m back in until the mid-season break at least.

I was excited to hear about the show runner change up. The Walking Dead needed a fresh take. There was still a different feel to the start of the season – the dialogue was stronger, character actions, while disagreeable, felt a bit more believable and rooted into something tangible – but on the surface it still carried the sense that we were getting more of the same than we may have thought. This week’s episode, ‘Who Are You Now,’ feels like the place that newly-crowned show runner Angela Kang wanted to tell her story all along.

When something is being adapted through a different art form we as fans have a tendency to cling to the source material. We judge the adaptation under a different lens than other people. Unfairly at times, I’ll admit, but there it is. With the combination of adding Angela Kang and making such a drastic shift away from the source material with Rick (I’d mention Carl, but those differences were, unfortunately, far from creative), they’re able to distinguish themselves not only from the comics, but from the show itself. My hope is that they steer into it even further. Get weird!

Whether or not they’ll be able to sustain this momentum and genuinely fresh feel, I can’t say. I’m happy to give them the benefit of the doubt, though, and look forward to seeing how things go as the story’s allowed some more room to breathe. That’s something I haven’t been able to say about The Walking Dead for a long while.