Sunday's midseason return of The Walking Dead is kind of make or break it for the show. After many fans were turned off by the unusually bleak and violent first half of season seven, expectations for a rebound in part two of the season are high. (Remember where we left things off, here .) According to star Andrew Lincoln and executive producer Greg Nicotero, we can count on a return to the show's good old days of kickin' zombie ass and taking names come Sunday night. After Lincoln compared the next eight episodes to The Magnificent Seven last month, E.P. Nicotero is raising our expectations even further. "[The] first half, we’re watching our hero being ground into the dirt. It’s never a comfortable situation to see your heroes reduced to subservience," he told Entertainment Weekly . on Friday. "The way that The Walking Dead works is we spend time lining up the chess pieces and setting the stage, and I would say the season 7 midseason premiere is going to feel very much like The Walking Dead that people have come to know and love in terms of the band is back together." He continued, teasing Rick and Daryl's (Norman Reedus) well deserved comebacks. "We’ve seen Rick stand up, and we know now that he’s going to fight. Daryl is back with the group. They’ve taken as much shit from Negan as they are going to take, so it really feels very much like the seeds of war have been planted, and now they just need to figure out how to pull it off." On that note, we hope the Walking Dead showrunners have figured out how to pull off the show's long awaited return and give the fans what they want. The Walking Dead returns on Sunday, February 11 at 9 p.m. on AMC.