Ten reasons The Walking Dead has restored my faith in itself (and a number of fannish panic attacks)

Wow, look how big the cast was for a minute there.

In case you've been living under a rock and haven't seen the internet in the last 24 hours, last night was the Season 4 Finale of the Walking Dead, and it was so good. It was also alarming, but at its best, this show is always alarming, so sometimes I can ignore that. Best of all, it came back around to a place where I really, really, REALLY love it again, and most of that was because of this brilliant second half of the season. Here's what I loved:

1. I absolutely LOVED the cast being broken up. I mean, I usually hate that in a show, but this one, like Lost at it's heyday beforehand, did it so right. Because they were in smaller groups, we got to have whole episodes devoted to characters, to their reactions and actions, to the meaning of what has been going on, and it was amazing.
2. Daryl and Beth were about the sweetest and most ship-inducing pairing I have seen in ages. Which is double amazing because before the Great Split Up, I don't think I even knew, really, who Beth was, and was previously invested in Daryl and Carol.
3. The whole Lizzy thing. Shit. Damn. God, it was harrowing, but it was done so well. And it shows a lot about what this world does to young people, and offers a counterpoint to Carl's development, and lays a lot of guilt on Carol who has been guilt-free for several seasons and apparently needed some.
4. The Glenn-and-Maggie storyline was amazing--so many relationships wind up being a failure or a weakness, but for those two, it's a strength, and that's a wonderful, human, living core for the show to keep having.
5. I'm glad they got out of the Prison. It was too...I don't know. It separated them from the world too much, it stopped them from wandering, it seemed safe and wasn't, it didn't manage to be a functioning society...it just wasn't what I wanted to see.
6. Michonne! Everything about her re-humanizing, her friendship with Carl, even the cute vaguely flirty interactions with Rick. Beautiful.
7. The quietness. I love this show best when it's just quiet, interspersed with horror, and the rest of the time it's people dealing with their shit and the world. Again, that episode with Daryl and Beth where they burn down the house, and Carol and Tyrese and the girls at that little homestead, with Carl and the pudding--they hark back to the first episode, which was just Rick, just wandering, taking it in, processing it, dealing with it, and they were perfect.
8. That dog. He as fab, and I really hope he comes back.
9. Judith didn't die! She's wee-tiny and helpless, but she survived everything so far!
10. Reunion! Well, mostly reunioned. We've still got Carol and Tyrese who could help from the outside if they're smart enough not to get caught, too, and then we get another reunion to look forward to. And because everyone is back together, Rick knows who and what he is, and he is a badass again.

And now, the panic attacks:

1. They said, on Talking Dead, that "next season will be really different" or something to that effect, and I'm immediately like "OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME NOW???"
2. Where the fuck is Beth and is she still alive and if not will Daryl burn now the world???
3. Was Beth taken by the probably-ritualistic-cannibals, or is there a third party out there being crazy and stealing pretty girls???
4. Why do I have to wait so long for the new season????
5. How can I go so long without Chris Hardwick helping me process this show????