The Walking Dead will return for the second half of season seven on Sunday, February 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, as announced during last night's Talking Dead following The Walking Dead mid-season finale. The second half will consist of eight episodes. The Walking Dead, which remains the number one show on television for a fifth consecutive season, is executive produced by showrunner Scott M. Gimple, Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero, Dave Alpert and Tom Luse.

Internationally, The Walking Dead will return to audiences in 125+ FOX channel markets within 24 hours of the U.S. premiere, as part of Fox Networks Group's continued commitment to broadcast the series near day-and-date globally. The network also released today the official key art for the second half of season seven featuring Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his band of survivors with the tagline "Rise Up." Viewers looking to catch-up on the latest season can watch all eight episodes from the first half of season seven, as well as the retrospective special The Walking Dead: Journey So Far, currently available On Demand.

The Walking Dead Season 7 began directly after the epic Season 6 finale, where we saw the nefarious Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) kill one unidentified member of Rick's crew. This cliffhanger episode lead to countless theories that surfaced throughout the summer, before we learned in the Season 7 premiere that Negan actually killed Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz). Fans were in for another surprise, when, after Daryl (Norman Reedus) tried a surprise attack on Negan, the group was punished once again, with Negan choosing to kill yet another random member of Rick's group, fan favorite Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun). In the original comics, Negan only killed one person, Glenn, while Abraham had actually died in the comics a few issues earlier. Dr. Denise Cloyd (Merrit Wever) was killed earlier in Season 6, in the same fashion that Abraham was killed in the comics.

Ever since the premiere, none of the main characters were killed off in the episodes leading up to the mid-season finale, but as many expected, that all changed in last night's episode, Hearts Still Beating. While Rick was off on a supply run with Aaron (Ross Marquand), Negan waited for his return in Alexandria, when he was approached by Spencer Monroe (Austin Nichols), who asked Negan to take out Rick. This didn't sit well with Negan, who ended up killing Spencer himself, literally gutting him in the middle of an Alexandria street. This drove Rosita (Christian Serratos) to use the bullet that Eugene (Josh McDermitt) made her, to kill Negan, but she missed, which lead to Negan killing another random Alexandrian, Olivia (Ann Mahoney).

Negan also took Eugene with him back to The Sanctuary, giving him yet another hostage, although Negan is not aware yet that Daryl has managed to escape from this compound. Daryl was previously slipped a key by a mystery person, which allowed him to get out of his cell. He then came across Fat Joey (Joshua Hoover), who pleaded for his life, but Daryl took out all of his pent-up aggression on this character, beating him to death, before he was found by Jesus (Tom Payne) and taken back to the Hilltop. With exactly two months left until The Walking Dead returns, we'll be sure to keep you posted with any and all updates during the show's mid-season hiatus.