The Walking Dead rips my heart out and stomps on it

SPOILERS!!!! Please do not read this post if you don't want spoilers for the most recent Walking Dead episode, "The Killer Within".
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HERE COME THE SPOILERS
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Ok, you've been warned.  Read further at your own risk:

The Walking Dead lost me for a while last season, but starting with the Great Barn Reveal/Zombie Sophia incident, every episode has been better than the one before, and I can't believe I'm about to discuss events this big only 4 episodes into this season.  First, let me say I'm shocked that Hershel is alive and able to hobble about so soon. Did these people have some stockpile of antibiotics, painkillers, and extra blood I don't know about?  Anyway, while everyone was happily patting themselves on the back and gazing dreamily over at the (miraculously) alive Hershel out for a stroll, I was thinking to myself that those zombies we saw in the beginning being led into the prison were going to pop out at any second and chomp Hershel to tiny bits in order to set things right.  Am I wrong?  Does Hershel actually deserve to be alive still?  I really don't think so.  It's illogical.  And after this episode, it's unfair.  But that's what happens in this universe.  To pay for Hershel's survival, others had to die.  But my god, T-Dog?!  WHY??  I was rooting for T from the beginning.  He survived a crazy racist nutbag who wanted to kill him, a really bad slash to the arm and subsequent horrible infection, and the fact that he was the only black guy on a show where people die every episode.  I really wanted him to last to the end, as a kind of fuck you to the "Black Guy Dies First" system.  But if he had to go down, this was actually the most badass way it could have happened.  He gave his life to save the others, forged ahead while bleeding to death, and let himself be eaten alive to help Carol escape.  I cried for T-Dog, a character I loved dearly, who was incredibly underutilized in Season 2, and who I hoped would become a bigger character this season.  But the trauma was far from over.
Lori is someone who I have wanted to die from pretty much the beginning of the show.  Everything that happened between Shane and Rick was her fault, 100%.  She is awful, but this season she has been a little less awful.  I think she always knew that her pregnancy was a death sentence, so when she decided to puke up all those Plan-B pills in season 2, that was her committing a slow suicide.  Her first pregnancy ended in a C-Section, which pretty much means that this one would have to as well. Hershel and Carol were the only people who could help with that, and even they couldn't guarantee her survival in ideal conditions.  When she ended up locked in a closet with Maggie and Carl, I knew she was fucked, and so did she.  What I didn't predict was how violently I would react to the death of a character I hated.  Although I have no idea how a newborn baby is going to survive in this world, the choice was for Lori and the baby to die, or for only Lori to die, so she make the right choice.  Despite the risks of pregnancy on the run, the human race does have to start repopulating at some point, although no one has really brought that up except for that lady who showed Andrea around Woodbury.  Sidenote: I thought her telling Andrea the number of survivors was going to grow by one was a nice touch, and reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica when Billy tells President Roslin that a baby was born and the number on the board can go up that day instead of down.
But I digress. I have to deal with the heart of the episode:  The baby is not going to come naturally, and there's nothing else to do.  Lori is bleeding out anyway, and so she tells Maggie to cut her open.  What follows is absolutely heart-wrenching: Lori telling her son she loves him before getting gutted in front of him, Maggie asking Carl to hold Lori's insides while she works, the baby looking green and unwell for a few seconds before it cried, it all was magic on the screen.  But it wasn't over.  Lori had to be dealt with.  Maggie offers to do it, but Carl is the man now, he remembers Rick telling him back in the barn that this would happen someday, and he had to do the right thing.  So Carl tells Maggie to go, and what he next sequence was perfect: the shot of Carl on his knees, hugging Lori's body, cut to Maggie and and baby waiting at the door upstairs, and then the off-camera gunshot.  I was crying like a baby.  The Walking Dead played me like a fiddle, ripped my heart out and stomped on it this week, and the episode wasn't even over.
In the end, all the other storylines seemed to play second fiddle.  The inevitable absorption of Axel and Oscar into the group (I mean we did need a new black guy now that T-Dog *sniffle* is monster meat), the disappearance of Carol, even the will-they-stay-or-go storyline back in UnPleasantville (Woodbury) didn't really seem to matter as Rick crumpled to the ground in a mess of tears in front of his people.  A turn in leadership seems imminent, as Rick is going to be questioned about how that guy could have been left for dead without confirmation, and let to roam free inside the prison, causing all of this to happen.  Also, I'm not sure he's going to rebound emotionally.  Who will step up? That's my major question going forward and I have a feeling this season will revolve around this power shift.
Agree? Disagree? let me know!