'Walking Dead' Season 7 wraps up with major character death [SPOILER ALERT!]

April 3 (UPI) -- Sunday night's Season 7 finale of The Walking Dead ended with the start of a war, the death of another beloved, major character and the return via flashback of someone who died earlier in the season.

The episode focused largely on Sonequa Martin-Green's Sasha, who was captured while trying to assassinate the villain Negan [played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan] a few episodes back.

Sasha appears in numerous new scenes speaking to her beau Abraham [played by Michael Cudlitz] about the importance of protecting their friends. The conversations took place shortly before Negan beat Abraham to death with his barbed wire-covered, baseball bat earlier this season.

Rather than allow Negan to use her as a bargaining chip to hurt her friends, Sasha selflessly opts to kill herself on the ride from Negan's compound the Sanctuary to the gated community Alexandria, which she called home and where Rick Grimes [played by Andrew Lincoln] is the leader.

When Negan opens the casket Sasha was held in during the ride, he is shocked to see she has died and re-animated as a flesh-eating walker who goes straight for him.

Negan survives the attack and with his supporters launches an assault on Sasha's friends with the help of Jadis [played by Pollyanna McIntosh] and her minions, whom Rick thought were on his side.

Injured in the melee are Rick, Michonne [played by Danai Gurira] and Rosita [played by Christian Serratos.] Their group is ultimately spared, however, by the timely arrival of Maggie [played by Lauren Cohan] and her followers from the Hilltop and King Ezekiel [played by Khary Payton] and his soldiers from the Kingdom.

Rick and his allies -- along with King Ezekiel's tiger -- drive Negan's forces back, however Negan is seen at the end of the episode rallying his many troops and paving the way for an all-out war in Season 8.