AMC Lydia on "Walking Dead," clearly not brushing her teeth.

Compared to the past few seasons of “The Walking Dead,” Season 9 has been a clean, minty, breath of fresh air, until now. In Sunday’s episode, “Bounty,” Alpha (Samantha Morton), leader of the zombie-skin wearing Whisperers and Lydia’s (Cassady McClincy) abusive mom, demanded the Hilltop community give her her daughter back in exchange for two Hilltop hostages, Alden (Callan McAuliffe) and Luke (Dan Fogler). In the end, the trade gets made, but before it happens, Henry (Matt Lintz) tries to whisk away his new crush, Lydia, to escape. The pair get outside the Hilltop walls, but Enid (Katelyn Nacon) tracks them down and convinces the new boos to come back. Before they have to leave each other, Lydia goes up to Henry and plants a big wet one on him. It seems like a touching moment between the characters, but all I could think was, “Ew. Her breath probably stinks.”

AMC Don't do it, Lydia!

Let’s put this in perspective: Lydia, a Whisperer, has been wearing dead people’s skin and walking around in the wilderness for who knows how many years. She’s then captured by Hilltop, and we’ve really only seen her given a meager amount of water and medicine. Oh, and she eats a worm. Conclusion: Lydia’s breath is nuclear. Henry and Lydia, I’m happy for you two. But gross, dudes. I reached out to Henry himself, Matt Lintz, over email to get his take on the kiss, and he told me, “Well, [Henry’s] hygiene is not much better probably, so he’s probably more forgiving than a teen in 2019 might be.” Lintz brings up a good point. While living life wandering around the woods in dead people’s skin probably isn’t the best way of preventing halitosis, the hygiene at Hilltop ain’t great either. In the Season 6 episode, “The Next World,” Michonne (Danai Gurira) asks Rick (Andrew Lincoln) to bring her back some toothpaste from scavenging. Rick only manages to bring back mints, and Michonne is so happy the two hook up for the first time. That’s the state of dental health in “The Walking Dead”: Mints are an aphrodisiac. Talking about the deteriorating hygiene in an apocalyptic world, Lintz said, “I’m sure at some point, the supply runs were void of toothpaste, so I am sure they’ve had to adapt in general. In reality, their hygiene would probably be worse than even depicted!” So how bad are we talking? I reached out to the American Dental Association to ask that question, and spokesperson Dr. Tricia Quartey gave some preventative advice: “Even if you can only grab a few things as you leave the house to run from zombies, please make sure to pack a toothbrush, fluoride toothpaste and something to use to clean between your teeth.” My childhood dentist, Dr. David Mondock, was more blunt. Telling me about his views on dental hygiene during the apocalypse, he recalled a time during his residency in Washington, D.C., where a patient came into the ER with maggots crawling out of his mouth. “The stench was so bad. I will never forget it. I was gagging for days. That’s how I picture it,” he said, adding, “Nasty maggot stench.” Yep. Nasty maggot stench. That’s probably what we’re dealing with in the apocalypse, especially for people who’ve been walking around the woods for years ― i.e. welcome, Henry and Lydia, to the apoca-lips. Besides hygiene, Lintz answered some of our other lingering questions, including previewing what a Henry/Lydia date might look like. Spoiler alert! It’d probably just be more of this: