The Walking Dead took fans on a roller coaster ride through its 11-season run on AMC. Like Game of Thrones, the post-apocalyptic horror drama wasn’t afraid to deliver shock and awe with the elimination of main characters at any given moment. No one was ever safe, with death looming over the heads of even the most beloved characters.
Indeed, the saddest scenes from The Walking Dead involve the deaths of fan favorite characters, some at the hands of walkers, some through other unfortunate circumstances. Every season had a particularly sad moment, from Rick learning about Lori’s death in Season 3, to Hershel’s heart-wrenching beheading scene in Season 4, Daryl carrying a limp Beth out of the hospital in Season 5, and Rosita saying her heartfelt goodbyes in Season 11. But a few stand out among the pack as being the saddest.
10Daryl Takes Brotherly Love To A New Level
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
3
15
“This Sorrowful Life”
2013
The relationship between Daryl and Merle was fractured at its best, toxic at its worst. Daryl, a fan favorite The Walking Dead character, looked up to his big brother. But Merle always led Daryl down dark paths before the apocalypse and tried to continue to do the same after its onset. Despite Daryl realizing that Rick was a far more admirable big brother figure to look up to, he felt an obligation to his blood relative. So much so that he was even willing to leave the safety of the group to be with his brother.
So, when Daryl finds Merle dead and reanimated, the anguish in his face is palpable. When he puts Merle out of his misery and begins to rail on him as tears stream down his face, there are decades of trauma pouring out of him. What makes the scene even sadder is that Merle finally redeemed himself in the end, effectively sacrificing himself for his brother and the group that so graciously took him in, despite all his wrongdoings.
9Rick Goes Out In The Most Heroic Way
Season
Episode
Episode Name
9
5
“What Comes After”
2018
Rick was the protagonist through the series’ entire run, and the person that everyone looked up to for leadership. He was the love of Michonne’s life, an adoptive father to Judith, and biological father to son RJ. So, when everyone suspected he died in heroic fashion in Season 9, one of the best seasons of The Walking Dead, it was the perfect way to go out, but also a tremendously sad moment.
The effects of his presumed death were felt through the remainder of the series, with his best friend Daryl going out on his own to find his professed brother or any remains of him. Michonne dove into her work as a new leader, trying to push down the instinct she had that Rick was still alive. Judith and RJ tried to cope, knowing their father only through stories of The Brave Man. It was a loss that was felt deeply.
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8Shiva’s Sacrificial Death Tears Ezekiel Apart
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
8
4
“Some Guy”
2017
It’s never fun to see animals die on television shows, especially when they are ravaged by walkers. But Shiva was especially tough. The tiger had saved the group on numerous occasions, including attacking just in time to prevent Carl’s hand from being chopped off by a sadistic Negan who was forcing his father Rick to do it. Shiva was a large part of Ezekiel’s identity, and watching Ezekiel turn into a shell of his former self after the loss was upsetting.
He sank into a deep depression, believing that he was nothing more than a regular man without his tiger. It took a lot of coaxing and convincing by Carol to help get Ezekiel out of his funk. But the moment when Shiva is attacked and Ezekiel watches in horror had fans clutching their beloved pets tight.
7Carl Revealing His Fate Had Everyone In Tears
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
8
8
“How It’s Gotta Be”
2017
It’s terrible when a character dies suddenly on the show, attacked by a walker as the rest of the group has no other choice but to keep running. But when someone is bit and survives, then has time to say their goodbyes, it’s even worse. For Carl, he was bit while trying to save others and kept it a secret for some time. He wrote goodbye letters to everyone, even Negan. He tried to offer himself up to get Negan to stop, showing tremendous bravery. He even asked to do the deed himself once the time came to ensure no one else had to.
But the moment deep down in the sewers when Carl reveals to his father that he has been bit and is living on borrowed time is gut-wrenching. In one of the best episodes of season 8 of The Walking Dead, Rick is already in a state, trying to save his community and figure out how to deal with Negan. Now, he learns that his son has hours, maybe a day, left to live. And there’s nothing he can do about it. For a man who has arguably hit rock bottom and lost so much, losing the one family member he has left, the one person he knew he could always count on through thick and thin, was too much. Seeing everyone’s faces drop in despair, including Michonne who had grown so close to Carl, had fans in tears. It also came as such a surprise since Carl survives to the end in the comics. No one saw the death coming.
6The Death and Birth Of Lucille Does A Number On Negan
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
10
22
“Here’s Negan”
2021
In the heart-wrenching Negan backstory episode, fans finally get to see a pre-apocalyptic version of the sadistic villain. As it turns out, while he wasn’t exactly a stand-up guy pre-apocalypse, but he absolutely adored his wife. He made it his mission to protect her once the outbreak started, a particularly challenging feat given that she was in the middle of receiving cancer treatments.
The moment when Negan rushes home after being held captive to find his wife Lucille is haunting. She is in bed with a plastic bag over her head, an empty pill bottle on the table, and already reanimated. After going through so much to get her the medicine she needed, he is devastated that she would make this decision, and he feels lost without her. He’s so torn up, Negan can’t bring himself to kill her so he sets the house on fire instead. His actions immediately following, including brutally murdering the men who caused his delay, make the harrowing scene a reflection of both the death of the real Lucille and the birth of the barbed wire bat version he created in her honor.
5Glenn’s Fake Death Scene Was Unforgivable Deception
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
6
3
“Thank You”
2015
The Walking Dead is known for teasing deaths that don’t actually happen, but Glenn’s first tease was absolutely horrifying. As a fan-favorite character, no one wanted to see him go, much less at the hands of the coward Nicholas. After shooting himself in the head, Nicholas collapses on top of Glenn and they both fall into a group of hungry walkers. Blood and guts are seen as the walkers ravenously feast, but it’s unclear if these are just Nicholas’ or Glenn’s, too. The scene ends and fans could not talk of anything else for an entire week. Many were certain that he was gone, and dissected (pun intended) every little detail to discover if there was any hope that he was okay.
Just as sad as the episode itself, however, is the moment when Maggie finds out that Glenn went missing and refuses to accept that he’s dead. When she sees green balloons rising in the air, realizing it’s a sign from him, it’s just as emotional, but a moment with happy tears. Nonetheless, the teased, abrupt end to a beloved character’s arc in such a horrifying way had fans fuming.
4Look At The Flowers Has A Whole New Meaning
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
4
14
“The Grove”
2014
One of the most subtle yet disturbing episodes is when Carol has to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life and murder a child. After trying her best to help Lizzie, who is clearly mentally unwell, Carol realizes there is no other way when she finds that Lizzie has killed her little sister and is making threats about baby Judith, too.
Having heard her sister Mika telling Lizzie to “look at the flowers” when she gets worked up, a strategy she must have been given by doctors pre-apocalypse, Carol walks her out to the garden and tells her to do the same. While Lizzie is turned away crying, a tearful Carol pulls the trigger. It’s a position no one could ever imagine being in, and while Carol likely made the right choice, it didn’t make the scene any easier to watch. It’s never pleasant to see a child die, fictional or not.
3Judith Entered the World in Horrifying Fashion
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
3
4
“Killer Within”
2012
Judith grew up to become one of the fiercest, strongest kids on the show. While this is largely thanks to her upbringing by Michonne, she came into the world in a horrifying fashion that set her up immediately to be strong-willed. Lori goes into labor at the worst time possible. She is with Carl and Maggie, stuck in the prison with no way out and surrounded by walkers. With her slight medical training, Lori asks Maggie to do an emergency C-section to save Judith’s life. She knows she won’t survive it, but she’d heroically rather see her baby live than her. Reluctantly, Maggie agrees.
The birth moment is bittersweet, seeing a beautiful baby come into the world and knowing her mother won’t make it. But what makes this moment so incredibly sad is that Carl makes the brave decision to kill his mother before she can turn. It’s a turning point for the young boy, and a moment that haunts him throughout the rest of his time on the show. Even if he doesn’t talk about it much, fans recall the scene every time they see Carl make a difficult decision a child should never have to make.
2Everyone Felt Carol’s Hurt When Sophia Came Ambling Out Of The Barn
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
2
7
“Pretty Much Already Dead”
2011
One of the earliest scenes that had fans blubbering like babies was when a reanimated Sophia comes ambling out of Hershel’s barn. Almost an entire season covered the search for Sophia and the hope that she somehow made it out alive after going missing. Everyone held out hope even if it was almost a certainty that she could not have survived.
The moment is tense as Shane angrily opens the barn doors to shoot all the reanimated friends and family that Hershel believed could be saved with a cure. But even the hardened Shane shows a glimmer of regret when Sophia is the last to emerge. Carol breaking down and falling to the ground as Daryl tries to comfort her and get her to look away is a defining moment for both of their characters and their blossoming friendship. It was an end to a long storyline, but not the one anyone wanted.
1Glenn’s Death is Among the Saddest Moments Ever on TV
Season
Episode
Episode Name
Year
7
1
“The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”
2016
Glenn’s death is not just the saddest scene and one of the most brutal deals on The Walking Dead, it’s often ranked as one of the saddest TV deaths, ever. While Abraham was also killed in the same episode, he seemed ready to die, flashing a subtle peace sign to his love Sasha before his head was brutally bashed in. But when Negan turns his bat to Glenn after Daryl speaks out, the graphic scene is as distressing as it is gruesome. Maggie’s screams of terror as she watches her husband be murdered, his eyes literally popping out of his head, had fans screaming at their TVs.
The death fueled Rick’s rage to kill Negan and take down the Saviors and left Daryl a shell, rife with guilt that it was his fault. The moment led to the continued dynamic between Negan and Maggie. As one of the most beloved characters on the show, Glenn’s death was premature, many believe, and the brutal fashion in which it took place made it both sad and downright cruel to fans who had grown to love the group’s resident moral compass.
