AMC’s The Walking Dead has really grown into something much more than what many initially thought it would be. Based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novels, the series has gone from a six-episode Season 1 to the most in-demand, involving show on TV. It’s done this with a consistent, potent mix of high-end drama, genuinely terrifying survival-horror, and incredibly deep character-driven arcs. So far, 51 episodes have aired, and while not all of them have met the mark, all have led to The Walking Dead Season 5 being one of the most anticipated TV events of the year. With the first episode – “No Sanctuary” – premiering tomorrow, we look back on and rank 10 episodes which have either introduced us to, or reminded us of, the depth of The Walking Dead and it’s highly effective atmosphere. There are SPOILERS ahead – a lot of them.
10. Save the Last One (Season 2, Episode 3)
The one where Shane became the bad guy
While it may have been a bit predictable, this episode introduced us to the increasingly dangerous Shane and threw a curve ball at us, as viewers, forcing us to either agree with his decision or see him as a villain. This was one of the biggest moral quandaries the show played around with, and while it coldly spiraled Shane’s character towards straight out insanity – having him shoot Otis and leave him for walker bait – it gave us a cleverly unstructured episode to show us just how much this world is changing the people within it. The episode was bogged down a bit by the continual search for Sophia, but for the most part it delivered some very fine moments.
9. Made to Suffer (Season 3, Episode 8)
The one where The Governor lost an eye
The slowly brewing conflict between Woodbury and the prison came to a head in this mid-season finale, setting up a big reason for the two paths to cross – Merle, Glenn, and Maggie – and stepping the action up with a huge showdown. Rick and co invaded the town of Woodbury, showing off their now tight, effective way of working as a cohesive unit. While there was plenty of action in the big invasion sequence, it was two tension filled smaller scenes that stole the show for me. The first was Glenn doing battle with a walker while completely tied to a chair and coming out on top; the second was Michonne coming back to exact revenge on The Governor only to end up disposing of Penny and plucking out one of Phil’s eyes. Both scenes were the kind of edge-of-seat scenes that only increased in intensity from this episode onwards. There was also the very ending cliffhanger which played on Daryl’s popularity, Andrea’s long overdue awareness, and the very real possibility that The Governor had the upper hand after all.
8. Clear (Season 3, Episode 12)
The one where Lennie James won at acting
The show has always been strongest when it breaks the group up into smaller pieces; in this case it was Rick, Carl, and Michonne going off on a supply run only to meet up with someone Rick has been looking for for a very long time. The return of Lennie James as Morgan was so welcome, especially when James raised the standard of acting on the show with a very emotional, very depressing story about his son’s death. Up until that point, there was the mildly frustrating attempt to get Morgan to calm down, but that was thankfully balanced with a look into how Morgan has survived by himself and how our survivors could start to get creative with their walker defenses. It was really all about that massive scene though, where James’ acting is so brilliantly intense that I’d be surprised if the majority of invested viewers didn’t have tears rolling down their cheeks.
7. Pretty Much Dead Already (Season 2, Episode 7)
The one where our jaws dropped for the first time in the series
Pacing was the biggest issue in Season 2, and it didn’t work out quite as well for The Walking Dead as it should have. The focus on Sophia will forever be a low-point for the series; while it did give Rick a good moral dilemma to play around with, and it did plant the seeds for Carol’s all-important pragmatism, the show felt like it was stumbling for a good 2 or 3 episodes. Children have never been the most likeable figures in landscapes like this, and while it’s a responsibility for shows to try stay as close to the realistic petulance and general dumb-assery of kids in crisis situations, The Walking Dead almost pushed me away completely. However, this is one of those arcs that has the biggest effect once it’s all but forgotten; it was a necessary time in The Walking Dead’s world because it represented the reality these characters – especially Carol – were in; it also made Shane’s cold, progressive presence on the show stand out even more. And it’s Shane who drove this incredible episode. While we got a dose of who Hershel really is and his own personal approach to faith and ‘the walkers’, it was Shane and his aggression that resulted in one of the most unexpectedly soul crushing moments on the show.
The assault on the walkers once Shane opened that barn sucked us back into the mindless, irresistible horror aspect of the show, but not much could prepare us for when Sophia glided out of that barn. After it was over, it did seem like it was a pretty predictable plot point; but while it was happening, you couldn’t help but let your jaw drop down to the floor. What’s more is that – because of how frustrating her absence was – I began to actually hope Sophia was dead, but once we saw her, I had a complete change of heart, and so did Shane. The fact that Shane couldn’t bring himself to put Sophia down was powerful, made more so by Rick’s final bullet. It was the first time I can remember thinking that The Walking Dead was something much, much more than a well-directed, well-produced, and well-acted show about zombies.
6. Internment (Season 4, Episode 5)
The one where Hershel saved the day
This one was all about the depth of Hershel’s character and his struggle to fight against the fast-spreading threat of the sickness. His endearing way of retaining hope and courage in the very disturbing, plague-ridden setting of the prison was inspiring, not only to the other characters on the show, but to us viewers. Little did we know that this was the beginning of the end for Hershel (okay, maybe it was a bit obvious); the episode did such a very fine job of drawing us deep into his very strong, persistent character that it set up a pretty easy way of breaking our hearts three episodes later.
5. Killer Within (Season 3, Episode 4)
The one that was full of death
“It’s only the fourth episodes, surely nothing game changing is going to…OH MY GOD”. That would have been my reaction had a big, bold spoiler not popped up on my Facebook feed just a few minutes before I pressed play. Two big deaths – one of which began the series second most frustrating, but necessary, storyline (rick’s mental breakdown) – was the big double punch “Killer Within” had in store for us, and it even threw comic book readers off by completely changing Lori’s death and having Carl put her down out of mercy. While Lori and Carl were two of the least liked characters at this stage, the fact that son had to kill mother out of mercy was incredibly heavy, sucking us back into the unforgiving, cruel world that has been created for this show. T-Dog’s death was equally tragic and unexpected; he had been nothing more than a background up until that point – to the extent where it was a running joke amongst fans – but, like many of deaths on this show, his sad loss was felt as soon as those walkers chewed the skin off his throat. It also marked Andrew Lincoln’s second ‘overly dramatic but strangely effective’ performance in the show, as the weight of his grief literally pummeled him to the ground and the episode ended with his screams echoing throughout the prison.
4. Days Gone Bye (Season 1, Episode 1)
The one where it all began
Two of my favourite modern zombie movies – Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later – contain sequences in which slowly uncovers to desolate and hopeless landscape created by zombies. I’m not sure why every great zombie saga begins with someone completely oblivious to the initial takeover, but it makes for some slow-burning excitement that builds upon layers of dread and genuine terror. The Walking Dead pilot episode chose to go down a similar route, first kicking off with a short explanation of why Rick ended up in hospital and then his depressing, isolate realisation that zombies are actually a thing. His journey from a hospital bed to the middle of a zombie-infested Atlanta heralded to the great survival epic that was to come and did so with a perfectly produced, perfectly paced episode that still stands as one of the very best in the series.
The depth that The Walking Dead would go on to explore was also introduced with Morgan, who instilled the hope in Rick that the younger generations innocence can still be preserved in a irrevocably changed world. Morgan’s treatment of his son was admirable, and his own struggles with the loss of his wife let us all know that this series would be full of emotion amongst all the excessive gore and survival action.
3. Too Far Gone (Season 4, Episode 8)
The one where the group was broken up
Mid-season finales in The Walking Dead have become just as intense as each season’s bookend episodes, and this is because AMC like to split season in half nowadays. Matter of fact, I’d go as far as to say the mid-season finales are better and more memorable than the first and last episodes of each season. “Too Far Gone” benefited from this season split, and like Season 2 and Season 3’s mid-point episodes, delivered one of the show’s best climaxes, and its most upsetting death scene. Dale’s demise in the second season was heart-wrenching because of the character’s desperate attempt at grounding the group’s collective moral compass, but Hershel took that a step further and showed them – and us – that you can be practical and moral at the same time in a zombie-infested wasteland. His last, great hurrah came a few episodes earlier than this one, adding to the devastation when we finally lost him to The Governor. The method of his death was also terribly effective, and the graphic brutality towards someone who had become the most touching character on the show was as relentless as anything I’ve seen on TV.
The action that resulted from Hershel’s death was also some of the most exciting on the show, bringing pretty much every character – even the kids – into the excessively violent gunfight that resulted in the writers completely breaking the group up, setting up a huge tonal shift and some of the more artful character development seen in a recent TV show.
2. The Grove (Season 4, Episode 14)
The one where things got really dark
Tyreese, Carol, and the kids represented the splinter which you’d least expect would sting so much. “The Grove” ended up being the darkest, most depressing episode in the series so far and it done so by throwing us off the point where there was actual online backlash against the episode because it was too intense for some. Choosing to explore the effect this world can have on a child’s mental health was a smart move by Robert Kirkman and the show; the way they did this was a very slow build for Lizzy to become a deeply disturbed, dangerous wild card in the group. While Tyreese and Carol played with the idea of settling into their new situation permanently, it was the explosion of Lizzy’s delusions and her murder of her sister that sent things into very dark, very difficult territory. Melissa McBride’s acting when Carol found Mika’s body and had to calmly coax Lizzy away from Judith rivals the best scenes of the whole series and her eventual decision to take Lizzy’s life in a very John Steinbeck way once again introduced one of the most pressing moral dilemmas in the show. Carol did what she had to do because Lizzy was a very real threat to Judith, and the fact that The Walking Dead didn’t sacrifice tone was another reason to claim this show’s undeniable greatness. Carol’s development reached it’s full extent here, speaking loudly to the main struggle of the show, which is trying to maintain humanity in a world that requires the opposite.
1. Beside the Dying Fire (Season 2, Episode 13)
The one where shit hit the fan
The previous episode, “Better Angels”, ended with a massive scene where Rick was forced to kill Shane and then proceed to show off Andrew Lincoln’s growling, emotive approach to drama; if it wasn’t for a dull first half, that penultimate episode would definitely be on this list. The ending of “Better Angels” was one of the show’s most exciting, and set up “Beside the Dying Fire” as the best finale in the series. Tension was the driving force behind this desperate attempt to escape a massive zombie horde, and the entire sequence wasn’t without it’s fair share of shocks and gore. While there were no major character deaths, the first half of the episode managed to throw enough carnage at us to satisfy our need for more action on the show, spinning around it’s sense of urgency and briefly splitting the group up to remind us just how much we’ve come to invest in the show. There was a sigh of relief when they all came back together during the ‘come down’ part of the episode, and a real sense of where the collective was at towards the end when a bit of Shane’s lingering impact began to seep into Rick and we were introduced to a brand new Rick Grimes. There was also that awesome moment – and nod to the comic lovers – when the camera panned above our group to reveal the infamous prison in the distance, ending the season on a very exciting note.
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The Season Pass for The Walking Dead Season 5 is available to preorder on iTunes now, with episode 1 being fast-tracked from the US, premiering from 14th October. All previous seasons are also currently being discounted at the iTunes store, and all Season 5 purchased have bonus content free for Australian customers, so there’s plenty of reason to catch up with the show ahead of the premiere. The season pass for Season 5 can be found on the iTunes store.
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