The Walking Dead is over 100 episodes long now and recently finished its ninth season. It’s still full of zombies, gore, death, and stupid character decisions. Whether you love them or hate them, we’re going to look at 20 of the most shocking Walking Dead deaths that have happened so far on the show.
Some of these deaths are more tragic than others, but fans are shocked by difference things; sometimes it’s the events that are more shocking than the death of the character that occurs.
Warning, Spoilers ahead!
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Otis
Minutes before he is betrayed, Otis is fighting off walkers and trying his best to get out a situation that no one wants to be in. To escape, Shane, who is with him at the time, decides to shoot him in the leg and leave him there for the walkers to take.
Otis tries his best when this happens, going as far as to tear out a fistful of Shane’s hair as Shane walks away from him to escape. Watching Otis get torn limb from limb after being betrayed so early in the series was hard to witness.
Mika Samuels
This little girl died in a way none of us expected. Lizzie, her sister, was obviously very tormented and needed some help. There was no universe where any viewer expected Lizzie to kill her sister with a knife.
Thankfully, this scene didn’t entirely happen on-screen, and Judith, who was with both sisters at the time, managed to leave without experiencing any harm.
Bob Stookey
Bob survived a lot, and it was upsetting that he died so soon after making it out of Terminus. He may not have been a main character, but Bob’s attitude towards everything and his relationship with Sasha made him one very likable character.
Suffering from a walker bite, Bob purposefully ensures that the cannibals in Terminus would be infected by withholding information about his injury while they cut off and ate his leg. The bite eventually killed him, as expected, but at least he was able to see his friends again before it took him.
Gavin
Out of all of the saviors in the series, Gavin was a decent human being. He disliked fighting, preferred to speak over picking a fight, and may have actually been able to work towards a compromise for Negan’s men and Rick’s men.
Right before he was stabbed in the neck by Henry, Gavin asked his own men to fetch Ezekiel a pillow to keep him comfortable. He wasn’t a bad man. Just a man in a bad situation that was trying to live the best he could.
Enid
Enid died by pike death, which was extremely shocking to fans of the series, who believed that another of Magna’s new survivors deserved the death more. Enid was a strong character for the longest time, but as the seasons went on, she went from an independent woman to a simple love interest.
Shane Walsh
Shane’s death wasn’t surprising, especially after what he did to Otis, but the way he died was brutal and a little tragic. After being stabbed in the chest by his partner, 12-year-old Chad shoots Shane in the head to finish him off.
He was a bad cop and a horrible friend. His jealousy was ridiculous, and it was his time to go; we just didn’t think he was going to go like that. Shane’s mental health played a huge factor in his actions.
Merle Dixon
Merle returned to the show as a better person. Going from a man who only cared about himself to someone willing to risk everything to protect his brother and friends. Shortly after his return, he was killed by the Governor, who decided to beat and shoot Merle.
All of this while he was trying to keep his brother safe and keep Rick’s group out of harm’s way. An emotional scene follows these events where Daryl finds Merle as a zombie and has to finish killing him rather than leave him in that state.
Glenn
Glenn’s death was unnecessarily drawn out in the show. He continues talking even as he’s about to die, even after his eye pops out from his head. The show seemed to play on his death for a while before deciding to finally off the character, but it never felt like he was in danger in any way.
Glenn, like many characters in the series, took a bat to his head. The exact same thing happens to his comic book counterpart, but the events surrounding his death actually led to an outburst from fans who started boycotting the series because they were led to believe that he’d survived when it was just a ploy.
Sasha
Sasha went through a lot of things before she died in the series. It wasn’t an unexpected death for viewers, particularly once the show decided to start putting in flashbacks of her and Abraham into the episodes. When that happened, we knew that she didn’t have long left in The Walking Dead.
The biggest shock surrounding Sasha’s death was how it was changed from the comics. Sasha decides to take her own life, on her own terms, rather than be dealt any other fate. Eugene gives her a cyanide pill an episode before her death episode, and she makes the decision to take it rather than keep going.
Shiva
Shiva was the CGI tiger on The Walking Dead, and though everyone saw her death coming, it was still painful. Ezekiel starts off the chain of events by talking about how much Shiva means to him, and when she finally made it to his side to save him, the audience knew it was time.
Her death was a nod to the comics, where her final moments are extremely similar. She loses her life to a group of walkers, struggling to escape them, but still managing to save Ezekiel, Jerry, and Carol in the process. She showed the courage that many would not have shown in the same situation.
Olivia
What made Olivia’s character so likable was that she was willing to stand up against Negan and call him out when she saw fit. That did paint a target on her, and it was only a matter of time until he eventually got sick of it.
Negan ordered her death, which came in the form of a bullet to the head as she stood next to Carl while they spoke. Her end is bittersweet because she was courageous and unbending.
Carl Grimes
Carl survived so much before his death. He got through the cannibals at Terminus, dealt with the Governor’s ire, and even befriended Negan. He ended up getting bitten by a walker after he fell over in the woods and later decided to take his own life.
This happens off-screen, but it was originally quite shocking for fans to find out that he was going to die because Carl’s character is still kicking in the comic book series. He’s been one of the main characters for a while, and it was odd to see him be killed off like this.
Lori Grimes
In the comic book series, Lori meets a much worse fate than the one the writers decided to give her for the series. She dies giving birth to baby Judith during an extraordinarily hasty and quick C-section.
Her son, Carl, watched while this happened, and then had to shoot his own mother in the head before she finished turning. The whole scene is extremely shocking to watch, and this is one of two situations where Carl shoots someone. As he’s so young, it’s always so uncomfortable to watch.
Morales
Morales had an absolutely epic return to the series after he left during season one. It really seemed like he was going to back for a while. The one episode that Morales did survive for showed that his character would have been useful for the others to have with them, and he was a well-liked character before he departed in the first season, too.
He death was sudden and pointless. He was ruthlessly killed by Daryl, and fans were so disappointed that many believe that he didn’t actually die and that it was all a ruse. It seemed strange to bring a character back for one episode just to kill them again an episode later.
Denise
When Denise was killed, no one told her partner. At the turn of the new season, her girlfriend remained blissfully unaware that Denise had taken an arrow to the eye while out on a supply run. An arrow meant for Daryl, at that.
To make matters worse, she was happy that she’d managed to get an orange soda for Tara just moments before she was struck down. This particular death scene originally belonged to Abraham, as its how he died in the comics. Producers must have decided to change things up a little and have Denise die like this instead.
Jesus
Jesus’ actor mentioned in an interview that he wasn’t unhappy about being killed off. He hadn’t experienced much joy while being on the show for a while and when he was told that it was his time, he was simply happy that his character’s ending was an epic one.
Jesus dies when a walker stabs him through the middle and tells him he doesn’t belong. Stabbing is putting it lightly when you look at the giant sword that was used; it’s more like being skewered. His death was another surprise to fans who follow the comic series because Jesus is very much alive still and has a rather important role to play.
Noah
Noah’s death was horrible to watch. Through no fault of his own, he is trapped in a revolving door with a group of walkers and is eaten alive. Nicholas actually caused the incident, purposefully trapping Noah in the door so that he could get away safely.
The worst part of this event was that Glenn, who was a close friend of Noah, couldn’t do anything but standby and watch as it happened. There was no way out, no way to ease Noah’s pain, just a scene of utter agony portrayed by both of them. Listening to Glenn scream for his friend will always be heart-breaking.
Andrea
After her relationship with the hated Governor, most fans were glad when Andrea finally died, but it was still a shock because she is one of the characters that had the longest running story arch at that point. That’s an achievement in The Walking Dead, where characters mainly go to die.
We were all sure that she would escape after avoiding zombie Milton, but in running away from the compound, she ends up getting bitten anyway and decides to shoot herself rather than becoming a walker.
Sophia
Sophia was searched for by various people in the series for around half a season. She’s Carol’s daughter, and despite some debating whether or not they should keep looking or whether it was worth it to look for a child and risk their lives doing so, they did.
As it turns out, Sophia had been right under their noses. Sitting quietly, already zombified, having never left. She went missing at the start of season two, but it was a massive moment of shock for fans when they realized that she’d been there all along, and at some point, she’d already died. Rick takes it upon himself to end her suffering.
Beth Greene
Like other characters, Beth was another that people spent several episodes looking for. She was being held against her will at the Grady Memorial Hospital and it almost looked like she was going to make it back to her group, but The Walking Dead doesn’t work like that and hope gets you nowhere in this series.
Instead, in a fit of revenge, she goes after the head of the hospital. As she stabs Dawn, she is shot in the head while her friends look on in horror. Daryl carries her body out to her sister.