| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[folder: Trope A]] |
| 4 | %%* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: Rick does this in the first episode. In "Slabtown", Beth has one as well. |
| 5 | * AbortedArc: |
| 6 | ** The Vatos' story was originally intended to conclude in "What Lies Ahead", with Rick and the group finding out that the Vatos and nursing home patients were executed offscreen by an unknown party, and then left for the walkers. The whole sequence revealing this was deleted from the episode as aired, but is shown in the deleted scenes in the second season box set. The series moved to Alexandria, Virginia as of Season 5, and we never find out what happened to them in-show. |
| 7 | ** Andrea and Dale were originally set to become lovers as it was in the comics. This changed when Dale's actor left the show, forcing [[spoiler: Dale to be killed off]] in the ante-penultimate episode of Season 2. |
| 8 | ** At the end of Season 7's "Something They Need", Rick shakes hand with Beatrice, pretty much giving her control of Oceanside after Natania refused to join the rebellion against the Saviors. However, in Season 8 [[spoiler:Cyndie takes command from Natania after the latter is killed by Enid in self-defense.]] |
| 9 | ** In early Season 10, there is significant focus on the idea of breaking Alpha’s cult-like control over the Whisperers by showing them that living peacefully is possible and that she doesn’t practice what she preaches, potentially giving the survivors a chance at bringing her down from within. This ultimately doesn’t really pan out; only [[spoiler:Gamma]] turns on Alpha, and is only able to give the group outdated intel which doesn’t help them against the horde. Furthermore, [[spoiler:Gamma dies about 3/4 of the way through the season and no other Whisperer comes close to turning on Alpha or her way of life.]] |
| 10 | ** Lance's full plans are never clarified besides a vague interest in building his own power base to become an equal player on Pamela's level. Any gains he makes are [[spoiler:usurped by Pamela, who keeps Alexandria, Hilltop and Oceanside as prison camps]], and his mysterious "other thing" and warnings that he is key to alliances the Commonwealth has are also never clarified [[spoiler:before he is killed by Carol.]] |
| 11 | ** Parts 2 and 3 of Season 11 have the characters trying to rally the Commonwealth citizens into a revolution against the corruption in high places, but ultimately the citizens never contribute anything. |
| 12 | ** Season 10's "Look at the Flowers" has Ezekiel task Jerry with helping lead the native Kingdom residents while he leaves with Eugene and Yumiko; "Find Me" will later have Carol mention that Jerry has been stepping up into a leadership role, and Season 11's "Variant" has Aaron suggest Jerry could become king of a new community one day. The series ends without Jerry as a leader of anybody, and sadly bereft of King Jerry. |
| 13 | * AcceptableBreaksFromReality: |
| 14 | ** Throughout the show, there are various situations in which the characters are supposed to be malnourished and borderline starving. However, the actors are essentially always of visibly healthy weight and never become emaciated throughout the show, since [[DyeingForYourArt constantly losing weight and gaining it back]] wouldn't be practical. |
| 15 | ** The Season 3 finale has the characters just ''know'' that The Governor is coming for his climactic attack on the prison, when they logically shouldn't know it's the season finale. |
| 16 | * ActionGirl: Andrea, Maggie, Michonne and Carol in spades. By Season 4, pretty much every female character still alive has become this to varying extents, with even [[TheCutie Beth]], [[TookALevelInBadass Tara]] (who initially seemed to be more of a FauxActionGirl) and [[AdaptationalBadass Rosita]] (who did not have much to do in her comic book incarnation) capable of holding their own against walkers without much trouble. |
| 17 | * AdaptationalAttractiveness |
| 18 | ** The Governor has a menacing and unkempt appearance in the comics. Here, he is given a more "slick and CulturedBadass" look. |
| 19 | --->'''Michonne:''' There's a town called Woodbury led by a man who calls himself The Governor. PrettyBoy, Jim Jones type. I don't trust him. |
| 20 | ** Possibly Tara Chambler. Her comic counterpart is described as overweight, though it wasn't stated if she's a BigBeautifulWoman or not. She does have AdaptationalCurves here, though. |
| 21 | ** Tomas, the CompositeCharacter of Thomas Richards and Dexter from the comics, was given a more handsome take of The Governor's comic appearance as well as AdaptationalCurves. |
| 22 | * AdaptationalBadass: The series actually made the (non and) {{Action Survivor}}s more combat proficient (e.g Glenn, Carol, Lori, Maggie)) or/and the emotionally and psychologically fragile be more emotionally strong and assertive (e.g Carol, Maggie). Inverted with a few other characters, with Andrea being most noticeable. |
| 23 | * AdaptationalCurves |
| 24 | ** Maggie is already beautiful in the comics, but the series gave her [[StatuesqueStunner height]] and [[MaleGaze bust]]-[[MsFanservice size]] upgrades by casting former model Creator/LaurenCohan. |
| 25 | ** Tara Chambler. Her comic counterpart is described as overweight. Here, she's played by the slender Alanna Masterson. After arriving in Alexandria, she puts on some weight (due to Alanna Masterson having a baby in real-life), which arguably makes her even more attractive. |
| 26 | ** Tomas, the CompositeCharacter of Thomas Richards and Dexter from the comics, was given [[AdaptationalAttractiveness a more handsome take]] of The Governor's comic appearance. |
| 27 | * AdaptationalHeroism: A number of {{Anti Hero}}ic and [[GrayAndGreyMorality morally gray]] characters in the comics are more humane in this incarnation. |
| 28 | * AdaptationalVillainy: |
| 29 | ** Carol's husband Ed, Andrew from the prison, Allen, Nicholas, and most notably Shane are more villainous here compared to the comics. |
| 30 | ** Negan and The Saviors, surprisingly. In the comics, they at the very least genuinely provide a protective service in return for their non-negotiable payments. The show's Saviors, in comparison, are just swaggering bullies. |
| 31 | ** Alpha was far more reasonable in the comics and seemed willing to leave the survivors alone after she marked her territory. This Alpha is an insane cultist who sees the survivors as ''insults'' to her way of life and control over her people, and plans from the get-go to wipe them out. |
| 32 | ** In the comics, [[spoiler:Dante]] is one of Hilltops' most steadfast and reliable fighters, who ends up becoming TheLancer to, before starting a relationship with, [[spoiler:Maggie]]. In the series, however, he's actually [[spoiler:TheMole, who has been sent by Alpha to gather intel and work to bring down Alexandria from within]]. |
| 33 | ** Sebastian Milton, Lance Hornsby, and [[spoiler:Pamela Milton]] all turn out to be far more vile pieces of work than their comic counterparts. Lance is willing to commit genocide if it covers his tracks or gets him what he wants; Sebastian has gotten dozens of people killed his own hedonistic lifestyle in comparison to his more pathetic comic counterpart, and [[spoiler:Pamela]] goes off the deep end and becomes the FinalBoss of the series, willing to have hundreds of people murdered and ''thousands'' sacrificed to walkers if it means keeping the wealthy Commonwealth citizens safe. |
| 34 | * AdaptationExpansion: The series only follows the comic in BroadStrokes so those who have read the comic don't assume the outcome of the series is a ForegoneConclusion, introducing new characters and scenes in addition to the ones that showed up in the comics. |
| 35 | ** This is especially notable with {{Arc Villain}}s. The final scene with the Claimers in "A" comes from the confrontation with the Marauders in Issue 57. However, their scenes in "Claimed," "Alone," and "Us" are entirely original. Likewise, "Strangers" and "Four Walls and a Roof" adapt the "Fear the Hunters" arc from the comics, but the entire buildup to Terminus as well as its destruction are unique to the show. The Wolves' raid on Alexandria in "JSS" is the show's version of the battle with the Scavengers in Issue 75, though they receive a considerable amount of foreshadowing beforehand, as well as a subplot afterwards with their leader taken prisoner. Towards the end of the season, there's much more of the Saviors seen before Negan's arrival, including a subplot about the Alexandrians attacking a Savior compound, and their confrontation in the finale is much bigger in scale as well. |
| 36 | ** The Savior War is also accompanied by the communities’ relationship with the Scavengers (a different group of people who only share the name of the group from the comics), with several episodes devoted to Rick’s attempts to barter with them. |
| 37 | ** The span of time between the end of the Whisperer War and the proper start of the Commonwealth gets much more focus out of necessity from real-life events; the COVID-19 pandemic convinced the show to produce six additional Season 10 episodes to show some of the fallout of the Whisperer arc, and leads into the first third of Season 11 which mostly revolves around a conflict with a group of FillerVillain’s called the Reapers. First contact with the Commonwealth is still a major subplot but the primary focus is the Reapers, who were actually going to be the villains of a full-length eleventh season before AMC cancelled the show a year earlier than expected. |
| 38 | ** With the storyline needing to be changed thanks to several characters being absent, the Commonwealth arc tells a lot more story in its final episodes and with different characters. |
| 39 | * AdaptedOut: |
| 40 | ** Out of Hershel's family: his twin daughters, son Billy, eldest son Arnold, and eldest daughter Lacey, replaced with one teenage daughter, Beth. |
| 41 | ** At the prison: Dexter is replaced by Tomas, while Thomas Richards had been replaced as KnightOfCerebus by Dave before the prison arc even began. Tomas, however, has been [[http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/10/21/walking-dead-robert-kirkman-season3-episode2/ confirmed]] to be his counterpart by Robert Kirkman. |
| 42 | ** At Woodbury: Bruce and Gabe, the Governor's CoDragons, have been replaced by Merle. Alice has been [[GenderFlip combined]] with Dr. Stevens. |
| 43 | ** Allen and Donna have only one son, Ben, with no sign of Billy. Ben and Billy are later more faithfully adapted into Lizzie and Mika Samuels in Season 4. |
| 44 | ** Tyreese's daughter Julie and her boyfriend Chris are gone, replaced by Tyreese's CanonForeigner sister, Sasha. |
| 45 | ** Michonne’s daughter Elodie is gone due to Danai Gurira departing the series a year before the start of the Commonwealth arc. Michonne has no biological daughter in the show, only her deceased son Andre, her stepdaughter Judith, and her new biological son RJ. To compensate, [[DecompositeCharacter Elodie’s role]] as the long-lost relative a group member finds at the Commonwealth is given to original character Tomi Okumora, Yumiko’s brother - though the bakery he is introduced as working at is "Elodie’s Treats" as a nod to the character he replaced. |
| 46 | * AgeLift: Several characters are noticeably older than their comic counterparts. |
| 47 | * TheAlcoholic: |
| 48 | ** Bob Stookey, or at least a recovering one. When he inspects a bottle in the supermarket during the Season 4 premiere, it's part of what leads to him being trapped and the walkers falling through the ceiling. |
| 49 | ** Hershel used to be (long) before the start of the series' timeline. |
| 50 | ** Earl Sutton as well, and when his son is killed he is lulled into drinking himself silly by Gregory, [[spoiler:who convinces him to kill Maggie in revenge so he can retake control.]] |
| 51 | * AllForNothing: |
| 52 | ** [[spoiler: Beth sacrifices herself so that Noah doesn't have to go back to the enforced labor of Grady Memorial Hospital. Only a few weeks later, Noah is killed in a supply run, meaning her sacrifice was for nothing.]] |
| 53 | ** In a leaked alternate take of the Season 7 premiere, [[spoiler: Maggie was Negan's choice to die. This is made even worse by the fact the main reason most of the group was out in the woods trying to escape the Saviors was to get her to Hilltop for medical treatment to save her unborn child.]] |
| 54 | * AllGirlsWantBadBoys: |
| 55 | ** In Season 2, Andrea jumps Shane after they survive the overrun subdivision and shortly before he loses it and tries to murder Rick. In Season 3, she falls for the Governor. |
| 56 | ** Averted with Maggie, who falls for the socially awkward Glenn. When Glenn later questions whether or not she would have noticed him if it wasn't the apocalypse, she insists she's always had a thing for the nice guys. |
| 57 | ** Her sister Beth also seems more interested in the [[NiceGuy nice guys]]. |
| 58 | ** As a meta-example, Daryl's large female fanbase supports this. Negan also has a growing number of female fans. Ironically, both characters undergo significant CharacterDevelopment that mellows them into much nicer men. |
| 59 | * AllThereInTheManual: The story of how Hannah became the "Bicycle Girl" walker is in the webisodes. |
| 60 | * AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: |
| 61 | ** Andrew's sabotage and compromise of the prison in "Killer Within". He tries to get Oscar to kill Rick and help him take over, but this fails. |
| 62 | ** The Governor's attacks on the prison in "Home" and "Welcome to the Tombs". The attack in "Welcome to the Tombs" ends as an AvertedTrope, as the group successfully fights them off. |
| 63 | ** He attacks again with a new group (armed with a ''tank'') in "Too Far Gone". [[WhamEpisode This one results in a full-scale battle between the two groups, many dead (including Hershel and The Governor himself), the fall of the prison, and the group scattered and separated.]] |
| 64 | ** Thanks to Carol, all of Terminus is overrun by walkers. |
| 65 | ** In Season 8, the allied forces of AHK (Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Kingdom) lay siege to the Sanctuary and trap its main members inside with a herd of walkers, and then proceed to attack their smaller outposts. Two are wiped out, one is defeated with its survivors taken prisoner. [[spoiler: Once the Saviors escape their siege, they return the favor with gusto by bombing and sacking Alexandria, and claiming the Kingdom as their new base until the Sanctuary is repaired.]] |
| 66 | ** Alpha sets out to wipe out the communities during the Whisperer War. [[spoiler:Her army is able to burn down Barrington House at Hilltop in the opening battle of the war and force the survivors to flee, though the heroes are confident they can rebuild one day or relocate. After Alpha's death, Beta leads the horde to Alexandria to destroy it, but to his dismay the survivors fled to a rendezvous point leaving him unable to inflict this trope on the town.]] |
| 67 | * AlmightyJanitor: |
| 68 | ** After Glenn comes up with a strategy of military efficiency to get Rick's bag of guns off the swarmed street, Daryl asks him what he used to do for a living. He says he used to deliver pizza. |
| 69 | ** The leader of the Vatos used to be a custodian. |
| 70 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Wolves. The first clue of their appearance is mid-Season 5, when the group encounters a car filled with decapitated heads with the letter W carved into their foreheads. Later on, Daryl and Aaron get caught in a death trap made by the Wolves where infected (also with Ws carved into their foreheads) get released from tractor trailers when they try to search one of them for food. In Season 6, the Wolves directly attack Alexandria while Rick and several of the Alexandrians are away to draw the horde of infected away from the settlement. All members of The Wolves shown on screen show the desire to kill other humans. |
| 71 | * AlternateHistory: |
| 72 | ** Season 11 depicts William Milton as having served as president of the United States during the 80’s when UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan was president. |
| 73 | ** Aaron and Eric had to settle for an unofficial marriage since the Fall took place in 2010, five years before same-sex marriage was legalized in America in real-life. |
| 74 | * AlternateUniverse: As per a comment by Kirkman on the ''Talking Dead'' talk show, this world never had a ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'', which pretty much defines modern culture's view of zombies. The only other zombies are of the voodoo variety, and their heyday as a fictional device was in the 1920s, before even Dale was born. |
| 75 | * AnachronicOrder: |
| 76 | ** "Inmates" starts out showing Beth and Daryl following the tracks of another group of survivors from the prison, then jumps back a few hours and shows what happened to Tyreese's party as they left that trail. |
| 77 | ** "Four Walls and a Roof" ends with Daryl returning to the church after his and Carol's departure to Atlanta the previous episode. Three episodes later in "Consumed", their trip to Atlanta is explained, starting on the night that they left in "Strangers" and concluding on the day that ends "Slabtown". |
| 78 | ** "Slabtown" jumps back to Season 4 time to explain what happened to Beth after she was kidnapped. By the end of the episode, Carol is shown getting wheeled in on a trolley, which is explained later in "Consumed". |
| 79 | * AndStarring: |
| 80 | ** Creator/DavidMorrissey (The Governor) in Season 3 and the last three episodes of the first half of Season 4. |
| 81 | ** Creator/ScottWilson (Hershel) during his tenure in the "Also Starring" lineup. Strangely when he's {{promot|ionToOpeningTitles}}ed, he is still billed last but without the "And" treatment, presumably so David Morrissey could reclaim his spot. |
| 82 | ** Creator/JeffreyDeanMorgan (Negan) after his PromotionToOpeningTitles in Season 7. Come Season 10, he shares this with Creator/SamanthaMorton (Alpha). |
| 83 | * {{Anticlimax}}: |
| 84 | ** A sizable number of viewers found the Season 3 finale underwhelming. The battle for the prison, which was hyped for six episodes and was a pivotal moment in the comics, is over in five minutes with no casualties on either side. Marketing had heavy use of TonightSomeoneDies, but 24 of the 27 promised deaths were nameless redshirts. Many major plot threads are also left entirely unresolved, with the Governor on the run having lost his army. When the Governor returns for his next assault in Season 4, it's far more climactic and lives up to the moment in the comics. |
| 85 | ** The Wolves received a half-season's worth of buildup in the latter half of Season 5, however, [[spoiler: the entire organization is wiped out two episodes into Season 6 bar the leader, who survives into the season's ninth episode. The group only kills RedShirt's, but their attack does help the native Alexandrians develop into capable fighters.]] |
| 86 | ** Season 6 strongly hyped up the approach of Negan, as his introduction is the other most pivotal moment of the comic and utterly changes it, and involves the plot's biggest SacrificialLion. The season slowly builds up to his arrival, to the point that his Saviors became AdaptationalWimp's in order to give Negan's introduction more gravity, and the promotional material began liberally using TonightSomeoneDies. The Season 6 finale, "Last Day On Earth", ends with an abrupt {{Cliffhanger}} smack dab during the iconic scene's adaptation, forcing the audience to wait the better part of a further year for the plot's resolution, after the season had already hyped it up for the past year. |
| 87 | * AntagonistTitle: Also counts as DoubleMeaningTitle since "the walking dead" doesn't just refer to the walkers, but also to the other survivors who killed/lost their humanity and went into the deep end due to the stress of the ZombieApocalypse. Daryl seems to realize the latter interpretation of this in "Them" when Rick proposes they willingly become "[[TitleDrop the walking dead]]", and it helps him pull out of his near catatonic HeroicBSOD he'd been in for the past two episodes. |
| 88 | * AnyoneCanDie: ''The Walking Dead'' is probably one of the modern day {{Trope Codifier}}s along with ''Series/GameOfThrones''. Even some long-lived survivors from the comic [[DeathByAdaptation died early in the show]]. The running tally: |
| 89 | ** Season 1: [[spoiler: Ed, all the redshirt camp survivors, Amy, Jim, Jacqui, Jenner]]. |
| 90 | ** Season 2: [[spoiler: Otis, Sophia, Dave, Tony, Sean, Dale, Randall, Shane, Jimmy, Patricia]]. |
| 91 | ** Season 3: [[spoiler: Big Tiny, Tomas, T-Dog, Andrew, Lori, Oscar, Donna, Axel, Duane, Ben, Merle, Milton, Allen, all of the Woodbury Militia, Andrea]]. |
| 92 | ** Season 4: [[spoiler: Zach, Clara, Patrick, Ryan, Karen, Ana, Dr. Caleb, David Chalmers, Shumpert, Martinez, Pete, Hershel, Meghan, Mitch, Alisha, The Governor, Lily, all the background and redshirt prison survivors, Mika, Lizzie, all the members of The Claimers, Alex]]. |
| 93 | ** Season 5: [[spoiler: Sam, Mary, Mike, Greg, Albert, Theresa, Martin, Gareth, Bob, Joan, Gorman, Lamson, O'Donnell, Beth, Dawn, Tyreese, Aiden, Noah, Reg, Pete]]. |
| 94 | ** Season 6: [[spoiler:Carter, Shelly, Erin, Holly, several dozen unnamed Wolves and Alexandrians, Barnes, Sturgess, Annie, David, Nicholas, Eastman, Tina, Deanna, Bud, Sam, Jessie, Ron, Owen the Alpha Wolf, dozens of unnamed Saviors, Ethan, Donnie, Molly, Michelle, Paula, Denise, Jiro and his group of Saviors, Roman]]. |
| 95 | ** Season 7: [[spoiler:Abraham[[note]]Technically, he died on the last episode of Season 6. However, it is only revealed during this season[[/note]], Glenn[[note]]Technically, he is this season's very first casualty chronologically speaking, as Abraham was actually the one who dies in the Season 6 finale {{Cliffhanger}}[[/note]], Fat Joey, Spencer, Olivia, Emmett Carson, Benjamin, Richard, David, Sasha, Roy]]. |
| 96 | ** Season 8: [[spoiler:Andy, Freddie, Mara, Francine, Morales and his entire family, Eric, Todd, Daniel, Alvaro, most of the Kingdom militia, Gunther, Shiva, Natania, Neil, Dean, Gavin, Carl, Brion, Tamiel, most of the Scavengers, Harlan Carson, Tobin, Bruce, many AHK RedShirts, Jared, Gary, Simon]]. |
| 97 | ** Season 9: [[spoiler:Ken, Gregory, Justin, Arat, Regina, Jed, Jesus, Ozzy, Alek, D.J., Frankie, Tammy Rose Sutton, Rodney, Adeline, Enid, Tara, Henry]]. |
| 98 | ** Season 10: [[spoiler:Frances, Margo, Brandon, Siddiq, Dante, Laura, Mary, Earl, Alpha, Beatrice, Oscar, Beta, Mays and his brother, Lucille, Craven and his gang]]. |
| 99 | ** Season 11: [[spoiler:Gage, Roy, Cole, Duncan, Agatha, the Ferals, Frost, Wells, Powell, Pope, Ancheta, Deaver, Fisher, Austin, Mancea, Jensen, Carver, Alden, Ian, April, Carlson, Romano, Marco, Leah, Sebastian, Roman Calhoun, Lance Hornsby, The Warden, Tyler Davis, Jules, Luke, Rosita Espinosa]]. |
| 100 | ** As of the final episode, the ''only'' characters who have survived since the first season are: [[spoiler:Daryl and Carol, with Rick and Morgan PutOnABus.]] The only other survivors introduced before the group reaches Alexandria in Season 5 are [[spoiler:Maggie, Michonne, Judith, Eugene, and Gabriel.]] |
| 101 | * ApocalypseHow: Class 2. Practically every national and local government on Earth collapsed during the outbreak, reducing humanity to a series of scattered villages and roving gangs. |
| 102 | * ApocalypseAnarchy: The show is an extended exploration of this trope, with the first two seasons basically breaking Rick down and forcing him to abandon civilized behavior. |
| 103 | * TheApocalypseBringsOutTheBestInPeople: |
| 104 | ** Daryl. Where all the other characters start out civilized and are forced to give it up, he starts out as a violent, racist redneck whose main saving grace is that, unlike his brother Merle, he will generally try to help other people--if he's not angry enough to attack them himself. After being separated from Merle's influence and being forced to work together with the group to survive, he gradually becomes a nicer, more steadfast and emotional, but still awkward person. |
| 105 | ** Deconstructed with Tyreese. He becomes a kinder, more gentle person (far more than his hotheaded comic incarnation), but it causes problems in Season 5 when he's lost his will to kill ''anything''. [[spoiler: He spares Martin even after he tried to kill Judith, and refuses to allow Carol to kill him either, which allows Martin to lead Gareth to the group. Ultimately Tyreese dies knowing that he just didn't fit in the world anymore.]] |
| 106 | * ApocalypticLogistics: |
| 107 | ** While supply runs are a major facet of the show, well-maintained cars are driven around without any mention of fuel, or any show of characters getting it. While there are ample abandoned vehicles scattered about that probably have fuel, the show is as of Season 7 four years into the apocalypse and has taken place in areas with plenty of other people, making it questionable that gas would be that easy to get hold of. Automotive gasoline goes bad after six months to a year. Ammunition is mentioned to be scarce, but firefights in the show don't seem to show otherwise. |
| 108 | ** In the first episode of Season 9, Daryl mentions that the survivors have found every drop of gas and bullet for miles around their territory and are struggling to maintain large bases like the Sanctuary. After the second TimeSkip of six years, the characters seem to have finally given up on cars, with everyone traveling on horse-back, or using horse-drawn carts. Firearms are no longer used or are used extremely sparingly. With ammunition harder and harder to come by, a shift to melee weapons such as knives and spears, as well as bows and arrows is emphasized. This has the advantage of being quiet, easy to make and use, and in the case of bows and arrows, reusable ammunition. |
| 109 | ** Season 11 sees the return of automobiles as the Commonwealth has a regular supply of fuel, with Lance mentioning one car was able to run on ethanol. |
| 110 | * ArbitrarySkepticism: |
| 111 | ** There's discussion on whether the Chupacabra is real, and it's {{lampshaded}} that several months ago, they'd have been having the same conversation about walking, flesh-eating corpses. |
| 112 | ** This also comes up in Season 9 when Eugene suggests that the walkers are evolving into intelligent threats based on unusual behavior. Daryl says it's ridiculous, but Eugene points out that walkers are already ridiculous. Even the level-headed Jesus begins to be unnerved and comes around to Eugene's line of thinking. They eventually learn that the walkers are actually being led by the Whisperers, [[spoiler:but Jesus goes to his grave thinking he's been killed by an evolved walker.]] |
| 113 | * ArcSymbol: |
| 114 | ** Roads for Season 1, as the staggering sight of countless empty roads hammers in how desolate the world has become. |
| 115 | ** Blood for Season 2, due to the survivors having to start getting blood on their hands when their enemies begin including living humans. |
| 116 | ** Walls and gates/doors for Season 3, as the conflict is between two gated communities with sharp divides between them. |
| 117 | ** Crosses (both crucifixes and x-marks) and fire for the first half of Season 5, "W"'s for the second half. |
| 118 | ** Ever since Season 5, baseball bats begin to frequently appear every time Glenn is around. [[spoiler: It serves as both a MythologyGag to how he was killed by Negan with a bat in the comics and ultimately foreshadowing to him suffering the same fate in the show.]] |
| 119 | ** An engraving of Lucille, Negan's trademark bat wrapped in barbed wire, ultimately serves as this for Season 6. |
| 120 | ** Fans (either wall or desk) for scenes at the Sanctuary and The Saviors outposts to fit the NightmarishFactory setting. The blades can mutilate and kill but also provide comfort and hospitable conditions. |
| 121 | ** Walkers themselves for the Whisperer arc of Seasons 9-10, since the Whisperers are the personification of the threat the undead poise to the survival of society. |
| 122 | ** Fire returns again for Season 11A, as it’s a key motif of the fanatical Reapers and representative of the CycleOfRevenge of both their war with Maggie, and Maggie’s own war with Negan. |
| 123 | ** Lance’s gold-plated nickel for Season 11B - representative of how the Commonwealth has a pretty exterior, but as Lance shows, has an ugly underbelly. |
| 124 | * ArcVillain: |
| 125 | ** [[TokenEvilTeammate Merle]] [[TheMillstone Dixon]], [[DomesticAbuse Ed]] [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Peletier]], [[GangBangers the]] [[GoodAllAlong Vatos]], and [[WellIntentionedExtremist Dr. Edwin]] [[TakingYouWithMe Jenner]] in Season 1. |
| 126 | ** [[DisasterScavengers The]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Living]], including [[AmbiguouslyEvil Randall Culver]], in the second half of Season 2. |
| 127 | ** [[AxCrazy Tomas]] [[GangBangers and]] [[NotSoHarmlessVillain Andrew]] in the first few episodes of Season 3. |
| 128 | ** [[ThePlague The flu]] for the first five episodes of Season 4. |
| 129 | ** [[EnfantTerrible Lizzie]] [[ZombieAdvocate Samuels]] throughout Season 4 until "The Grove." |
| 130 | ** [[EvilVirtues The]] [[DisasterScavengers Claimers]], led by [[EvilMentor Joe]], in the second half of Season 4. |
| 131 | ** [[CannibalClan Terminus]], led by [[SoftSpokenSadist Gareth]], in the Season 4 finale and the first three episodes of Season 5. |
| 132 | ** The [[TheBadGuysAreCops Grady Memorial]] [[IndenturedServitude Hospital group]], led by [[TheNeidermeyer Lt. Dawn Lerner]], for the rest of the first half of Season 5. |
| 133 | ** [[DomesticAbuse Dr. Pete]] [[TheAlcoholic Anderson]], [[DirtyCoward Nicholas]], and [[SinisterMinister Father]] [[DeathSeeker Gabriel Stokes]] in the back half of Season 5. |
| 134 | ** [[AxCrazy The]] [[ForTheEvulz Wolves]], led by [[OmnicidalManiac Owen]], and [[TeensAreMonsters Ron]] [[YouKilledMyFather Anderson]] in the first half of Season 6 and the midseason premiere. |
| 135 | ** [[LesCollaborateurs Spencer]] [[LeaderWannabe Monroe]] in the first half of Season 7. |
| 136 | ** [[CrazyHomelessPeople The]] [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Scavengers]], led by [[SixthRangerTraitor Jadis]], in the second half of Season 7 and the first half of Season 8. |
| 137 | ** Gregory is only around as an antagonist from Season 6 to [[spoiler:the Season 9 premiere, roughly analogous to the Savior arc.]] |
| 138 | ** The Whisperers for Season 9B-10B. |
| 139 | ** The Reapers for Season 11A, led by Pope [[spoiler:who dies in episode 8. His lieutenant Leah takes over the Reapers afterwards, but the Reapers get wiped out in “No Other Way” with Leah briefly continuing on as a minor antagonist.]] Season 11B sets up Lance Hornsby as the main antagonist of the Commonwealth arc, [[spoiler:but ends up a DiscOneFinalBoss who is captured and killed, leaving Pamela as the FinalBoss of the series.]] |
| 140 | * ArcWords: |
| 141 | ** "Family" for Season 3. |
| 142 | ** Season 4 has two: "Can/Can't come back from" for the first half, and "Those who arrive survive" for the second half. |
| 143 | ** Season 5: "Can't go back" for the first half, and "Wolves not far" for the second half. The first half has a theme of there being no hope for a return to the old world as evidenced by the evils of Terminus; the second half has the cryptic message left by the Wolves who are built up as the next antagonistic group. |
| 144 | ** "Us" and "Them" for Seasons 5 and 6. Much of the two seasons revolves around Rick and how he views people outside his group, and how he must come to think bigger and realize he needs to stop thinking in black and white. |
| 145 | ** Season 6: "Then" and "Now" for the first half, "New/Bigger world" for the second half. |
| 146 | ** "You are not safe"; Rick tells Carl this in "Strangers" when he and some of the group are left in Gabriel's church, as Rick is trying to make Carl stay on his guard as he doesn't fully trust Gabriel yet, and knows that the group is being watched from the shadows. This phrase was also said during the "Fear the Hunters" arc, which began when Rick accepted a balance of his humanity and brutality, and declared that Terminus was "screwing with the wrong people", confident that his group would win out. Over the next two seasons, however, this backfires as Rick becomes ''way'' too confident and assumes that the Saviors, an enemy the group begins contending with in the second half of Season 6, will be easy to deal with. In the sixth season finale, [[spoiler: Negan completely outmatches and emotionally breaks him, and tells him four words - "you are not safe."]] |
| 147 | ** "We're the ones who live", introduced in the Season 7 finale and a BadassBoast of the survivors who will stick together to see this apocalypse through. It's brought back for the GrandFinale. |
| 148 | ** "Something after/what comes after" for Season 8, focusing on the idea of the kind of world that the combined forces of AHK are fighting for: one built on peace and togetherness (which Rick ultimately embraces, thanks to Carl), or one built on vengeance and retribution against the Saviors (which Maggie and Daryl, especially, are desperate for). |
| 149 | ** The Whisperer creed about how they are “the end of the world” for Season 10 (and by extension Season 9, though the creed was not introduced until Season 10). Alpha and Beta seek to end any remnant or attempt to restart human society since they believe they should return to living like animals amongst the undead. With the monstrously large horde at their command, the Whisperers have a frighteningly good chance of being the ones who end Rick Grimes’s civilization for good; thus the battle between the survivors and the Whisperers literally becomes one for the fate of the world. |
| 150 | ** “Choices” in Season 11. Much of the season revolves around the choices the survivors make that lands them in their latest predicament and the consequences of it, such as Pope’s choice to instigate a holy war with Maggie, Maggie choosing to inflict retribution on the Reapers, and the survivors choosing between living in the Commonwealth or sticking it out back in the dilapidated Coalition. |
| 151 | ** "We are the walking dead", first used in a TitleDrop in Season 5's "Them" by Rick, refuted by Daryl with "we ain't", showing how he despises the idea of people being the same as the walkers. The GrandFinale has a KirkSummation in which Daryl spells out to everyone that their only enemy should be the dead and not each other, finally securing peace. |
| 152 | * ArmorIsUseless: |
| 153 | ** Averted, especially in regards to the riot gear wearing Walkers in the prison. |
| 154 | ** Averted again when Milton wraps his sleeves in duct tape. It actually does prevent a walkers bite from getting to him. |
| 155 | ** Averted yet again with duct tape by Glenn, while his arm was duct taped to the arm of a chair. |
| 156 | ** Averted once more with the athletic protective gear worn by knights of the Kingdom. |
| 157 | ** Played straight in numerous cases with the Commonwealth troopers’ armor. It may look intimidating, but it’s wearers frequently fall victim to walkers and gunshots nonetheless. It helps convey the theme that the Commonwealth looks perfect and well-off, but under the surface it’s not as great as it’d like you to believe. |
| 158 | * ArtisticLicenseBiology: |
| 159 | ** In 1.6, Dr. Jenner says that the zombie pathogen "invades the brain like meningitis." The problem is that meningitis doesn't invade the brain at all, but the meninges (the protective coverings of the brain and spinal cord). |
| 160 | ** Viral Transmission of the pathogen has been largely variable and inconsistent in the comics, shows, and games: A person that dies of asphyxiation will become reanimated by the virus, implying an airborne capability, yet it doesn't affect living humans. A pregnant woman that recently gives birth to a child will most likely succumb to the virus due to less-than-sanitary conditions and a weakened immune system. And walkers can transmit the virus through scratches and bites but not through blood and other bodily fluids making contact with a living person's skin. |
| 161 | *** There's likely two different viruses. The TV series explains in the prison arc that ''everyone'' is already infected with the zombie virus, which is why natural or non-bite deaths still result in turning into a zombie. Bites simply infect people with a different, lethal virus that kills them before the zombie virus raises them as walkers. Lastly, zombie blood definitely transmits ''something'', as the Saviors used zombie guts as a coating on their weapons which infected multiple individuals who were injured by them. |
| 162 | * ArtisticLicenseCars: Even after so many years after the complete breakdown of society due to the apocalypse, the characters are still shown driving vehicles. The problem is, gasoline stored under even the most ideal of conditions won't be usable after maybe two years, three at most (but highly unlikely). Gasoline is ''heavily'' refined, so no more is being made, and it also aggressively absorbs water from the air. In addition, many of the additives in gasoline will congeal into solids after time. Realistically, in-show they should be to the point right now where gasoline will simply no longer be useful. |
| 163 | ** It appears that they've finally reached that point as of Season 9, with horse-based methods of transportation now the norm. |
| 164 | ** Averted in that they're not shown tearing around in Mad Max-style off-road buggies, but often in modern normal-looking cars. |
| 165 | * ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: In the first episode pilot, before the shootout with the criminals fleeing in the cars, one of the deputies at the road block starts joking about how it would be great if they were being recorded, because they could get on a show like Cops. Rick snaps at him that he needs to focus, make sure he has a round in the chamber of his gun, and that the safety is off. The deputy does so, racking back the slide to chamber a round, then we hear the ''click'' of a safety being switched off. Problem is, he is using a Glock 19. Glocks do not have a safety switch, the trigger is the safety. |
| 166 | * ArtisticLicenseGeography: The series from Season 5B on is set in Virginia, yet is still filmed in Georgia. This creates a disconnect and muddles the world, as the characters are roaming around what is supposed to be Alexandria, Virginia, which is depicted as heavily wooded rural areas and the occasional farm. The fact they are near Washington, DC, their original goal is never mentioned and why they never head into the city is ever brought up. Alexandria in real life is a heavily developed suburb of the nation's capital that sits on the Potomac River and is filled with houses, apartments, retail spaces, military and government facilities, a major highway (I-495 of the Capital Beltway cuts through it) and Ronald Reagan Airport, a major domestic passenger hub, nearby. There are no forested areas like the show depicts; the entire area is densely urban for miles in every direction. |
| 167 | * ArtisticLicenseLaw: |
| 168 | ** A brief example is mentioned in "Home". Axel, a former convict, says he was in prison for robbing a store with a fake gun. When the police came to his house, they found his brother's real gun and said he used that, making it an armed robbery. Except... using a fake gun would be armed robbery ''anyway''. It only matters if people ''think'' it's real. We don't expect that he'd be a legal expert, but the charge would have been armed robbery either way.[[note]]In many jurisdictions, using a fake gun can reduce the sentence to the point where he might not be in prison, or at least not maximum security prison. But not in Georgia.[[/note]] |
| 169 | ** Lampshaded in Season 11 when Eugene barely receives a free trial with Pamela doing everything in her power to smear him, and is allowed to act completely unprofessionally on the stand by the judge who is strongly implied to be in her pocket. Yumiko even admits they’re probably going to lose the case, but are more worried about the court of public opinion. |
| 170 | * ArtisticLicenseMedicine: |
| 171 | ** When Rick reunites with his family and Shane, the impression is that a significant amount of time has passed since Shane left him in the hospital (when the post-apocalypse story picks up, they Shane, Lori, et al. have been camped near the quarry for at least six weeks) which means that Rick had been in his coma in the hospital that entire time. Without medical care, Rick wouldn't have survived any more than a week in a coma. This is not addressed in the series proper, though one of the webisode series shows that a single doctor was surviving in the hospital during this time and presumably tended to Rick and enabled him to survive. |
| 172 | ** Lori throwing up those "abortion pills" isn't going to do anything because they weren't going to work, even if she wanted them to. Morning after pills only work the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin morning after]], though Lori admits she was desperate and not thinking straight during the incident.[[note]]If your pregnancy test works, your morning after pills definitely won't.[[/note]] |
| 173 | ** "Always Accountable" features Tina, a diabetic who travels with her friends Dwight and Sherry. The show's portrayal of diabetics is to say the least implausible, and among them is the idea that anyone, no matter how well stocked their group is, would be able to maintain a consistent, daily stock of insulin two years into an apocalypse. Negan later lampshades this in Season 7, and actually used this to try to coerce her into joining his harem, as he promised to devote the large amount of resources to find her critically needed insulin if she married him. |
| 174 | * AscendedExtra: |
| 175 | ** Carol was a minor supporting character in Season 1 who eventually ascended to become a main cast member by Season 4, and ultimately the deuteragonist of the show by Season 9. |
| 176 | ** Beth was the least focused on of the Greene family in Season 2, but slowly became a main character by Season 4 and 5. |
| 177 | ** Rosita was originally just [[TheSmurfettePrinciple the only female]] of Abraham’s group, but becomes a main character from Season 7 onward. |
| 178 | ** As of the episode "Swear" the community Oceanside. Originally not appearing until after a TimeSkip in the comics, and even then it has yet to be seen in person. Here, not only are they found much earlier, they have a history with the Saviors. Namely that they tried to fight the Saviors and lost badly, to the point where all the men in their group were killed. |
| 179 | ** Henry was originally supporting character Benjamin's little brother and nothing else. Season 8 gives him a subplot revolving around his vendetta against the Saviors, and Season 9 makes him a FakeGuestStar following the second TimeSkip. |
| 180 | ** By virtue of growing up from a baby to a preteen, competent survivor, Judith becomes this by Season 9. |
| 181 | ** Jerry was originally just PluckyComicRelief and Ezekiel’s bodyguard, and eventually became a main character by the end of Season 10. |
| 182 | * AscendedMeme: |
| 183 | ** Abraham's "Who's Deanna?" from "Remember" gets a nod in "No Way Out" when he asks "Who's Negan?" |
| 184 | ** [[spoiler:After Morales was PutOnABus in Season 1, his return became a common joke in the fandom. Then, stunningly, he actually ''does'' return in Season 8, Episode 2.]] |
| 185 | ** "If Daryl dies, we riot" was a popular rallying cry when Daryl became the show's BreakoutCharacter, later applied to pretty much any fan-favorite character. It comes back in a literal sense in the final episodes when [[spoiler:not only does Eugene's hokey sentencing to summary execution cause the Commonwealth citizens to erupt into protests, but when Pamela shoots Judith, the group aggressively rallies to pay her back in kind.]] |
| 186 | * AsTheGoodBookSays: |
| 187 | ** Season 3's "I Ain't a Judas" finds Hershel and Merle comparing their respective missing limbs: |
| 188 | --->'''Hershel:''' "And if your right hand offends you, cut it off, cast it from you. For it is profitable that one of your members should perish..."\ |
| 189 | '''Merle:''' "...and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell." Matthew 5:29 and 30. ''({{beat}})'' Woodbury had a damn fine library. |
| 190 | ** There's a scene in "This Sorrowful Life" where Hershel and his daughters are praying, and he reads a Bible passage that happens to be very relevant to their circumstances. |
| 191 | ** Someone (probably Hershel again) also leaves an open Bible with a very pointed verse highlighted [[spoiler: for the Governor to find while he searches the prison.]] |
| 192 | ** Subverted in "Internment". After a long day treating and managing the plague, Hershel consults his Bible for solace... but is so shaken from losing so many friends to the plague that it doesn't help, and poor Hershel just sobs in despair. |
| 193 | ** Done subtly in Season 5. Rick's group confronts the Hunters, a gang of cannibals, in a church which prominently displays the quote "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life" from John 6:54. The verses on the wall of the inside of the church all reference resurrection of the dead, but would only be obvious to those well-versed in the Bible or look them up. |
| 194 | ** Father Gabriel quotes the Bible before [[spoiler: killing a Savior]] in "Not Tomorrow Yet." |
| 195 | * AsianDrivers: Daryl makes a joke about this towards Glenn in the second season finale. |
| 196 | * AttackAttackAttack: The criminals in the opener. Their car is turned over, they're outnumbered by cops, and each cop has a weapon aimed at them, and they come out shooting anyway. Two are promptly gunned down. The third, who goes entirely unnoticed in the initial shootout, and could have gotten a decent head start since nobody had seen him yet, [[TooDumbToLive breaks from cover and starts shooting]]. |
| 197 | ** In Season 3, the prisoners, who have been locked up through the Apocalypse, are eager to show what they can do. In spite of being told what they're facing, they charge into a group of walkers and start flailing away, prison-riot style, to the Atlanta survivors' amused disdain. |
| 198 | * AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: |
| 199 | ** The heavily-foreshadowed battle for the prison. The Governor attacks with a barely-trained group of civilians who've never fought humans before. The prison group abandons the place but leave a trail of clues that leads the attackers into a bottleneck, where they're ambushed. Without suffering a single fatality, the attackers panic and run, jumping in a vehicle and fleeing. [[YouHaveFailedMe The Governor is not amused]]. |
| 200 | ** In "Twice as Far," Daryl, Rosita, Eugene and Abraham chase off Dwight and his crew and kill several of them, even though they were initially outnumbered. |
| 201 | * AudienceSuckerPunch: |
| 202 | ** In the mid-season finale for Season 2, it's discovered that [[spoiler: Sophia was turned into a walker]]. |
| 203 | ** [[spoiler: Also, when Dale is killed by the zombie that Carl accidentally released.]] |
| 204 | ** The season 7 premiere. [[spoiler: Both Abraham and Glenn are beaten to death by Negan, and Negan almost forces Rick to chop Carl's arm off.]] |
| 205 | * AudienceSurrogate: [[TheIngenue Beth]], during her dual DayInTheLimelight episode with [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys Daryl]]. One could make the argument that much of that episode was intended as WishFulfillment for Daryl's female fans. |
| 206 | * AutoErotica: The episode "Secrets" includes a scene where Shane and Andrea get busy in the car they're in, [[GladToBeAliveSex just after they've escaped a housing development infested with walkers]]. |
| 207 | * AutomatonHorses: Real horses don't even take well to ''living'' crowds without special training, yet the one Rick rides into a city crawling with walkers barely snorts in nervousness. When attacked, it just stands there whinnying hopelessly and gets eaten alive rather than kicking, bucking or fleeing. Justified since it ''was'' running until it got cornered. On the practical side, realistic bucking/kicking would need a ''very'' skilled stunt rider. It would also be dangerous for the extras playing walkers. |
| 208 | [[/folder]] |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[folder: Trope B]] |
| 211 | |
| 212 | * BabiesEverAfter: In the epilogue of the GrandFinale, [[spoiler:Eugene and Max have had a daughter named Rosie, and Yumiko may or may not be expecting a child after rekindling her relationship with Magna.[[note]]her actress acknowledged that her baby bump was accidentally exposed after having been hidden all season, but suggested she may have been able to have been fertilized thanks to the Commonwealth’s medical care[[/note]]]] |
| 213 | * BackForTheDead: |
| 214 | ** Martinez disappears after "Welcome to the Tombs." He has a brief cameo at the end of "Live Bait," and is killed off halfway through "Dead Weight." |
| 215 | ** Sam is a textbook example. He first appears in "Indifference," where he goes missing. He reappears 13 episodes later in "No Sanctuary" for about a minute before he is slaughtered by the butchers at Terminus. |
| 216 | ** Morales disappears towards the end of the first season, as he leads his family away from the group to search for family in Birmingham. We don't hear anything of him, nor does anyone mention him, until Season 8, a whopping seven seasons and years later, when [[spoiler: he returns as a villainous Savior, his family long dead. Morales is killed merely half an episode later by Daryl, who recognized he had no mercy left for his former comrades.]] |
| 217 | ** Natania doesn't even appear onscreen [[spoiler:alive before she is killed by Enid in self-defense as soon as she is reintroduced.]] |
| 218 | ** Hilltop rider Roy, played in a guest role by C. Thomas Howell in Season 9’s “Stradivarius”, doesn’t return until the two-part Season 11 premiere which [[spoiler:he is killed by the end of.]] |
| 219 | ** [[spoiler:Luke and Jules]] return in the final episodes of the series after having been absent for a season and two real-world years only to be killed off in the finale. |
| 220 | * BackForTheFinale: |
| 221 | ** [[spoiler:Hershel]] returns in flashbacks of the Season 4 finale eight episodes after his death. [[spoiler:Abraham]] follows suit in the Season 7 finale after dying in the Season 7 premiere; as does [[spoiler:Laura]] in Season 10. |
| 222 | ** Variant walkers feature in both the first and final episodes of the series thanks to the Retcon of the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness of their behavior in the prior. |
| 223 | ** [[spoiler:Rick and Michonne both return for an extended cameo in the final scenes of the series finale after having left the show in Seasons 9 and 10. Several actors also make vocal cameos long after their characters had either died or left the series for other installments of the franchise.]] |
| 224 | * BackToBackBadasses: |
| 225 | ** Merle and Daryl Dixon in the opening scene of "The Suicide King". |
| 226 | ** Surprisingly, Daryl and Martinez (the Governor's [[TheDragon dragon]]) in "Arrow On The Doorpost". |
| 227 | ** Maggie and Sasha in "Alone" when they were surrounded by walkers near an ice cream truck. |
| 228 | ** Season 5 trailers show [[TheHero Rick]] and [[TheLancer Daryl]] firing at at enemies/walkers in this manner. |
| 229 | ** During the battle of Terminus, Rick, Daryl, Bob, and Glenn fought their way through the Terminus residents and the herd invading the compound to free their group. Then ''the entire group'' gets in on this trope as they push for the exit. |
| 230 | ** Aaron and Rosita prove to be a good team when they watch each other's backs during two battles in Season 6. |
| 231 | ** Daryl and [[spoiler:Negan]] of all people are able to put aside their differences and work together on two occasions towards the end of the Whisperer arc. |
| 232 | * BadassBoast: |
| 233 | ** After getting a wrench thrown at him by Shane, Rick says to him "If you want to kill me, you're gonna have to do better than a wrench." |
| 234 | ** His retort when Merle says that he won't shoot him, because he's a cop: |
| 235 | ---> "All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son. Anyone who gets in the way of that is going to ''lose''." |
| 236 | ** Daryl to Andrea, after he gets mistaken for a walker due to his injuries and she shoots him: |
| 237 | ---> "You shoot me again, you best pray I'm dead." |
| 238 | ** "They're screwing with the wrong people." |
| 239 | ---> Becomes even more badass on the DVD release, which has Rick proclaiming, "They're [[PrecisionFStrike fuckin']] with the wrong people". |
| 240 | ** When someone's asking a tied-up Rick (who's about to be killed) about a buried bag of supplies: |
| 241 | ---> "There's a machete with a red handle. That's what I'm going to use to kill you." [[note]]And he does![[/note]] |
| 242 | ** Negan lets these loose as often as [[SirSwearsALot he swears]]. |
| 243 | ** The Season 7 finale "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life" has two practically back to back: |
| 244 | *** Negan has Rick and Carl on their knees before him again, and this time declares he will kill Carl and destroy Rick's hands with Lucille. This time, however, Rick is [[DefiantToTheEnd not taking it]]: |
| 245 | --->'''Rick''': You can do it right in front of me. You can take my hands. I told you already — I'm gonna kill you. Oh, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but ''nothing'' is gonna change that — ''nothing''. *whispers* You're all already dead. |
| 246 | *** Then the Kingdom arrives [[BigDamnHeroes just in time]] to save them and start driving the Saviors back, Ezekiel roaring out an epic battle cry: |
| 247 | --->'''Ezekiel''': ''END THESE SAVIORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES!! ALEXANDRIA WILL NOT FALL — NOT ON THIS DAY!!'' |
| 248 | * BadassCrew: Applies to Rick's group from Season 3 onwards, as a result of the months spent on the road following the loss of the farm. Driven home when the Governor expresses his surprise that just ten people managed to take over the prison, as Merle had declared it uninhabitable. |
| 249 | * BadassInDistress: At some point in the series, nearly every main character gets knocked out, captured, detained, or restrained in some way by some faction or individual and ends up requiring outside intervention to escape. Season 4 actually ended with over 90% of the main cast being captured. Thankfully one exception was Carol, who managed to save them all at the start of season 5. |
| 250 | * BadassLongcoat: The Governor has one. Around the second half of Season 4, Carol starts wearing one. Later seasons give us Jesus, Ezekiel, Jerry, and Beta. |
| 251 | * BaitAndSwitch: |
| 252 | ** Negan pulls a brutal one in the premiere of Season 7. [[spoiler: Many fans were in wild speculation about Negan's chosen victim. The majority knew that it would be Glenn, as he was beaten to death with Lucille in the comics by Negan in his introduction. It turns out the unlucky person killed in the cliffhanger was actually Abraham. Because of this, many viewers let their guard down and were hit with shock when Glenn was killed a few minutes later just like in the comics.]] |
| 253 | ** In the Season 9 premiere, Maggie announces that there must be punishment for the failed attempt on her life, and one of the culprits is in the background with his wife (who was not an accomplice), with both looking scared and ashamed. Then Maggie turns towards the mastermind of the attempted coup, [[spoiler:Gregory, who is sitting on a horse with a noose around his neck ready to be executed. Earl, his accomplice, ends up sentenced to imprisonment instead due to being drunk during the attack.]] |
| 254 | ** In Season 10, [[spoiler:Negan, who has apparently joined the Whisperers, captures Lydia following the attack on Hilltop. He then informs Alpha, and takes her to a shack in the woods where he apparently has Lydia stashed. The scene cuts between Alpha and Negan on their way, and a frantic Lydia, tied to a chair in the shack, as she tries to free herself and escape. Just as she succeeds, Alpha reaches the shack, and both Lydia and Alpha throw the door open at the same time... revealing that Lydia is at another location entirely, Negan having brought Alpha to a different shack so that he can kill her by slitting her throat]]. |
| 255 | * BangBangBANG: |
| 256 | ** Warning -- firing a gun inside a tank may cause [[SteelEardrums pain]] and [[ShellShockSilence temporary hearing loss]]. |
| 257 | ** Thankfully, [[CallBack Rick remembers this]] in "Clear" when trapped by walkers in a car with Carl and Michonne. He warns them to cover their ears before firing his gun. |
| 258 | * BashBrothers: Several pairs of characters fight as brothers in arms. |
| 259 | ** Rick and Shane are the most prominent example who start the series, and it's deconstructed as their friendship is ultimately not able to survive the stress of the apocalypse and Shane's increasing paranoia and darkness. |
| 260 | ** Daryl and Merle Dixon occasionally fight together once they are reunited in Season 3. |
| 261 | ** Rick and Daryl accept each other as adopted brothers as time goes on and when they're fighting together, few can hope to stand a chance against them. |
| 262 | ** Abraham eventually forges a healthy, respectful friendship with Rick and Daryl despite not being super close to them. |
| 263 | ** Aaron and Gabriel by Season 10, as they're both emotionally scarred leaders of Alexandria who are able to hang out off the clock and fight effortlessly back to back. |
| 264 | ** Villainous example in the Reapers, a group of Afghanistan war vets who see each other as adopted family and have not lost their edge in a fight since their service. |
| 265 | * BatScare: A flock of birds bursts out of a bush, scaring Mika into running off during "Inmates". |
| 266 | * BatterUp: |
| 267 | ** Bats are occasionally used as weapons, with the second season's second episode having Maggie on a horse charge up and hit a walker upside the head that was threatening one of the group. Glenn is almost killed by the Termimus residents in the Season 5 premiere with a bat, and later wields a bat -- which may or may not be foreshadowing that [[spoiler: he will suffer the same fate at the hands of Negan in the show as he did in the comics.]] |
| 268 | ** Lucille, Negan's barb wire wrapped baseball bat. She. Is. AWESOME. |
| 269 | * BeardOfSorrow[=/=]BeardnessProtectionProgram: The Governor, [[spoiler:after Woodbury falls apart.]] |
| 270 | * BehindTheBlack: |
| 271 | ** Time and again the characters will be surprised by walkers coming out of nowhere. That they would fail to perceive them, when they're usually in the forest with dry leaves all around (and the walkers have no stealth ability whatsoever), is kind of tough to swallow. Especially when you consider that Walkers are, essentially, moving hunks of rotting meat. |
| 272 | ** [[spoiler: Tyreese dies of his injuries when he's taken by surprise by a walker after a precious moment of distraction.]] |
| 273 | ** [[spoiler:Beta manages to kill Mary this way, after she puts down a group of walkers]]. |
| 274 | ** In the Season 11 premiere, the group finds a bunch of walkers whose throats were sliced so far they almost lost their heads, severing any ability they had to make any noise. As a result, one walker nearly gets the drop on one of them since it was completely silent. |
| 275 | * BerserkButton: |
| 276 | ** When Shane tells Rick that he thinks Rick can't keep his family safe, Rick and Shane start whaling on each other. |
| 277 | ** In "Judge, Jury, Executioner", Daryl shows Randall that he should have kept his mouth shut instead of telling Daryl about [[RapeAsDrama an incident with a man and his two teenage daughters]]. |
| 278 | ** The Marauders should have ''never'' threatened to rape Carl and Michonne. [[spoiler: Rick literally rips Joe's throat out with his teeth and then guts the other man who was attempting to rape Carl. He stabs him over and over and ''over'' again]]. |
| 279 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: |
| 280 | ** Beth is kept at the hospital partly because they believe her weak. According to Noah, they don't want people who would try to resist or escape. However Beth does [[spoiler: exactly that. She also takes down several zombies, kills a rapist, schemes to keep Carol alive. Even before the hospital, she'd played her part in the prison's defence, and stood up to Daryl when he was acting aggressively towards her.]] |
| 281 | ** The first sign of Carol's inner steel is when she hacks [[spoiler: Ed's corpse to bits. Over the series she becomes harder and tougher. By Season 5, underneath the friendly mother/housewife persona is a woman who can single-handedly destroy an entire cannibal enclave to rescue her friends.]] |
| 282 | ** From his introduction, Tyreese is always the moral voice. He doesn't like to get caught up in unnecessary violence, but when [[spoiler: Karen is murdered he becomes full of barely contained rage, survival instinct and gives Rick a beat-down once. Even when he decides he can't kill humans anymore, he kills a handful of walkers with his bare hands to stop a cannibal from murdering Judith.]] |
| 283 | * BigBad: While there are many shorter-lived villains (see Arc Villains), there are only a few malevolent survivors who could be said to truly take the Big Bad reins: |
| 284 | ** [[BigBadFriend Shane]] [[LoveMakesYouCrazy Walsh]] in Season 2. |
| 285 | ** [[VillainWithGoodPublicity The]] [[SanitySlippage Governor]], the leader of [[StepfordSuburbia Woodbury]], in Season 3 and the first half of Season 4. |
| 286 | ** [[DarkMessiah Negan]], the leader of [[ApocalypseCult the]] [[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs Saviors]], in the second half of Season 6, Season 7, and Season 8. |
| 287 | ** [[TheSocialDarwinist Alpha]], the leader of [[MalevolentMaskedMen the]] [[PretendWereDead Whisperers]], starting with the second half of Season 9 until the twelfth episode of Season 10. |
| 288 | *** Alpha's second-in-command, [[DragonAscendant Beta]], takes over the role for the remaining four episodes of the arc. |
| 289 | * BigBadassBattleSequence: |
| 290 | ** Subverted with The Governor's first two assaults on the prison, as the first time around, he's only looking to shake up the prison group and kill whoever he can before running off. The second time, [[spoiler: Rick simply scares out his inexperienced militia.]] The third time, it fits the bill, as the entire main cast [[spoiler: besides Carol]] starts ripping into each other after [[spoiler: Hershel is killed by The Governor]]. It ends up being a draw, as [[spoiler: while The Governor and his army are wiped out, Hershel is dead, Judith is presumed dead, and the survivors are separated from each other (and later the bus full of civilian survivors dies when one of them turns and wipes them out).]] |
| 291 | ** In the Season 5 premiere, Carol starts one ''by herself'', destroying a huge chunk of [[spoiler: Terminus with a propane explosion]] and leading a herd of walkers onto the place, giving Rick's group the time necessary to overthrow their captors and join the battle. Daryl even remarks that it "sounds like a damn war". |
| 292 | ** "No Way Out" gives us a dozens-strong army consisting of Rick's group and most of the Alexandrians standing as one against the herd of walkers that invaded Alexandria. |
| 293 | ** "Not Tomorrow Yet" depicts about a dozen or so of the Alexandrians [[spoiler: storming a Savior compound and killing forty Saviors, many of whom were sleeping, without a single casualty.]] |
| 294 | ** "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life" has a climactic clash as several dozen fighters from Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Kingdom fend off the Saviors and Scavengers. It's the first battle of a massive war between Negan and his rebelling communities. |
| 295 | ** "Morning Star" and "Walk With Us" feature the climactic Battle of Hilltop in which the Whisperers storm the community at the onset of the Whisperer War. |
| 296 | * BigDamnHeroes: |
| 297 | ** Played with. Rick, T-Dog, Daryl, and Glenn return to camp just in time to save the camp from walkers in "Vatos". Then Rick and Shane have an argument as to whether the losses would've been greater or worse if the group had never left the camp in the first place. |
| 298 | ** Shane looks resigned to Rick abandoning him while he's stuck in the school bus in "18 Miles Out", until he looks over and sees Rick and Randall (who's driving the car) barreling into the lot at top speed to rescue him. |
| 299 | ** Andrea delivers one to Carol when the latter somehow manages to get separated from the group in "Beside The Dying Fire". |
| 300 | ** As Andrea is about to meet her fate at the hands of a walker after being separated from everyone, she's saved at the hands of a mysterious hooded figure. Fans of the comic will instantly identify the hooded figure as Michonne. |
| 301 | ** Carl, [[TookALevelInBadass of all people]], delivers one to Tyreese's group in "Made to Suffer". |
| 302 | ** In "Home", Rick looks to be walker chow as he runs out of ammo and is pinned to the prison's fence by two of them, when [[spoiler:Daryl and Merle show up]]. At the same time, Glenn also returns [[spoiler: (after bailing on his plan to go to Woodbury to kill The Governor)]] to rescue Hershel with Michonne's help. |
| 303 | ** In "Us", Glenn and Tara are surrounded by Walkers in a collapsed train tunnel, and Tara's leg is pinned. Tara is yelling at Glenn to leave her, and he refuses, making it seem like a desperate last stand. Cue [[spoiler:Maggie, Sasha, Bob, Rosita, and Abraham]] showing up and leveling the Walkers with a hail of gunfire. |
| 304 | ** In "No Sanctuary", Carol mounts a one-woman assault on Terminus, camouflaging into a herd of walkers that were lured onto the premises, blowing up a ''propane tank with a firecracker'', and helping the walkers slaughter the place's people. This impressive move gives Rick and the gang the distraction they need to overthrow and escape their captors. |
| 305 | ** In "Conquer", Daryl and Aaron [[spoiler: are trapped inside a car, surrounded by a swarm of walkers inside a fenced yard. Just as they both risk their lives trying to make a run for an exit, Morgan shows up and helps them dispose of the walkers]] |
| 306 | ** In "No Way Out", when Glenn looks like he's about to be devoured by the horde after distracting them so Maggie can escape to safety, Abraham and Sasha arrive and gun down the swarm surrounding him from one of the gates, having finally returned from their mission. In fact, it's arguably the return of Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham that saves Alexandria, since the Alexandrians were getting pushed back and worn down by the herd until Daryl set the lake ablaze and lured the herd in, giving the others the chance to wipe them out easily. |
| 307 | ** In "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life", the Saviors have managed to capture the Alexandrians and regain control of the situation after a skirmish. Though Rick is defiant, Negan is about to kill Carl and destroy Rick's hands when Shiva, Ezekiel's pet tiger, roars onto the battlefield and eats a Savior. The surprise attack (and presence of a freaking ''tiger'') gives the group the chance they need to strike back. Then Maggie arrives with a regiment from Hilltop, saving Rick and Carl as they were trying to re-arm themselves. |
| 308 | ** In the Season 8 finale "Wrath," [[spoiler: Negan has lured the AHK forces into an ambush via false plans, and prepares to gun them all down and win the war for The Saviors. Their guns all promptly backfire, killing some and wounding others. Turns out Eugene sabotaged all of the bullets he made after having had a last minute change of heart after first seeing Gabriel try to sabotage a bullet, and also later after Daryl and Rosita temporarily kidnap him and verbally tear him a new one for his working with Negan.]] |
| 309 | ** Subverted in Season 9. [[spoiler: A wounded Rick is being slowly pursued by a ''massive'' horde of walkers, and ends up leading them to the under-construction bridge that has been the focus of everyone's efforts in the season so far. Just as it looks like the horde are about to catch up to Rick, ''everyone'' shows up to start putting the horde down... except that, seconds later, it's revealed to all be a hallucination that Rick is having. Everyone then ''does'' show up, but are unable to get to Rick around the horde, forcing him to simply blow up the bridge to stop it.]] |
| 310 | ** Subverted again in "The Calm Before". Ozzy, Alek, and DJ find [[spoiler:the barn where Alpha has rounded up eight other hostages and attack the Whisperers, giving the survivors a fighting chance to escape. Unfortunately, the sheer numbers of the Whisperers overwhelm the eleven survivors and they are recaptured and executed, with Siddiq being left as the witness.]] |
| 311 | ** In Season 10’s “A Certain Doom”, this happens three times: |
| 312 | *** Lydia is saved from Beta when [[spoiler: Negan challenges him to a fight. When Negan quickly loses the fight, Daryl runs in and saves Negan by mortally wounding Beta.]] |
| 313 | *** Gabriel is overwhelmed in a fight against a group of Whisperers, but is saved by the timely intervention of [[spoiler:a returned Maggie, along with her new friend Elijah.]] |
| 314 | * BigDamnReunion: |
| 315 | ** In "Tell It to the Frogs", the Atlanta scouting party reunites with their friends and loved ones, but most prominently, Rick reunites with Lori and Carl, who finally discover he's alive after two months of believing he was dead. |
| 316 | ** In the Season 2 finale "Beside the Dying Fire", the survivors of the Atlanta group and the Greene family farm reunite on the road after escaping the herd attack, minus Andrea, who got separated from them. |
| 317 | ** The Season 5 premiere "No Sanctuary" has Daryl and the group reuniting with Carol, then Tyreese and Judith. Rick and Carl had believed Judith had died in the prison war. |
| 318 | ** Season 7's "Hearts Still Beating" has Rick and the group reuniting with Maggie at Hilltop for the first time since [[spoiler:Glenn's death and Daryl's imprisonment and freeing from the Sanctuary]], and everyone present is ready to fight back against the Saviors. |
| 319 | * BigEater: |
| 320 | ** A horrific example with the cannibals of Terminus, who lure people in with the promise of Sanctuary but kill and eat most of their visitors. They seem to eat very well and have enough to feed a large compound of people, and most of their day-to-day activities seem to revolve around food production. Later when they're eating [[spoiler: Bob's leg]], they don't even try to ration it and are just noisily gorging like they're in a commercial for Burger King. Gareth also mentions a desire to "try" ''all'' of Rick's group. |
| 321 | ** Olivia, an overweight woman in charge of Alexandria's inventory, often talks about food and her desire to have certain foods again. Negan later mocks her for her weight. |
| 322 | ** Maggie starting in Season 7 as she's pregnant. |
| 323 | ** Fat Joey, an obese Savior, is clearly this, and other Saviors mock his appetite. [[spoiler: Even in death, Negan can't stop mocking his weight.]] |
| 324 | ** Jerry loves food, which is unsurprising given he’s enormous. He even refuses to put down his cobbler on official business. |
| 325 | * BigGood: |
| 326 | ** Rick evolves into this as his group expands from a ragtag group of about a dozen to a community of several dozen, and in between. He becomes the survivors' rock of good and leadership, and by the end of the Savior War has become something of a folk hero who is respected by virtually everyone in the communities. [[spoiler:His apparent death helps shatter the bonds the communities had and it takes over half a decade for everyone to come together again.]] By Season 10, Daryl, Michonne, and Gabriel pretty much share power as the leaders of the allied communities. |
| 327 | ** When Rick took some time off of leadership for his and Carl's mental health, Hershel became the head of a council that governed the prison community. His capture at the hands of The Governor was what forced Rick to retake command of the group. Hershel was also the head of his family farm, which included people from two other families. |
| 328 | ** Deanna Monroe is the mayor of the Alexandria Safe-Zone, but she cedes power to Rick once she realizes she is not fit to lead the community through the harsh reality of the apocalypse and becomes one of his key advisors. |
| 329 | ** Subverted with Gregory, the boss of the agrarian Hilltop Colony. Despite leading a key ally of Alexandria, he's a selfish, cowardly jackass who only cares about himself, and would really prefer not to be an ally of Rick's. Ultimately, he loses control of Hilltop to Maggie when she wins the hearts of the locals by fighting for them in battle (while Gregory cowers in his room) and being a compassionate, caring leader (as opposed to Gregory who can't even remember his constituents' names). |
| 330 | ** Ezekiel, the self-styled king of The Kingdom. He's a good, noble and caring man who genuinely wants to create a peaceful sanctuary for his people, and plays a larger-than-life king persona to give them something to be inspired by. He retires from leadership after several personal tragedies, but soon finds himself a leader again when he begins helping the people of the Commonwealth on the ground level, paving the way for him to become [[spoiler:their new Governor in the show’s epilogue.]] |
| 331 | ** Natania is the leader of Oceanside, a community of women who survived a Savior genocide. Despite poising a serious threat to Tara, she's not a bad person, only doing what she thinks is right to protect her people and is otherwise a loving grandmother to her family and seems well-respected by her people. However, when she refuses to try to challenge the Saviors, she's usurped by one of her key lieutenants Beatrice, who Rick unofficially makes leader of Oceanside. However, during the Savior War, [[spoiler:Natania is killed by Enid in self-defense, leaving her granddaughter Cyndie to take command.]] |
| 332 | ** Pamela is the governor of the Commonwealth and while a bit ignorant of the inequalities her people suffer, she comes across as relatively reasonable and is willing to listen to Maggie’s harsh critiques of her system and leadership. [[spoiler:It’s turned on its head when it’s revealed Pamela is a vile, corrupt and vain tyrant who has been actively enforcing the inequality towards the lower classes, punishing dissidents with slave labor, is willing to sacrifice thousands of people to walkers if it means protecting the elite, and even hand-picks lottery winners to make them walking PR machines for her.]] |
| 333 | * BigNo: |
| 334 | ** Merle gets a few in when he's stuck on the roof in "Tell It To The Frogs". |
| 335 | ** Daryl does it too upon reaching the roof and finding Merle's severed hand. It must run in the family. |
| 336 | ** Rick several times, after Andrea tries to prove her worth by shooting an incoming walker. Turns out it wasn't a walker, but a wounded Daryl. Thankfully, she only grazed him. |
| 337 | ** Rick does another one at the end of "Killer Within", when he realizes that [[spoiler: Lori died giving birth.]] |
| 338 | *** Carol has one in the same episode when she sees [[spoiler:T-Dog get bit by a walker.]] |
| 339 | ** Rick again in "Too Far Gone", when [[spoiler:The Governor swings the katana at Hershel's neck.]] |
| 340 | ** Gareth has one right as [[spoiler: Rick begins hacking him to pieces with the machete he promised he'd kill him with.]] |
| 341 | ** Several characters give one when [[spoiler:Negan beats Abraham to death with his bat, and later Glenn as well.]] |
| 342 | * BilingualDialogue: Following the approximately one-year time gap from the end of season 9 to the beginning of season 10, a few characters (most notably and commonly Daryl) appear to have learned a few signs and can carry on reasonably fluid conversations with Connie despite not signing much themselves. |
| 343 | * BittersweetEnding: The standard modus operandi for the show. |
| 344 | ** Season 1: The group has escaped the exploding CDC, but they find that there truly is no government out there to help them anymore. Furthermore, Andrea has attempted suicide and Rick has learned a terrible secret from Jenner. |
| 345 | ** Season 2: The majority of the group has escaped the herd, but the Greene farm has been overrun, Andrea has been separated from the others, and Rick has forcibly brought the squabbling group to heel and insists they will no longer operate as a democracy. Rick also reveals to the group that Jenner told him that everyone is infected and will turn into a Walker upon their death. |
| 346 | ** Season 3: The Governor's attack has been repelled, Michonne, Tyreese, and Sasha are joining the group full-time, and Rick is on the path to regaining his humanity, but [[spoiler: Andrea has died, Carl's mental state is taking an increasingly dark turn, and The Governor's whereabouts remain unknown.]] |
| 347 | ** Season 4: The group is largely reunited after the final battle with The Governor, but [[spoiler: they have been captured by the cannibals of Terminus. Nevertheless, a newly confident Rick declares that they ''will'' overthrow their captors.]] |
| 348 | ** Season 5: This season comes arguably the closest to a happy ending for the group since there's little negative consequences for them this time. They've become more accepted in Alexandria, Morgan is joining them, Maggie, Sasha and Gabriel are returning from the DespairEventHorizon, and Rick has earned Deanna's trust. On the flipside, [[spoiler: the Wolves have learned of Alexandria's location.]] |
| 349 | ** Averted in season 6. [[spoiler:After half a season of Rick's group easily taking down the Saviors in multiple conflicts, they discover the group is much bigger than previously thought, and 11 major characters are captured, with Negan beating two of them to death. About the only "good" things to happen in the finale are the long-awaited introduction of Negan, and Morgan rescuing Carol and meeting some survivors that actually seem nice.]] |
| 350 | ** Season 7: After spending the entire season at the Saviors' mercy, the group finally fights back by forging alliances with other communities that the Saviors were also oppressing. However, ''many'' lives were lost to get there (namely: [[spoiler: Abraham, Glenn, Spencer, Olivia, Benjamin, Richard, and Sasha]]. [[spoiler:Eugene]] has left the group for the Saviors, and [[spoiler:Heath]] is still M.I.A. |
| 351 | ** Season 8: [[spoiler:The war ends in AHK's favor, and the Saviors surrender and become allies of the alliance. The communities of Alexandria, Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside, and the Sanctuary all join together in peace. Negan has been defeated, and (hypothetically) will spend the rest of his life in prison watching the communities thrive without his tyrannical rule. Despite this, many, many friends and family have been lost. Daryl exiles Dwight and sends him to go find Sherry. And Maggie, displeased with Rick's decision to spare Negan, plots with Daryl, and even Jesus, to one day kill Negan]]. |
| 352 | ** Season 9: The communities have managed to pull through their most brutal winter yet, but at a deep cost. [[spoiler:The Kingdom fell into disrepair with its people becoming refugees at Hilltop, the communities are still traumatized from Alpha's massacre and unsure how to proceed against their new enemy, and Carol divorces Ezekiel.]] Still, they have hope and know that one day, they'll be ready to fight back against the Whisperers. Additionally, [[spoiler:Negan has made major strides towards a HeelFaceTurn after saving Judith from a blizzard.]] |
| 353 | ** Season 10, which has the closest to an EarnYourHappyEnding the series has ever had. [[spoiler:Beta, the Whisperers, and their horde are vanquished, with Lydia and Negan finally finding acceptance and peace after doing their part in helping end the war defeating them; Connie is alive and has been found by Virgil, and Maggie has returned.]] The only lingering issues are that Carol is still on the road to recovery from her suicidal depression, Connie is still separated from the group, Michonne is still [[PutOnABus heading north]], and that Eugene’s group has made contact with a new group of survivors. |
| 354 | *** The end of Season 10’s extended run brings the mood down quite a bit. The survivors are left to repair the damage inflicted to Alexandria by the end of the Whisperer War, with little food or surviving infrastructure to support them. [[spoiler:Negan has also decided to remain with the group full-time, knowing Maggie will likely eventually come for his head.]] |
| 355 | ** Season 11 and by extension the series. The survivors will never be able to get back all the friends and family they lost along the way, the latest casualties being [[spoiler:Rosita, Luke, and Jules. But the Coalition has been rebuilt thanks to the Commonwealth, now under Ezekiel and Mercer’s benevolent leadership after Pamela was sentenced to life in prison. Daryl leaves the Coalition to search for Rick and Michonne, who both are revealed to be fighting tooth and nail to find each other and their way back home.]] |
| 356 | * BlackCloak: In "Beside The Dying Fire", the "hooded stranger" (Michonne) uses a variant of this during their entrance. |
| 357 | * BlackComedy: |
| 358 | ** The prisoners using standard riot tactics against the Walkers in an attempt to put them down, with one of them repeatedly shiving a Walker in the gut and nothing happening while Daryl, Rick and T-Dog watch on in disbelief. |
| 359 | --->'''Rick:''' All right, do it right this time; no more of that prison riot shit. |
| 360 | ** The scene between Daryl and Rick as they gut the Walker at the beginning of Season 2. |
| 361 | ** The hapless backpack survivor in "Clear". |
| 362 | ** Negan is built on this trope, since he's clearly a goofy, fun-loving guy you'd probably love to hang with at a bar... only he's a DarkMessiah and an EvilOverlord, and thus all of his comedy comes during his humiliation and scaring of the group. Bad timing, but calling Carl "the little future serial killer" is still pretty funny. |
| 363 | * BlackDudeDiesFirst: |
| 364 | ** Inverted in the first season, in which one of the black characters is the LAST member of the survivor party to die. |
| 365 | ** Then, subverted in the second season when during a horde of walkers marching through the crowded highway, T-Dog cuts his arm wide open and leaks blood everywhere, attracting the attention of the horde. It looks as if it's all over for him as a walker is about to get him, when all of a sudden, [[BigDamnHeroes he's saved at the last minute]] by Daryl (of all people). He survives the whole season. |
| 366 | *** [[spoiler: [[ZigZaggedTrope But then T-Dog is the first member of the survivor party to die in the third season, although Lori follows him just a few minutes later]].]] |
| 367 | ** {{Discussed}} when T-Dog is feverish and suffering blood poisoning: |
| 368 | ---> '''T-Dog''': How old are you? 70?\ |
| 369 | '''Dale:''' [[ActorAllusion 64]].\ |
| 370 | '''T-Dog''': And I'm the [[TokenMinority one black guy]]. Realize how precarious [[BlackDudeDiesFirst that makes my situation]]?\ |
| 371 | '''Dale:''' What the hell are you talking about?\ |
| 372 | '''T-Dog''': I'm talking about two GoodOlBoy [[CowboyCop cowboy]] sheriffs and [[DeepSouth a redneck]] whose brother [[LifeOrLimbDecision cut off his own hand]] because I dropped the key. Who in that scenario you think would be first to get lynched? |
| 373 | ** As of Season 3, [[spoiler:however, this trope seems to be in full force along with TokenMinority.]] The first member of Rick's group to die is [[spoiler:T-dog, and not long after, Oscar joins the group]]. The first of the prisoners to die was also [[spoiler:Big Tiny, though about half of them were black anyway.]] A few episodes later [[spoiler:Oscar is the ''only'' protagonist to die during the attack on Woodbury,]] and during that same episode, [[spoiler:Tyreese is introduced.]] |
| 374 | ** In Season 4 of "Too Far Gone", the first person to die [[spoiler:in the Governor's army]] during the assault on the prison was a black man. |
| 375 | ** If you take the trope by name in Season 5, [[spoiler:Bob Stookey]]. The character isn't the season's first casualty per se, but the first casualty of [[spoiler: the group]]. |
| 376 | ** Then, in the mid-season premiere, [[spoiler: Tyreese]] is the first character to go, and then [[spoiler: Noah]] dies a few episodes later. |
| 377 | ** Averted during "Thank You", as by the end of the episode, the survivors of Michonne's group are all black, [[spoiler: excluding Glenn, who was separated from them and trapped under a dumpster.]] |
| 378 | ** Averted during Negan's introduction, as he first kills [[spoiler: the straight, white Abraham]]. |
| 379 | * BladeBelowTheShoulder: Merle has the non-permanent variant to compensate for his missing right hand. |
| 380 | * BlatantLies: Discuessed by Daryl and Dale at the end of Season 2. Shane said that [[spoiler: Otis died holding the walkers off so he could make it back with the medicine. But Shane came back with both guns... so what exactly was Otis holding the walkers off with?]] |
| 381 | * BloodyHorror: ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' has way too many instances of this to list all at once. But generally the bloody mess is a result of them fighting off Zombies. |
| 382 | * BondVillainStupidity: |
| 383 | ** [[spoiler: Merle]] displays this throughout Season 3. He dismisses [[spoiler: Michonne's]] flight into zombie-infested territory with a NoOneCouldSurviveThat. Later, he locks [[spoiler: Glenn]] in a room with a Walker and then leaves, despite the room being filled which potential weapons and obstacles, all of which get used in the Walker's defeat. Then, when he and his soldiers recapture [[spoiler: Glenn and Maggie]] following a brief battle, instead of gunning them down where they stand, he prepares to kill them execution-style, giving their friends plenty of time to sneak up and begin lobbing smoke grenades. One possible explanation for these are all indications that he is not evil, like the Governor, and doesn't ''really'' want to kill them. [[spoiler: His conversation with Michonne before his death, where it's revealed that he knows how many men he has killed and doesn't look proud, seems to support this.]] |
| 384 | ** Bud, a Savior henchman, orders Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham to submit to them, but spends the vast majority of the encounter hamming it up about how awesome Negan is and how he'll kill them. [[spoiler: It's this time-wasting that gives Daryl the opportunity to fight off a Savior appointed to him and ''blow the others to high hell with an RPG''.]] Even his fellow Saviors think he's way too high on himself for his own good. |
| 385 | ** [[spoiler:Leah]], having long since gone insane since losing her entire family, indulges in this. She takes a slow, unflinching walk towards her prey to make sure they know she’s come for revenge, and doesn’t kill her when she has the chance. She instead weakly ties her up in a chair and spend several minutes gloating how she’s going to bring everyone she loves before her so she can kill them in front of her. Needless to say, [[spoiler:Maggie]] takes advantage of this by using the time to escape her restraints and gets a chance to fight back, but not before coldly telling her “tough shit” about losing her family, who were all violent terrorists. |
| 386 | * BookEnds: |
| 387 | ** The first and last episodes of Season 1 both feature scenes of characters enjoying the now-rare luxury of a hot shower. |
| 388 | ** The [[spoiler: "Sophia we're here"]] graffiti in the Season 2 premiere was featured again in the season finale but is now blurry. |
| 389 | ** Early in Season 2, Andrea is in the woods, trips and has to crawl away from an on-coming walker when Maggie shows up just in time to save her. At the end of the season the same scenario happens, but with Maggie replaced with [[spoiler:Michonne.]] |
| 390 | ** In their first scene together in the Season 3 premiere, Michonne is featured tending to a sick Andrea. [[spoiler: In their last scene together during the season finale, Michonne is featured [[DiedInYourArmsTonight tending]] a dying Andrea. Also, Andrea is wearing the exact same outfit in their first encounter.]] |
| 391 | ** Also prominent in Season 3. The first shot of the season is a close-up of a walker's pupil, which then slowly zooms out to reveal its entire face. Likewise, the first shot of the Season 3 finale is a close-up of The Governor's eye, which zooms out to show his face in an identical manner. |
| 392 | ** With ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSurvivalInstinct'', in a way. [[spoiler: The game shows Merle's first chronological appearance in the canon, where he is drunk and shooting people from a hidden position until Daryl comes and rescues him. The same week the game was released in real life, "This Sorrowful Life" aired, showing Merle's '''last''' chronological appearance. Where he is killed while drunk and shooting people from a hidden position until Daryl comes and puts zombie Merle down for good.]] |
| 393 | ** The group's time in Georgia begins and ends in Atlanta. There's the series' most iconic shot of Rick riding into the city on horseback during a sunny day is referenced in Season 5's "Consumed," which shows Daryl and Carol driving into the far more decayed Atlanta at night. After the initial arc from Season 1, involving Merle, Rick's bag of guns, and the CDC, the group leaves Atlanta behind, and does not return until Season 5 for the Grady Memorial arc. After "Coda," they leave Georgia for good, moving on to Virginia. |
| 394 | ** In the series premiere, Morgan executes a walker and Rick is aghast, because he doesn't understand the situation. In the Season 5 finale, [[spoiler: Rick executes a human and Morgan is aghast, because he doesn't understand the situation.]] |
| 395 | ** "You are not safe". First heard when Rick assures Carl they need to keep their eyes open during the "Fear the Hunters" adaptation, an arc in which Rick became a completely self-confident leader. Flash forward about two seasons, and Rick has let this and several victories over foes go to his head, [[spoiler: and he's been completely outmatched and cowed into submission by Negan, who tells him "you are not safe" in the exact same tone and delivery.]] |
| 396 | ** [[spoiler:Glenn]]'s introduction and final appearance both involve a resolution to a major {{Cliffhanger}} episode [[spoiler:and Rick being surrounded by a large horde while on a vehicle (first tank, then RV).]] |
| 397 | ** The season 2 episode "[[TheWalkingDeadS02E04CherokeeRose Cherokee Rose]]" had a conversation between Rick and Carl, where the former gave the latter his sheriff hat, as he was a part of the group now. It ends with Carl saying "I love you, dad", with Rick saying that he loves Carl too. [[spoiler:Six seasons later in the episode "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS08E09Honor Honor]]", Carl gives his hat away to Judith while he is succumbing to a walker bite, and his final conversation with Rick ends with the same lines mentioned above]]. |
| 398 | ** "What Comes After", the last episode for [[spoiler:Rick before he's PutOnABus from the main series]], features numerous references to the pilot episode to commemorate the occasion. |
| 399 | ** "What We Become", the last episode for [[spoiler:Michonne before she also gets PutOnABus,]] does the same with the character's introductory scene in "Beside the Dying Fire" and her first interactions with the main cast in "Hounded". |
| 400 | ** The first episode of the Reaper arc ended with [[spoiler:Montanio warning Maggie that Pope marked her for death before killing himself.]] The final episode of the Reaper conflict ends with [[spoiler:Leah trying to carry out Pope’s vendetta against Maggie herself, only this time she’s killed by Daryl.]] |
| 401 | ** [[spoiler:Leah’s]] time on the show ends in the same cabin we met her in during “Find Me”. |
| 402 | ** The series finale opens with [[spoiler: Judith Grimes]] being shot and rushed to a hospital, which is later overrun by the dead while they are unconscious, just as happened to Rick in the premiere. |
| 403 | ** The first season consisted of six episodes and featured major EarlyInstallmentWeirdness with zombies that picked up items and even used tools like rocks to break windows, in the most extreme situations even ''climbing fences''. Season 11C consisted of six episodes, the first one of which introduced zombie variants that served to retroactively explain this weirdness and bring them back as a legitimate subtype of zombies. Thus, the first and final six episodes of the series feature the same kinds of zombies that were absent from the rest of the series. |
| 404 | * BoomHeadshot: With walkers, [[RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain it's the only way to be sure]]. |
| 405 | ** This is [[spoiler:Axel's fate]] during The Governor's first assault on the prison in Season 3. |
| 406 | ** [[spoiler:The Governor's]] presumed fate at the end of "Too Far Gone". |
| 407 | ** [[spoiler: Lizzie]] takes out [[spoiler: Alisha]] and another member of [[spoiler: the Governor's]] group this way in "Too Far Gone". [[spoiler:She]] receives one [[spoiler:herself]], from [[spoiler:Carol]] in "The Grove". |
| 408 | ** How [[spoiler:Dawn]] kills [[spoiler:Beth]] in [[spoiler:"Coda"]], and what Daryl does to [[spoiler:Dawn]] in turn. |
| 409 | * BothSidesHaveAPoint: |
| 410 | ** Regarding what to do with Randall in late Season 2 and whether or not to execute him. The argument against it, led by Dale, is that it's inhumane and on the basis that he ''might'' turn on the group if given a chance. Not to mention doing so would just [[ShaggyDogStory render Rick's rescue of him completely pointless.]] The argument for it, led by Shane, is that Randall is too dangerous to let go, as he not only knows where the farm is, but took part in several gang rapes and murders, [[BystanderSyndrome where at the very least he sat back and did nothing about it.]] Furthermore, keeping someone prisoner during the first winter of the apocalypse could strain their resources further, and he may turn on the group if given a chance to join them. Ultimately, while the group sides with Shane's line of thinking, Rick decides against it once he sees their humanity is at stake if they go through with it when Carl tells him to do it, and they decide to spare Randall especially after [[spoiler: Dale is killed]]. In latter seasons, as the group adopts Shane's mentality to better effect, they'd clearly never think twice about executing Randall. |
| 411 | ** At the end of Season 3, Carl shoots a young Woodbury soldier who was surrendering his weapon to him. Hershel argues that the Woodbury soldier was peacefully surrendering, but to Carl's credit, he ordered the soldier to drop his gun, not hand it over to him, hence why he executed him; furthermore, Carl saw Rick [[spoiler: dupe Shane the same way when he killed him to lower his guard]]. Hershel ultimately does have a point when he says that Carl is becoming far too cold for his own good. |
| 412 | ** After the group escapes from Terminus, Rick orders his group to strike back and pick off the fleeing survivors of the compound. The vast majority of his group disagrees, on the grounds that they just barely got reunited after a harrowing ordeal and just want to get out of there, and that the survivors of Terminus will die anyway. Rick, on the other hand, knows that enemies who ''aren't'' dealt with will only continue to harass them [[spoiler: and lost his wife and father figure because of his own inability to finish his opponents off.]] Rick ends up proven right as the Terminus survivors come back to attack them in the next episode. |
| 413 | ** Rick versus the native Alexandrians in Seasons 5 and 6. On Rick's hand, he's correct that the native Alexandrians are extremely sheltered and would not survive were it not for their walls. On the Alexandrians' hand, Rick shows a disturbingly power-hungry side as he plots to take command of the community by force - and when Deanna relents and puts him in charge, he refuses to consider them his own like his Atlanta survivors. It's not until the Battle of Alexandria that Rick realizes the Alexandrians ''can'' survive, and the Alexandrians realize Rick is a leader ''worth'' fighting behind. |
| 414 | ** Rick and Daryl come into conflict in Season 8 during the Savior War. The plan is to starve out the Saviors into surrendering, or simply pick them off if they still refuse to surrender. Daryl, however, wants to blow the Sanctuary to hell and kill everybody inside. On one hand, both men know what happens when you don't make sure a fight is finished and an enemy is defeated, and Daryl knows that even the best of Rick's plans have gone awry in the past. However, Rick points out that a preemptive scorched earth attack will endanger the workers who are forced to toil for the Savior soldiers, as well as Dr. Harlan Carson, who is needed by the pregnant Maggie. Rick also points out that in Season 7, rogue attempts to attack the Saviors ended in disastrous consequences, and that they must not deviate from the plan. The two men are unable to come to an agreement, and part ways after an argument spills into a fistfight. |
| 415 | ** By Season 9, the decision to [[spoiler:imprison Negan]] and allow the Saviors to become allies after the Savior War leads to a major dispute between two sides. One side, led by Rick and Michonne, argues that they must forgive the Saviors for everything to honor [[spoiler:Carl's]] dying wishes for a peaceful future and insist it's the right way; and that killing [[spoiler:Negan]] would only make him a martyr for Saviors still loyal to him. The other side, primarily represented by Maggie, Daryl, and Oceanside, argues it's insensitive to force the people who had suffered various atrocities up to and including ''genocide'' inflicted by the Saviors to now accept them as friends. Daryl also points out that even with [[spoiler:Negan]] behind bars, he's already a martyr in all but name and killing him would prevent the danger of him escaping and starting a war of revenge. Both sides are able to see each other's points when [[spoiler:Maggie discovers Negan's incarceration was effective in breaking him]], and Rick and Michonne finally realize the pain they have put their friends through the last year and a half thanks to their split-second decision at the end of the war. Ultimately, both sides are also proven right about one thing or the other when during the second TimeSkip, Sanctuary fails, and most of its' residents are able to peacefully join the other communities, while a holdout returns to their violent ways even with [[spoiler:Negan]] still imprisoned, showing there really were some Saviors who would never change despite Rick and Michonne's insistence they would. |
| 416 | *** In early Season 9, even before the above plot really blows up, Maggie and Michonne debate over the treatment of Earl Sutton, who was an accomplice to [[spoiler:Gregory's scheme to get Maggie killed so he could retake Hilltop.]] Maggie is determined to punish Earl to show Rick and Michonne she will never let anyone get away with attempted murder, like how they [[spoiler:spared Negan's life]], and that keeping Earl from his duties will punish the Saviors who have so far contributed little to the new peace Rick and Michonne want. However, Michonne points out that by keeping Earl incarcerated, she is depriving ''all'' of the communities an asset due to being the chief blacksmith of all the communities. |
| 417 | * BottleEpisode: At least one per season from the second season onwards: |
| 418 | ** Season 2 has "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS02E1018MilesOut 18 Miles Out]]", which features only two locations and a handful of the main cast, and deals with Beth's suicide attempt and Rick and Shane fighting over what to do about Randall. |
| 419 | ** Season 3 has "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS03E12Clear Clear]]", which only features Rick, Carl, Michonne, and Morgan and takes place almost entirely at King's County. |
| 420 | ** Season 4 has several episodes that could qualify owing to its different format, but the biggest example is "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS04E12Still Still]]", which concerns Daryl and Beth in their quest for liquor and features no other characters. |
| 421 | ** Season 5 has "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS05E04Slabtown Slabtown]]", which focuses on Beth meeting Noah as the two try to escape from Grady hospital. |
| 422 | ** Season 6 has "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS06E13TheSameBoat The Same Boat]]", which takes place almost entirely in a Savior safehouse after a small group of them [[spoiler:kidnapped Carol and Maggie]], as well as "[[Recap/TheWalkingDeadS06E04HeresNotHere Here is not Here]]", which has barely a cast and takes place almost entirely in one room and the immediate surrounding forest. |
| 423 | * BottomlessMagazines: Averted for the most part over the course of the series but there are a few exceptions: |
| 424 | ** In "Guts", Merle fires a great many more rounds than his rifle could physically hold. However it's not unreasonable to assume Merle reloaded his rifle in between his scenes. |
| 425 | ** Plays a vital, if background, role in "Beside the Dying Fire", when [[spoiler: Shane's]] stealing some of the ammunition for himself in "Judge, Jury and Executioner" leads to [[spoiler: Andrea]] having not nearly enough for herself when she's on her own in the forest trying to evade an entire herd of walkers. |
| 426 | ** Also in "Beside The Dying Fire", Hershel is seen (and heard) unloading many more rounds from his shotgun than is physically possible. The first time he's seen firing into the walkers heading towards the house from the barn, he fires nine shots on-screen, and is heard immediately afterward firing at least six additional shots without pausing to reload as Lori walks out and asks Carol where Carl is. Later on, when the action cuts back to him after most of the cars have left, he fires ten shots in succession as he retreats backwards. |
| 427 | * BoundAndGagged: |
| 428 | ** Randall in "18 Miles Out". |
| 429 | ** Andrea at the end of "Prey". |
| 430 | ** [[spoiler:Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Bob]] at the Season 5 premiere,"No Sanctuary". |
| 431 | ** [[spoiler: Carol and Maggie]] in "The Same Boat." |
| 432 | ** [[spoiler: Glenn and Michonne]] in "East." |
| 433 | ** [[spoiler: Gabriel]] in "Wrath." |
| 434 | ** [[spoiler:The eight hostages captured by Alpha in "The Calm Before", before they are briefly rescued and then ultimately recaptured and killed.]] |
| 435 | * BreadAndCircuses: |
| 436 | ** In "Say the Word", Merle and Martinez engage in a mock gladiator fight, staged by the Governor for the Woodbury residents. They do so while surrounded by chained walkers. |
| 437 | ** We get to see the other side of this trope with Negan. At one point, purely on a whim, he proclaims that all of the Saviors will get fresh vegetables with their dinner that night, on him. |
| 438 | * BreakoutCharacter: Several characters have experienced large amounts of popularity and got larger roles in the series thanks to it. |
| 439 | ** Daryl is the poster boy for this show. He started off as an abrasive (but badass) recurring character, but was promoted to the main cast in the second season. He gets an episode totally devoted to showing how badass he was (and also had a very heartwarming scene with Carol showing his HiddenDepths), and by the third season he's become Rick's new right-hand man. By Season 4, he's billed only second to Andrew Lincoln and is the show's deuteragonist. [[spoiler: After Rick's departure in Season 9, Daryl takes what basically amounts to the lead role in the show.]] |
| 440 | ** Beth was also just a minor recurring character, but became a member of the main cast by the fourth season and even got an entire arc devoted to her in Season 5. |
| 441 | ** Her father Hershel also won over a lot of fans thanks to being a badass, and was spared from death several times during the second and third seasons thanks to Wilson's performance also winning over the production crew. [[spoiler: When the time came for Hershel's demise in "Too Far Gone", Robert Kirkman profusely apologized, noting how hard it was to realize that Wilson wouldn't be on set anymore.]] |
| 442 | ** Carol became this in Season 5 after her massive one-woman assault on Terminus and winning her fight with Mary. She's elevated to the level of Daryl in terms of popularity. By Season 9, she's the third member of the PowerTrio of Daryl, herself and Michonne. |
| 443 | ** Rosita was initially just a background character and a MsFanservice. She eventually ascended to become one of the show's main characters, and appears more frequently in Season 7 than even Rick. |
| 444 | ** Aaron was initially a supporting character who got DemotedToExtra in Season 6, but enjoyed a large fanbase thanks to being a kind, badass LGBT character. In Season 7, his role is significantly beefed up, and he becomes one of Rick's most trusted right-hand men. |
| 445 | ** Gabriel's taking a level in badass and becoming a genuinely loyal friend to Rick greatly improved his standing with the fandom, and he eventually became a main character. By Season 9 he is the BigGood of Alexandria. |
| 446 | ** Yumiko became one of the two most prominent members of Magna's group (alongside Connie) who later become a DecompositeCharacter for Michonne, solidifying her as one of the series' main characters. |
| 447 | ** Jerry started off as a minor character who mostly served as comic relief, but by Season 10 he becomes a main character who is starting to develop into a leader with more to him than just jokes. |
| 448 | * BreakoutVillain: Two notable villains who started out as merely the second-in-command of their groups, Simon and Beta, were promoted to main cast members in response to their popularity. This also ended up applying to Negan himself, who is given ''far'' more to do than his comic counterpart and also [[spoiler:is not PutOnABus after the Whisperer arc.]] |
| 449 | * BreakTheCutie: |
| 450 | ** A frequent point with Carl, who is 12 but living in the apocalypse; in Season 2, Rick even bluntly tells him there's no more time for kid stuff, and that his parents ''will inevitably die''. Season 3 keeps the hits coming. [[spoiler: Not only does his mother die in front of him, but he has to put a bullet in her corpse and then watches his father collapse in distress.]] In Season 4, he [[spoiler: thinks his baby sister is dead, almost has to shoot his father when he thinks he has turned, and is almost raped by a member of Joe's group.]] And by Season 6, [[spoiler: he's lost his right eye.]] Negan also uses this verbally, first calling him adorable, then later in the same episode telling him "it would be more productive to break you". |
| 451 | ** Rick also counts. Idealistic and clean-cut in the first season, he's hard, bitter, and kind of greasy by the third. He tries to return to a simpler way of life in Season 4, inspired by Hershel, but the season finale shows how it was all in vain. |
| 452 | ** Beth goes through this in Season 2. She's a quiet, sweet girl and falls into a state of utter despair after [[spoiler:the massacre of the walkers (including her undead mother) in Hershel's barn.]] She [[AngstComa becomes catatonic]] for a while, and after coming out of this, voices a desire to kill herself as [[JadeColoredGlasses she now believes continuing living is a pointless exercise that will only end in violent death, sooner rather than later]]. However, she eventually gets past this, [[spoiler:after going through with a suicide attempt and realizing that she wants to live]], and is noticeably emotionally stronger as the seasons progress. |
| 453 | ** Maggie was serious enough in Season 2, but she showed a flirty, feisty side through her relationship with Glenn and was generally pretty optimistic. However, the traumas of losing several family members greatly harden her into a much more reserved, composed and mature woman. |
| 454 | ** Judith manages to grow up remarkably well-adjusted and is comfortably killing walkers by the age of 10, and is the ideal child born and raised in the apocalypse, and still is bright, friendly and adorable. The horrors of the Whisperer War and the departure of [[spoiler:her mother Michonne, who leaves to find out if Rick is alive or not]], take a serious toll on her psyche. |
| 455 | * BreakTheHaughty: |
| 456 | ** Season 3 has [[spoiler: Rick sobbing when he discovers Lori died in childbirth, after he spent the entire winter coldly brushing her and her attempts to reconcile after the drama with Shane off.]] |
| 457 | ** Season 3 also has [[spoiler: The Governor. After Michonne breaks into Woodbury, she finds his zombified daughter and kills her, despite him tearfully pleading not to. When he tries to kill her in revenge, he gets stabbed ''[[EyeScream in the eye]]'' and is almost killed. Shortly after the fight ends, he crawls over to his daughter's body and begins to sob as he cradles it]]. |
| 458 | ** Season 4 later takes it one step further [[spoiler:with The Governor]]. After the failed assault [[spoiler:on the prison]] in Season 3, the BigBad [[spoiler:(The Governor)]] is abandoned by his men. Left behind by others in the following month as he more or less shuts down following the failure, he's eventually taken in by a family that, going by the Darwinist mentality shown in Season 3, would previously have been considered "weak". |
| 459 | ** Gareth is as smug as smug can be, and is eerily nonchalant about [[spoiler: his group's violent, rampant cannibalism. Then his compound and family are killed, his dining on Bob's leg is ruined as his group refuses to eat after finding out it's "tainted", and then his ambush of the church completely and utterly fails. And he's butchered the exact way Rick promised to do it, pleading for mercy.]] |
| 460 | ** Throughout Season 6, [[spoiler:Rick has shown to be unnervingly overconfident in his ability to handle the Saviors, thinking that they and Negan are just another BigBadWannabe like Gareth or another villain to take down like the Governor]]. And ''boy'', is he proven wrong [[spoiler:in "Last Day on Earth"]]. |
| 461 | ** In Season 9, this appears to happens to, of all people, [[spoiler: Negan. For his first couple of appearances in the season, despite being utterly defeated and locked in a jail cell, he still acts like same old Negan, gloating and crowing during his conversations with Rick and Michonne. The first cracks appear with his reaction to the news that Lucille was left on the battlefield after his defeat, which causes him to beat his head bloody on the wall. Then, in "What Comes After", Maggie arrives with the intention of killing him, and he starts trying to goad her into doing so, bringing up Glenn (and pretending to forget his name), and poking barbs at her struggles. Maggie quickly catches on to his DeathSeeker mentality, and when she hesitates, the facade absolutely ''shatters'', resulting in Negan ''sobbing and begging'' for Maggie to kill him, so that he can be reunited with Lucille (his wife, not the bat). Maggie's refusal to do so seems to leave him even more broken and hollow.]] |
| 462 | ** [[spoiler:Leah refusing to abandon Pope’s holy war and vehemently doubling down on having Maggie as her enemy ultimately results in the loss of her entire family when they fall to Maggie’s group.]] |
| 463 | * BreatherEpisode: |
| 464 | ** "Clear" for Season 3, which takes a break from all of the Woodbury and prison drama and focuses on Rick, Carl, and Michonne performing a simple supply run. |
| 465 | ** "Still" is by far the quietest episode of Season 4, focusing on character development between Beth and Daryl. |
| 466 | ** "Them" is a solemn, slow episode focusing on the group grieving their recent losses and struggling to go on at their lowest point in the entire show. |
| 467 | ** "Here's Not Here", "Now", and "Always Accountable" are considerably more quiet and low-stakes than the opening three episodes of the season involving a thousands-strong herd of walkers, numerous gory deaths, and [[spoiler: the apparent death of Glenn.]] |
| 468 | ** "The Next World" isn't as quiet as the other previous examples, but it's a LighterAndSofter episode depicting the gang after a TimeSkip after the climactic events of "No Way Out", and includes comedy, lighthearted action, and a hot new romance as well. |
| 469 | ** After the sheer, unrelenting horror of "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be", the decency, heroism, and sheer calm of everything that takes place in "The Well" provides a reasonable buffer. |
| 470 | ** “New Haunts” still has some tense moments and scares, but is a much more relaxed affair for the most part due to taking place in the Commonwealth where there is plenty, after the desperate, grueling final battle of the Reaper conflict in the previous episode “No Other Way.” |
| 471 | * BrickJoke: In "Clear", the episode starts with them passing up a man with a heavy backpack, waving for them to stop. He shows up again just a few minutes later, just as they are leaving a spot where they got stuck in the mud. [[spoiler:At the end of the episode they pass the place again and find a smear of red where the man was presumably eaten by walkers. The car stops, they pick up the backpack, and drive on.]] |
| 472 | * BulletproofHumanShield: |
| 473 | ** In "Home", Carol uses [[spoiler:Axel]]'s body this way after he is killed by the Governor; PlayedStraight as it blocks multiple rounds from an automatic rifle without her being hit. Although they were shot in the head, and ''may'' have been wearing a bulletproof vest, since they were in one of the former guards' uniforms, but this still probably wouldn't stop all of them. |
| 474 | ** In "Too Far Gone", Daryl uses a zombie he shot to provide cover from weapons fire [[spoiler:from the Governor's forces attacking the prison]] as he ran from one shielded area to another. |
| 475 | * TheBusCameBack: |
| 476 | ** Merle Dixon disappears in "Vatos." He has a cameo as Daryl's hallucination in Season 2, but he doesn't reappear in the flesh until Season 3, where he becomes a main character. |
| 477 | ** The Governor disappears after "Welcome to the Tombs," and David Morrisey's name is removed from the opening credits. After a brief cameo at the end of "Internment," he returns for a major three-episode arc. |
| 478 | ** Rick banishes Carol from the prison in "Indifference." She returns in "Inmates," six episodes later. |
| 479 | ** Beth is kidnapped by the Grady Memorial Hospital group in "Alone." She reappears next season in "Slabtown." |
| 480 | ** Enid leaves Alexandria in "JSS." She comes back a few episodes later in "Heads Up." |
| 481 | ** Dwight first appears in "Always Accountable." His next appearance is seven episodes later in "Twice as Far." |
| 482 | ** Tara goes on a supply run in "Not Tomorrow Yet." She has a brief cameo in Rick's hallucination in "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," and does not appear until "Swear," 10 episodes after leaving. |
| 483 | ** The most triumphant example is definitely [[spoiler:Morales, who leaves for parts unknown in Season 1's "Wildfire" and next appears 95 episodes later in Season 8's "The Damned."]] |
| 484 | * Laura disappears in "How It's Gotta Be" and later turns up seven episodes later in "Worth" (having briefly shown up offscreen in the previous episode). |
| 485 | * BusCrash: |
| 486 | ** Morgan's son Duane appears in "Days Gone Bye." When Morgan reappears in "Clear," he reveals that Duane died. |
| 487 | ** Sophia goes missing in "What Lies Ahead." Aside from a cameo in a flashback, she doesn't appear again until "Pretty Much Dead Already," where it's revealed that she's been DeadAllAlong. |
| 488 | ** Shumpert and Martinez abandoned the Governor after "Welcome to the Tombs. While Martinez was lucky enough to reappear in Season 4, Shumpert was not, and is revealed to have been KilledOffscreen. |
| 489 | ** [[spoiler:The wife and two children of Morales. They leave with him in Season 1, but they die prior to his reappearance in Season 8.]] |
| 490 | * ButtMonkey: |
| 491 | ** The show is not kind to anybody, naturally, but even among this cast Bob Stookey stands out. He was the SoleSurvivor of two separate groups before he even appeared in the series, which drove him into an alcoholic depression. [[spoiler: Shortly into Season 4, his momentary weakness in reaching for a bottle of liquor collapses a shelf on him and costs Zach his life in saving him. Later, he is nearly thrown out of the group for doing it again on a medicine run. After finally finding brief happiness in Season 5 with Sasha, he gets kidnapped by the Terminus survivors, who proceed to keep him alive just so they can gloat about ''eating his leg''. And at the time, he'd been bitten, so knew he was dying anyway.]] |
| 492 | ** Noah has a hellish tenure on the show. He breaks his legs trying to escape Grady, [[spoiler: is indirectly responsible for Beth and Tyreese's deaths, finds out his home was overrun and his family massacred, and just when he finds hope for a footing in Alexandria, is killed in the most horrific fashion.]] |
| 493 | ** Carl is slowly reaching this status. He was accidentally shot in the chest at the start of Season 2. Four seasons later, he is hit straight in the eye by a stray bullet thanks to Ron Anderson. In Season 7, he comes extremely close to having his left arm chopped off. This is ultimately taken to its shocking conclusion in Season 8, when Carl [[spoiler: is bitten by a walker whilst trying to save a stranger. He helps to evacuate and save the Alexandrians from Negan's forces, then kills himself before he turns.]] |
| 494 | [[/folder]] |
| 495 | |
| 496 | [[folder: Trope C]] |
| 497 | |
| 498 | * CallBack: Each episode on the recap page contains a more comprehensive list of these. |
| 499 | ** In "Guts", Merle asks Rick who he is, he answers "I'm Officer Friendly." In Season 3's "This Sorrowful Life", there is a PlayedWith example of WhatTheHellHero where Merle questions Rick's willingness to [[spoiler:hand Michonne over to The Governor]] by asking "You're willing to do all that for a shot? You're cold as ice, Officer Friendly." |
| 500 | ** In "Nebraska" and "Judge, Jury, Executioner", Daryl is shown making himself an arrow to replace the shafts he's lost. |
| 501 | ** In "18 Miles Out", Rick hides from a small swarm of walkers by covering himself with a dead walker, similar to how Daryl and T-Dog hid from the large swarm in the Season 2 premiere. |
| 502 | ** In "Better Angels", Andrea and Glenn are attempting to fix the group's RV, and Andrea offers Glenn a screwdriver. The shot lingers on the tool a second before Glenn accepts it. Referencing Andrea's encounter with a walker in "What Lies Ahead" where she kills a walker by stabbing it in the eye with a screwdriver, as well as a reference to the time when Dale taught Glenn how to fix the radiator hose, showing that Glenn learned a thing or two from Dale. |
| 503 | ** In "Home", during an argument [[spoiler:Merle has with Daryl, Merle tells him that he nearly killed "the Chinaman". Daryl corrects him on Glenn being Korean, to which Merle replies "Whatever."... just how Daryl called Glenn a "Chinaman" himself in one of the first episodes and replied "Whatever" upon Glenn correcting him]]. |
| 504 | ** Just before [[spoiler:The Governor shoots Merle]] in "This Sorrowful Life", [[spoiler:Merle says, "I ain't begging you!", the same thing he says during his opening speech in "Tell It To The Frogs"]]. |
| 505 | ** When Andrea and Rick first meet in "Guts", she points a gun at him, but he points out that she left the safety on. This is first called back to in "Wildfire" when [[spoiler: Rick is warning Andrea that Amy is going to turn and that she should let them dispose of her body]] and she again points a gun at him, replying "I know how the safety works." That line gets repeated verbatim (but with a very different tone) in "Welcome to the Tombs" when [[spoiler: Rick gives Andrea a gun so she can end her own life before she turns.]] |
| 506 | ** In Season 4, episode 2, Carol (and then Mika) tells Lizzie "look at the flowers" while their dad is dying. This is repeated in "The Grove." (See WhamShot below). |
| 507 | ** Carol uses Rick and Glenn's CoveredInGunge trick in the second episode to [[spoiler: rescue Rick and the others]] in the Season 5 premiere. In "Start to Finish", the technique is used again on a larger scale, but with [[spoiler: ''far'' less successful results.]] |
| 508 | ** In the second half of Season 5, an RV the group is using's battery dies. Glenn knows where an extra is, presumably because of Dale. |
| 509 | ** Just before Glenn sets off with Nicholas in "Thank You" he tells Rick "good luck, dumbass" over the walkie-talkie. He first called Rick a dumbass when they met in "Days Gone Bye." |
| 510 | ** In "Not Tomorrow Yet" Tara tells Father Gabriel that she took part in a similar attack before and didn't like it, referring to the Governor's attack on the prison in "Too Far Gone." |
| 511 | ** In the Season 1 finalé, Jenner lets Rick and his group escape the CDC facility before it explodes. Rick says he's grateful for what Jenner's done; Jenner tells Rick, "The day will come when you won't be." The title of the Season 7 opener? "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be". |
| 512 | ** In the Season 9 premiere, Daryl is smoking a cigarette outside the Sanctuary. When Carol joins him, he passes it to her, and she instantly stubs it out, telling him that "those things will kill you". Carol made her feelings on smoking known back in Season 6's "JSS", berating Shelley for it with the exact same words. |
| 513 | ** In Season 9's "What Comes After", [[spoiler: a wounded Rick has hallucinations due to blood loss that are a whole series of these. First, he imagines seeing himself in the hospital whilst in a coma. Later, he imagines having a conversation with Shane; the two are in their police cruiser, talking over burgers and fries, echoing their introduction together from the pilot. The cruiser is also parked in a field, facing the flipped car that contained the criminals the two took on in that episode. During that same conversation, Shane brings up many things Rick has done throughout the series, such as killing Joe, Dan and Gareth. Later, Rick talks to Hershel, and the two are in Hershel's barn, overlooking the Greene farm. The famous shot of Rick riding on horseback into a dead Atlanta is recreated (albeit with the walker herd following Rick), and the equally famous hospital door Rick encounters in the pilot also makes an appearance (although the text is slightly altered, with "Inside" replaced with "Outside", and "Don't" crossed out).]] |
| 514 | * CallingTheOldManOut: |
| 515 | ** Maggie chastises her father Hershel for wanting to kick the group off of the farm. Though Hershel insists they move on, not trusting them and fearing a hostile takeover (as well as disapproving of Maggie's relationship with Glenn), Maggie protests that they've proven to be strong, good people who can help them stay safe. |
| 516 | ** Carl gives Rick a rather thorough one in "Welcome to the Tombs". He does so again in "After", but Rick is in a coma and doesn't hear it. |
| 517 | ** A much tamer example happens in Season 7's "Rock in the Road" in a heart-to-heart between Benjamin and his surrogate father King Ezekiel. Though the king is very hesitant about joining Rick's rebellion, Benjamin points out that the Kingdom has the supplies and numbers needed for a victory agains the Saviors - and if somehow Rick is able to free them from the Saviors without the Kingdom, the Kingdom will have done nothing to contribute. Ezekiel sees the wisdom in his words, but refuses to fight [[spoiler: until Benjamin is nonchalantly killed by the Saviors.]] |
| 518 | * TheCameo: |
| 519 | ** [[spoiler:Creator/JonBernthal as Shane]] in "Made to Suffer". This is caused by Rick having a hallucination, and imagining that one of the Woodbury attackers is the aforementioned [[spoiler:Shane]]. |
| 520 | ** [[spoiler: Creator/SarahWayneCallies as Lori]] likewise shows up as a hallucination several times in the third season. |
| 521 | ** The third season features [[spoiler:Emma Bell (Amy), Andrew Rothenberg (Jim), and Jeryl Prescott Sales (Jacqui)]] in voice only roles. |
| 522 | ** Retired football player Hines Ward has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance as a walker in Season 3's "The Suicide King". He's put down by Maggie. |
| 523 | ** [[CreatorCameo The show's head special F/X guru, Greg Nicotero]], has made several appearances as a walker. |
| 524 | ** The crew will often put in walkers that are homages to other zombie films. Example: Jack from ''Film/AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon'' appears in "After". |
| 525 | ** [[spoiler: Creator/LennieJames as Morgan]] shows up at TheStinger of the Season 5 premiere, "No Sanctuary", as well as the mid-season finale "Coda". |
| 526 | ** Several deceased characters, namely [[spoiler:Lizzie, Mika, Beth, Bob, The Governor, and Martin, appear in hallucinations to the dying Tyreese]]. |
| 527 | ** [[spoiler: The now-deceased Abraham (Creator/MichaelCudlitz) makes several appearances through flashbacks in the Season 7 finale to the dying Sasha.]] |
| 528 | ** In the Season 9 episode "What Comes After", [[spoiler: a seriously-wounded Rick hallucinates conversations with Shane, Hershel and Sasha when he keeps passing out from blood loss.]] |
| 529 | * CameraAbuse: Blood and/or brains are often splattered onto the camera, usually resulting from a gunshot, blunt object, or axe to the head. |
| 530 | * CannibalLarder: As Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Bob escape being butchered in Terminus (amidst an increasingly unsubtle string of hints that the people of Terminus were cannibals), they pass through a room with several bloody human torsos hanging from hooks. |
| 531 | * CanonForeigner: Quite a few -- Merle, Daryl, the Morales family, Jacqui, Jenner, the Vatos... |
| 532 | * CantGetAwayWithNuthin: Shane. Every time [[spoiler: [[MurderTheHypotenuse he tries to kill Rick]]]], something gets in the way. First time it was his conscience, second time it was a horde of walkers. And the third time [[spoiler: Rick just goes ahead and stabs him in the stomach]]. |
| 533 | * CarCushion: Several walkers fall from an overpass onto a van that had just fallen off said overpass. The accompanying ''Talking Dead'' episode referred to the first one, in its "In Memoriam" section, as "wait for it walker", as there was several seconds delay between the van's landing and that of the walker. |
| 534 | * CaretakingIsFeminine: Until around Season 4 of the show, women are repeatedly shown being the more caretaking of the genders. Lori and Carol in the early seasons were the caretakers to the children. After Judith's birth, Beth becomes her primary caretaker, and Carol is in charge of educating the children. Afterwards, this is less the case, with men taking more active caretaking roles. |
| 535 | * CartwrightCurse: Frequently. The current tally: |
| 536 | ** [[spoiler:Rick loses his wife Lori and later love interest Jessie.]] |
| 537 | ** [[spoiler:Beth's two boyfriends, Jimmy and Zach, wind up as zombie chow.]] |
| 538 | ** [[spoiler:Sasha's two boyfriends, Bob and Abraham, perish mere days after entering into a relationship with her.]] |
| 539 | ** [[spoiler:Tara loses two girlfriends, Alisha in Season 4 and Denise in Season 6.]] |
| 540 | ** [[spoiler:Three of Rosita's romantic partners have all met their ends as of mid-Season 10: Abraham, Spencer, and Siddiq.]] |
| 541 | ** [[spoiler:Enid loses two love interests: Ron and Carl.]] |
| 542 | ** Also played with when it comes to [[spoiler:Maggie and Carol. Maggie loses a family member for three consecutive seasons while Carol has become a maternal figure to several children only for them to die a season later.]] |
| 543 | * CasualDangerDialogue: In his first appearance in "Walk With Me", Merle reintroduces himself to Andrea and Michonne as a walker comes up behind him, then casually turns around and stabs it in the head with his bayonet before asking Andrea for a hug. |
| 544 | * TheCavalry: |
| 545 | ** When Andrea is ambushed by a walker in the forest, Maggie suddenly comes riding in on a horse and armed with a bat. |
| 546 | ** Happens multiple times in "Beside The Dying Fire". Andrea arrives to rescue Carol, Rick shows up at the last second to save Hershel from a walker bearing down on him when he paused to reload, and [[spoiler: Andrea is saved by Michonne after she runs out of ammo and gets pinned to the ground by a walker]]. |
| 547 | ** [[spoiler: During season 6 finale Carol and Morgan are saved by two cavalrymen from the Kingdom.]] |
| 548 | ** [[spoiler: During season 7 finale the Kingdom and the Hilltop Colony come to help Alexandria in the stand-off with Saviors. Kingdom party includes a couple of horseriders.]] |
| 549 | * CelebrityParadox: |
| 550 | ** In "Better Angels," Rick mentions Senoia, Georgia, the city that stands in for Woodbury and Alexandria. |
| 551 | ** In Season 4, Beth sings a song written and sang by [[Creator/EmilyKinney her actress]] in RealLife. |
| 552 | ** Tara mentions ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' in one episode, a show which features Abraham Ford and Mitch Dolgen's actors Creator/MichaelCudlitz and Creator/KirkAcevedo. |
| 553 | * CentralTheme: The development of Rick Grimes is the show's main focus since he's the main protagonist. |
| 554 | ** Finding government aid and sanctuary in Season 1, before the end of the season reveals that there truly is no infrastructure left to help the survivors. |
| 555 | ** Rick being forced to make hard decisions in Season 2, despite a group that constantly questions him and a best friend who begins trying to usurp him. |
| 556 | ** Rick's narrowly averted journey to becoming a VillainProtagonist in Season 3. |
| 557 | ** Rick being forced to find a balance between his brutality and humanity in Season 4. |
| 558 | ** Rick is OutOfFocus for the first half of Season 5, but the overarching theme of Seasons 5-6 is the group's relationship with each other, particularly after the DarkestHour of mid-Season 5 and the "No Way Out" arc of Season 6. When Rick returns to focus, the new theme is Rick questioning if there really is hope for the future. |
| 559 | ** A very poignant lesson learned by the group is that you need to ''make sure'' that an enemy is defeated, otherwise, they will come back and haunt you with likely disastrous results. Rick learns this the hard way when Andrew, a survivor he thought he chased into a hungry pack of walkers, returns to the prison with a vengeance and helps lead to the death of [[spoiler: his wife]]. |
| 560 | * CensoredChildDeath: During "Bloodletting", T-Dog looks through a car for medicine, then notices a baby's car seat in the back seat -- splattered with blood. It freaks him out enough to cause him to shake violently and flee the scene. |
| 561 | * CerebusRetcon: |
| 562 | ** In "Home", it is revealed that Merle and Daryl initially joined the Atlanta survivors with the intention of robbing them. |
| 563 | ** In "Crossed", Rosita implies that Abraham became attracted to her when they met in Dallas because she was an ActionGirl, making him an AmazonChaser. [[spoiler: In "Not Tomorrow Yet", Abe bitterly admits that he only got together with her because he felt like she was the "last woman on Earth", as he leaves her to start chasing after Sasha.]] |
| 564 | ** In "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life", we learn that hours before the Season 6 finale began, Sasha had a dream that her new boyfriend Abraham had died. [[spoiler: As we saw earlier in the season, this nightmare ultimately foresaw Abraham's dead literally ''hours'' later. This makes Sasha's horrified reaction to Negan picking Abraham to die all the more heartbreaking, as she begged him to sit out the mission for his own safety.]] |
| 565 | * CharacterDevelopment: A major point in the show is showing how normal people are twisted by their experience, breaking or strengthening. One reviewer summed up the changes with: "if Shane was the example of how the zombie apocalypse can change a man for the worse, Daryl has become an example of how it can also change a man for the better." Notable examples of ''positive'' development include: |
| 566 | ** Rick goes from being an idealistic NiceGuy to an AntiHero that, while darkened from his experiences, has realized it ''is'' possible to recover from doing horrible things to survive and has genuine hope and desire to rebuild and save the world. |
| 567 | ** Daryl starts as an angry redneck loner but mellows to become Rick's loyal right-hand man and then the BigGood of the series after [[spoiler:Rick is presumed dead.]] |
| 568 | ** Carol goes from a frightened victim of domestic abuse to a crafty OneWomanArmy MamaBear with a pragmatic streak. |
| 569 | ** Michonne starts off as a brooding lone wolf but turns into one of the kindest and friendliest survivors who pursues a relationship with Rick and develops a fierce protective stance towards Carl and Judith. |
| 570 | ** Glenn starts as a clever smart aleck with little confidence to lead. He eventually becomes a focused leader in his own right, as well as a courageous warrior and a loving husband with the strength to take out hordes of the undead. |
| 571 | ** Maggie goes from a flirty, feisty farm girl to a wise, powerful and forgiving young woman and the leader of the Hilltop Colony. |
| 572 | ** Hershel goes from a slightly gruff, pushy old man to a loving, nurturing TeamDad with the wisdom to lead an entire community of survivors. |
| 573 | ** Abraham starts out as a hot-blooded JerkWithAHeartOfGold who has little patience for things. He gradually mellows out, develops respect and loyalty to Rick, and thanks to Sasha, Glenn and Maggie, makes several changes to become a happier man with hope for the future. |
| 574 | ** Eugene learns the meaning of courage and loyalty and, barring a relapse in Season 7, steps up to become more humble and selfless, as well as a competent fighter. He also gets over his long-standing crush on Rosita to pursue a relationship with someone he has a genuine connection with. |
| 575 | ** Father Gabriel goes from a selfish coward who gladly sells out the group to save his own skin to a team player who contributes greatly to the survival of his friends and becomes TheLeader of Alexandria. |
| 576 | ** Negan is introduced as a bullying, AxCrazy BigBad but evolves into [[spoiler:an AntiHero with HiddenDepths and a soft spot for kids by the end of Season 10.]] |
| 577 | * CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: Only four characters from the first season are still alive by Season 9, with everyone else either confirmed dead or unknown. Characters both major and less prominent die each season. Heck, fans breath a sigh of relief when an episode ends without someone you ''like'' dying. |
| 578 | * CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Averted. Jenner says a French research facility was the last still operational when he lost contact, working to find a cure until the end. |
| 579 | * ChekhovsGun: Often literally: |
| 580 | ** The grenade Rick picks up in the first season episode "Guts" gets used in "TS-19" to blast open an escape route. |
| 581 | ** In "Guts", distant thunder can be heard sporadically right from the first scene. This foreshadows the rain shower that washes away the zombie organ sludge from Rick and Glenn's clothes, thus compromising their camouflage. |
| 582 | ** Rick's sheriff uniform, which he consistently wears rather than more practical or comfortable gear, ultimately defuses the situation with the Vatos when one of the elderly they're protecting recognizes him as a police officer and asks for his help. |
| 583 | ** The damaged radiator hose on Dale's RV is mentioned several times in passing throughout the first season, and conks out once in "Wildfire" and again in the second season opener "What Lies Ahead". |
| 584 | ** Another was loaded and set on the mantelpiece when Dr. Jenner whispered in Rick's ear. This was eventually revealed in "Beside The Dying Fire", where Rick reveals what Jenner had told him -- ''Everyone'' is infected, and unless they die by headshot, they will return as walkers. Which explains why Rick shot Tony in the head at the end of "Nebraska" after killing him. |
| 585 | ** In "18 Miles Out". After explicitly noting that the Mert county deputies were infected without bites, we see others become zombies that we know died without being bitten. This is later explained in "Beside The Dying Fire". |
| 586 | ** Daryl's gun, which Carl steals from his bike in "Judge, Jury, Executioner", which Carl later uses [[spoiler: to put a bullet in the zombified Shane's head.]] |
| 587 | ** Carol pulls Glenn aside while Lori and Beth look after Hershel because she needs some help getting a walker so she can practice a C-section, because she knows Lori's had trouble in the past. Sure enough, Lori does have trouble. |
| 588 | ** After they invade the prison, Rick's group finds flash bangs and tear gas in the armory. They mention not knowing how useful they'd be against walkers, but they'll take them, just in case. |
| 589 | ** The prison alarm strategy used in "Killer Within" becomes important in the season finale. |
| 590 | ** The bottle of liquor that Bob Stookey stole in "Indifference" came in handy in "Inmates" for Glenn when he uses the liquor to make a Molotov cocktail bomb. |
| 591 | ** The knife [[spoiler: Lizzie takes from Carol]] in "Infected" is the same knife [[spoiler: Lizzie used to stab Mika]] in "The Grove". |
| 592 | ** The [[spoiler: RPG launchers that Abraham finds]] in "Always Accountable" come in handy twice during "No Way Out." |
| 593 | * ChekhovsGunman: |
| 594 | ** The walker Carl inadvertently frees from being stuck in the mud at the riverbank in "Judge, Jury, Executioner" shows up at the end of the episode and [[spoiler: kills Dale]]. |
| 595 | ** In "Sick", Andrew flees when Rick kills Tomas, and Rick locks him outside with walkers as he attempted to attack him. During "Killer Within", it's revealed he turned on the alarms to attract the walkers as revenge. |
| 596 | ** In the first episode, [[spoiler: Morgan is unable to kill his reanimated wife. In "Clear", Morgan reveals that she ultimately killed Duane when Duane couldn't shoot her, either.]] |
| 597 | ** Karen in Season 3. |
| 598 | ** [[spoiler:Like her comic counterpart, Lilly is the one to kill The Governor.]] |
| 599 | * ChekhovsSkill: Subverted in the third season. In "Sick", Carol uses a female corpse to teach herself how to perform a emergency C-section, in the event that Lori goes into labor and Hershel isn't around to help. Two episodes later, in "Killer Within", this is flipped on its head when [[spoiler: Maggie (not Carol) is forced to perform a C-section on Lori to remove her unborn child just before she dies]]. [[spoiler: Maggie]] even [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] that [[spoiler: Carol]] should be doing the operation, not her. |
| 600 | * ChristianityIsCatholic: In the second season premiere, the gang stumble across a small country church, which is explicitly identified as being "Baptist" on its signage. Inside on the altar is a very large ''crucifix''. Baptists are one of the least likely Protestant denominations to have something so "Roman" in their church. |
| 601 | * ChronicHeroSyndrome: |
| 602 | ** Glenn and Rick. Shane even calls them out on it. |
| 603 | ** Daryl slowly develops this, too. |
| 604 | * CleanCut: Most sharp blades, since the walkers are MadeOfPlasticine. Michonne's katana is particularly notable, even pulling off a classic DiagonalCut at one point. |
| 605 | * CliffHanger: |
| 606 | ** On a smaller note, "Bloodletting" ends with Shane and Otis trapped in a high school overrun by walkers. |
| 607 | ** The group and audience is left to ponder the ramifications of Rick's "this is not a democracy anymore" speech at the end of Season 2. |
| 608 | ** The end of Season 4, which ends with [[spoiler:most of the protagonists being captured by the Terminus residents.]] |
| 609 | ** [[spoiler: Carol]] is suddenly shown as a new captive of Grady at the end of "Slabtown." |
| 610 | ** Season 6 ends with [[spoiler: Negan picking a member of Rick's group to kill as punishment for killing several of Negan's men. The murder is shown from the point of view of the victim, whose identity isn't revealed until Season 7. Due to fan uproar at the cliffhanger ending, the show eventually relented and at least confirmed Rick wasn't the victim when they released the ColdOpen of the Season 7 premiere early that showed an alive Rick after the beating.]] |
| 611 | ** The season 8 midseason ends with [[spoiler:Carl mortally wounded after being bitten by walkers. Scott Gimple confirmed on the ''Talking Dead'' that it will play out exactly like any other walker bite, possibly to scuttle any rumors of a repeat of the infamous ''Glenn under a dumpster'' fake death scenario.]] |
| 612 | * CloseCallHaircut: Andrea mistakes Daryl for a walker and shoots him. Fortunately, she only wings him. |
| 613 | * ClosestThingWeGot |
| 614 | --> '''Lori:''' You're a doctor, right?\ |
| 615 | '''Hershel:''' Yes, ma'am. [[FalseReassurance Of course]]. A vet.\ |
| 616 | '''Lori:''' [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant A veteran]]? A combat medic.\ |
| 617 | '''Hershel:''' [[NotThatKindOfDoctor A veterinarian]]. |
| 618 | ** In Season 6 [[spoiler: after the death of Pete Anderson]], Denise Cloyd becomes the new chief medical officer of Alexandria, but she has a lot of trouble at first since she's a psychiatrist, not a surgeon. She eventually comes to be as fine a medic as any after a crash course over the course of a few days. |
| 619 | * CombatMedic: |
| 620 | ** Hershel certainly qualifies, being both a doctor and helping clear out the undead whenever necessary. |
| 621 | ** Carol is working on becoming this, getting directly involved in killing walkers and learning first aid from Hershel to make herself more useful to the group. |
| 622 | ** Bob is, literally, this, his former occupation before the apocalypse being as a medic in the US Army. |
| 623 | ** Denise tries to be this, but she's not an adept fighter and it's not advisable for her to leave Alexandria since she's their medic. [[spoiler: It doesn't stop her from trying her hand at a supply run, and she's killed right after gaining some new confidence.]] |
| 624 | ** In Season 8, Carl saves a man named Siddiq, who later reveals that he was a medical resident. From Season 9 onwards, he becomes Alexandria's chief doctor. He's also got a hell of a walker kill record behind him. |
| 625 | ** Season 10 introduces Dante, Siddiq's new medical assistant in Alexandria, who was also a literal combat medic, and was deployed in Iraq prior to the apocalypse... [[spoiler:or [[ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory so he says]]]]. |
| 626 | * ComfortingTheWidow: In the time Rick was in the hospital, Shane and Lori were beginning to form this kind of relationship. |
| 627 | * CommutingOnABus: |
| 628 | ** Morgan first appears in "Days Gone Bye." He doesn't show up again until "Clear" in Season 3. After that, he makes cameos in Season 5's "No Sanctuary" and "Coda" before finally [[TheBusCameBack joining]] Rick's group in "Conquer" and becoming a main character in Season 6. He stays until [[spoiler:the end of Season 8, when he leaves the group and travels to [[Series/FearTheWalkingDead Texas]].]] |
| 629 | ** Heath goes on a supply run in "Not Tomorrow Yet" and does not appear until 10 episodes later in "Swear." During the events of this episode, he goes missing again and has not been seen again. |
| 630 | ** Sherry makes her debut in "Always Accountable," and then reappears 13 episodes later in "The Cell." Later in the season, she leaves the Sanctuary and has not been seen since. |
| 631 | * ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike: |
| 632 | ** Andrea, to Dale. Justified, in that [[spoiler: Andrea only left the CDC because Dale refused to leave without her]]. |
| 633 | ** Michonne does this in "Walk with Me" after she and Andrea are rescued by the Governor's men. In the few times she directly talks to the Governor or Andrea, she continually asks about getting their confiscated weapons back, and says that she doesn't trust anyone. She also refuses to thank the Governor, and eyes all of his guards and the townspeople suspiciously. She treats Rick and the group similarly when they rescue her outside the prison walls, but she does thank Hershel for sewing up her gunshot wound. |
| 634 | * CompositeCharacter: Practically, if a character suffers from DeathByAdaptation, his or her characterization(s) will often be absorbed or distributed to surviving characters and fuse it with their own. |
| 635 | ** [[spoiler: Because of the Dale's [[DeathByAdaptation early death]], his characterization starting the prison arc was fused with the Hershel. After Hershel dies in Season 4, Bob picks up the remaining remaining slack.]] |
| 636 | ** In Season 3, Andrea's story arc is more closely tied with Alice from the comics. |
| 637 | ** [[spoiler: The Governor seems to be a combination of Philip and Brian Blake as he is both the Governor and the real father of Penny.]] |
| 638 | ** Tomas is basically a {{Race Lift}}ed Thomas Richards with Dexter's role as the most antagonistic prisoner, while at the same time donning The Governor's comicbook appearance. |
| 639 | ** Lilly Chambler in Season 4 is a combination of Lilly Caul and April Chalmers from the comic/novel. |
| 640 | ** Meghan Chambler is actually a combination of two important people in Lily Caul's life; her main counterpart is the latter's stillborn child, but her [[InNameOnly given name was taken]] from the latter's best friend, Megan Lafferty. |
| 641 | ** [[spoiler: Due to [[DeathByAdaptation dying way too early]], Andrea's characterizations from the comics were distributed; her supposed role as the group's resident LadyOfWar was given to Carol, while her and Dale's roles up until the Fear the Hunters arc were respectively given to Sasha and Bob.]] |
| 642 | * ContinuityNod: Each episode's recap page has a more dedicated list, but for some bigger examples: |
| 643 | ** The "fish fry attack" from the first season episode "Vatos" continues to be a sticking point between Shane and Rick (with both of them arguing over whether or not Rick was justified leading a mission to rescue Merle and retrieve the guns) long into the second season. "Pretty Much Dead Already" namechecks the event again, with Shane specifically mentioning two of the casualties of the attack, [[spoiler:Amy and Jim]]. |
| 644 | ** Shane's pre-apocalypse flashback in the first season episode "TS-19" gets referenced again when he tries to make amends with Rick in "18 Miles Out". |
| 645 | ** The silencer on Carl's gun in Season 3 is made from an aluminum baseball bat. It's actually the same bat the group has had since the start of the series, most visible when Rick first meets the Atlanta survivors in "Guts" and carried by T-Dog at the end of "Chupacabra". |
| 646 | ** During [[spoiler: Merle's]] first conversation with Andrea and Michonne in [[spoiler: the Woodbury infirmary]] in "Walk with Me", he asks for a show of hands from the group, much like his initial appearance in "Guts". The same scene also has Andrea list off all the main and supporting characters in Rick's group [[spoiler:(sans Shane)]] who died in the series to date. |
| 647 | ** The posthumous reveal in "Say the Word" that [[spoiler:T-Dog]] drove a church van around picking up the elderly during the initial stages of the outbreak seems to come out of left field, yet it is a nod to the beige van he drove in "Wildfire" and "TS-19", and later siphoned the gas out of to put into the RV in "What Lies Ahead". |
| 648 | ** When Daryl asks Carl about [[spoiler: [[DeadGuyJunior names for the baby]]]] in "Say the Word", Carl mentions all of the dead female character's names as possible choices. |
| 649 | ** When [[spoiler: Glenn]] escapes from the walker-overrun ruins of the prison in "Inmates", he's wearing an orange backpack that looks suspiciously like the one Rick, Michonne, and Carl scooped off the road near Backpack Guy's remains in "Clear". |
| 650 | ** In "A", Rick realizes [[spoiler: something is off with Terminus]] when he spots [[spoiler: residents there wearing]] the riot gear from the prison, Daryl's poncho, Hershel's watch, and the aforementioned orange backpack. These items were all grabbed by Glenn in "Inmates", and seen or mentioned both in earlier episodes, and flashbacks in the same episode. |
| 651 | ** The napalming of Atlanta was briefly shown in a flashback early into Season 2. We're shown the aftermath during the RescueArc in Season 5. |
| 652 | * ContinuitySnarl: The ''Cold Storage'' webisodes. Rick's hometown is [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] as Cynthiana, Kentucky, (as it is in the books), when it was King's County, Georgia, in the pilot. It's then discovered that Rick had a storage locker in Atlanta. |
| 653 | * ContrivedCoincidence: |
| 654 | ** The times when it's been shown to rain on the show are very rare, yet it just happens to rain just long enough to wash the walker's scent off of Rick and Glenn in "Guts." |
| 655 | ** Rick's group arrives at the CDC in "Wildfire" very shortly before its self-destruction. Had they showed up a few days later, they would have found nothing but its charred remains. |
| 656 | ** In "Beside The Dying Fire". A group of walkers, attracted by the same helicopter that Rick saw in Atlanta in "Days Gone Bye" (and apparently happening at the same time, no less) makes its way towards the direction of the helicopter, and eventually masses more and more walkers who fall in step with the original group. The horde of walkers eventually smashes through a strong wooden fence and [[spoiler: onto the Greene farm]]. |
| 657 | ** In "No Sanctuary", Carol arrives at Terminus independently of Rick's group just in time to rescue them when they are seconds away from being executed. |
| 658 | ** Several times during "Them", when the group has been without water and food for more than an entire day. Just as Eugene [[TemptingFate bemoans that things couldn't get worse]], they are attacked by a pack of wild dogs that they kill and eat. Later, the group is spooked when they find a bunch of water bottles and gallons in the road with a note signed "From a friend". The group believes it to be a trap, and just then, it begins to rain [[note]]this was actual rain in fact, even though the crew had prepared a rain machine[[/note]], quenching the group's thirst. Later on, a tornado manages to wipe out a herd of walkers besieging the group at a barn they take shelter in (a tornado dancing around a precious place is not unheard of in real life, to be fair). Finally, Daryl says he's fixed Maggie's music box, and later when she tries to play it for Sasha, it still doesn't play. Aaron arrives and promises he has good news... and the music box begins playing. |
| 659 | ** In "Conquer," Morgan gets lost and just happens to find his way to the cannery where Daryl and Aaron are trapped. Had he missed them, it is likely that they would have died and he would never have come to Alexandria. The idea that he would have found clues to track Rick's group is already very implausible. Georgia is a big state. |
| 660 | ** Alexandria has apparently been living in blissful peace for the past two years, naïve to the dangers of the outside world. However, within weeks of Rick's group showing up: |
| 661 | *** The mayor's son dies on a supply run |
| 662 | *** A gang of bandits attack the community |
| 663 | *** A zombie herd that has been trapped in a quarry for the past two years gets out and decimates the town |
| 664 | *** They have their first run in with the Saviors. |
| 665 | ** In "Knots Untie," Rick's group happens to arrive in the Hilltop [[spoiler:just a few minutes before the Saviors' assassination attempt on Gregory, which would have undoubtedly plunged the colony into chaos and prevented them from being an ally in the events to come. Had Ethan arrived a few hours earlier or later, things would have turned out very differently.]] |
| 666 | ** Concerning "Not Tomorrow Yet" and the events that follow, the group's belief that they have taken out all of the Saviors including their leader, and thus being unprepared for counterattack later when it turns out they've defeated only a single outpost, all rests on the single fact that they just so happened to stumble across the one group of survivors who have the oddly specific gimmick of adopting their leader's name as their own. |
| 667 | * ConvenientlyPlacedSharpThing: {{Invoked|Trope}} when Milton drops a tray of scary-looking sharp things the Governor [[TortureTechnician happened to have laid out in the holding cell]], and deliberately leaves a pair of pliers lying out of sight when he clears up the others. |
| 668 | * ConvenientlyTimedDistraction: In the Season 5 premiere, "No Sanctuary", [[spoiler: when Rick's group gets captured by the residents of Terminus and are brought into slaughterhouse to be killed, just before the butchers could kill Glenn, they stop when they hear gunshots from outside, followed by a massive explosion that knocks everyone down, courtesy of Carol. Rick uses this moment to cut the rope around his hands to free himself and the others to fight back.]] |
| 669 | * CoolCar: The car that Rick and Glenn use to draw the walkers away with the car alarm is a brand new Dodge Challenger. Glenn is understandably happy over being able to drive out of Atlanta with nothing but open road in front of him and no police to pull him over. |
| 670 | * CoolOldGuy: Dale, Hershel (after "Triggerfinger"), Reg, and Earl Sutton. |
| 671 | * CouldntFindAPen: The farmer and his wife's suicide note, in the series premiere, is written on the wall in blood. |
| 672 | ** In "Alone", Maggie uses walker blood to leave messages for Glenn. |
| 673 | * CPRCleanPrettyReliable: |
| 674 | ** Resorted to in the "Torn Apart" webseries. There's no reason the person should be attempting this, and it doesn't end well. |
| 675 | ** Used by Lori when Hershel stopped breathing, with a [[spoiler:JumpScare]]. |
| 676 | * CrapsackWorld: Par the course for any ZombieApocalypse tale. |
| 677 | * CrazyPrepared: Morgan's house in Season 3. He even has a knife duct taped to the bed, just in case. Hershel gets in on the act, too, strapping a gun [[spoiler:to his stump. Would ''you'' frisk a one legged man? Would you feel up his stump?]] |
| 678 | * CreateYourOwnVillain: |
| 679 | ** [[spoiler:Rick handcuffs Merle on a roof and leaves him there alone, unwittingly forcing him to cut his own hand off to escape from walkers.]] He returns much later, with a BladeBelowTheShoulder and a serious grudge. |
| 680 | ** Happens to [[spoiler:The Governor when Michonne kills his zombie daughter and stabs him in the eye with a piece of glass. Granted he was a ruthless, murderous autocrat even before then, but the resulting combination of TheGlovesComeOff and ItsPersonal turns him into a dangerous enemy bent on killing Michonne and subjugating anyone who tries to harbour her.]] |
| 681 | ** Joe and his group were ruthless before encountering our protagonists, but [[spoiler: Rick killing a member of their group in "Claimed" out of self-defense]] didn't help matters, and leads to [[spoiler: a brutal confrontation in "A".]] |
| 682 | ** After the destruction of Terminus, Rick is fully aware of this trope and prepares his team to go back and wipe out the survivors, knowing they might follow them in retaliation. However the group, weary from their ordeal, votes to move on, and Rick allows it when they reunite with Carol, Tyreese, and Judith. He's still wary of survivors from Terminus, and sure enough, after a few days, Daryl reports they were being watched, and that night [[spoiler: the Hunters strike intent on ''eating them''.]] |
| 683 | ** Through no fault of his own, Aaron accidentally leaves his bag full of supplies in [[spoiler: a trap set by the Wolves, and one of them finds it, alerting them to the existence of Alexandria, if they didn't know already.]] |
| 684 | ** [[spoiler: Daryl rescues Dwight and his companions in "Always Accountable" even after Dwight took Daryl hostage and threatened to kill him. Daryl gets his bike and crossbow stolen for his troubles, and Dwight ends up returning with a group of Saviors to murder Denise. It's unclear why Dwight joined the Saviors, but Daryl blames himself for Denise's death considering he had ample opportunity to kill Dwight earlier.]] |
| 685 | ** Actually invoked by Pope, the psychopathic leader of the Reapers who attacks Meridian and conquers it purely for his and his group's selfish benefit, but declares holy war on Maggie... because she lived there and will now probably want revenge. Pope is an insane WarHawk who loves bloodshed, meaning he probably was going to pick a fight with ''somebody'' at some point. Sure enough, [[spoiler:Maggie eventually retakes Meridian and slaughters most of his men in retribution because of Pope's stupid decision.]] |
| 686 | *** Maggie actually knowingly walks into this possibility at the end of the Reaper conflict when she [[spoiler:spares Leah despite killing all her cohorts, purely as a courtesy to Daryl, her ex-lover. Leah]] later returns with a vengeance and both Maggie and Daryl agree they should've gone through with it. |
| 687 | * CreatorCameo: Scott Gimple, executive producer of the show for Season 4-8, has appeared in the show five times as a zombie, as of the beginning of the sixth season. VFX director and frequent episode director Greg Nicotero also cameos several times as a walker, and in fact cameos as the last walker of the series proper (besides the epilogue of the GrandFinale); he also plays a Whisperer in a nightmare Aaron has in Season 11. |
| 688 | * CreepyChild: |
| 689 | ** The zombified little girl that Rick shoots in the pilot. [[spoiler: And he does the same to Sophia in the second season.]] |
| 690 | ** And in Season 3, there's [[spoiler: Penny, the Governor's daughter.]] |
| 691 | ** [[TheSociopath Lizzie]]. Dear lord, ''Lizzie.'' |
| 692 | * CriticalStaffingShortage: |
| 693 | ** Dr. Jenner is the only one left of the hundreds of doctors that once staffed the CDC. |
| 694 | ** Later on the cast settles for a time in a prison that probably had a couple hundred inmates and guards. At their peak of RedShirts there are maybe three dozen. This is a real problem in the fourth season when there just aren't enough able-bodied people around to do everything. |
| 695 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: Where do we start? |
| 696 | ** The "bicycle walker" had so much of her eaten that there's barely half of her torso left. |
| 697 | ** [[spoiler: Dale is unable to wrestle a walker off of him, and it rips open his stomach and guts. He's left writhing until someone can bring themselves to put him out of his misery.]] |
| 698 | ** [[spoiler: T-Dog is bitten on the neck when the prison is invaded by walkers, and later sacrifices himself to save Carol by allowing himself to be horribly torn apart and eaten by walkers. When Rick finds his corpse, there's so little left of him that the only way he was recognized was by his tattered clothes. In the same episode, Lori orders Maggie to give her a C-section without anesthetic, and once Judith is born, Carl puts her down. Post-mortem, her body is completely eaten by a walker, who Rick finds bloated and dazed.]] |
| 699 | ** [[spoiler: Milton gets tortured by the Governor for an unknown amount of time, and when he tries to fight back, he's gutted and left to bleed out and turn.]] |
| 700 | ** [[spoiler: Zach saves Bob from being eaten... only to be bitten on the leg and get eaten himself from the leg-up. A fallen helicopter on the roof breaks through and crushes him for good measure.]] |
| 701 | ** [[spoiler: Anyone who is captured by Terminus is gassed, bent over a pig trough, has their head beat in with an aluminum bat, and then gets their throats slit so they can bleed out. And ''then'' they're carved up to be eaten.]] |
| 702 | ** [[spoiler: The Hunters are bloodily hacked to pieces by Rick's group in retaliation for previously capturing them and eating Bob's leg, but they're definitely AssholeVictim's.]] |
| 703 | ** Averted with [[spoiler: Bob. He's bitten on a run, and while he does endure the trauma of watching the Hunters slurp down his leg, he dies one of the most peaceful deaths on the show. After the Hunters are killed, he says goodbye to his surrogate family, and dies smiling since the last thing he sees is Sasha smiling at him. And he gets one hell of a "Fuck You!" at the Hunters by informing them they've eaten "TAINTED MEAT!"]] |
| 704 | ** [[spoiler: Aiden is impaled in several chunks of metal after accidentally setting off a grenade. He orders the others to leave him, and he dies a slow, horrible death when the walkers eat him, and he gets to watch them rip out and eat his innards. Later in the same episode, Noah is pinned against the glass of a revolving door, and gets torn apart in front of Glenn from behind. We get to see the walkers ripping his face to shreds and eating through his shoulders.]] |
| 705 | ** [[spoiler: Savior Paula is impaled on a metal bar by Carol and gets her parts of her face bitten off by walkers while she's still alive, before she finally succumbs to her wounds.]] |
| 706 | ** [[spoiler: Glenn. Negan really draws out his beating with Lucille, giving us a good look at Glenn's bloody face and his eye popping out, mimicking an infamous panel from the comics. Negan then keeps beating his head to a bloody pulp long after he is clearly dead. The same thing happened to Abraham minutes earlier, just without the eye-popping.]] |
| 707 | ** [[spoiler: Dr. Emmett Carson is thrown into the Sanctuary furnace face-first by Negan and gets the upper-half of his body incinerated.]] |
| 708 | ** [[spoiler: Creepy Savior Gunther gets ''[[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe bisected]]'' by Jerry with his axe.]] |
| 709 | ** [[spoiler: In "Honor", an unarmed Morgan is being beaten down by a Savior who had just been shot in the gut. Out of options, Morgan shoves his hand inside the bullet wound and ''rips out the Savior's intestines'', killing him instantly. Everyone else's OhCrap expressions say it all.]] |
| 710 | * CrusadingWidow: Maggie becomes this after [[spoiler: Glenn's death at Negan's hands.]] It comes to a head in Season 9, when she decides [[spoiler: to kill Negan herself, after Rick had spared him at the end of the Savior War.]] However, it's subverted once she sees [[spoiler: that Negan's become a broken, tortured DeathSeeker, and [[CruelMercy decides to let him live with his suffering.]]]] A few seasons later, and after learning that [[spoiler:Negan had fought to help save the communities from the Whisperers,]] she accepts that he's an ally... but makes little secret of the fact she intends to finish the job on him one day. When they're forced to work together during the Reaper conflict, [[spoiler:Negan decides to leave the group for good due to realizing she will not only likely still come for his head one day... she will likely ''succeed''. They run into each other again, and after Negan puts his life on the line to protect her son, she begins to trust him.]] |
| 711 | * CuteLittleFangs: Accidentally revealed if you're paying attention to teeth in "Vatos" while Amy is in the boat. |
| 712 | * CuteMonsterGirl: |
| 713 | ** [[spoiler: Sophia]]. |
| 714 | ** Morgan's zombified wife, who looks fairly normal except for rings around her eyes and the expression on her face. She is one of the more recent victims, and hasn't decayed as much as the others. |
| 715 | ** In the ''Torn Apart'' webseries, the female walker who Judy mistook for unconscious or in distress. [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Judy gets part of her face ripped off for her troubles]]. |
| 716 | * CutenessProximity: Few can go up against baby Judith without fawning over her, but considering the circumstances, can you blame them? Even Negan isn't immune. |
| 717 | -->'''Sasha:''' I never thought we'd see a baby again. |
| 718 | [[/folder]] |
| 719 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext TheWalkingDead / TropesAToC
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
