| 1 | * LadyMacbeth: Lori has a moment of this at the end of "Triggerfinger", in which she encourages Rick to do something about Shane’s increasingly violent behavior. [[spoiler:When Rick actually does kill Shane in self-defense, however, Lori is disgusted and angry.]] |
| 2 | * TheLancer: |
| 3 | ** Shane is Rick's lancer until "Judge, Jury, Executioner" when Daryl steps up in his place. |
| 4 | ** Daryl replaces Shane and also shares the role with Hershel, Rick's mentor and father figure, in Season 3. |
| 5 | ** Michonne comes to share the role of Lancer with Daryl to Rick starting in late Season 4. In mid late Season 7, Rick outright tells her that she's his pick to take over if he dies. |
| 6 | ** By the end of Season 5, Rick has a reliable group of lancers who are his inner circle and all fulfill the position of Lancer from time to time, including Carol, Daryl, Glenn, Michonne, and Abraham. |
| 7 | ** Jesus becomes Maggie's Lancer at the end of Season 7, after she assumes leadership of Hilltop. |
| 8 | ** Aaron becomes Michonne's lancer from the second half of Season 9. |
| 9 | * LastEpisodeNewCharacter: |
| 10 | ** Michonne debuts in the Season 2 finale, "Beside the Dying Fire". |
| 11 | ** Gareth and most of the Terminus residents are introduced in the Season 4 finale, "A". |
| 12 | ** Owen and the Wolves are introduced in the fifth season finale "Conquer" after a half-season of build-up. |
| 13 | ** Negan is introduced in the sixth season finale, "Last Day on Earth", along with his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Simon. |
| 14 | ** Stephanie is first heard at the very end of the Season 9 finale. |
| 15 | ** Two examples subverted thanks to real-life circumstances; the Commonwealth makes its official debut at the end of the Season 10 finale, as did Maggie’s ally Elijah, but the episode ended up ''not'' being the season finale when the season got extended by six more episodes. |
| 16 | * LateArrivalSpoiler: By nature of the show being so heavily serialized, many seasons start off with information that was originally a twist or spoiler now being commonplace knowledge. |
| 17 | ** Season 3 reestablishes early-on that all survivors are infected with an airborne strand of the walker plague, and will reanimate upon death unless their brain is destroyed. |
| 18 | ** Season 5 starts with the group's incarceration at Terminus, when Season 4 had a building subplot over whether or not it was a benevolent sanctuary. |
| 19 | ** Season 7 immediately opens with the group at the mercy of Negan, following on from the cliffhanger that ended Season 6. |
| 20 | ** Season 8 opens with the allied communities going to war with Negan, after Season 7's main theme was whether or not they should try to rise up against the Saviors. It also almost immediately shows that [[spoiler: Dwight has pulled a HeelFaceTurn and has become TheMole for Rick]]. |
| 21 | ** Season 9's premise revolves around Rick's victorious outcome at the end of the war with the Saviors. You also can’t start watching Season 10 without learning that [[spoiler:Rick is MIA and presumed dead.]] |
| 22 | ** Season 11 starts with the characters still suffering the aftermath of the Whisperer War in which they triumphed - and with [[spoiler:Maggie having returned.]] |
| 23 | ** Additionally, several character deaths are so [[SacrificialLion integral to the main plot]] or the CharacterDevelopment of those who outlive them that knowledge of their demise is secondhand knowledge for viewers. Particular offenders include but are not limited to [[spoiler: Shane, Lori, Hershel, Beth, Abraham, Glenn, and Carl.]] |
| 24 | * LaughingMad: Bob when he reveals to the Hunters eating his leg he had been bitten and was "tainted meat". |
| 25 | * TheLawOfInverseRecoil: Realistic recoil is never depicted. |
| 26 | * TheLeader: |
| 27 | ** Rick comes to lead his group by popular, unspoken vote in Season 1. Shane tries to usurp the position multiple times in Season 2 until he's killed by Rick after one attempt too many. Later, Rick cedes leadership to a council consisting of Hershel (who is the head of the group), Carol, Daryl, Sasha, and Glenn, but is forced to take back the leadership role when Hershel is killed and the prison falls. |
| 28 | ** Rick's group actually has a lot of members who are capable leaders in their own right. Abraham is a former military sergeant who led his own group from Houston to Atlanta, Glenn becomes the leader of a group in the back half of Season 4, Carol is placed in charge when Rick's briefly away in Season 5, Daryl's taken over for Rick occasionally in Season 3, and Tyreese also led his own group before meeting Rick. |
| 29 | ** Leaders of other communities and groups include: Gregory for Hilltop Colony, Negan for the Saviors, Ezekiel for the Kingdom, Jadis for the Scavengers, Natania and later Cyndie for Oceanside, and Yumiko for her own group (even though her group is unofficially known as “Magna’s group”). |
| 30 | ** Maggie becomes the unofficial leader of Hilltop in Season 8, after selflessly risking herself (and her unborn child) to defend the community from a Savior attack. Becomes official in Season 9, after the community holds a vote between her and Gregory. |
| 31 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: |
| 32 | ** At the end of "Inmates" after barely holding off a pack of walkers, Tara shouts out "Hope you enjoyed the show, assholes!" while looking ''directly'' at the camera. She was really shouting at Abraham Ford, though. |
| 33 | ** At the end of "East," [[spoiler:Dwight shoots Daryl and the screen fades to black. Just before the credits roll, Dwight casually remarks, "You'll be all right," as if to reassure the audience that Daryl is simply injured, not dead]]. |
| 34 | ** During [[spoiler:Glenn's death]] in "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be" has [[BigBad Negan]] say "You bunch of pussies, I'm just getting started." While he is directly addressing Rick's group it makes sense that he would be talking to the audience with this line as well, since he quickly proves that as hard to watch as [[spoiler: Abraham's]] death was, he really saved the gore and brutality for [[spoiler: poor Glenn.]] |
| 35 | * LeaveBehindAPistol: |
| 36 | ** Rick offers one to Jim. He refuses on the ground that they will need it and that if he turns, he may have the chance to meet up with his undead family. |
| 37 | ** The way Andrea goes out after she's bitten. Michonne insists on staying with her at the end, though. |
| 38 | ** In "Start to Finish" [[spoiler: Deanna insists on killing herself before she turns rather than Michonne doing it for her, so Rick, Michonne and the others leave her behind with a gun when they leave the house. Deanna ends up using the gun to kill some walkers rather than commit suicide. ]] |
| 39 | * LeaveHimToMe: |
| 40 | ** The Governor says this before his fight with Merle. |
| 41 | ** Rick tells Michonne not to shoot Dan, who tried to rape Carl, so he can stab him to death. |
| 42 | ** Implied with both Rick and Sasha who specifically target Gareth and Martin during the church massacre; Gareth had forced Rick to his knees and laughed off Rick's vow to kill him with his red machete, while Martin had personally harassed Sasha's brother Tyreese and had personally delivered Bob to the Hunters for dinner. |
| 43 | * LeaveNoSurvivors: In a flashback from Shane, it shows the army lining civilians up against a wall and executing them then shooting them in the head to be sure. |
| 44 | * LetThePastBurn: |
| 45 | ** In "Live Bait," the Governor torches Woodbury to the ground after finding that it has been abandoned. |
| 46 | ** In "Still," Daryl and Beth torch the house they had gone to for the purpose of getting drunk off the stored moonshine, FlippingTheBird at the flaming house that represented Daryl's past. |
| 47 | * LickedByTheDog: Shiva not only allows Daryl to get close to her, but she then starts to rub her muzzle to his hand. |
| 48 | * LifeOrLimbDecision: |
| 49 | ** Merle cuts off his own hand in "Tell It to the Frogs" when T-Dog panics and leaves him handcuffed to a pipe as walkers are attacking. |
| 50 | ** In "Triggerfinger," Hershel considers doing this to free Randall from the fence post his leg is impaled on, but when a mob of walkers shows up and leave them with no time, Rick ends up just yanking it free instead. |
| 51 | ** In "Seed," Hershel gets bitten on the ankle, prompting Rick to hack his leg off just below the knee to try and save him. |
| 52 | ** Carol prepares to save Ryan Samuels by removing his arm in "Infected," but she stops when she sees that he was also bitten on the back of the neck. |
| 53 | ** Dr. S amputates the arm of a RedShirt in "Isolation," but the man dies anyway. |
| 54 | ** In "Slabtown," Dr. Edwards amputates Joan's arm after she is bitten by a walker. Interestingly, she uses this life-saving procedure to kill herself when she pulls out her stitches. |
| 55 | ** In Season 5's "What Happened and What's Going On," [[spoiler: Tyreese]] gets bitten on the arm. He goes without aid for quite a long time, so he's already delirious when Michonne amputates it. This just makes the blood loss worse, which is why he isn't able to survive. |
| 56 | ** In "Always Accountable," Daryl tricks Savior {{Mook}} Cam into getting his arm bitten by a walker. Wade, the MookLieutenant, saves him by cutting it off. |
| 57 | ** [[spoiler:An interesting case in "No Way Out." Rick cuts off Jessie's hand, not to save ''her'' life, but to save Carl's, because she's holding him while being devoured and won't let go, having lost the ability to do so since she’s either dead or dying.]] |
| 58 | ** In "The Bridge", [[spoiler: Aaron has his arm crushed under a falling log when a group of walkers attack the camp where everyone is working on repairing the titular bridge, and Enid is forced to amputate it in order to save him from the massive blood loss.]] |
| 59 | ** In 11.5 "Out of the Ashes," Aaron deliberately allows a Whisperer survivor who he was interrogating to get bitten by a walker. When the others talk him out of his homicidal intent, he leaves behind a hatchet and tells the man he can survive by cutting his forearm off. |
| 60 | * LighterAndSofter: |
| 61 | ** The Governor is not as evil as his comic counterpart, though he still crosses the MoralEventHorizon regardless when he decides that [[spoiler: Hershel Greene's]] head would look great in his fish tank. |
| 62 | ** Some other changes are made as well, such as Carol not committing suicide and Judith surviving instead of her deceased mother falling on top of her. |
| 63 | ** "Still." Though it involves Daryl and Beth coming to terms with the Governor's attack on the prison, their quest for booze is decidedly low stakes. |
| 64 | ** "The Next World," taking place in Season 6, when things had just been markedly dark, is extremely light-hearted and hilarious, from Rick and Daryl digging around for soda and candy, to the duo chasing Jesus through a field a la ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'', to Rick and Michonne finally deciding to consummate their relationship. Lots of laughs, barely any death, and even a bit of romance. |
| 65 | ** "The Well", which introduces the Kingdom, a bastion of hope and peace, and its' affable, humorous leader King Ezekiel. |
| 66 | ** In the comics, it's revealed that Lydia, and presumably, other female Whisperers, are frequently raped by the men in the group, which is apparently condoned by Alpha as a necessity to ensure peace within the Whisperers, as well as a means of helping to force the women to grow stronger and fight back. This entire aspect of the Whisperers is completely absent from the series. |
| 67 | ** The series in general has ''far'' less sexual assault throughout it and far less characters have it as part of their backstory. |
| 68 | * TheLoad: |
| 69 | ** At first, Carl generally needs protecting and sometimes does stupid things that put others in danger. His parents have a bit of a struggle trying to balance keeping him out of danger and getting him to learn to defend himself. In the time skip before Season 3, he definitively TookALevelInBadass and is no longer a load. |
| 70 | ** In the first two seasons, characters sometimes argue about whether they're pulling their weight in the group or not, basically accusing each other of being TheLoad. |
| 71 | * LivingIsMoreThanSurviving: In Season 5, Abraham Ford is in a discussion with the core Atlanta group, and offers a toast to survivors, but then challenges the group to do more than survive, and join Ford's group on their way to Washington, DC with Eugene, a person who says he can help end the ZombieApocalypse. [[spoiler: Eugene lied, but]]Abraham’s words resonate with the group for the rest of the season, as shown when Michonne convinces Rick to move the group to DC anyway since they need to at least ''try'' to find a life worth living. |
| 72 | * LongRunnerCastTurnover: Of the 11 characters who appeared in the first season and have been credited in the "main cast" at some point in the series, only [[spoiler:three]] are still in the show by the end of the 8th season. Of all characters credited as "main cast," 14 have been killed. And that's not even getting into the many recurring and "also starring" characters. |
| 73 | * LoveConfession: Glenn finally admits he loves Maggie near the end of "Beside The Dying Fire", after being unable to say it for most of the season. |
| 74 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy / LoveMakesYouEvil: The combined stress of the apocalypse as well as his self-deluded lust for Lori causes Shane to become an insane villain. |
| 75 | * LoveTriangle: |
| 76 | ** Between Shane/Lori/Rick -- now that Lori's husband whom Shane and Lori thought was dead has returned and the affair with Shane ended. |
| 77 | ** Rosita loves Abraham, but he's sick of her and wants to be with Sasha, who initially isn't very interested (partially because he’s hitting on her while still being with another woman). |
| 78 | ** Subverted in Season 9. Rosita is pregnant with Siddiq’s baby despite being in a relationship with Gabriel, but the baby was conceived in a fling before she got with Gabriel. The trio is able to talk it out like adults, and Rosita and Gabriel agree to raise the child together when it’s born. The trio is also aided by Eugene, who has unrequited feelings for Rosita and has accepted it. Lampshaded in the Season 9 finale when [[spoiler:Negan tries to heckle them about the situation, but the others are only slightly amused since they aren't having a soap opera like Negan had hoped.]] |
| 79 | * LowAngleEmptyWorldShot: Used fairly often to save on having to close streets and dress them with trash. |
| 80 | * MadeOfIron: Many characters are able to tank blows and hits that would’ve likely severely injured them in real life, especially those protected by PlotArmor. |
| 81 | * MadeOfPlasticine: From the start of the second season the survivors have little trouble driving any kind of implement right through a zombie's skull with simple muscle power alone. The third season has them driving knives and/or swords right into skulls. This is intentional, to signal the decay of walker bodies over time, though, oddly, freshly reanimated walkers are just as easy to put down. |
| 82 | ** Oddly, this seems to apply to the ''survivors'' as well, as characters are shown being easily torn to pieces by walkers, regardless of how badly-decayed (and therefore, lacking in any substantial muscle mass) said walkers are. |
| 83 | * MadnessMantra: In "Clear", the eponymous word spray-painted repeatedly on the walls by [[spoiler:Morgan]], among other assorted graffiti. He later begins using phrases like “I don’t die”, and “you know what it is”. |
| 84 | * MagicCountdown: "TS-19": The CDC is set to blow itself up when the backup generators providing emergency power run out of fuel -- a countdown starting at when there's only an hour of power left. The residing doctor remaining kind of omitted this particular bit of information. He only hinted at it when he told them, "when these doors close, they will not re-open." |
| 85 | * MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: |
| 86 | ** So far, Glenn and Maggie have had sex in a drugstore (which later turned out to have still-active walkers inside), an intended rendezvous in Hershel's barn (which led to Glenn discovering the walkers inside) and in a guardtower at the prison. |
| 87 | ** Abraham and Rosita have sex on the floor of a bookstore with Eugene (and, briefly, Tara) peeping on them. |
| 88 | ** Though it doesn't get as explicit as the scene in the comics, Sebastian decides to have a romantic picnic and make-out session with his girlfriend Kayla in a zone that is explicitly identified as uninhabitable, that community service workers are trying to clear of walkers so it ''can'' be rehabilitated. |
| 89 | * MassOhCrap: |
| 90 | ** ''Everyone'' in episode four during the fish fry, just before a large group of walkers descends on the camp, biting people left and right. |
| 91 | ** The survivors discover what happens when the CDC countdown clock reaches zero. |
| 92 | ** When walkers are set loose on the prison in episode four of Season 3. |
| 93 | ** When The Governor returns to the prison [[spoiler: in Season 4.]] |
| 94 | ** [[spoiler: The Hunters panic when they learn they've been eating Bob's "tainted meat".]] |
| 95 | ** When a pack of wild dogs attacks the group in "Them", the group is bewildered as they prepare to defend themselves, clearly extremely dumbfounded to be facing their first threat from wild animals. |
| 96 | ** When [[spoiler: the tower falls, breaking part of the wall and letting the herd into Alexandria]] in "Start to Finish." |
| 97 | ** Everyone in the Coalition's small militia is understandably dumbfounded when they witness [[spoiler:a walker variant]] climbing up onto a truck. |
| 98 | * MauveShirt: Some characters survive long enough to get at the very least a name or even a minor backstory. |
| 99 | * MeaningfulEcho: |
| 100 | ** When Rick is shot by criminals in the first episode, Shane comforts and shushes him while he blacks out. In "Better Angels", [[spoiler: Rick stabs Shane and comforts ''him'' in the same manner]]. |
| 101 | ** Rick's line in "Better Angels" ("No more kids' stuff. People are going to die.") is remembered by Carl in "Killer Within" when [[spoiler: he shoots his mother to prevent her from returning as a walker]]. |
| 102 | ** The Governor comforts Maggie (who he had just threatened to rape), and then uses the exact same line and tone to comfort Andrea (with whom he has having a fling) in the next scene. |
| 103 | ** Not a line, but most of an episode. In the first episode, Rick is knocked unconscious by Duane, Morgan's son, and then tied to a bed until Morgan is sure he's not a threat. In "Clear", [[spoiler: Morgan is knocked unconscious by Carl, Rick's son, and tied up on his bed until Rick is sure that he's not a threat.]] |
| 104 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: |
| 105 | ** Get past looking at [[spoiler:Merle's]] OhCrap face near the end of the and you'll see that the guard behind him is threatening him with a rather familiar looking [[spoiler:crossbow]]. Suffice to say, its [[TheDeterminator owner]] might be [[BadassInDistress in trouble]]. |
| 106 | ** Eugene is shocked to see Rick and Carl reunite with Judith in "No Sanctuary". [[spoiler: He later admits a severe case of SurvivorsGuilt for all the people who died trying to get him to Washington, suggesting he was horrified that his wild goose chase may eventually cause the death of a baby girl.]] |
| 107 | * MercyKill: |
| 108 | ** Averted with Randall, who is ultimately [[spoiler: slain by Shane for his troubles]]. |
| 109 | ** Rick pulls one of on Hannah (the "bicycle girl"), expressing his sympathy for her with the words "I'm sorry this happened to you" before killing her. |
| 110 | ** At the police station Rick kills Leon basset, the former fellow sheriff deputy who in the intro had talked about being on video, specifically stating that while he thought the guy was an overexcited rookie, he didn't deserve to be shambling around as a walker. |
| 111 | ** Dr. Jenner tries to present [[spoiler: death by fuel-air explosive]] as this to the survivors. |
| 112 | ** Andrea and Daryl find an infectee who committed suicide by hanging from a tree and turned zombie there. Daryl is reluctant to waste a crossbow bolt in his head but eventually obliges to Andrea, lamenting the waste. |
| 113 | ** In "Pretty Much Dead Already", [[spoiler: zombified Sophia]] is on the receiving end of a mercy kill courtesy of [[spoiler: Rick]]. |
| 114 | ** At the end of "Judge, Jury, Executioner", [[spoiler: Daryl]] does this to [[spoiler: Dale after he is mauled by a walker.]] |
| 115 | ** At the end of "This Sorrowful Life", [[spoiler:Daryl finds Merle ''after'' he was killed by the Governor and turned into a walker. When Merle tries to attack, he pushes him away at first, but eventually Daryl forces himself to stab Merle in the head]]. |
| 116 | ** AHK is forced to administer several of these to their friends once they learn that they were [[spoiler: wounded by Savior weapons coated with walker blood, dooming them to die and reanimate.]] |
| 117 | * MexicanStandoff: |
| 118 | ** Between Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, and the Vatos when arguing over the gun bag. |
| 119 | ** Daryl seems to attract these. It happens two more times between him and Rick -- first when he threatens T-Dog, then later when he wants to mercy kill [[spoiler: Jim]]. |
| 120 | * TheMillstone: |
| 121 | ** Merle in Season 1. He puts the group in danger by needlessly firing his gun and attracting walkers, and then hurls racial slurs and physically attacks other members of the group, all while high on meth. They return to Atlanta to rescue Merle (the disagreement over which is the first argument between Rick and Shane), during which time Glenn is kidnapped by the Vatos. After freeing himself, Merle steals their van, forcing them to walk back to camp and possibly increasing the casualties at the fish fry attack. |
| 122 | ** Sophia. Because of Sophia's actions at the beginning of the second season, [[spoiler: Carl was shot, Otis got eaten alive, Daryl got impaled on one of his arrows, mistaken for a walker and shot (with a thankfully grazing blow), and the group was split on whether or not they should even keep looking for her until they discovered her as a walker shambling out of the barn]]. |
| 123 | * MissingChild: When the Whisperers attack Hilltop [[spoiler:and force the survivors out of it,]] the children go missing and put their parents in a panic until they are found. |
| 124 | * MistakenForUndead: In the pilot, Rick is initially mistaken for a zombie and gets whacked in the head with a shovel. A few moments later, it's noted that as Rick was talking before being knocked unconscious, he's unlikely to be a [[NotUsingTheZWord walker]], as they don't talk. |
| 125 | * TheMole: [[spoiler: Dante is revealed to be one for the Whisperers, having been tasked to infiltrate Alexandria for intel, and to slowly undermine the colony by first turning people against each other, before taking the more direct route of reversing the water purification system in order to make everyone violently ill.]] |
| 126 | * MonsterOfTheWeek: Several of the bonus episodes between Seasons 10 and 11 have their own one-shot villains. The Reaper in "Home Sweet Home," Mays in "One More," the Commonwealth interrogator in "Splinter," and Craven in "Here's Negan." |
| 127 | * MoodMotif: The ThemeTune in particular, but the rest of the show's music is all about the Strings of Suspense. |
| 128 | * MoralityPet: |
| 129 | ** Daryl is possibly the only person in the world Merle cares for. |
| 130 | ** Negan develops a soft spot for Carl, and is willing to let him off easy if he crosses him. [[spoiler: When Carl dies, Negan genuinely grieves and begins giving Rick offers of peace (under his continued subjugation, of course) to honor Carl. He later forms a genuine attachment to Judith and begins making strides to a HeelFaceTurn for her sake.]] |
| 131 | * TheMountainsOfIllinois: Atlanta residents were amused to see the [[http://walkingdeadlocations.com/?p=56 picturesque]] [[http://www.cobbenergycentre.com/about_cobb.aspx Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre]] masquerading as [[http://www.cdc.gov/museum/visitor.htm CDC]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CDC_HDR_I.jpg headquarters]], miles away. |
| 132 | * {{Mundanger}}: |
| 133 | ** In "When the Dead Come Knocking," the group encounters a crazed hobo with a shotgun. |
| 134 | ** In the first half of Season 4, the group faces a major threat in the form of a deadly virus. |
| 135 | ** Perhaps the most striking example is in "Them," where the main threats to the group are starvation, dehydration, a pack of wild dogs, and a storm. In the situation with the dogs, the group had never before been attacked by wild animals, explaining their MassOhCrap. |
| 136 | ** Once reaching Alexandria in the back half of Season 5, the main threats to the group are an abusive alcoholic, a lying coward, and a suicidal priest. |
| 137 | ** In a twisted way, the walkers become this starting in the second half of Season 9. The survivors had grown so competent at dealing with them, up to and including large herds, that everyone was kind of used to them. Then the Whisperers arrived, and began hiding themselves in hordes of walkers, meaning that now any group of walkers may well be hiding a murderous gang of psychopaths with knives. |
| 138 | * MurderIsTheBestSolution: |
| 139 | ** Carl seems to have developed this belief, due to every one of the group's attempts to avert this trope going horribly wrong. He begins to grow out of this come Season 5 (even after the Terminus battle), leaving Rick to take up the reins. |
| 140 | ** Carol also develops this belief, leading to conflict with [[spoiler: Morgan]] in season 6. |
| 141 | ** Simon claims to champion this in season 8, but it’s more about satisfying his unquenchable bloodlust and psychotic desires. |
| 142 | ** If you ask Pope what he wants you to do about someone, the answer is probably just to kill them. |
| 143 | * MushroomSamba: [[spoiler:Michonne is drugged by Virgil when he takes her to his island base in "What We Become", and spends a large chunk of the episode experiencing a terrifying hallucination that spans her entire time on the series, and showing her making different choices throughout, including choosing not to save Andrea, joining the Saviors, killing Glenn and Heath, wielding Lucille during the infamous "Eeeny Meeny Miney Mo" scene, before finally being killed by Daryl and Rick]]. |
| 144 | * TheMusketeer: Almost everyone is enforced to become equally skilled in using melee weapons and firearms in case the latter runs out of ammo. |
| 145 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: |
| 146 | ** Carl has a silent version of this at the end of "Judge, Jury, Executioner" when he realizes [[spoiler: the walker he inadvertently freed killed Dale.]] |
| 147 | ** Rick has a brief moment of this after [[spoiler: killing Shane.]] |
| 148 | ** Daryl is completely devastated when [[spoiler: his attempt to defy Negan doesn't result in ''him'' getting killed, but ''Glenn''.]] |
| 149 | ** Gabriel gets a brief moment of this after he [[spoiler:brutally stabs Dante to death following the latter's outing as TheMole for the Whisperers]]. |
| 150 | ** It takes pretty much an entire season, but Negan ultimately gets this when coming face to face with young Hershel and later experiencing an eerily similar situation finally gets through to him the absolute evil he inflicted on Maggie and so many others when he [[spoiler:murdered Glenn, and in the series finale he sincerely apologizes to her for it.]] |
| 151 | * MyGreatestFailure: Daryl considers both [[spoiler: Beth and Glenn's deaths as this for him. Beth because he made a careless mistake that resulted in her eventual abduction, and Glenn because his attempt to defy Negan resulted in Negan choosing Glenn to die. He can't even bring himself to speak to Maggie for almost the entirety of the rest of the season.]] |
| 152 | * MythologyGag: |
| 153 | ** Plenty of moments or scripts are lifted almost directly from the comics. For a few Season 5 examples, there's Aaron's introduction and Gareth's speech to Bob [[spoiler: as he eats his leg in front of him.]] |
| 154 | ** Several titles of volumes are made into episode titles; among them "This Sorrowful Life" (Merle's [[spoiler: last episode]]) and "Too Far Gone" (the climactic prison war). There's also "A Larger World", the tag line of the second half of Season 6 which adapts that volume. |
| 155 | ** Glenn and Maggie first become involved in episode 10, much like their comic counterparts in the comic's 10th issue. |
| 156 | ** Michonne debuted in episode 19, much liker her comic counterpart did in the comic's 19th issue. |
| 157 | ** In "Live Bait", [[spoiler: the Governor]] uses the name Brian as an alias. [[spoiler: In ''Literature/TheWalkingDeadRiseOfTheGovernor'', which is canon to the comics but not the TV series, Brian was the Governor's true name, as he took his brother's identity after his death]]. Later that episode, Lilly [[spoiler: watches helplessly as the Governor caves in her walker father's head.]] In the Telltale game, [[spoiler: Lilly watches helplessly as Kenny caves in her walker father's head.]] |
| 158 | ** Rick has been using his left hand for the first half of Season 4, nodding to his HandicappedBadass status in the comics. |
| 159 | ** The adaptation of the prison war occurs in Season 4, episode eight, whereas in the comic it took place in issue 48. |
| 160 | ** After the events of "The Grove", Carol, Tyreese and Judith are in a single party. All three characters at that point in the timeline were SparedByTheAdaptation. |
| 161 | ** The Season 5 premiere had a lot of fun with it. |
| 162 | *** [[spoiler: Glenn]] was almost beaten by a baseball bat in the head twice. [[spoiler: This is how he met his end at the comic]]. |
| 163 | *** At the same above scene, a {{mook}} is sharpening a knife behind [[spoiler: Rick]], with the knife looking like the one the Governor used in the comic to [[spoiler: chop his (right) hand off]]. |
| 164 | *** Carol and Tyreese encounters a blonde walker wearing Andrea's comic outfit. |
| 165 | ** By the end of "Slabtown", Beth has acquired scars across her forehead and cheek, which coupled with the blonde ponytail make her appearance strikingly similar to that of Andrea from the comics. |
| 166 | ** In "What Happened and What's Going On," [[spoiler: Glenn]] picks up a baseball bat, once again reminding comic book fans of the character's original death and seemingly hinting towards Negan's approach in the series' future. [[spoiler: It ended up being {{Foreshadowing}} as Glenn is eventually killed by Negan with a bat just as in the comics.]] |
| 167 | ** "First Time Again" has its flashback sequences all in black and white, giving it a similar appearance to the comics. |
| 168 | ** In "The Next World", Carl hangs around the woods with Enid reading ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'', another Robert Kirkman comic. ''Talking Dead'' immediately Lampshades this in its quiz of the week. |
| 169 | ** In “Some Guy”, Gunther threatens to decapitate Ezekiel and present his head to Negan on a pike. This was the fate of Comic Ezekiel, who was killed by Alpha this way, [[spoiler:but his TV counterpart is fortunate enough to survive this fate.]] |
| 170 | ** In “The Storm”, Carol stops [[spoiler:Lydia]] from committing suicide by feeding herself to a walker. This was how Carol’s comic counterpart died. |
| 171 | ** In "Silence the Whisperers", Michonne says she and Ezekiel would never work out as a couple after he kisses her in a moment of loneliness. Ezekiel jokes that maybe they'd work out in another universe, alluding to how they were a couple in the comics. |
| 172 | ** In Season 11, Yumiko and her long-lost brother Tomi take the roles played by Michonne and her daughter Elodie in the comics. Tomi is introduced working in a bakery named "Elodie's". |
| 173 | ** In "Lockdown" and "Family", both Negan and Ezekiel make several remarks that they shouldn't even be here. This is because Negan was PutOnABus and did not participate in the Commonwealth arc, whereas Ezekiel was one of Alpha's pike massacre victims. |
| 174 | * NamedByTheAdaptation: A number of characters. |
| 175 | ** The bicycle girl walker was named Hannah. [[AscendedExtra She was also given a backstory]]. |
| 176 | ** Ed Peletier, Carol's husband and Sophia's father, was given a full name compared to the comics where he's only mentioned. By extension, Carol and Sophia also get surnames. |
| 177 | ** Shane Walsh, Glenn Rhee, and Dale Horvath are also given surnames (the latter two of which were revealed by WordOfGod). Andrea and Amy may have been surnamed Harrison via an easter egg in ''Survival Instinct'', and Tyreese and Sasha were given the last name Williams by Tyreese's action figure. |
| 178 | ** The Marauders were named "The Claimers", with each member getting names as well. |
| 179 | ** Technically Mary since Chris' mother is not a character in the comic. |
| 180 | ** Abraham's nameless children were given the names Becca and A.J. |
| 181 | ** The posthumous members of Abraham's group were given the names Warren, Rex, Josiah, Dirk, Stephanie, Josephine, Roger, and Pam. |
| 182 | ** The nameless Savior biker was called Bud on the show, as revealed by his actor on a Reddit AMA. |
| 183 | ** Negan and Lucille Smith, Ezekiel Sutton, Yumiko Okumura, and Luke Abrams all get surnames. |
| 184 | * ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Saviors begin getting some substantial parallels to Nazi Germany, particularly in their subplots after Season 8. |
| 185 | ** In general they operate as a fascist regime with a mass-murdering tyrant, who demand regular tributes from vassal states they’ve subjugated with violence lest they incur more violence. They regularly violate any peace brokered between them and their states and any attempt at appeasement just makes things worse for the communities who only end up getting bullied further. They also share the Third Reich’s FascistButInefficient trope since when the actual rebellion from their slaves begins, the Sanctuary almost immediately runs out of supplies once the constant stream of tributes stops. |
| 186 | ** After the Savior War, the surviving Saviors are very much in a state like Germany after both World Wars. Like after the First World War, they have been subjected to severe punishment and restrictions for their actions in the war by their former enemies, leading to great unrest and poverty as their own supplies fail and resentment builds against the other communities. Like after World War II, the Saviors are now governed by a rotating set of appointed leaders from the other communities, just like how Berlin was divvied up between the Allied nations. Several holdouts still feel loyalty to their old leader, and several Saviors end up killed by vengeful survivors from the other communities as retribution. |
| 187 | ** We are introduced to a young man in Season 10 who was the child of two loyal Saviors who died during the war. He seems like a normal guy until he gets a spotlight episode in which he proves to still worship Negan’s old regime and his mass-murdering ways, believing the good old days are when the Saviors ruled the other communities with an iron fist. He’s more like a Neo-Nazi by any other name given his disturbing fanaticism towards a dead fascist regime and wanting to bring it back. |
| 188 | ** The trope gets PlayedWith when it comes to genocide, however. Negan normally does not even want to hear of the idea since he knows that he cannot run his empire without people alive to provide and work for it, and because in his mind he is making his slave states stronger through his enslavement of them. His second-in-command Simon, however, is a full-tilt bloodthirsty maniac who hides his bloodlust behind a very thin facade of wanting to teach the communities a lesson, and has committed at least two known acts of genocide - the Library, and the men of Oceanside. The latter instance is one that Negan has displayed disgust for. That being said, since the last Librarian was used in the subjugation of Alexandria’s leadership, Negan presumably signed off on it, and at the end of the war displayed a willingness to wipe out all the communities after being pushed too far. |
| 189 | * NearRapeExperience: |
| 190 | ** A drunken Shane nearly forces himself on Lori in "TS-19", until her resistance makes him stop and think about what he was doing. |
| 191 | ** In "When The Dead Come Knocking", the Governor forces [[spoiler:Maggie]] into a ShamefulStrip and forces her down as if to rape her. When she makes clear that it won't break her, he stops. |
| 192 | ** Slimeball cop Gorman tries to rape Beth in "Slabtown", but she quickly feeds him to a nearby walker. |
| 193 | ** Michonne and Carl are threatened with it by [[spoiler: Joe's group]] so that they can [[ForcedToWatch force Rick to watch.]] Carl gets the worst of it, because he's actually being held down and on the verge of being raped when Rick [[PapaWolf takes matters into his own hands.]] |
| 194 | ** In "Something They Need" David attempts to rape Sasha, and is stopped by Negan. |
| 195 | * NeverFoundTheBody: |
| 196 | ** Rick locks [[spoiler:Andrew the convict]] in with a bunch of walkers and assumes him to be dead. He shows up again a few episodes later, [[CreateYourOwnVillain understandably pissed off]]. |
| 197 | ** When [[spoiler: T-Dog is killed, the group finds Carol's headscarf nearby and assumes she died as well. They even go to the trouble of digging a grave, filling it back up with nothing, and setting a marker. Daryl later finds Carol trapped in a cell, half-delirious from dehydration and starvation.]] |
| 198 | ** During the [[spoiler: attack of the prison]] in "Too Far Gone", Rick and Carl find [[spoiler: Judith's empty baby carrier, and they both break down in tears and anger,]] assuming she's dead. In "Inmates", however, we discover [[spoiler: Tyreese took her from her carrier and with him, Lizzie, and Mica]]. [[spoiler: What's more heartbreaking is Season 4 ends and Rick and Carl still have no idea that Judith is alive (despite Lizzie's "[[SarcasmMode well intentioned]]" attempts to kill her)]]. |
| 199 | ** Rick is able to shoot Gareth in the shoulder during the Terminus battle and we see him go down, but he's never shown to have died from it. Rick is fully aware of this trope by this point and orders the group to return to the compound to wipe out the survivors, but he's essentially overruled by his group. Sure enough, Gareth and the survivors of Terminus are back to bother them in the next episode. |
| 200 | ** PlayedWith in the group's main assault on the Saviors. While they find (after creating) plenty of bodies, they have no idea which one of them is Negan, and the few Survivors they are able to question are less then helpful about clearing up the confusion. [[spoiler: Negan wasn't even there, nor were the bulk of his Saviors, and he turns up again in the season finale to make the group pay.]] |
| 201 | ** Daryl says this verbatim when explaining to Carol why he's spent so long on his own looking for [[spoiler: Rick after the latter's presumed death.]] |
| 202 | * NeverMyFault: |
| 203 | ** Shane refuses to accept that his poor management of the Atlanta camp left them wide open targets for walkers, and blames Rick for the losses they take. |
| 204 | ** Deranged Dr. Pete Anderson is so deluded that he blames everyone else for his troubles at the end of Season 5, despite the fact that it all started because he was beating his wife. Even when he [[spoiler: accidentally kills Reg, Pete doesn’t even try to claim it was an accident and immediately blames Rick]]. |
| 205 | ** The Saviors generally are childish bullies who abuse their slave states even if they’re being totally compliant. If there’s a problem, it’s not their fault, even if they openly started it. |
| 206 | ** The Savior Gavin is a lazy, selfish prick who claims to want everything to go as smoothly and peacefully as possible, but allows his asshole lieutenant Jared to antagonize the Kingdom and create more tensions. Despite Jared clearly repeatedly starting conflict, Gavin just chastises Ezekiel for everything, all the way up to when he tries to directly attack the Kingdom. |
| 207 | * NeverTrustATrailer: The trailers usually really can't be trusted too much, especially the ones shown at Comic Con. |
| 208 | ** The first season finale trailer heavily implied that Andrea was infected. [[spoiler: She is, just not in the same way as Jim was, as the audience finds out at the end of the second season.]] |
| 209 | ** Likewise, the trailer for "Save the Last One" [[spoiler: implied Shane might be infected. He's not but he was injured by Otis, who pulled out a chunk of his hair and scalp in their struggle]]. |
| 210 | ** One scene from the trailer was Carl with Rick's hat, aiming a gun, which is almost a perfect recreation of the comic panel where [[spoiler: he shoots Shane in the first story arc from the comic. It was actually him pointing at a walker stuck in mud. Ultimately he shot Shane one episode later]]. |
| 211 | ** Another scene for the trailer hinted at Merle's return, with Daryl saying "sorry, brother." [[spoiler: He's actually talking to the mauled Dale, whom Daryl is about to MercyKill.]] |
| 212 | ** The third season's Comic-Con trailer indicated that the Governor showed up at the prison early on in the season, and met with Rick, Daryl and T-Dog. While it was accurate in that Daryl and T-Dog had become Rick's two right-hand men, [[spoiler: T-Dog dies ''long'' before the Governor first arrives at the prison. The Governor's first visit is to attack it, not to talk, as the trailer suggests.]] |
| 213 | ** Promos for "Us" showed a long haired brunette man being beaten down, making it seem that Daryl is being beaten by the Claimers. Instead, it's the lying (and similarly long-haired and brunette) Len who bites it, which is pretty funny considering he's getting beaten for trying to get ''Daryl'' beaten by the gang. |
| 214 | ** The fifth season's Comic-Con trailer seemingly depicted Gareth becoming a TokenEvilTeammate to Rick's group as they journey to Washington, D.C., and Rick warning Carl that he doesn't trust him. Gareth remains an antagonist for the entirety of his presence on the show, and Rick was actually speaking about Father Gabriel. |
| 215 | ** The clip released of the opening of "What Happened And What's Going On" was assumed to be depicting [[spoiler: Beth's funeral. The episode reveals it was a trick, and that it's the funeral of Tyreese.]] |
| 216 | ** The sixth season's Comic-Con trailer (as well as a lot of pre-season advertising) seems to imply a conflict between Rick and Morgan, but this does not happen - instead, it's Morgan and ''Carol'' who have major beef the entire season. In a more minor example, it showed a lot of scenes in color that, when they appeared in "First Time Again," were actually in black and white. |
| 217 | ** The eighth season's Comic-Con trailer strongly implied the season premiere, which was also the show's 100th episode, would feature a major battle. However, the actual season premiere is actually very light on actual action, and mostly consists of the set-up for the war. The fighting proper starts in the second episode. In a smaller example, a scene depicted Negan slamming Lucille angrily on his table; in "The Big Scary U", he is actually mostly offscreen when he does this, as the camera is focusing on Simon, who is then cut off by Negan. |
| 218 | ** The trailers of midlate Season 9 up to the mid season finale hinted that the walkers were somehow evolving into more intelligent, deadly threats with a mind of their own. [[spoiler:Comic fans knew what was coming, but those who hadn’t read the comics were in for a shock when the Whisperers, antagonists who disguise themselves as walkers, were revealed.]] |
| 219 | * NextSundayAD: If the zombie apocalypse started in 2010, the date the first episode aired, then [[https://walkingdead.fandom.com/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_TV_Show_Timeline#Day_.2B1.2C170-TBA Season 9 after Rick's disappearance is set in 2020, some two years in the future from “Who Are You Now?”’s airing in 2018.]] A few time skips and the delays in production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ended up more or less putting the fictional timeline of the show in line with the real world’s timeline by Season 11’s premiere in 2021. |
| 220 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 221 | ** The main characters try to pull a [[DeadWeight fat walker]] out of a well in an attempt to prevent the well from getting contaminated. It rips in half, pouring guts and blood all over and in the well. |
| 222 | ---> '''T-Dog''': [[SarcasmMode Good thing we didn't do anything stupid, like shoot it.]] |
| 223 | ** Instead of killing [[spoiler: Andrew in the contained courtyard filled with walkers]], Rick locks the door on him and [[NeverFoundTheBody assumes the walkers will finish the job]]. This comes back to hit him two episodes later in "Killer Within" when [[spoiler: Andrew, having escaped the courtyard, turns on the prison generators and cuts the chains holding the courtyard gate closed, allowing walkers to flood the prison, which results in the deaths of T-Dog and (indirectly) Lori]]. |
| 224 | ** Michonne [[spoiler: killing the Governor's undead daughter in front of him, after seeing him beg her not to. This resulting in a fight between the two, the loss of his eye, and thus starting his road to madness and the downfall of Woodbury. Although judging by his notebook, he went off the deep end after his daughter turned, and all Michonne did was strip away the veneer and hasten the inevitable conflict.]] |
| 225 | ** Morgan's failure to kill his zombified wife results in [[spoiler:her ambushing and killing Duane during a supply run.]] |
| 226 | ** Milton [[spoiler: prevents Andrea from assassinating the Governor in Season 3, claiming that he knew the man before the apocalypse and thought he was still in there. Because of this, the Governor's war on the prison continues and the Governor murders half of Woodbury, Andrea, and Milton himself.]] |
| 227 | ** [[spoiler: Tyreese refusing to kill Martin ends up leading Gareth and Martin to the group again, and Martin calls out Tyreese on this during their later DeadPersonConversation.]] |
| 228 | ** In Season 6 Episode 2, [[spoiler: Morgan refuses to kill any of the attackers at Alexandria, gives a speech about Alexandria having guns and them not having guns, and then lets them escape. On their way out, one of the Wolfs picks up a sidearm off a dead Alexandrian and holsters it in his jeans before he flees, and Morgan naturally has a mild OhCrap moment before he closes the gate behind them. Then in Episode 3, that same group Morgan let go tries to attack Rick, and while Rick manages to fight them off, they inadvertently thwart his plan to lead the walker herd away from Alexandria.]] |
| 229 | ** In Season 6 Episode 8, [[spoiler:Carol immediately skulks toward the abandoned home where Morgan is keeping the Wolves Leader after Morgan takes Denise inside to mend the Wolf's wound. Intent on killing the wolf, she tries to kill Morgan in the process due to his interference.]] [[spoiler:After Morgan knocks her out, the Wolf seizes the opportunity and knocks ''him'' out. He's also able to cut his ropes off with the knife that Carol brought in.]] |
| 230 | ** If Denise hadn't insisted on [[spoiler: joining the supply run]] in "Twice as Far," [[spoiler: she wouldn't have gotten herself killed, and Rick and the others wouldn't have needed to make the journey with Maggie to Hilltop, because they would have still had their doctor in Alexandria. Also, Daryl, Michonne, Glenn and Rosita wouldn't have left Alexandria and gotten captured, because Daryl just wanted to get revenge on Dwight for killing Denise, and the others were trying to get Daryl to come back. Negan and the Saviors would have inevitably caught up to the Alexandrians some other way, but the situation they find themselves in in "Last Day on Earth" was definitely avoidable.]] |
| 231 | *** The whole conflict with [[spoiler: the Saviors]] was avoidable, or at least postponable. When [[spoiler: the Hilltop]] asks Rick and company to take out this other group they're having problems with, Rick takes all their intelligence about [[spoiler: the Saviors]] at face value, and assumes they're just another relatively small band of jerkasses he can deal with easily. [[spoiler: He couldn't have been more wrong. Granted, Negan was going to learn about Alexandria sooner or later and make it one of his "providers," but Rick not only brought that day closer but gave Negan cause to be especially brutal when he first confronted the group.]] |
| 232 | ** In the Season 7 Premiere, Daryl [[spoiler:punches Negan in the face for taunting Rosita over Abraham's death. Daryl is quickly subdued by the Saviors but Negan says that he [[IWarnedYou already warned them that their first freakout was free]] and says they need to learn their place. So he proceeds to [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure kill Glenn]] next.]] |
| 233 | ** In Season 7, Rosita is [[AxCrazy dead set]] on killing Negan. Her first attempt fails spectacularly, with her trying to shoot him, who is only a few feet in front of her, and misses. In retaliation, Negan orders Arat to [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure kill one of the Alexandrians]]. Eugene is also taken to the Sanctuary, where he, [[DirtyCoward unsurprisingly]], voluntarily offers his services to Negan. During her other attempt, her and Sasha storm the Sanctuary, which ends up failing and Sasha committing suicide. Both attempts are literally done within days of each other. |
| 234 | ** Daryl is overeager to end the Savior War, since he personally suffered an extended period of imprisonment and torture. He refuses to follow Rick’s plan and openly defies him with his own rogue attack. [[spoiler: It fails, and ultimately not only reduces the size of the herd surrounding the Sanctuary, but provides Eugene inspiration to come up with a plan for the Saviors to escape. The very pissed off Saviors then proceed to attack Alexandria and the Kingdom, destroying the former and conquering the latter.]] |
| 235 | ** Daryl and Maggie tamper with the communities’ radio relays they use to keep in touch with each other and to monitor the movements of herds so they can sneak Maggie into Alexandria to kill Negan behind Rick’s back. While Maggie does reach her destination, the communities are left in disarray by the tampering and are unable to catch up to Rick to save him from the two herds that pursue him. |
| 236 | ** The communities becoming estranged from each other after Michonne’s traumatic experience with Jocelyn during the second TimeSkip means that at the fair, plenty of people don’t recognize each other. [[spoiler:Alpha uses this to infiltrate the fair as “Deborah from Alexandria” and is able to walk amongst her enemies and pick her victims for the pikes.]] |
| 237 | ** In Season 9, after Lydia is returned to the Whisperers, [[spoiler: Henry decides to take it upon himself to rescue her. This forces Daryl and Connie to venture into the Whisperer camp in order to save them both, and whilst they are successful, Henry's actions, despite his best intentions in saving Lydia from her mother, ultimately lead to the deaths of many characters, including Enid, Tara, Tammy, and even Henry himself. Beta even outright states that if they had simply returned Lydia to her people, none of the deaths would have occurred.]] |
| 238 | ** Max refusing to let Sebastian get away with his crimes is well-intentioned, but it leads to [[spoiler:Pamela going full-on dictator, capturing and enslaving the Coalition in a concentration camp, and having a show trial for her boyfriend Eugene that nearly gets him executed on the spot.]] |
| 239 | * NobodyPoops: |
| 240 | ** Averted in the third season, where Rick finds out the hard way that some prisoners holed up in a cafeteria for 9 months still pooped, whether or not they had the facilities for it. |
| 241 | ** During Season 9, [[spoiler:Negan]] has to have his bed pan washed out and replaced regularly due to his cell lacking a functioning toilet. He admits it sucks, but he relishes that his captors have to clean up after him. |
| 242 | ** Mays says he uses bibles as his toilet paper since there's plenty of them to be scavenged in the apocalypse. |
| 243 | ** One of the perks of the Commonwealth is that even at their screening facilities, they have fully functioning bathrooms stocked with toilet paper. Princess is appropriately delighted. |
| 244 | * NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: While Atlanta is obviously real, King County (where Shane and Rick were Deputies) and Mert County (where they take Randall in "18 Miles Out") are fictional. |
| 245 | * NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: |
| 246 | ** Judy from the webisodes is zombified by giving CPR to what she thinks is a collapsed woman. |
| 247 | ** Hershel welcoming Rick's group to his farm ultimately costs him the place that's been in his family for generations when they accidentally lure a herd onto the property. |
| 248 | ** [[spoiler: Tyreese sparing Martin allows the Hunters to find Rick's group again.]] |
| 249 | ** A peaceful exchange between Rick's group and Grady Memorial Hospital is ruined when [[spoiler:Beth gets herself killed trying to kill Dawn to save Noah. Rick later comments that maybe they should've just gone in guns blazing to save Beth and Carol.]] |
| 250 | ** [[spoiler: Morgan lets a group of Wolves go in "JSS," not wanting to kill anyone. They end up attacking Rick in the next episode, and he kills all of them.]] |
| 251 | ** [[spoiler: Daryl saves Dwight and Sherry in "Always Accountable," but they end up stealing his crossbow and his bike. It gets worse when Dwight joins the Saviors, and ends up killing Denise and taking Eugene hostage. Daryl states outright that he should have killed Dwight.]] |
| 252 | ** [[spoiler: Earlier in the same episode, Tina tries to pay respect to two of her fallen friends...only to get attacked and killed by their reanimated corpses shortly after approaching them. [[ShootTheShaggyDog And this was shortly after Daryl decided to return the group's insulin to them, rendering the whole return completely pointless.]]]] |
| 253 | ** Carl saves a complete stranger from being attacked by walkers in the woods [[spoiler:and suffers a walker bite for it]]. |
| 254 | ** Henry goes to save Lydia, the girl he likes, from the camp run by her abusive mother. That mother is Alpha, leader of the Whisperers, who takes the opportunity to expedite her plan to deal with the communities and leads to [[spoiler:the pike massacre, one of the greatest losses of life ever taken by the Coalition and Henry is among the victims.]] |
| 255 | * NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: The fight between [[spoiler:the Governor and Merle]] is pretty one-sided. [[spoiler:Too bad Merle wasn't the one doing the beating...]] |
| 256 | * NoOneCouldSurviveThat: |
| 257 | ** Rick chases Andrew into a courtyard filled with walkers and abandons him, confident that he won’t survive. [[spoiler: Andrew turns up alive and well and launches a devastating attack on the prison.]] |
| 258 | ** Woodbury has mapped out the surrounding countryside, notably a “red zone” which they deem is too infested with walkers to even attempt to journey into. When Michonne runs off into the red zone, Merle declares her good as dead and inaccurately reports her death to The Governor. Both men are shocked to discover that Rick’s group of 11 people managed to not only survive the entire winter in the red zone, but took an entire prison as a camp. It causes The Governor to see Rick’s group as a threat to his empire. |
| 259 | ** Discussed in the Season 5 premiere after the fall of Terminus. Rick wants to double back and wipe out any survivors, but most of the group wants to just keep moving, since any survivors will either die or just flee. Rick is proven right when the Terminus survivors return to harass them in the next episode. |
| 260 | ** Both Rick and Daryl accuse each other of this mindset during the Savior War, and neither are completely unjustified, either. Rick believes his siege will successfully starve the Saviors into surrendering, but Daryl thinks Rick is being too presumptuous. Daryl then mounts his own attack on the Sanctuary, and vehemently insists that it completely worked despite not having stuck around to watch the results. [[spoiler: Alexandria learns the hard way in literally hours that no, Daryl’s plan didn’t work.]] |
| 261 | ** The survivors pretty fairly assume that [[spoiler:Rick didn’t survive being at the brunt of an explosion on the bridge, and aren’t surprised when Daryl is unable to find a body. Turns out, he survived, and was rescued by Anne.]] |
| 262 | ** Daryl appears to believe he has killed Beta when he knocks him down an elevator shaft, and to be fair, he couldn’t see that the elevator itself was only a few stories down. Add in the fact that Beta is MadeOfIron, and Daryl quickly learns that Beta survived the encounter. |
| 263 | * NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: [[spoiler:The survivors at Terminus. One eventually reveals they originally genuinely tried to help people, but were attacked and resorted to cannibalism to survive. By the time Rick's group reaches Terminus they'd moved on to luring in other survivors. It's implied they even get off on cannibalism.]] |
| 264 | * NoPeriodsPeriod: Glenn indicates he read somewhere that women spending time in proximity to each other will have their cycles all line up and he wonders if that means all the women in their group will "go hormonally crazy" at the same time. Dale wisely tells him to keep that theory to himself. |
| 265 | * NobodyHereButUsBirds: Merle mentions that he and Daryl had used bird whistles to keep tabs on each other when they hunted. Later, this becomes a ChekhovsSkill in "Them" and "The Distance" when Daryl and Rick actually put this to use. |
| 266 | * NoodleIncident: Morgan telling Father Gabriel that he learned how to fight with his stick "from a cheesemaker" sounds like one. Subverted, in that it's actually explained two episodes later. Morgan wasn't lying. |
| 267 | * NothingIsScarier: |
| 268 | ** Rick goes quite a while in the pilot (not counting the ColdOpen) before he properly encounters a walker, leaving him in shock and confusion at what the hell happened as he takes in his surroundings. |
| 269 | ** We are not shown the actual beheadings of the [[spoiler:pike massacre victims at the end of Season 9, the last we see of them about to be overwhelmed as Alpha leads her people in cornering their hostages trying to escape. We do finally get to see DJ’s execution in Season 10, and it was just as horrible and heartbreaking as Season 9 made it out to be.]] |
| 270 | * NotAllowedToGrowUp: Sophia is lost in Season 2, and [[spoiler: is found to have turned into a zombie and killed]] at the mid-season finale. You can tell the actress, who is in her early teens, had grown considerably in the hiatus between the two seasons and would probably have been progressing faster than the scant weeks which were supposed to be passing could account for. |
| 271 | * NotAZombie: |
| 272 | ** Tame, generally. In the intro for the pilot episode, while looking beneath a car Rick sees a little girl's feet shuffling along. However, once he sees her fully after standing up and she turns to his voice, he realizes she's a walker, and promptly [[BoomHeadshot blows her head off]]. |
| 273 | ** Inverted in the first episode of the first season, where Rick is initially mistaken for a walker and gets whacked in the head with a shovel. A few moments later, it's noted that as Rick was talking before being knocked unconscious, he's unlikely to be a [[NotUsingTheZWord walker]], as they don't talk. |
| 274 | ** In the webisodes, Judy finds out the hard way she was wrong about that fallen person needing artificial respiration. |
| 275 | ** Inverted again with Daryl in the Season 2 episode "Chupacabra". After falling down a hill twice and getting impaled by one of his arrows as a result, he limps back to the others, dirty and bruised. When the others rush out with melee weapons, they realize he's not dead. Andrea, however, has taken aim with a rifle and nearly takes the poor guy's head off for all his trouble. |
| 276 | ** [[spoiler: Another inversion in the season 5 premiere. Carol leads a herd of walkers into Terminus, disguising herself as a walker to enter the compound. When a Terminus man begins shooting the herd, she shoots him.]] |
| 277 | ** The entire premise of the Whisperers, who are a group of humans that disguise themselves as walkers in order to move among the herds. |
| 278 | * NotSoDifferentRemark: |
| 279 | ** What Rick calls out to Dave and Tony's backup is basically the same things Dave said to try and convince them to take them in. |
| 280 | ** [[spoiler: Morales returns in Season 8]] to tell Rick that he is no better than the Saviors. While the monologue gets hamfisted, Rick had just come off of killing a Savior who was defending his infant daughter, so it sticks. |
| 281 | ** Michonne's long discussion with him in "This Sorrowful Life" leads him to realize that the Governor has been making Merle more like himself, turning him into a killer of men (which, for all he was a {{Jerkass}}, he was never a killer, not even in the army; he's killed sixteen men since joining the Governor). So to prove that he actually ''is'' different from the Governor, he lets Michonne go and sets off on his HeroicSacrifice, taking out eight of Woodbury's finest and nearly the Governor before being taken down himself. |
| 282 | ** While still put off by the Whisperers, Ozzy relates to them since the Highwaymen also do strange things to survive these strange times. |
| 283 | ** As Aaron points out to Mays, the communities are practically made of people who suffered terrible losses and were broken time and time again by the new world. This is why Aaron begins offering him a place in the communities, seeing a chance to rehabilitate him. Gabriel sees this trope in another context, believing (not without reason) that Mays is another psychopath who is too far gone to reintegrate with society. |
| 284 | ** Horrifically, Carol learns that she's almost exactly like the Savior [[EvilCounterpart Paula]]. Evidently, she also realizes she's not too far off from Alpha, if her hallucination of the deceased Whisperer leader is any indication. |
| 285 | * NotHisSled: |
| 286 | ** Season 5 opens with Glenn, Rick, Daryl, and Bob tied up and about to be killed with a baseball bat -- clearly meant to evoke [[spoiler:Glenn’s death-by-baseball-bat in the comic book, as Glenn is the first of the four in line about to be killed]]. But though the executioner winds up no less than three times, he's repeatedly interrupted and [[StuffBlowingUp and is then distracted]]. |
| 287 | ** In the penultimate episode of Season 9, [[spoiler:the disguised Alpha]] asks Ezekiel to go somewhere with her, and later Gabriel is looking for someone female, presumably his girlfriend Rosita. Ezekiel and Rosita were the most prominent [[spoiler:victims of the pike massacre in the comics, a fate that their TV counterparts escape, but at the cost of Henry and Tara’s lives.]] |
| 288 | ** “A Certain Doom” looks set to adapt [[spoiler:Gabriel’s]] comic death with the Whisperer attack and a scene of him stumbling over someone. However, he ends up saved by Maggie’s party. |
| 289 | ** “Here’s Negan” sees Carol banishing [[spoiler:Negan]] from the Coalition, and he comes to terms with the death of his wife much like he did in the comics and looks like he’s going to be PutOnABus. However, he decides to not go through with it and returns to Alexandria. |
| 290 | * NotUsingTheZWord: The characters live in a world in which the ZombieApocalypse as a fictional trope does not exist. Consequently, various groups make up their own names for the undead. Many different groups have been known to simply call them “the dead”, but for specific examples: |
| 291 | ** Morgan Jones calls them "walkers," to differentiate the dead that stayed dead from the dead that got up and started walking. He introduces the term to Rick, who spreads it everywhere he goes, causing it to become the most prominent term used in the series. |
| 292 | ** The members of the Atlanta survivor camp initially call them "geeks," as in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_show sideshow geek]], though the term is quickly replaced by "walkers." |
| 293 | ** Dr. Jenner and other government officials call them "the infected," because they are infected with the Wildfire pathogen. |
| 294 | ** The Living call them "lamebrains" and "roamers." |
| 295 | ** The people of Woodbury use the term "biters," because the fact that they bite is the most important thing about them. This later spreads to the Chambler family and Martinez's group. |
| 296 | ** Sam and Ana call them "skin-eaters." |
| 297 | ** Residents of Terminus call them "cold bodies," likely because they themselves eat warm bodies. |
| 298 | ** Everyone at Grady Memorial calls them "rotters," due to their constant decomposition. |
| 299 | ** The Alexandrians call them "roamers" until Rick's group shows up and they transition to "walkers." |
| 300 | ** The Saviors call them "growlers" and "cold bloods." |
| 301 | ** Magna and her group refer to them as "sickos". |
| 302 | ** The Whisperers, twisted psychos that they are, call them “Guardians” since they rely on them for safety. |
| 303 | * NotWithTheSafetyOnYouWont: |
| 304 | ** Rick says this, almost word for word, to an overexcited cop during the high speed chase at the beginning of the first episode. The gun in question (Glock 17) [[GunsDoNotWorkThatWay does not have a safety]], though Rick also has to tell him to [[ItWorksBetterWithBullets load the chamber]] so it may have been hazing the new guy. |
| 305 | ** He does it again in the second episode to Andrea after she apologizes for pointing a pistol at Rick. After [[spoiler: Amy dies]], Rick tries to talk to Andrea about her coming back, but she points a gun at him and tells him that she knows how the safety works. The safety [[ShownTheirWork actually is on and off]], respectively. |
| 306 | * NoZombieCannibals: Explained as the walkers only being attracted to the smell of the living, although in one scene from Season 2, while looking for Sophia, Daryl and Andrea find a walker hanging from a tree. His suicide note says he was bitten, [[spoiler: and he'd have reanimated after death even if he wasn't,]] but other walkers had subsequently eaten the flesh off his legs. It's unknown how long went between hanging himself and reanimating as a walker, however. |
| 307 | * OffTheWagon: |
| 308 | ** Hershel in "Nebraska", after [[spoiler:Shane lets the walkers out of the Greene farm and the group kills them.]] |
| 309 | ** Earl Sutton eventually takes to drinking after losing his son... and after being egged on by Gregory, [[spoiler:who manipulated him into getting drunk and angry enough to try to kill Maggie so he can retake Hilltop.]] |
| 310 | * OffhandBackhand: As the Governor walks through the smoke Rick's group threw into the midst of the InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath between [[spoiler:Merle and Daryl]], he casually shoots a walker while looking in another direction entirely. |
| 311 | * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: |
| 312 | ** In "Us", [[spoiler: Maggie explains that she used the last clip of bullets to cause a cave in that stopped a walker horde.]] |
| 313 | ** In "Conquer", [[spoiler: Glenn is shot in the shoulder and pinned down by a couple of walkers, but soon reappears later and beats Nicholas' ass.]] |
| 314 | ** At the end of "The Other Side", Sasha [[spoiler: leaves Rosita behind to stage a one-woman assault on the Saviors to get at Negan]]. The next episode simply shows her [[spoiler: captured, with Negan commenting she caused "one hell of a frackas last night".]] |
| 315 | * OhCrap: |
| 316 | ** Started with a HopeSpot when Rick, while in Atlanta, sees a helicopter and tries to follow it, then promptly hits the skids when he turns a corner and sees a dense mob of walkers filling almost the entire street in front of him. The show starts with this trope here and never looks back. |
| 317 | ** Gareth has exactly this look on his face when Rick has him at his mercy and Gareth spots the red-handled machete Rick promised to kill him with. |
| 318 | * OnceASeason: |
| 319 | ** Starting with Season 2, every season, two major characters will die in the same scene (or at least the same arc). [[spoiler:Dale and Shane]] die in the last few episodes of Season 2; [[spoiler: Lori and T-Dog]] both die in Season 3’s “Killer Within”; Season 4: [[spoiler:Hershel and The Governor]] are both killed in Season 4’s prison war; [[spoiler:Beth and Tyreese]] die in the span of Season 5’s two episodes, the mid season premiere and finale, respectively. [[spoiler:Deanna and Jessie]] are the major casualties of Season 6’s “No Way Out” arc; [[spoiler:Abraham and Glenn]] are killed by Negan in the Season 7 premiere, and [[spoiler:Carl and major recurring Savior villain Gavin]] die in the same Season 8 episode, “Honor”. For Season 9, the ante is upped to three when [[spoiler:Henry, Tara, and Enid are all killed by Alpha in “The Calm Before”]]. It also is subverted in “What Comes After”, which features [[spoiler:the disappearance of Rick and the last appearance of Maggie before she’s PutOnABus.]] In Season 10, [[spoiler: Earl Sutton, Mary and Alpha]] all die in "Walk With Us". |
| 320 | ** Starting with Season 4, the show begins killing a survivor who serves as a medic at least once a season. [[spoiler:Hershel and Caleb die in Season 4, Beth dies in Season 5, Denise dies in Season 6, Dr. Emmett Carson for Season 7, his brother Dr. Harlan Carson in Season 8, Enid in Season 9, and Siddiq for Season 10.]] |
| 321 | ** Every season features an AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs scene in which usually a long-standing base for the survivors is lost. Season 1 has the fish Fry attack which forces the group to vacate the camp ground they originally gathered at, Season 2 has the Greene family farm overrun by a herd, and Season 3 has The Governor attack the prison multiple times, though it manages to survive his assaults. [[spoiler: The prison’s]] luck runs out in Season 4, and Gabriel’s church is overrun by walkers in Season 5. In Season 6, Alexandra suffers a massive walker attack that it manages to recover from, and later is able to fend off a Savior attack in Season 7. [[spoiler:Alexandria]] is bombed in Season 8 and the Kingdom is temporarily abandoned, but both places recover by Season 9, in which the [[spoiler:latter]] falls into disrepair and its residents are forced to take refuge at Hilltop. In Season 10, [[spoiler:Hilltop]] is burned down by the Whisperers in the Battle of Hilltop, though the survivors are optimistic they can rebuild one day. The Whisperers later attack Alexandria, only to find its residents fled ahead of time to another location, so they leave the settlement relatively untouched. |
| 322 | * OncePerEpisode: Every single episode has an obligatory zombie killing scene, no matter how contrived and shoehorned into the plot it may be. “Splinter” in Season 10 is the only episode of the entire series to not feature a single walker kill. |
| 323 | * OneBulletLeft: |
| 324 | ** Otis and Shane as they escape from the zombies. [[spoiler: Shane uses his on Otis, so he can get away]]. |
| 325 | ** Daryl gets down to his last crossbow bolt as of "Chupacabra", but makes more bolts in later episodes. |
| 326 | * OneLastSmoke: |
| 327 | ** Zigzgged in the season 5 finale. When Aaron and Darryl are trapped in a car and surrounded by dozens of walkers, Daryl wants to sacrifice himself drawing them away. He only asks to finish his cigarette first. (Aaron talks him out of it) |
| 328 | ** And again in 11.8 "For Blood" (the finale of season 11A) when Daryl offers a cigarette to a Reaper, who puts it in his mouth just as Daryl then slits his throat. |
| 329 | * OneSteveLimit: |
| 330 | ** Averted. In season 3, the Governor recruits an asthmatic kid named Noah to be part of his group that attacks the prison. In season 5, we meet a much more significant character named Noah, one who eventually joins the group. |
| 331 | ** Another aversion, in season 4 Rick and Carol meet survivors Sam and Ana, and in seasons 5 and 6 Jessie's youngest son is also named Sam. |
| 332 | ** Not to mention Bob Stookey and Bob Lamson (hell, this is even a minor plot point). |
| 333 | ** Theere was Dave's scouting partner Tony from Season 2 and a member of The Claimers named Tony from Season 3. |
| 334 | ** Tara Chambler's father from Season 4 was named David. Two seasons earlier one of the DisasterScavengers that Rick encountered at the abandonned bar was named Dave. There was also a prison newcomer named David who was burned to death. In Season 6, one of the Alexandria survivors from the quarry arc is named David. Then finally, there's a Savior named David. |
| 335 | ** The leader of the Claimers is named Joe and there's a Savior nicknamed "Fat Joey." |
| 336 | ** During Season 3, when the group arrives at the prison and are still seperated from Andrea. One of the prisoners they encounter is named is Andrew, which is the masculine form of the name Andrea. |
| 337 | ** There was Atlanta Camp survivor Jim, who was left by the others after he was bitten and Beth's farmhand boyfriend from Season 2 was named Jimmy. |
| 338 | ** The second-in-command of Martinez's camp was named Pete Dolgen. Alexandria survivor Jessie Anderson's husband was also named Pete. |
| 339 | ** One of the Prison children is named Molly. One of the Saviors in Paula's group was also named Molly. |
| 340 | * OnlyAFleshWound: Played straight and subverted. |
| 341 | ** Subverted in the Season 2 opener, T-Dog severs a major artery during the horde incident on the highway, and loses a significant amount of blood. He ends up running a high fever and gets blood poisoning for two days before Daryl gives him strong antibiotics for the pain, and he continues to wear an arm patch throughout the rest of the season. |
| 342 | ** Subverted with Daryl, who gets an arrow through his side in "Chupacabra" and proves to be strong enough to make it back to camp, in spite of being visibly impaired and walking with a limp. He continues to have trouble walking for several episodes thereafter. |
| 343 | ** Carl is injured via a rifle shot that penetrated through a deer before hitting him, and requires two surgeries and additional equipment to save his life. Less than a week later, he's up and walking like nothing ever happened. And as the OneHitPolykill page shows, even low powered rounds can retain lethal force after going through a target. |
| 344 | ** In Season 2, Randall (a member of the "Philadelphia crew" Rick, Glenn, and Hershel encountered at a bar) has to be rescued by Rick after he spears his lower leg through a pointed fence. We see very little of his recovery time, and Daryl even re-opens the wound to torture him. In "18 Miles Out", an apparently short time later, Randall is shown to be walking just fine and even bends his legs to escape from his bonds without much trouble. |
| 345 | * OnlyOneName: Many characters are only every referred to by their first name. |
| 346 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: |
| 347 | ** Hershel bitterly calls Andrew an asshole in Season 3, a biting statement by a man who had mellowed into the all-loving TeamDad of the group by this point. |
| 348 | ** Despite being the resident pacifist during the Savior War, Jesus does not deny that he believes Negan deserves to die for all the atrocities he has committed. |
| 349 | ** Gabriel gets a moment of this in Season 10. [[spoiler:After discovering that Dante killed Siddiq, and nearly killed Rosita and Coco, and that he's been working as TheMole for the Whisperers the entire time he's been in Alexandria, Gabriel visits Dante in his cell, and gives his usual speech about people deserving second chances that he had previously used on both Rosita and Negan. Just as it seems like he might take his usual pacifistic route, and possibly even let Dante go, Gabriel then pulls a knife and brutally ''stabs Dante to death''. Given Gabriel has ''always'' been the voice arguing against violence in response to many enemy actions - not to mention, the only people we've seen him actually kill have been in the heat of battle - this scene just goes to highlight just ''how much'' Dante's betrayal and attack on those Gabriel holds dear really shook him to his core.]] |
| 350 | ** Downplayed with Jerry, who can become perfectly serious in combat despite being known as the local BigFun. But there are occasions where he slips into a harsher, more cynical attitude and that’s a strong cause for alarm. |
| 351 | * OpenHeartDentistry: |
| 352 | ** Hershel is a veterinarian. He's also the only medical practitioner available to save Carl. This is actually somewhat justifiable. Hershel would likely be a farm animal vet (Lori even asks if he's done the procedure on pigs before). Pigs are actually a very good substitute for the human body. Sure it wouldn't be exactly the same, but it would be similar enough to make the procedure plausible. |
| 353 | ** In Season 6, after the recent death of the town’s surgeon, Dr. Denise Cloyd is forced to become the town’s medic, despite being a psychiatrist. Through some crash courses and losing a few of her first patients, ultimately Denise is able to step up and become a good medic in her own right. |
| 354 | * OurZombiesAreDifferent: |
| 355 | ** The zombies in the show can be surprisingly smart and agile, depending on their physical state when seen. They've been seen using rocks to smash through glass, the pilot episode showed one grasping at a doorknob as if attempting to open it, and a couple actually managed to climb over a short chain-link fence in pursuit of Rick and Glenn. By Seasons 2 and 3, however, their continuing decay seems to have reduced their capabilities. |
| 356 | ** Discussed in detail between the Governor and the researcher Milton in "Walk with Me". Milton explains that the walkers Michonne was traveling with stopped trying to attack her because she cut off their arms and lower jaws. He later hypothesizes that the walkers retain a slight recollection of who they once were, and that they also starve (albeit slower than living humans). |
| 357 | ** One zombie [[spoiler:the Governor's daughter Penny]] is shown going after a bowl of raw meat -- a rare case of a zombie ''not'' going for the living. |
| 358 | * OutOfFocus: Occasionally a character will not get as much screen time as they once did, though often they do eventually step back into the spotlight. |
| 359 | ** T-Dog is a background character in Season Two, barely getting any lines in the season (though apparently the show runners were shocked when fans asked if the character would receive more screen time in the next season). |
| 360 | ** Rick himself, along with Glenn, don't get a lot of focus in the first half of Season 5, but this changes as in the second half of the season they reach Alexandria. |
| 361 | ** A large chunk of the show's regulars such as Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Eugene, and Carol don't get a terribly large amount of focus in the first half of Season 6, since more time is spent fleshing out the Alexandrians like Deanna, Spencer, and Aaron. The former three also spend most of their time away from Alexandria leading the horde away from town during this half of the season. |
| 362 | ** While Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Eugene, and Carol return to focus in the second half of Season 6, Glenn remains OutOfFocus up until [[spoiler:his death at the hands of Negan in the Season 7 premiere]]. |
| 363 | ** Carl does little in the second half of Season 7, mostly relegated to the background. |
| 364 | ** Despite having some key moments and regular screen-time nonetheless, Carol has little development or focus in Season 8. |
| 365 | ** Michonne and Rosita spend much of the first half of Season 8 recovering from injuries. The latter is also due to Christian Serratos being heavily pregnant at the time of filming. Rosita later gets another bout of OutOfFocus in late Season 10 due to Serratos working on other projects outside the show at the time. |
| 366 | ** Michonne also makes limited appearances in Season 10 due to the season [[spoiler:being the last for Danai Gurira, who wanted to leave the show for other projects and thus her character is written out towards the end of the season.]] |
| 367 | * PacifismBackfire: |
| 368 | ** Morgan spares a group of Wolves who end up attacking Rick. Morgan’s arc in Season 7 revolves around him learning this trope the hard way. |
| 369 | ** In Season 8, Jesus decides to spare a Savior who claimed to be a captive worker. Fair enough, but the man turns out to be lying, takes Jesus hostage, and crushes critical medicine. Even when he gets free, Jesus still vehemently refuses to kill him. And at the end of the season, despite preaching to his fellow survivors all season how they should spare the Saviors, [[spoiler: the egg gets on Jesus’ face when Rick spares Negan, the one Savior Jesus wanted dead.]] |
| 370 | * PaintingTheMedium: The car alarm blaring from Glen's ill-gotten sports car from the first season matches the beat of the background music perfectly. |
| 371 | * PantsPositiveSafety: Basically everyone but Rick, who has his hip holster from his old uniform. Most notable with Shane, who used to be his department's ''firearm safety instructor.'' Again, may be justifiable. Police officers are '''notorious''' for having poor home security systems despite having SeenItAll. It wouldn't be a stretch that a gun safety specialist would somehow convince themselves that, since they know better, they can take greater risks. It would be the same kind of fallacy. Eg. they put the safety on then put the gun in their pants, thinking that would be enough, but not thinking that the action of walking may click the safety off. |
| 372 | * ParentalNeglect: The sheer number of times Carl is allowed to wander off on his own, ignored, or otherwise left to his own devices is astounding considering it's the middle of a zombie outbreak. Even at times when there's no reason whatsoever not to. Many of the parents in Alexandria also don't keep a close eye on their children, despite walkers being right outside the city walls at all times. |
| 373 | * PartyScattering: Happened twice. |
| 374 | ** Following the events of "Too Far Gone", the core survivor group has separated into the following smaller factions: |
| 375 | *** Rick and Carl. |
| 376 | *** Daryl and Beth. |
| 377 | *** Maggie, Sasha, and Bob. |
| 378 | *** Tyreese and the kids. |
| 379 | *** Glenn and Tara. |
| 380 | *** Michonne on her own. |
| 381 | ** After defeating the Hunters in Season 5, the group splits into three parties: Abraham, Glenn, Maggie, Eugene, Rosita, and Tara going to Washington D.C. to find a cure, Daryl and Carol on a rescue mission to save Beth in Atlanta, and the rest who stays behind in Fr. Gabriel's church. |
| 382 | * ThePatriarch: Hershel Greene, especially when he becomes the de facto leader of the prison community in Season 4. |
| 383 | * PetTheDog: |
| 384 | ** Shane has one of these moments in "Nebraska" when he's trying to console Carol over [[spoiler:the discovery of Sophia being a walker in the barn the whole time she's been missing, especially since he had arrogantly roared at the group that Sophia was dead right to her face.]] His kind words and the care he uses in cleaning up her hands and arms shows that he has a lot of caring in him, but it's been pointed out that much of Shane's dialogue in this scene ends up being just about his own problems. |
| 385 | ** Merle, of all people, gets one when he expresses his condolences to Andrea over the death of her sister Amy. |
| 386 | ---> "She was a good kid." |
| 387 | ** The Governor also aids a naive family out of pure altruism in Season Four that he would've considered weak a few episodes prior. |
| 388 | ** Joe doesn't punish Daryl for not adhering to the "Claimed" system since he's new and wouldn't know of it, so he defuses his conflict with Len peacefully. |
| 389 | ** Subverted in "Four Walls and a Roof"; Gareth initially offers Gabriel the chance to leave his church in peace [[spoiler: and not get eaten]] since he just met the group and never went to Terminus, but it's just a way to flush the group out of their hiding place. |
| 390 | ** When the group is captured by the Saviors in "Last Day on Earth", the villains rush Maggie's stretcher to force her down. Abraham stops them and asks for permission for the group to get the very ill Maggie down themselves, and Simon allows it. |
| 391 | ** Negan doesn't punish the group for Michonne speaking out of turn in "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be", though it also has to do with the fact she's not physically resisting him. He also gifts the group a truck so they can use it to collect supplies for their tribute. |
| 392 | ** Negan generally is prone to doing this when he realizes he has genuinely upset someone. [[spoiler: Realizing he's killing her husband, Negan sincerely apologizes to Maggie for doing it.]] After taunting Carl about his [[spoiler: destroyed eye]], causing him to cry, Negan sincerely backtracks and admits he forgets that Carl is still a kid. He also expresses sympathy to Carl [[spoiler: for his mother's death and having to put her down]], and returns Carl home safe and sound - where he also dotes on Judith. After taunting Olivia about her weight and causing ''her'' to cry, he apologizes and admits he was out of line. |
| 393 | ** Gavin, the liaison between the Saviors and the Kingdom, is a pretty chill guy, albeit still being a selfish prick. He keeps things on the level with Ezekiel, noting his appreciation for the Kingdom always being on time with their tributes. When he ''does'' see the need to kill someone for a mistake, he's more regretful than anything, and later is horrified when [[spoiler: Jared kills Benjamin.]] |
| 394 | ** The Savior Laura is nothing but patient, understanding, and kind to [[spoiler: Eugene]] when he's being conscripted to the Saviors and helps him adjust to his new home, after having previously been a dick to him. Her old attitude resurfaces, however, when he tries to look away from Negan’s gruesome punishment of someone else, and she smugly forces him to watch. |
| 395 | ** The Whisperers see dying by walker bite as an honorable death. Therefore, Beta comforts a dying, bitten Whisperer in “Chokepoint”, summons his wife to be with him, and says he will always be one of them. Of course, this becomes more macabre since Beta is literally saying that the Whisperer will always be with them... as a walker and a member of their “Guardians”. |
| 396 | ** When she's going off the deep end, [[spoiler:Pamela]] still gives Max a chance to sign a waiver absolving her of responsibility for [[spoiler:Sebastian's death]] due to having genuinely been fond of her. It beats what she has planned for [[spoiler:Eugene, a show trial that ''will'' result in him being sentenced to death within an hour.]] |
| 397 | * PermaStubble: Rick is the king of this look. He even had a stubbly beard when he woke from a months-long coma! Supposedly, the nurses shaved him for easier access to his face for tubes and the like until the hospital was overrun. |
| 398 | * PerpetualMotionMonster: The dead are hungry, but never actually seem to starve to death. At least one character ([[spoiler: Patricia, at Hershel's farm]]) gives them food anyway because [[spoiler: the Greene family believes they're still alive]]. In the third season, however, we learn from Milton that they ''can'' starve, but they do it at a much slower rate. |
| 399 | * ThePlague: The plot of early Season 4. |
| 400 | * ThePlan: |
| 401 | ** Shane attempts one in order to get Rick out of the way so he could have Lori all to himself, as well as reclaim leadership of the group. He fails. |
| 402 | ** Maggie arranges an alliance with Hilltop in which they will wipe out the Saviors in exchange for critically needed supplies. Though the group succeeds in wiping out an outpost, they don't learn that it was just ''one'' outpost the Saviors control until it's too late. |
| 403 | ** The allied forces of AHK’s plan is to hold Negan’s inner circle in the Sanctuary with a siege of walkers; while their leadership is decapitated, AHK then goes to wipe out their outposts, and then reconvene for a final attack on the Sanctuary, which they presume will be on the verge of collapse due to depleted supplies and numbers. [[spoiler: It fails due to Daryl’s rogue attack on the Sanctuary inadvertently helping Eugene come up with a way for the Saviors to escape and destroy Alexandria, the main stronghold of the allies.]] |
| 404 | * PlotArmor: |
| 405 | ** [[spoiler: Taken literally by way of human being. In "This Sorrowful Life", just as Merle has a shot perfectly lined up on the Governor, Ben walks right into the crosshairs and takes the bullet.]] |
| 406 | ** Another example in season 6 with [[spoiler: Glenn. He survives falling into a herd of walkers because he is shielded by Nicholas's dead body, and is able to slide out from underneath him to hide under the dumpster.]] |
| 407 | ** All attempts on Negan’s life in Season 7, his inaugural season as BigBad, fail. |
| 408 | *** Taken to an absolutely ridiculous level in "Mercy." When the Alexandrians and Hilltop Members storm the Sanctuary, Negan is literally standing in plain view on the balcony, and despite many of the characters having good aim, no one is able to hit him. Even if one could somehow accept that, with the sheer amount of people shooting and the number of bullets they have, someone still should've shot him. |
| 409 | ** When Jadis exceeds the level of bullshit he’s willing to take at the end of a bad day, Simon begins [[spoiler: massacring her people. She later turns up alive, presumably as a form of CruelMercy from Simon. A later episode, however, shows Jadis having to play dead to escape being gunned down, leaving it rather silly that she was able to somehow slip away from a few dozen armed Saviors in the first place.]] |
| 410 | * PocketProtector: Bob gets chomped on the shoulder by a walker, but survives because it bit ''directly'' on top of a thick gauze bandage he'd been wearing over a previous injury. |
| 411 | * PoorCommunicationKills: |
| 412 | ** "When this door closes, it ''will not open again''." Jenner meant that ''literally''. |
| 413 | ** Also Lori's inability to tell Rick she was sleeping with Shane, and by extension her pregnancy, almost led [[spoiler: to the self-induced abortion of her child.]] |
| 414 | ** A lot of the conflict in Season 3 could have been avoided had Michonne explained to Andrea what made her suspicious about the Governor. |
| 415 | ** Tyreese's group would have easily joined Rick's if someone had merely taken them aside and explained that Rick wasn't himself because [[spoiler:his wife had just died and he hadn't been sleeping]]. Instead, they just run straight out of the prison and keep running, leading to a lot of conflict later on when they are easily persuaded that Rick's group is dangerous. Hershel also is surprisingly dodgy when Tyreese asks who's in charge and will decide whether or not to take them in, and outright leaves the room, causing the outsiders to become suspicious. |
| 416 | ** It quickly becomes clear as Season 8 progresses that the survivors did not have a strict battle plan to adhere to beyond “take the Savior outposts and rendezvous for a final fight at the Sanctuary”. The Hilltop fighters quarrel over what to do when the Saviors at the satellite outpost peacefully surrender, Daryl and Rick clash over whether they should simply annihilate the Sanctuary, and when the Saviors retaliate, everybody simply flees to Hilltop, lucky that it was spared by Simon and not having any other rendezvous point to fall back to. AHK nearly crumbles due to infighting before they even face the Saviors again. |
| 417 | * PopTheTires: |
| 418 | ** In the opening of the first episode, they stop the high speed pursuit with a spike strip taking out the wheels of the escaping car. |
| 419 | ** They also show up in the third season finale, as the group defends the prison with makeshift spike strips. |
| 420 | ** When Simon arrives for a raid on Hilltop, his charge is stymied by a hidden spike strip left by AHK. |
| 421 | * PostApocalypticTrafficJam: In the pilot, as Rick heads into Atlanta to search for more survivors of the zombie apocalypse, the lanes of the highway heading in are empty except for him and his horse, but the lanes heading out are completely packed with abandoned cars all the way back into the city. As this foreshadows, things in Atlanta are little different from in the suburbs. |
| 422 | * PostWakeUpRealization: Rick goes into a coma after being shot and only wakes up after the zombies have taken over. |
| 423 | * POVCam: |
| 424 | ** From a walker's perspective as Daryl headbutts it with a rifle during the fish-fry attack in "Vatos". |
| 425 | ** From Randall's perspective as Rick gags him and puts him in the car trunk in "18 Miles Out". |
| 426 | ** From Sophia's perspective [[spoiler: prior to being shot by Rick]] in "Pretty Much Dead Already". |
| 427 | ** From Dale's perspective [[spoiler: just before Daryl shoots him]] in "Judge, Jury, and Executioner". |
| 428 | ** From Michonne's perspective as the walkers close in on her (just before Carl shoots them down) in "When The Dead Come Knocking". |
| 429 | ** From Milton's perspective when [[spoiler: the Governor is beating him]] in "Welcome to the Tombs". |
| 430 | ** From Sasha's perspective through a scope when she's looking for the missing Bob in "Four Walls And A Roof". |
| 431 | ** [[spoiler:From Abraham's perspective in "Last Day on Earth" as he's beaten to death by Negan.]] |
| 432 | * PragmaticAdaptation: |
| 433 | ** While the overall story is the same, there are a number of differences from the comic, including specific events and completely new characters. This was to prevent readers of the comics from thinking the whole series was a ForegoneConclusion. |
| 434 | ** Some of the injuries were either removed or lessened in severity, due to budget and production constraints. For example, several characters either keep their limbs they lost in the comics, such as Rick; in Hershel’s case, since he lost a leg in Dale’s stead, he got a replacement leg much quicker. This way, budget doesn’t have to go towards digitally removing Andrew Lincoln and Scott Wilson’s limbs (and so the elderly Wilson doesn’t have to stay on crutches all the time). |
| 435 | ** [[spoiler: Carl]] and Dwight’s facial injuries are far less gruesome than in the comics, to save budget that would’ve had to go to [[spoiler: removing a chunk of Chandler Riggs’ head and applying extremely extensive makeup to Austin Amelio every episode.]] |
| 436 | * PreacherMan: Father Gabriel Stokes. |
| 437 | * PrecisionFStrike: |
| 438 | ** In the DVD version of Season 4, Rick drops the series' first use of the F-bomb at the end of "A." |
| 439 | --> '''Rick:''' They're fuckin' with the wrong people. |
| 440 | ** In "Four Walls and a Roof", one of the Hunters lets out one [[spoiler: as he's bludgeoned to death by Abraham with the butt of a rifle.]] |
| 441 | ** In "Not Tomorrow Yet", Rosita calls Morgan a ''hijo de puta'', which in some dialects of Spanish translates to "motherfucker". |
| 442 | ** In "Wrath", one Savior can be heard screaming "WHAT THE FUCK" after [[spoiler:the Saviors are mutilated by Eugene's sabotaged bullets backfiring.]] |
| 443 | ** In “The Obliged”, Daryl drops the show’s first bleeped out F-bomb. |
| 444 | -->'''Daryl''': Man, your ass wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for Glenn. You wouldn't have found Lori, you wouldn't have found Carl. And you sure as '''fuck''' wouldn't have found any of us! |
| 445 | ** In “Trust”, Daryl gives the show’s very first uncensored F-bomb that makes it to broadcast. |
| 446 | -->'''Daryl''': You tore this place upside down and found nothing. So unless you wanna die for nothing, tell ‘em to drop their guns before something really ''fucking'' bad happens. |
| 447 | ** Mercer gets a barely-audible one when he tells Princess that the whole relationship thing is new to him and he doesn't want to "fuck it up." |
| 448 | ** In "Lockdown", Negan comforts Annie and tells her he is "fucked either way." |
| 449 | ** In "A New Deal", Daryl, holding Lance at knife point, refuses to drop the knife when Carol informs him she has made a deal with Pamela to have Lance imprisoned in exchange for their safety. Daryl furiously tells Pamela and Mercer to "do what you fucking gotta do." |
| 450 | ** In "Variant", Princess responds to Mercer's insistence that "things can always be worse" by relating it to what her abusive mother used to say to her and telling him to "fuck that thinking." |
| 451 | ** In "Outpost 22", Rosita mutters "fuck" when she and Gabriel learn that the Commonwealth soldiers are in hot pursuit. |
| 452 | ** In "Faith", Mercer [[spoiler:reveals he has decided to help the Coalition]] by telling Eugene it's "time to fuck shit up." |
| 453 | ** In "Family", Negan sees a walker climbing for the first time and sums up what pretty much everyone's thinking: "What the ''fuck''?" |
| 454 | ** There's two in the series finale. The first when Rosita and the others are trapped in an ambulance and tells Carol that their "ride's fucked." The second comes when Daryl tells Pamela that they tried to make the Commonwealth like the old world, and "that's the fucking problem." |
| 455 | * PrecociousCrush: In Season 3, Carl has one on Beth. She and Hershel both recognize it, and so does Daryl, since he asks her to watch over him after [[spoiler:Lori's death]]. |
| 456 | * PresentDayPast: |
| 457 | ** While exploring the abandoned tunnels of the derelict D.C. Metro in Season 11, the protagonists come across some tattered old posters from before the apocalypse bearing social justice-related messaging and slogans. Such signage, with a few exceptions, would have largely been anachronistic for 2010 (when the zombie apocalypse occurred) as they were largely a byproduct of the hyper-identitarian political and cultural milieu of the late 2010s and early 2020s (which would make sense as the season first aired in 2021). |
| 458 | ** Several episodes of Season 11 also feature slang that wouldn’t come into use much until the late 2010’s such as “hot take”, “get in your pants”, “shoot your shot”, etc. This would continue with the writing for the anthology series that debuted in 2022 and subsequent installments of the franchise. |
| 459 | * PretendWereDead: PlayedForDrama. |
| 460 | ** This is how Glenn and Rick get everyone out of the store in the first season. The two cover themselves in zombie gore then make their way through the undead crowd toward a parking lot with the scent masking their presence. It works, [[OhCrap until it starts to rain]]. Justified, in that UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}} summertime weather does go from hot and dry to sudden thundershowers just like that. There was also a bit of foreshadowing earlier with storm clouds. Also something of a {{deconstruction}}, since they first have to [[{{Squick}} smear themselves in dismembered zombie bits]] to get the proper scent going. |
| 461 | ** Daryl Dixon pull this off by dropping a dead body on T-Dog and another on himself as the zombie herd passes on the highway. Suffice to say, it works. |
| 462 | ** In "18 Miles Out", Rick throws the body of a walker he killed seconds earlier on top of himself to avoid the walkers coming out of the public works building. |
| 463 | ** [[spoiler:Karen]] plays dead under the corpse of another person after [[spoiler:the Governor massacres the Woodbury soldiers]] in "Welcome to the Tombs". [[spoiler:This only works, however, because he had ran out of ammo, while delivering headshots to the gunned-down people so they wouldn't become walkers.]] |
| 464 | ** When Simon [[spoiler: massacres the Scavengers in mid late Season 8, Jadis coats herself in the blood of a fallen friend and plays dead to save her own life.]] |
| 465 | * PreviouslyOn: From Seasons 1-8, a narrator says "Previously on AMC's ''The Walking Dead''" to introduce a "previously on" segment. Starting with Season 9, this changes as usually a main cast member will say the line. Occasionally, usually for a season premiere, a character will deliver a monologue recapping what's been going on (for example, Lydia narrates the segment for "Home Sweet Home", relating the events of the previous episode and the Whisperer arc). This sometimes provides an extra nugget of information, such as Carol specifying in "Diverged" that the reason Alexandria's hunting grounds are empty is because the Whisperer horde scared away all viable prey. |
| 466 | * ProductPlacement: Orange Crush soda is prominently sought after in Season 6. |
| 467 | ** A brand-new Hyundai Tucson features prominently in Season 2. |
| 468 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: |
| 469 | ** Creator/NormanReedus (Daryl) in Season 2. |
| 470 | ** Creator/MichaelRooker (Merle) and Creator/LaurenCohan (Maggie) in Season 3. Subverted by Creator/DanaiGurira, as Michonne was played by a FakeShemp in the Season 2 finale. |
| 471 | ** Creator/MelissaMcBride (Carol) and Creator/ScottWilson (Hershel) in Season 4. |
| 472 | ** Creator/EmilyKinney (Beth), Creator/ChadLColeman (Tyreese) and Creator/MichaelCudlitz (Abraham) in Season 5. |
| 473 | ** Creator/LennieJames (Morgan) and Creator/SonequaMartinGreen (Sasha) in Season 6. |
| 474 | ** Creator/AlannaMasterson (Tara), Creator/ChristianSerratos (Rosita), Creator/JoshMcDermitt (Eugene), and Creator/JeffreyDeanMorgan (Negan) in Season 7. |
| 475 | ** Creator/SethGilliam (Gabriel) and Creator/RossMarquand (Aaron) in Season 8. |
| 476 | ** Creator/KatelynNacon (Enid), Creator/TomPayne (Jesus), Creator/KharyPayton (Ezekiel), and Creator/SamanthaMorton (Alpha) in Season 9. |
| 477 | ** Creator/RyanHurst (Beta) in Season 10. |
| 478 | ** Creator/CooperAndrews (Jerry) and Creator/CallanMcAuliffe (Alden) in Season 11. The final part of the season then adds ten cast members to the opening titles: Creator/EleanorMatsuura (Yumiko), Creator/LaurenRidloff (Connie), Creator/CaileyFleming (Judith), Creator/NadiaHilker (Magna), Creator/CassadyMcClincy (Lydia), Creator/AngelTheory (Kelly), Creator/PaolaLazaro (Princess), Creator/MichaelJamesShaw (Mercer), Creator/JoshHamilton (Lance), and Creator/LailaRobins (Pamela). |
| 479 | * PullingTheThread: When [[spoiler:Andrea]] decides to leave Woodbury, she feeds the guards on the wall a story designed to lure them away. They pick at it a bit and she gets fed up and says "Look, I'm going. I don't want any trouble." |
| 480 | * PunchClockVillain: |
| 481 | ** "Alone" has various members of Rick's group connecting with members of Woodbury, and the situation proves that they could've easily been friends if not for the war they're engaged in. |
| 482 | ** Unnervingly so with the residents of Terminus, who have purposely desensitized themselves to death to the point that slaughtering and eating people to them is like a mundane office job like printing copies. It's not until the group destroys Terminus that the survivors begin taking it personally. |
| 483 | ** The Savior Gavin is a pretty laid-back, lazy guy who outright says he signed up to be the liaison with the Kingdom because he wanted a stress-free job. He doesn't go out of his way to harass or intimidate the Kingdom survivors, though he does allow his jackass Jared to do whatever he wants and then blames it on Ezekiel. When he does have to begin committing serious atrocities on the Kingdom residents, he gripes and complains the whole time (and keeps blaming it on Ezekiel and company, as usual). |
| 484 | ** Other minor Saviors like Laura and Dr. Carson also seem to be pretty decent people when not on the job. |
| 485 | ** Several Whisperers are shown to not be AxCrazy psychopaths like Alpha and Beta and are shown to be perfectly capable of kindness towards each other. [[spoiler:After the Whisperer War, the group even meets a small group of surviving Whisperers who have no true malicious intentions for the community.]] |
| 486 | * PunctuatedForEmphasis: Dr. Jenner claims, in a tense standoff capping a stressful situation, that the CDC stores WEAPONIZED! SMALLPOX! along with EBOLA STRAINS! THAT! COULD! WIPE OUT! HALF! THE NATION! |
| 487 | * PushedAtTheMonster: |
| 488 | ** In "Save the Last One," Shane and another survivor, Otis, are trying to limp away from a horde of Walkers right on them. Knowing they'll be caught if they keep going, Shane shoots Otis in the leg and leaves him at the mercy of the horde while he gets away. |
| 489 | ** In "A New Deal", [[spoiler:Sebastian shoves Max at a walker]] to get her killed for recording and publicly playing a hot mic tape of him that destroys his reputation. It thankfully doesn't work, and Eugene actually does this by shoving the walker away from her, [[spoiler:and the walker ends up on Sebastian, killing ''him'' instead.]] |
| 490 | * PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: While scrounging for supplies, Glenn and Maggie encounter [[spoiler:Merle]], who takes Maggie hostage after a tense conversation and convinces Glenn to put down his gun. |
| 491 | * PutOnABus: |
| 492 | ** Sherry leaves the Saviors in Season 7's "Hostiles and Calamities" and hasn't been seen since. She only returns on ''Fear''. |
| 493 | ** At the end of Season 8, Daryl exiles [[spoiler:Dwight]] from the communities and orders him to find Sherry, but never return. As of the six-year TimeSkip in Season 9, [[spoiler:Dwight]] has heeded Daryl's orders and later joins ''Fear''. |
| 494 | ** Season 9 features the departure of two main characters. First is [[spoiler:Rick]], who is taken by a helicopter to an unknown location early in the season 9. Second is [[spoiler:Maggie]], who departs to help allies build up a community far away from the Alexandria region. Both characters are removed from the show due to their actors wanting to work on other projects ([[spoiler:Maggie]] is intended to return to the series at one point, while [[spoiler:Rick]] will star in spin-off films on AMC). Also, [[spoiler:Anne (AKA Jadis)]] disappears on the helicopter along with [[spoiler:Rick]] and will presumably reappear with him. |
| 495 | ** In mid late Season 10, [[spoiler:Michonne leaves the communities after discovering evidence Rick survived the bridge’s destruction, intent on finding him and bringing him home.]] |
| 496 | ** Luke moves to Oceanside after the end of the Whisperer War to be with his new girlfriend Jules and does not appear in either Season 10's extended run or the first two parts of Season 11 (even after Oceanside begins reappearing again). |
| 497 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Negan apparently believes this. He kills Dave for trying to rape Sasha and claims it's not allowed under his command. Of course, this may have been a ploy to get her on his side. It's also pretty hypocritical, as he forces women to marry him. |
| 498 | * RealLifeWritesThePlot: A couple of notable instances in the cast so far. |
| 499 | ** [[spoiler:Dale was killed off because his actor, Jeffrey [=DeMunn=] was unhappy about Frank Darabont (someone with whom he'd worked for years) being fired, and [[http://www.thezombiemob.com/2012/03/jeffrey-demunn-actually-quit-walking.html quit]] the show in protest.]] |
| 500 | ** [[spoiler: Sophia was present for the first episode of the second season, then gets lost to kickstart the arc that involved searching for her and Carl needing medical attention at Hershel's farm as a result. Creator/MadisonLintz, the actress who plays Sophia, was growing too fast for the time frame in which Seasons 1 and 2 take place, necessitating in her Walker transformation the next time we see her and subsequent death at Rick's hands.]] |
| 501 | ** [[spoiler:The reason Tyreese is killed of is likely because of his actor, Chad Coleman, getting a major role in the TV adaptation of ''Literature/TheExpanse''.]] |
| 502 | ** Morgan's small role in the series is due partly to Lennie James' busy schedule. He was intended to join the main cast in Season 5, but James' schedule prevented it from happening. Nevertheless, the show runners resolved to have him in the fifth season as much as possible -- two uncredited appearances in the stingers of "No Sanctuary" and "Coda", and a full appearance in "Conquer", before he properly joined the main cast from that point onward. |
| 503 | ** Tara goes on a long supply run at the end of season 6 and is absent for 4 episodes because her actress was pregnant. |
| 504 | ** Rosita is out of commission for most of early Season 8 due to Christian Serratos’ pregnancy during the filming of those episodes. |
| 505 | ** The most highly-publicized example is the departure of [[spoiler: Rick Grimes in Season 9, who, after being injured taking out a herd of walkers, is rescued by Anne and taken away in a helicopter. Andrew Lincoln revealed that his exit was due to a desire to be closer to his family, although fan theories abound that he was unhappy with the series and its direction, particularly after the death of Carl. It was revealed the day his final episode aired that AMC is actually developing a trilogy of films focused on Rick, but it's not yet known if he will return to the show proper in the future.]] |
| 506 | ** The time skip in Season 9 reveals that [[spoiler: Maggie left Hilltop to help Georgie establish a new community elsewhere. This was due to Lauren Cohan landing a role in the series ''Series/WhiskeyCavalier'' after AMC refused to up her pay, and thus her being unavailable to film the whole season. She eventually returns to the show towards the end of Season 10.]] |
| 507 | ** [[spoiler:Connie]] goes missing in mid-Season 10 to accommodate [[spoiler:Creator/LaurenRidloff's]] filming ''Film/{{Eternals}}''. She returns in Season 11. |
| 508 | ** In “What We Become”, [[spoiler:Michonne heads north on a journey to find Rick after discovering evidence of his survival due to Danai Gurira wishing to leave the show and produce her own projects.]] |
| 509 | ** Luke moving to Oceanside after the Whisperer War is, InUniverse, to live with his new girlfriend Jules. Out of universe, it's to accommodate Dan Fogler's shooting schedule for ''Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore''. |
| 510 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: |
| 511 | ** Even as he hardens, Rick is very accepting of his group even when they screw up and usually will hear them out. |
| 512 | ** Joe, being AffablyEvil, is very respectful of his men, and operates on a strict code of honesty. He allows Daryl to ease into his group, and doesn't punish him for breaking rules he didn't know about being a newbie. |
| 513 | ** Deanna is very kind to Rick's group and allows them to take several leadership opportunities in the community, and ultimately [[spoiler: cedes control of Alexandria to Rick when he proves that he's the better leader.]] |
| 514 | ** King Ezekiel is a good and just ruler who just wants to keep his people safe and happy. Though he initially refuses to join the rebellion against the Saviors, he does allow Daryl to stay at the Kingdom as long as needed since he's their escaped prisoner (and Ezekiel has a deal with the Saviors in which they never set foot on his grounds). |
| 515 | ** Maggie takes over Hilltop Colony in Season 7 and proves to be a compassionate, protective, and badass leader in her own right. |
| 516 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: |
| 517 | ** From Michonne to Andrea in "I Ain't a Judas". |
| 518 | ** In "Welcome to the Tombs", Carl gives one to Rick, pointing out where Rick's soft-hearted decisions have resulted in people dying. |
| 519 | ** Rick gives a violent one to the pampered, naïve populace of Alexandria. |
| 520 | ** Carol gives one that's more of a very clear death threat to Pete in the fifth season finale. |
| 521 | ** Negan gives the group at whole a big one as he calls them - and Rick in particular - out on their overblown egos, and chastising them for attacking him unprovoked without knowing his full capabilities. |
| 522 | ** Negan gives one to Spencer when he proposes putting him in charge of Alexandria, noting that while Rick may hate his guts, he's swallowing his hate and pride to provide for Negan so that his people can be safe. Meanwhile, Spencer is asking someone else to do his dirty work. [[spoiler: He punctuates it by gutting Spencer and letting him die slowly.]] |
| 523 | ** The Savior Gunther spends the entirety of “Some Guy” harping on Ezekiel for failing his people despite his grandiose persona. |
| 524 | ** Daryl and Maggie give these to Rick and Michonne, respectively, during Season 9, episodes 4 and 5, as they finally vent their frustrations and resentment over their decision to [[spoiler:spare Negan]]. |
| 525 | * RecklessGunUsage: |
| 526 | ** Dave and Tony, the Philly survivors in "Nebraska", set Rick up by bracketing him. Had they actually managed to get off a shot, they would have almost certainly hit each other. |
| 527 | ** Andrea shooting at Daryl, mistaking him for a walker. Not only did she fail to confirm her target, she also completely ignored the multiple other people mere feet from him. |
| 528 | ** In "A", [[spoiler: The Terminus resident searching the group hands back Rick and Carl's guns by the barrel, with it pointing right at himself.]] |
| 529 | ** During his rant at the Alexandrians, Rick has a loaded gun that he haphazardly waves at the populace and even ''himself''. |
| 530 | * RedemptionDemotion: Happens with [[spoiler: Negan in Season 9, after the destruction of the Saviors and his subsequent imprisonment in Alexandria.]] |
| 531 | * RedemptionEqualsDeath: |
| 532 | ** [[spoiler:Merle attempts to kill the Governor by himself in a surprise attack, but is ultimately killed by him, and his zombified self is later found by Daryl who in turn kills him.]] |
| 533 | ** Several Savior POW’s [[spoiler: who escaped from captivity at Hilltop are promised a second chance by Rick, and they agree to, having witnessed that they are mere cannon fodder to the Savior leadership. Just as they begin genuinely fighting alongside Rick, it turns out Rick was lying and slaughters them all anyway despite their help.]] |
| 534 | * ReformationAcknowledgement: In the GrandFinale, Maggie -- who has more reason to hate Negan than anyone, after he killed her husband back in Season 7 -- finally acknowledges that after [[EnemyMine having to work alongside him against the Commonwealth]] throughout Season 11, she can't hold onto her anger towards him anymore. She tells Negan that while she'll never forgive him, she won't actively hate him anymore, and acknowledges that he and his new wife Anne deserve to have a fresh start together as part of the survivor community without fear of retaliation from her. |
| 535 | * RelaxOVision: When Rick and Glenn are disemboweling a walker to employ the CoveredInGrunge trick: |
| 536 | --> "Picture something nice. Puppies and kittens."\ |
| 537 | "Dead puppies and kittens." |
| 538 | * ReluctantMadScientist: Milton. He has a better insight into the Governor's true nature than most Woodbury residents -- even enabling several of his worse excesses as TheSmartGuy -- but turns a blind eye due to interest in the experiments he is able to perform under his patronage. |
| 539 | * RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain: |
| 540 | ** Only the latter works. The walker that killed Daryl's deer got decapitated, but it kept snarling until Daryl put a crossbow bolt through its skull. |
| 541 | ** In "Secrets", the walker that attacks [[spoiler: Maggie]] is still standing when [[spoiler: Glenn]] partially decapitates him. It takes multiple repeated blows to the head while the walker is on the ground to subdue it. |
| 542 | ** Zigzagged early in Season 3 -- Michonne slices off a walker head which is shown still moving after that, but later we see the Governor with a bunch of intact heads that are mosty done moving. |
| 543 | * ReplacementGoldfish: |
| 544 | ** There's a strong subtext suggesting the group the Governor travels with in "Live Bait" -- especially the little girl with them -- acts as a substitute for his own deceased family. |
| 545 | ** Morgan comes to see Benjamin as a surrogate son in Season 7. [[spoiler: When Benjamin dies, Morgan loses much of the sanity he had regained after losing his son Duane, and even slips and calls Benjamin Duane.]] |
| 546 | * RescueArc: |
| 547 | ** Season 1: "Tell it to the Frogs" had Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and T-Dog rushing back to Atlanta to save a handcuffed Merle. They failed. "Vatos" had Rick, Daryl, and T-Dog attempting to save Glenn after he was kidnapped by the eponymous group. This time it ends well. |
| 548 | ** The first half of Season 2 has an odd variation; It deals with the entire group searching instead of actually rescuing a missing member of their group. |
| 549 | ** Season 3: "Made to Suffer" features Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Oscar rushing to [[spoiler: Woodbury]] to rescue [[spoiler: Glenn]] and [[spoiler: Maggie]]. They succeeded, but [[spoiler: with Oscar dead and Daryl]] captured. This leads to the following episode "The Suicide King", where the [[spoiler: surviving]] rescuers and the previous rescuees successfully saving their captured friend [[spoiler: and his brother, who ironically is the center of the first (failed) RescueArc]]. The last part of the SeasonFinale features Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and [[spoiler: Tyreese]] tracking [[spoiler: Andrea. They did, but they're too late.]] |
| 550 | ** Season 5: Originally, [[spoiler: Daryl and Carol]] were supposed to rescue [[spoiler: Beth]], who was kidnapped near the end of the previous season. But after [[spoiler: Carol]] gets caught, [[spoiler: Daryl]] brought the entire crew along to rescue both of them. [[spoiler: Technically, they saved both of them. But Beth has other plans which ended in a fatal conclusion.]] |
| 551 | * {{Retcon}}: During Season 5, WordOfGod said that Morgan left King County and went to find Rick at the prison, only to find it had been destroyed, and then eventually found a Terminus sign and headed on. "Here's Not Here" retconned this, showing that Morgan never went to the prison, and that he roamed the woods killing people before he encountered Eastman and headed directly towards Terminus afterwards. |
| 552 | * ReusableLighterToss: Carl drops one in a barn as more a distraction than to kill the walking dead. |
| 553 | * RevengeByProxy: Michonne kills the Governor's zombie daughter. |
| 554 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: |
| 555 | ** In "Say the Word", Rick grabs an axe and goes on a killing spree through one of the prison cellblocks after he learns of [[spoiler: Lori's death]]. In the next episode, "Hounded", Rick estimates that he killed anywhere from one-to-two dozen walkers ''by himself''. |
| 556 | ** Tyreese, a hammer, a bunch of walkers, and [[spoiler:a dead girlfriend]]. [[CurbStompBattle Things just got serious.]] |
| 557 | ** Sasha, Rosita, Maggie, and the rest of the group slowly prepare for one during Season 7 [[spoiler: to avenge the brutal deaths of Glenn and Abraham at Negan's hands.]] Negan even lampshades the fact that [[spoiler: the now widowed Maggie]] is coming for him guns blazing. |
| 558 | * RoomFullOfZombies: |
| 559 | ** In the pilot, a handy sign on a door warns Rick away from one of these, written on the doors chained shut to contain the walkers. A webisode reveals that room's backstory and who wrote the warning and chained the doors. |
| 560 | ** [[spoiler: Hershel's barn]] is also full of zombies. |
| 561 | ** [[spoiler:The Governor]] has a private room that's filled with the heads of decapitated walkers. |
| 562 | ** In the episode "Prey", Andrea barges into one, has an OhCrap moment, and then quickly backs out and shuts the door. A short while later, [[spoiler:she unleashes that horde on the Governor.]] |
| 563 | * RousingSpeech: |
| 564 | ** Andrea gives one to the citizens of Woodbury in place of the absent Governor to calm them down after [[spoiler: the first attack by Rick's group]]. |
| 565 | ** Abraham gives to Rick and his group to inspire them into joining him to the Washington D.C trip so they can try to put an end to the ZombieApocalypse. |
| 566 | ** At the end of Season 7, the united leaders Rick, Maggie, and Ezekiel give one to their constituents, though we don't hear what they're actually saying. The big three give another one in the Season 8 premiere, this one audible. |
| 567 | * RuleOfCool: The firefight with the massive herd in "Beside The Dying Fire" is dependent upon this trope. Shooting from moving vehicles and hitting targets at extended distances just doesn't happen otherwise. |
| 568 | * RuleOfSymbolism: In Season 8, involving mirrors. |
| 569 | ** "The Damned" involves Rick killing a Savior, only to discover that the Savior he just murdered had a baby daughter. When he finds her, he then looks at his bloodied self in a mirror, which is pristine and new. |
| 570 | ** Twelve episodes later, in "Still Gotta Mean Something", after Rick and Morgan [[spoiler:kill an entire bunch of Savior [=POWs=], even when the former people promised the latter group that they could come back to the Hilltop, Rick once again looks at a mirror. He is blood-stained, just like the previous example, but the mirror is cracked]]. |
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