10 episodes that show how The Walking Dead turned into a cultural juggernaut
Image: Photo: Gene Page/AMC TV Features Horrors Week 2020
It was just supposed to be a cool little zombie show. When Frank Darabont, the acclaimed writer-director best known for his Stephen King adaptations like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, first discovered Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, a black-and-white comic about a small band of survivors trying to make a life for themselves in the wake of the undead apocalypse, there wasn’t yet even the small cult fandom that helped generate such attention for the TV project once it was announced. As he himself notes, Darabont discovered the comic almost five years before bringing it to the small screen, simply thinking at the time, “Oh, great! Maybe I can make a TV series out of this obscure little zombie comic that probably has 12 readers.” By the time the premiere hit AMC on Halloween night of 2010, the growing comic fanbase and a splashy promotional blitz by the channel resulted in more than five million people tuning in, making it the most-watched debut in AMC history and leading to its six-episode first season being the most-watched basic cable show that year in the all-important 18-49 demographic—a massive success for Darabont and AMC.
They had no idea how small those numbers would end up looking.
To quote Krusty the Clown’s brother Cecil, unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars for the last decade with your fingers in your ears, you know about The Walking Dead. Over the course of its first five seasons, the show grew in popularity and viewership until it was not just the biggest show on cable, but arguably the biggest show in all of TV. By season three, it had already trounced even network TV’s highest-performing series, becoming the most-watched show among 18-49 year olds, period. AMC quickly capitalized on the momentum by creating Talking Dead, a live talk show immediately following the series on Sunday nights that further cemented the impression of Darabont’s adaptation as must-see appointment television. (To really understand how popular The Walking Dead was, consider the fact that, for a brief time, Talking Dead was the most-watched show on cable other than its namesake.)
The premise is so simple, even the undead themselves could probably understand it. After being seriously wounded in the line of duty, Georgia sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up from a coma to an abandoned hospital—and a world that’s been overrun by zombies. (In one of the strangest creative choices from the books, they’re referred to as “walkers,” instead of the beyond-obvious sobriquet “zombies.”) Rick teams up with a pizza delivery guy named Glenn (Steven Yeun), and the pair manage to find Rick’s wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Carl (Chandler Riggs), as well as his former partner Shane (Jon Bernthal), living with a small group of survivors just outside Atlanta. Rick quickly takes charge, and soon he’s the de facto head of a small, but occasionally expanding, group of people determined to stay alive—and maybe even craft some small semblance of a life in this apocalyptic world. Of course, the sometimes combustible personalities on display means that, every now and then, other humans are the things Rick and his companions should fear the most.
Though the show has followed many of the storylines from Kirkman’s comics, Darabont also revised his source material in plenty of ways—expanding or condensing story arcs, killing off people who lived in the comic and vice versa, and more. (One of his most enduring changes was the introduction of a character who never even appeared in Kirkman’s books—Daryl Dixon [Norman Reedus], the redneck tracker who’s become a cornerstone of the series.) However, Darabont soon wouldn’t be around to make any further alterations: In a very public and very messy split (and shortly after Darabont fired the entire writing staff from the first season), AMC fired the showrunner as production began on season two, eventually leading to a lawsuit over the show’s profits as bloody as anything onscreen. The channel quickly moved to install The Shield producer Glen Mazzara, who actually penned one of the non-Darabont-written episodes from season one (despite not being on the writing staff), as the new showrunner, and The Walking Dead got back to its viscera-filled work.
Mazzara’s tenure running the series got off to a rocky start, with a much-derided first half of season two (AMC had quickly moved to expand to a 13-episode season, broken into two parts, which then expanded again to 16 for every season since) that found the characters stuck waiting around a farmstead with little narrative momentum. Still, it had a stunning mid-season ender—the young girl everyone had been searching for all season turned out to have been dead the entire time, a zombie trapped inside the barn just adjacent to the home from which they’d been sending out search parties. It provided a narrative jolt that eventually ended the season with the group on the move and Rick forced to kill his increasingly unhinged former partner.
The show’s momentum continued into season three, which saw the introduction of one of the series’ most popular heroes (Danai Gurira’s Michonne) and most love-to-hate villains: The Governor (David Morrissey), a man who leads a seemingly insulated town called Woodbury, and who decides Rick and the others are a threat to the community he runs with an iron fist. Conflict erupts, with the Governor eventually losing, Woodbury destroyed, and its citizens living with Rick’s people by season’s end. The first half of season four followed the Governor’s mission of revenge (while a flu virus takes out a large number of the population), culminating with the death of the Governor and beloved character Herschel (Scott Wilson). Season four also marked Scott M. Gimple’s first season as showrunner, and along with season five, is often held up as the creative high-water mark of The Walking Dead. Encountering new survivors and strange new locations, these seasons generated some excellent episodes and rousing storylines, full of rich character study and exciting battles.
If season six began with the show at the apex of its powers, many also mark the conclusion of it as the beginning of The Walking Dead’s creative decline. Taking over control of Alexandria, Rick and his people soon encounter another nearby community called Hilltop, one that is struggling under the weight of an extortion-protection racket run by a group of marauders called the Saviors, and led by its mysterious leader, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). After six ended with a cliffhanger murder of an unknown central character by Negan, effectively putting Rick’s people under his tyrannical control, the bleak seventh and eighth seasons comprising the “Savior War” narrative felt increasingly cartoonish. (The introduction of another community called the Kingdom, ruled over by a literal self-proclaimed “King”—Khary Payton’s Ezekiel—and his pet tiger didn’t help assuage that feeling.) By the time Negan’s people were defeated and he was locked in a cell by Rick (who lost his son Carl during the battle), the show’s energies seemed spent.
Despite getting a new showrunner in Angela Kang (a staff writer since that momentous season two), the show sputtered into a tailspin, first pretending to kill off Rick when Andrew Lincoln left the show, only to let him live (and announce a series of planned stand-alone movies for the character, none of which show any signs of appearing any time soon). Then, the show jumped ahead in time six years and began spinning its wheels, introducing a host of new characters and waiting too long to unleash any sign of creative rebirth. But when such a sign did arrive, it was a good one: The Whisperers, a menacing group of survivors who wear the skins of the undead and shamble along with them as a symbol of humanity’s surrender to the walkers.
Unfortunately, it’s a case of too little, too late: Viewers have been steadily checking out in droves since that dark seventh season, and this past year saw the show dipping below the numbers it earned in season one for the first time ever. Not surprisingly, AMC finally announced the show would be ending after an extended 11th season. Kang’s leadership has at least provided a creative stimulus, so hopefully it will go out as strongly as it arrived (or at least not as poorly as it was right before she took over) under her guidance. But despite its tarnished latter-day reputation, the series will endure as a massive cultural phenomenon that enjoyed years of creative and commercial success. Before its final bow occurs, here are 10 episodes that capture the breadth and scope—and horror—of which The Walking Dead, at its finest, was capable.
“Days Gone Bye” (season one, episode one)
Lots of shows have uneven pilot episodes, more a hint of the potential possessed therein than any demonstration of eventual quality. The Walking Dead, on the other hand, arrived with a first installment so good, this very site has speculated as to whether the series has ever topped it. Before the opening credits even run, Rick Grimes has wandered through the abandoned bodies and wreckage of this zombie-filled world, found a little girl, and shot her in the head after realizing she was the undead. That’s a gut-punch of a start to a show, and under Darabont’s scripting and direction, the rest of it is equally good, setting up the perpetual tension being the nightmarish reality of this dangerous world and the hopes for a better, more civil one still existing in the margins (represented by the generous man, Lennie James’ Morgan, and his son, who nurse an injured Rick back to health). It’s The Walking Dead in a nutshell, and its fraught drama sold audiences from the start.
“Pretty Much Dead Already” (season two, episode seven)
If the first half of season two struggled to overcome the torpor that set in from the bland farmstead setting, the mid-season finale sent it into overdrive. Having discovered landowner Hershel (Scott Wilson) has been keeping walkers alive in his barn under the kind but misguided belief he could “cure” them, hotheaded Shane throws it open, and our group opens fire, taking them all out as Hershel’s family looks on in horror. There’s a brief pause before the final walker shuffles out—and it’s Sophia (Madison Lintz), the missing daughter of Carol (Melissa McBride), the person Rick’s people have been frantically looking for all season since her disappearance in the premiere. Rick, knowing what has to be done, steps up and shoots her in the head. The reveal of just how merciless life in this universe could be—and thus, how unflinching the series would be in said depiction of it—demonstrated that this was a show willing to upend expectations of conventional storytelling.
“Clear” (season three, episode 12)
One of the things that really set The Walking Dead apart in its early seasons was the willingness to bring any tension-filled and successful narrative to a grinding halt if it thought there was something else worth exploring for an episode. And that’s what happens in “Clear”: Right in the middle of Rick and company’s life-or-death struggle against the Governor, Rick, Michonne, and Carl take a side mission back to Atlanta in hopes of finding weapons at the Grimes’ old residence. In a surprise turns of events, they find themselves confronted by Morgan—the very man who cared for Rick back in the pilot—isolated and half-mad with grief from the death of his son. In addition to making an unexpected narrative pivot, it showcases the series’ ability to play the long game with its storyline, never forgetting the vast well of past events from which it can draw, no matter how remote or seemingly insignificant.
“Live Bait”/“Dead Weight” (season four, episodes six and seven)
If “Clear” demonstrated the series’ ability to pause its narrative, “Live Bait” and “Dead Weight” highlighted The Walking Dead’s knack for abandoning its heroes altogether—in this case, to look into the past. This two-part story went back in time eight months, to the end of season three, in order to follow unhinged antagonist the Governor as he left his whole world behind, and seemed to find new purpose when he stumbles upon a family, the Chamblers, and ends up becoming an ersatz father figure of sorts. The first episode is his journey to free himself from his old persona, while the second sees his tragic fall and return to his old ways. Altogether, it’s practically a stand-alone movie, but the boldness the show exhibited in pursuing this potentially risky experiment makes it a prime example how just how daring and innovative the series can be at its best.
“Still” (season four, episode 12)
For a show that has built its reputation on intense action and visceral violence, most of The Walking Dead’s finest episodes have involved remarkably little spectacle. Instead, the show’s human drama has rightly taken center stage, and in some of the quietest moments resides its true power. This is exemplified by an especially meditative installment, “Still,” which finds Daryl and Beth (Emily Kinney) isolated and alone after losing contact with everyone during the escape from the prison. The remainder of the episode simply lets the two personalities bounce off each other, as they butt heads, explode, and finally reach an emotional catharsis… all without a single kill (mostly). Its spare, poetic structure isn’t quite a bottle episode, but it’s not far from one. There are other contemplative and emotionally raw episodes (one coming up shortly on this list), but this was the first time The Walking Dead really went there.
“Remember” (season five, episode 12)
As the show approached the end of its fifth season, it began a much longer commitment—one to a tiny little town. In “Remember,” Rick and his people arrive at Alexandria, which has managed to survive thanks to an intensely fortified wall that has allowed those living inside to remain largely peaceful, growing crops and possessing actual electricity. As they warily adjust to the surroundings and see actual evidence of another way of living (albeit one remarkably unprepared for danger), we learn just how hardened everyone has become in the wider world. It’s a fascinating transition—and an important one, because it sets up the next five years of the show, as our people make Alexandria the new base of operations all through seasons six to 10. Alexandria provides stability, at least geographically, though such a comfortable, long-standing location may have eventually weakened the show’s signature unpredictability.
“Here’s Not Here” (season six, episode four)
If there’s a high-water mark to The Walking Dead, it’s almost certainly “Here’s Not Here,” another episode that, like “Still,” slows down and settles in for an intimate character study. This time, it’s Lennie James’ Morgan, who found his way to Rick’s group in season five as a newly peace-loving man and often served as the voice of restraint. In this special 90-minute installment, we learn the backstory of how he came to be that way: by stumbling upon Eastman (superb guest star John Carroll Lynch), a practitioner of aikido with a resolute “no-kill” policy, who believes all life is precious. Slowly and empathically, he helps Morgan manage his PTSD over the death of his son, and teaches the future Alexandrian his philosophy (and yes, some aikido, too). It’s soulful and warm, with a pair of terrific performances and arguably the best distillation of the show’s thematic focus on what makes a life worth living in this new world.
“The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” (season seven, episode one)
Let’s be clear: “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” is not fun to watch, nor is it a particularly good episode of television. It’s an account of the first full meeting between Savior leader Negan and Rick’s group, two of whom won’t survive the encounter. Over the course of the hour, Negan breaks Rick down, both physically and psychically, showing him that he is outmatched in every way, and that resistance to Negan and the Saviors will result in nothing more than pain, suffering, and death. It’s grim, nihilistic stuff, and almost unrelentingly unpleasant. It marks the first real moment The Walking Dead began shedding viewers, but more importantly, it sets the tone for a good portion of season seven. There are other important milestones this season (the introduction of the Kingdom, the appearance of the oddball garbage-dump-residing Scavengers), but this is the series at its darkest, and while it’s not particularly enjoyable, it’s crucial for understanding the direction the show took during the Savior War.
“Warning Signs” (season nine, episode three)
Despite not really living up to its promise, the changes the series made in its ninth season—jumping ahead 18 months, building a society and introducing trade between all the outposts (including the ex-Savior’s home, Sanctuary)—made for some invigorating storytelling, none more so than “Warning,” an episode that showed the series could be just as exciting when it chose to focus on the kinds of primal politics and under-the-table infighting that occurs among people and groups jockeying for power and resources. Alexandria, the Kingdom, Oceanside… these may all be members of an uneasy alliance, but their respective citizens still put their own needs first. By depicting the ways mistrust and scarcity can upend even the most hopeful of arrangements, it brought a new kind of intensity to The Walking Dead, one that the series has only fitfully embraced since.
“Squeeze” (season 10, episode nine)
Even in its final years, The Walking Dead has remembered what made it such a compelling series in the first place—the emotional impact of seeing people dealing with constant fear and uncertainty in a world that could erupt with the undead all around them at any moment. That daring unpredictability was often sacrificed during the years in Alexandria, but this episode brought it back in a big (and much-needed) way. Samantha Morton’s Alpha traps Carol, Daryl, and several other members of the group in a cave, surrounded on all sides by walkers. With the barest of supplies and no visible exit, our heroes have to find a way through the undead threat and discover the way out. The claustrophobia and darkness are put to marvelous use, and generate a suspense too often missing in the series’ weaker seasons. But thanks to the underground ordeal (and some frisson generated by Negan’s entry into the Whisperer camp), The Walking Dead reminded its viewers what a thrill it could be.
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Mock the show as much as you want. I mean I do a lot. But bloody hell man was that premiere something. Its still one of the best pilots, the Lost pilot is very comparable. After that, something like Clear or Here Not Here would probably come after. The latter was sadly poorly timed as it was in the middle of the Dumpster Glenn saga which was pitifully dumb. Which is 90 percent of the show, after Darabont left the writing just got more ridiculously. Honestly the best piece of Walking Dead media is still the Telltale game, season one specifically.
Is the pilot where he almost rides into a horde and gets stuck in a tank?Cause that was one of the most compelling scenes I’ve ever seen on TV.
but the horse … oh, the horse :{
Yep that’s the very one. I was in Atlanta once and I looked for the filming spot. Forsyth street.
I haven’t seen that season since it debuted, so in reading the recap, and not seeing it mentioned, it seemed like maybe too much to happen in one episode.So yeah, the pilot was the best (maybe ever). Glenn’s dumpster was the worst, and the cave made no freeking sense at all.
Glenn on a dumpster is when I mentally checked out. The fact he DIED a few episodes later makes it a sick joke on the audience. Jesus Christ was that embarrassing.
I really wish that they’d been able to make that prequel movie which showed many of the characters before and during the apocalypse and primarily followed Sam Witwer who ended up as the dead guy in the tank.But that was Darabont’s idea so … well, you can guess why it ended up as dead as Witwer in that tank.
Sound like Fear The Walking Dead, only more from the soldiers’ POV.
Ah yeah but I think that none of us who loathe that series question the fact that it started very well. For almost a whole season.
Perlafas is 100% correct !
I wish the fuck I could regain the time spent trying to drop in on eps in S.2 and S.3 and realize the steaming pile of crap grows with each ep
I was so incredibly pissed when Darabont left.
I remember being really impatient with the pilot that the characters couldn’t grok the concept of a zombie infestation. Why do so many zombie shows exist in universes without zombie shows?
We exist in a universe where wearing a mask to slow a pandemic is considered by many as the moral equivalent of imprisonment and enslavement. If there was a zombie outbreak a bunch of them would go to them to prove it is a hoax.
Because otherwise they would have a better idea of what was going on amidst the initial chaos and therefore be better equipped to handle it. If they have no idea what’s going on, we get to see (ideally) who these characters are by how they respond to a crisis no one understands. Pretty basic writing practice — put characters into a situation and let them show who they are based on how they respond to it.
i think people who like lost and and people who vote trump has a large overlap. morons.
Completely agree. And re-watching that opening scene with the little girl makes me wonder if that was the last/only time a zombie was heard before it was seen.
I think I made I made it through seven seasons, and the pilot was still the high water mark, which I’m not sure has ever happened before. Even when the pilot’s genuinely great (Lost, Breaking Bad), there are usually better episodes on the horizon.
I probably would have quit the show earlier if it hadn’t been for the reintroduction of Morgan, a genuinely interesting character, which was rare for this show. And every season there were a handful of episodes that were well done. Usually they were the episodes that could have stood on their own separate from the larger season long story arc, which is where the show usually struggled.
The Telltale game is great. I think it simply comes down to making your own choices (even though their impact was pretty underwhelming upon a replay or further scrutiny) rather than being boxed in by the show’s sketchy writing. The characters were barely any deeper (if at all), but when you’re the one making life-or-death decisions about them, you get more invested. Plus the split-second nature of certain decisions gives the story more punch.
The game also didn’t pull punches like the show did in later years. Season 1 had no problem blowing away people you liked and innocent kids. Also the core relationship sat on a stronger foundation then the show ever did.
What i really, REALLY loved about Season 1, and by extension, the show under Darabont was how deliberate and tactical the action was. I mean, if you go back and watch Season 1, it’s remarkable how much thinking and planning occurs aroudn each and every action scene.I loved loved LOVED how cerebral the action was.the show REALLY got away from that quickly. Season 2 it was already mostly gone, and by Season 4, it was just “normal” react and shoot zombie action without much planning beyond “go in and shoot/stab stuff.”A real shame.
Clementine should have appeared on the show. She becomes pretty great by that last Telltale game
The writers would have fucked it up. They wouldn’t have gotten the character I’m sure of it. She’s a fantastic character but only when its the writers who got why people like the character.
‘The Walking Dead’ is like ‘Game of Thrones’ in that all people seemed to do about the back half of the series run is complain about how the story’s falling apart.
They pretty much complained about that with TWD from early on – it never really had the critical plaudits that GoT did. But there were enough strong moments and an exemplary cast, which meant that it kept building. I think I really got into the show around the episode where Lori and T-Dog died. I bailed around the time Negan arrived, as the rinse-and-repeat nihilism had run its course, but I will always have good memories of the time I watched (unlike GoT, sadly…). And it introduced me to so many phenomenal actors, especially Danai Gurira and Melissa McBride. The actors who got a chance through the show should be its lasting legacy. (While I didn’t stay around to finish the story out, I also have to give the show some praise for the slow-burn Rick and Michonne romance, which felt so natural and believable due to the wonderful work of Danai and Andrew Lincoln)
T-Dog NOOOOOOO!
Aw, hell naw!
Unlike Game of Thrones, Walking Dead took MASSIVE liberties though with the source material out of the gate (omitting Tyrese, keeping Carol alive AND fundamentally altering her into an INO character, the very existence of Daryl, COMPLETELY neutering the Governor and actually making him sympathetic in so far as the writers making the Governor less of a complete monster due to them knowing that Negan was coming and the complaints comic fans made about Negan being the Governor 2.0, killing off Carl, among many other changes). And Kirkman, at least at first, CHAMPIONED a lot of the changes, most notably that Kirkman explicitly defended keeping Shane alive and claiming that he “regretted” killing Shane off and loving how the show was milking the love triangle. Hell, Shane would still be alive/part of the show if not for the actor being BFFS with Darabont and bailing from the show first chance he could get.
Maybe that’s because in both shows, the stories totally fell about in the back halves?
Heaven forbid people go to a pop culture website to discuss how they feel about a popular television show.
Some co-worker complaining at the office every day about GoT’s decline? Yeah, that’s annoying. In the AV Club comments section? Isn’t that what this is for?
At least with GoT, when they ran out of book to adapt they immediately made it obvious they were moving toward a conclusion, finally bringing people together after all this time scattering them further apart. There has never been any point in TWD that seemed like an ending was ever going to happen – zombie apocalypse stories are generally allergic to them anyway.
I’m surprised the equally beloved Season 2 premiere, where they get stuck on a school bus while a vast herd of walkers surrounds them and walks past, isn’t here.I’ve always loved the episode with Daryl and Carol scouring downtown Atlanta for supplies. Whole segments of the show pass in silence; it’s a tribute to their relationship and how well they know each other. The show was doing lots of interesting things with its characters that whole season, then it came to a screeching halt the second they walked through the gates of Alexandria. (Rick standing right outside the gates, pondering whether or not to trust them, then deciding to walk to the gates and they open for him and his crew to welcome them in, could stand for a fitting series finale).
I only ever remember seeing Season 1 as it happened (and I was out by Season 4 – having seen only the premiere and maybe 1 other) but there were a lot things early on that annoyed me.Probably thinking about it too much but even as a not survivalist, I remember being distinctly annoyed at things like everyone seated around Dale’s camper in front of a fire yammering away like idiots instead of basic stuff like having people on guard and defensive ditches, things walkers could walk into to set off things to make sound to warn them and so on. Also, especially just not doing things to attract them in the first place.I guess one of the problems I had with the show (and a lot of zombie stuff in general) and especially slow ones is that so much of the drama is manufactured by people somehow falling victim to things so slow moving that a brisk walk could outpace them. I can’t help but feel that the actual collapse of society is glossed over in these things because society would handle it a lot better than they ever get credit for.
I see The Walking Dead as a victim of its own success. You either die a cool zombie show, or you live long enough to see yourself become an old, tired, washed up sorta zombie show.
I kind of stopped watching after the slog that was Season 2. All I remember from that season was mainly just Lori somehow crashing her car despite driving in a straight line and the fact they stayed at the farm for multiple episodes despite the fact that they left the farm in the comic after one or two issues.I’m sure the show gets better after Season Two but it’s hard to try and pick the show up again.
I started watching the show when the new episodes were in the middle of season 5, binging through the prior episodes over about a month. So, the slog of season 2 that everyone bemoans was a long weekend for me, and it did not seem so bad.
I watched season 2 when it was new and still say it gets too much hate. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it seems like it completely killed the show for a lot of people.
Yeah. I didn’t mind the concept of staying on the farm for that long ( which is what everyone seems to complain about) given that it seemed like a peaceful oasis. My real problem with the farm episodes were that they were poorly written. It’s been a while now, but I distinctly remember there being a problem with most of the conflicts stemming solely from characters just not telling other characters useful things for no reason, seemingly JUST to create problems. Not “oh yeah, we better keep our affair secret” kind of thing where keeping “the secret” made sense, but more like “oh yeah, that guy we captured…well he escaped a couple of hours ago, sorry I forgot to tell you guys. Was that important?” Granted, this kind of thing became staple for the next batch of seasons, but this season helped set the stage for specifically watching the show just to see characters doing stupid, nonsensical things because the writers needed some way to drum up conflict. (Something which continues to this very day, see FtWD Ginny’s really stupid, overly complicated plan to “find a general” that honestly makes no sense in any reality, aside from a writer trying to desperately set up a weird “logical” reason to eventually pit Morgan against Strand beyond simply using Strand’s “let’s make deal” character traits)And the farm season gave us the infuriating section where in one episode Lori tells Rick that he’s going to have to kill Shane, and then in what I think was the very next episode, Rick tells her that he just killed Shane, and then Lori is horrified how Rick could do such a thing and refuses to forgive him for numerous other episodes going forward.
If I remember correctly one of the things that lead to Season 2 being what it was is that the budget was slashed between seasons 1 and 2, so one of things they did to save money was stay on the farm mostly so to save on location costs
I can’t think of any other shows where the network made such a mercenary decision so early. As soon as it became clear they had a monster hit on their hands they decided to maximize profits at the expense of making a good show. I guess they were right people kept watching no matter how bad the show got but they could have had a great show and still made a truckload of money. It was equally baffling that the creator of the comic seemed to have no concerns at all with the quality as long as he was getting paid.
“We thought this would be popular, but crap never THIS popular good job!
Oh and we are going to cut your budget by about 50% for season 2 to make the bean-counters happy”
I bailed completely during the “Negan breaks everyone down” slog, but by then I was already watching eps on fast-forward, only stopping for action scenes. What was wrong with me?Anyhow, the eps between the prison and fully dealing with the Terminus cannibals was probably my favorite stretch of the show.
‘TS-19′ should have been included.
I’d also propose The Grove. Such a heartbreaking episode on many levels
Agree on both of those. For me, “Nebraska” came to mind.
Oh, the Grove!!! Just look at the flowers!
10 episodes that show how The Walking Dead turned into a cultural juggernaut…and 643 episodes that show how it fell into irrelevance.
I don’t watch it anymore, but its recaps and posts still seem to garner the most activity with comments and such, so seems like its got a big fan base still.
“irrelevance”It’s still one of the most watched shows on broadcast or cable TV, yet is somehow irrelevant.
I largely agree with this article, apart from one small point: Cecil was Sideshow Bob’s brother, not Krusty’s.
I don’t even know if the show ever truly went downhill(although I stopped watching so maybe don’t quote me lol), but do I think it’s always been bumpy with really great moments. That moment Sophia came out of the barn is still one of the most shocking tv moments I’ve experienced.
So where’s the “50 episodes that made the show unwatchable” list?
Yeah, I checked out pretty much when Rick left, but I will never forget the pure excitement of the battle at the prison, the last 20 minutes or so of that episode had me so wound up, I was yelling at the TV. From the moment the Governor arrives at the prison to the frantic escape at the end, it was just incredibly exciting to watch!
Great premiere and that was it. The rest of it was boring and predictable. Half a season searching for a girl we already knew was already a walker and in that barn. 1 more half season of bad cgi and plodding stories and i was done along with mostly everyone else i knew. .
I don’t think the choice to call them walkers instead of zombies was particularly odd when you consider Kirkman intentionally set the books in a world where the very concept of zombies had never existed, so there were no Romero movies or anything for the survivors to lean on. In a world where no one had ever even considered the concept of a “zombie” why would they call them zombies?
They WERE called “zombies” in the first several issues. I started reading the books right around the time the Prison/Woodbury arc started on the show.
Wait, were they really? I only started reading the books when the first couple compendiums were published, and I don’t remember that (and I swear I’ve read interviews with Kirkman saying it’s a world where zombies never existed in pop culture), so I’m wondering if he retroactively made that decision.
It makes you wonder what the Cranberries 1994 hit song would have been titled
Would have been the same song, in so far as referencing the old school Haitian voodoo zombie (which are mindbroke slaves, which fits the song’s view of supporters/members of the IRA as brainwashed anti-life drones). But in particular, Kirkman’s on the record as far as saying that the Walking Dead universe is a world where Night of the Living Dead was never made, which created a cascade effect in that what we consider “zombies” (IE literal undead flesh eaters, as opposed to the Haitian Voodoo brainwashing slave kind of zombie) never exploded into popular consciousness and spiritual successor films and media (Dawn/Day/Return of the (Living) Dead, The Beyond, Gates of Hell, Zombie, Resident Evil, Cemetery Man, etc never happened and that as a result, the word “zombie” never re-entered the pop culture language after Night of the Living Dead and hence why the zombies in TWD were called “walkers” instead.
Walkers is whatever. Having every group you meet give them their own cutesy name was a bit much.
Now THAT I agree with. In reality, it’s pretty ridiculous that everyone doesn’t just call them “the dead.”
I can understand the disappointment about the show, but I’m honestly more disappointed that the AV Club referred to Cecil as “Krusty the Clown’s brother.”
We quit at some point when there was full on war with Negan’s horde. My wife and I just lost interest. But there is no denying how great the show could be. Even though I’m done, I’m never going to troll message boards with “THIS IS STILL ON???” Petty.One moment that always sticks out to me is when they reveal what they were up to in Terminus. (((Shudders))) I believe that was evil human group # 2. Lost count.
I’ve sort of come and gone with the show over the years, but never ceased to be amazed at how many societies led by evil megalomaniacs it throws at us.Speaking of which, one of my friends is a producer on the show and apparently Harry Dean Morgan is one of the nicest people on the planet so watching him play Negan is jarring for the crew.
I heard JDM interviewed on Howard Stern once. He seemed so damn laid back and down to Earth. Very likable.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan.Harry Morgan played Colonel Potter on MASH.
Ha, actually I think I was subconsciously missing Harry Dean Stanton but realized the mistake too late to edit.
Missing Harry Dean Stanton is also a perfectly reasonable position to take if not one that should be encouraged.
Now that would be a very special MASH episode…
I have zero interest in ‘keeping up’ with the show, but it’s as good of a short Netflix binge as any other horror show.
I stopped watching after the first 5-6 seasons and the Terminus slaughter trough scene is easily the single most horrific thing the show ever did.I stopped watching after the first full Negan episode not because I thought it was all bad, but because I really watching the show caused me so much stress and I didn’t want to deal with that every week.
its not though.
Cecil is Sideshow Bob’s brother, not Krusty’s. Gee, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Now now, you know Cousin Alex ain’t been quite right, lately.
Well, he does have occasional problems with the revenuers, but he’s hardly a master crim—
Worst. Genealogy. Ever.
“Still” is my favorite episode of the show, period.
Normie-ass genre TV.
I lost interest after Hershel found the infinite ammo power up and I think i stopped watching by the end of season 5. If season 6 was peak, maybe i’ll go back to check that out. For a show that centered around finite resources, it was my jump the shark moment.
How many ‘I hate the show/it sucks/I stopped watching in season two’ people are here to fill the comments? *checks comments* That tracks. I’ve never seen a show that’s still running that people quit a decade ago manage to drag them out every single time to tell the world how much they hate it/how they quit. Even GoT didn’t get this before it’s end. It’s uneven but it’s compelling at it’s best.
I don’t own a TV…
If only there was some other form of mass media consumption… alas, we’ll never know.
I don’t know what “owns” means…
I’m one of them, although I stopped two or three seasons ago, not after season two. The thing is, it was a REALLY great show, and those of us that loved it are still bitter about how quickly it went downhill. It’s like finding an excuse to insult an ex that cheated on you a few years later…still feels good.
It’s picked back up here and there…kinda
I stopped at the end of Season 1. I later skimmed through Season 2 and 3 a bit (and regretted it). I eventually skipped to the two Terminus episodes (was that the end of Season 3 and start of Season 4? – where one episode ended with them in a shipping crate or something and the next getting revenge?).Those two episodes were really good and I chose to stop at that point. I might have seen one episode set after that (really not sure) but otherwise, I have stuck with that decision.Was really looking forward to Fear the Walking Dead when I thought it was something like showing how a random group of survivors from the army, police, government and healthcare/disaster response were thrown together But then I found out what it actually was and I thought Season 1 was woeful and stopped right there. People say it got better past that but don’t know, don’t care, I thought Season 1 was just too bad for me to care about anything beyond that.
Doctor Who gets people who bailed in the 60’s but still show up to bitch about it.
Every season there would be people bitching that they’ll never watch the show again. The next season rolls around and they’re back, bitchig that they’ll never watch the show again.
I agree, if you don’t like it or watch it, go elsewhere and comment on something you do enjoy, and resist an urge to insert yourself simply you can trash a series. I was a fan of the comics and though I know it was uneven, there were good episodes throughout the years. Who knows if Darabont continued past season one if the quality would have stayed consistently high? Maybe season 2 or 3 or 8, everyone pushes the narrative envelope, ramps up the cheese, takes a short cut now and again…
It’s show that I found was wildly inconsistent. That first season held so much promise, it was 6 episodes but the story telling was focused and that first episode was creepy. Reading about some of the things Darabont had planned for Season 2 made it seem like a better show. I think the constant change of showrunners, seasons that ended up being 3 or 4 episodes 2 long, and budget issues hinder the show. The end of Season 1 seemed like the show was going somewhere and then Season 2 took all the air out of it with the farm. There were good characters that came out of that but that section of the show is a slog to get through.
The show fell off a cliff and ran way too long but a lot of moments made me sad or tear up.Rick biting that guys neck and then the church seen was too bad ass scene’s. But Beth’s death really was a kicker and same with Carl and they both were character’s I didn’t like but they both made me so sad.
This show was great when the walkers were the enemy. When the horribly heavy-handed “humans are the real monsters” themes started coming hard and fast, it spiraled down really quickly.
My favorite TWD arc was the one where they got to a safe place, argued for a while, then found out it wasn’t safe, then one or two of them get killed during the escape.
It’s funny, because when this show came out I had juuuust started dating this girl, and by Season 2 we got more serious and she was like “ehhh no I’m afraid of zombies” and because I was more interested in getting her to like me as much as I liked her I sorta stopped watching it too, in favor of our shared interests. By the time Season 3 was about to begin me and the aforementioned girl were living together, but I hadn’t watched it since early Season 2 so I needed both of us to catch up. She agreed and watched the pilot with me, and that night had a horrible zombie nightmare and was like “pleeeeease don’t make me watch this zombie show” and I really really liked her and pretty much wanted her to marry me so we moved on to other shows we could watch together. Anyway, looks like the show is about to end and that girl who is afraid of zombies is my wife now and she’s still afraid of zombies, but we’ve been married since like the fourth season of The Walking Dead and are in the point in our relationship where we are perfectly happy to watch our separate shows while sitting next to each other wearing headphones, as god intended, so perhaps it’s time for me to return to this show!!!
**follow up**I just yelled to my wife in the other room “Hey you want to try watching the Walking Dead with me tonight?” and she yelled “FUCK NO, YOU WANT ME TO WAKE UP SCREAMING WATCH IT YOURSELF!” Marriage!
You’re lucky.
Great list, but I was 100% expecting The Grove to be on there. Before Negan, The Grove easily had one of the most controversial and iconic moments in the entire show. I remember it making the headlines, and people who didn’t even watch TWD were talking about whether they thought what Carol did was the right thing, but it also spawned one of the only instantly-recognisable (and still used) quotables from a show that’s not really written to give you iconic dialogue.
Thinking about it, Carol’s maybe the best barometer of the show’s creative strengths at any given time (more than Daryl, whose writing can be so uncomplicated it’s easy to keep him consistent). There’s a path she and the show both went through in tandem that goes something like underdog, to hero, to way-harsh-Tai, to floundering, to attempted redemption. For example, the show’s first really high emotional point for me is that big moment of Carol tragedy with Sophia, and it’s maybe one of the first images any TWD fan has in their head when you mention that era. She got stronger at the start of season 3, along with the writing, and then the show did one of the most creatively interesting things it could do – it took an obvious redshirt, planned her death, set up her death, and then changed its mind at essentially the last minute to keep her and turn her into one of the leads. It was such a rare switch on what everyone expected, which is where they were in season 3, introducing the first thriving community, killing off Lori the way they did, and then destroying and offing the comics’ female lead by the end of the season.
After that came the (also controversial) murder of Karen and David, The Grove and the one-woman storming of Sanctuary, all of which happened during the show’s creative peak of ideas and its struggle between brutality, pragmatism and humanity. When the balance of those things slipped in the next two seasons, Carol also grew darker and it took a toll on her, just as the general harshness started to exhaust the audience. As the quality reached its lowest point, it was far more obvious in their writing of her than in anyone else, and it became painfully obvious they couldn’t figure out what to do with her – she and the show had both done the underdog-turned-tortured-hero thing, but where could either of them go from there? What stories were left? Had they both been kept around a couple more seasons than they should’ve…? At least Kang has tried to build Carol back into relevance and redeem her a little, while dealing with the recent legacy of meh-ness left behind by what came immediately before. So that parallel’s still working overtime.
Anyway… tl;dr.
My recurring complain about The Walking Dead empire as a whole and one reason I lost interest: You don’t see brand names on products, all the zombies wear boring clothes off the rack from Target (none of them died at their job in uniform? I remember one episode with an infested fire station and not a single zombie was a fireman!), there are no Shell gas stations or McDonalds or Wal Marts or anything. No billboards on the highways… If they go to a market it’s an old-timey shack… It’s like the show is set in the backwoods of the south circa 1930 and even then you think you’d see a Coke machine somewhere.It’s a minor complaint but speaks to the lack of imagination of the show, they can talk about the world they lost but I barely see any evidence there actually was one.
I see too much advertisement in real life and ridiculously in other shows/films so rather than spend on brand licensing rights I would rather they generically live in the universe and spend the budget on other things such as musical clips.
S7e1 was one of the last episodes I watched. Was the start of me hating the show. Negan was such a ridiculously badly written character that after a couple more episodes I just stopped watching completely. He was by far the biggest mistake the show made.
Arriving at Alexandria and having the gang cope with living in a “normal” world again really felt like the perfect wrapping up storyline. The actual finale should’ve been when the walkers destroyed the town’s walls and they fought off the horde — effectively proving they could sustain what they created.Oh if only
A show that made a zombie apocalypse actually boring. Some decent characters, some decent moments but overall just a slog to get through.
Um, I realize this isn’t totally the point, but Cecil isn’t Krusty the Clown’s brother. He’s Sideshow Bob’s….I promise I am going back to read the actual episodes now.
I guess I’m the only one who liked Season 2. The Sophia reveal doesn’t work without the episodes leading up to it. It just doesn’t. Her disappearance, the waiting, and the not knowing is all important to the effect it has on everyone; The first real test of the group’s dynamic that isn’t just individual petty squabbles. Carol was SO heartbroken, and Daryl was coming into his own, swearing to find her. For a time, there really was hope she’d be back in one piece. There was the awkwardness of living under Hershel’s rules, and the budding romance between the show’s most endearing couple, Glenn and Maggie. Rick is feeling like he failed, and Shane is just pushing and pushing, throwing it in his face. As the years went on, neither the Governor or Negan, were quite the foils to Rick that Shane was.and I think Jon Bernthal is a big reason season 2 is kind of awesome, upon rewatch. (It also flows better on a binge than waiting week to week)
Not to say nothing of Andrew Lincoln, who carried this show on his back, up a hill wearing lead shoes for way longer than it deserved. Rick was one of TV’s Great Characters and should have gotten an Emmy nomination at least once for his work. Season 3 was a lot of buildup against Woodburry that wouldn’t happen until Season 4, so it kinda sucked. (Characters like Andrea making dumb decisions didn’t help either). And after the battle, Season 4 is positively draggy and this was around where the show was clearly stalling for time, because they knew they could fuck with viewers and stretch plots out. (I hated “Still.”) After the Gov is dispatched it has exactly one good episode- a series best: “The Grove”, where Carol has to kill the little girl that’s going crazy, and I can’t believe you missed it.
The rest of this list is actually super good, though I can’t speak to anything after Season 7, because that’s where I bowed out. Being stuck watching it was frustrating, but quitting has actually given me peace, and I can look back at it more fondly.
I’m about to watch episode 16 of season 10. Yes, pretty much what everyone has already said is true. I take it all with a pinch of salt. I still enjoy it, even with how subjectively bad it is now. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine. I stay for Negan, and for Daryl.
“It marks the first real moment The Walking Dead began shedding viewers”Ah, yes, when Glen and Abraham get their heads bashed in. I was looking forward to it because of the books. Abraham was a bonus. I wasn’t disappointed. People bitched when they strayed from the books, then people lost their fucking minds when they didn’t.
I was pissed when they pussified Lori’s death. For those who haven’t read the books, she and the baby get torn apart by walkers during one of the prison escapes. People would have left the show back then if they actually stuck to the books on that one.
Yes, I think the Comics made me much more relaxed about seeing the show and knowing (maybe) things would or wouldn’t go a certain way. I like the variations but also the known elements (Whisperers, Negan) and simply enjoy the ride.