One of the hallmarks of my inner nerd is my immense love for "The Walking Dead" and its characters. As much as I hate to admit it, I've cried my fair share of tears over this show and figured I'd share my rankings of the saddest, most tragic deaths throughout the eight seasons produced so far.
Warning: major spoilers ahead!
10. Lizzie
Season 4, Episode 7: "The Grove," was an iconic and gruesome episode of the show, opening it up to new savagery. Mimicking the classic death of Lennie Small in "Of Mice and Men," Lizzie was a tragic, young victim of the zombie apocalypse and the horrors it entailed. After killing her sister to purposefully turn her into a zombie (so she could be alive forever), Carol took her to a field and said her now infamous line "Look at the flowers, Lizzie," and shot her in her back because she was unsuitable to live in the new world.
9. Tyreese
Season 5, Episode 9: Sasha's brother Tyreese Williams was the lovable "gentle giant" character that had arguably the most unique and poetic deaths in the show's entirety. His slow death lasted a whole episode and showed how Tyreese had to confront his past demons, including Lizzie (above) and The Governor.
8. Beth
Season 5, Episode 8: The show's soft-hearted soul, Maggie's sister Beth was an optimistic and hopeful teenage girl that went from suicidal and scared to badass and fearless. Her unexpected and quick death was a shock and sadness to all fans.
7. Sophia
Season 2 Episode 7 (my personal favorite episode of the series as a whole) was one of the biggest plot twists in "The Walking Dead" history and left us all crying for poor little Sophia and her mother Carol. Sophia ran away from the big group and got lost in the woods before they all found the Greene's farm. The first half of the second season was spent attempting to find Sophia, when in reality she was in the barn the whole time as a zombie.
6. Sasha
Season 7 Episode 16: Sasha Williams is easily deemed one of the strongest and most selfless characters in the whole show, dying because when captured by enemies she did not want to be used as leverage.
5. Abraham
Season 7 Episode 1: Abraham was easily the show's funniest character, but under that vulgar humor was a man with a harrowing past. In the notoriously grisly episode of Negan's wrath (an episode so violent that AMC had to tone it down later), Abraham was the first victim to be beaten by the barbed wired bat Lucille. The truly heroic and saddening part is that Abraham was happy he was chosen to die; he would have sacrificed himself for anyone in the group and finally had the chance to.
4. Carl
Season 8 Episode 8: Carl Grimes, our protagonist's Rick's son, has been on the show since the very first episode and has matured (in real life and in the show) to become a young man over the course of eight seasons. He died because he trying to help a stranger kill a horde of zombies. As such an important character to the show and characters within it, his death was hard to watch and process.
3. Lori
Season 3 Episode 4: I think I speak on behalf of the majority of fans when I say that Lori was a rather irritating character. Needless to say, her death was one of the saddest and most memorable on the show. Her final speech to Carl before dying for her fetus was genuinely heartbreaking and changed the course of the show.
2. Hershel
Season 4 Episode 8: An iconic and shocking episode, Hershel's death was unexpected and unfair to someone so hopeful. I don't think any fan will be able to forget how gory and medieval this farmer's death was. Also, I don't think anyone was able to say the Governor's name with a fury boiling inside of them.
1. Glenn
Season 7 Episode 1: Enough said. My eyes started to well with tears just thinking about Glenn Rhee and how much better he deserved. Too young. Too soon. Too good for this world.
