The Walking Dead: How Every Main Character Dies In The Series

If there's one thing that kept "The Walking Dead" going as long as it did, it was perhaps the morbid desire among fans to see how the characters they loved would inevitably die. With the surprising death of Sophia Peletier in Season 2, the hit AMC series made it clear that no one was safe from the inescapable dangers of its zombie apocalypse. That sense of unpredictability quickly became one of the show's defining qualities, ensuring that even seemingly indispensable characters never felt completely secure.

Over the course of its 11-season run, "The Walking Dead" killed off more than two dozen series regulars. Many of those deaths, especially toward the start of the series, were satisfyingly heartbreaking, while others may have felt like cheap attempts at shock value. We'll mostly withhold our judgment for the time being as we take you chronologically through every major character death in the original series.

Season 2, Episode 11, "Judge, Jury, Executioner"

Over the course of the first two seasons, Dale became the group's moral center, arguing for them to spare a captured enemy in one of his final acts before his death. He was gutted, metaphorically speaking, when Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the rest of the group chose execution — and was later gutted literally by a walker while patrolling at night. Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) shoots him in the head before he turns, poetically preserving his humanity in the same way Dale wanted the group to preserve theirs.

It's a great moment for the series that came about under strange circumstances. Jeffrey DeMunn, who played Dale, asked to be killed off out of loyalty to fired creator-showrunner Frank Darabont.

Season 2, Episode 12, "Better Angels"

In the episode after Dale's death, Rick decides that the captive should be spared to honor his memory. Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) disagrees. He murders the man and attempts to make it look like he escaped, further driving a wedge between him and Rick.

When Shane brings his old friend into the woods to stage a similar 'accident,' Rick realizes it's a setup for murder. Shane believes killing Rick will allow him to reunite with Rick's wife, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies). She's pregnant, and, as is TV law, one of them is the father. Though Rick later acknowledges that the child is Shane's, Shane doesn't live to meet her — Rick fatally stabs him. Carl (Chandler Riggs), who had spent the apocalypse up to that point treating Shane as a surrogate father, shoots him in the head when he reanimates – a callback to Shane's death in the comics.

Season 3, Episode 4, "Killer Within"

Speaking of Lori Grimes and her inconvenient post-apocalypse pregnancy, the series grants her no mercy throughout the entirety of the process. She eventually winds up going into labor while the group is separated in a prison and attempting to survive a horde of walkers. The same episode also claims the life of IronE Singleton's T-Dog.

And if that weren't agonizing enough, complications during the improvised delivery force Lori to undergo an emergency, unmedicated C-section, courtesy of Maggie Greene (Lauren Cohan). Baby Judith survives — Lori does not, succumbing to blood loss. Her own son, Carl, shoots her (with the very gun his dad had given him) to make sure she doesn't come back.

Season 3, Episode 15, "This Sorrowful Life"

After being left to die in Atlanta by the group at the beginning of Season 1, Michael Rooker's Merle Dixon returned to "The Walking Dead" in Season 3 with a chip on his shoulder and a blade for a hand. He was a real sonuva under the leadership of the Governor (David Morrissey), but had a last-minute change of heart thanks to Danai Gurira's Michonne.

On his way to deliver her to his psychopathic boss, he realizes how far he's been led astray and lets her go. He then attempts to kill the Governor himself, only to be caught by the Woodbury soldiers during his assault. The Governor shoots him in the chest, leaving him to turn into a walker that his brother, Daryl, must tragically kill.

Season 3, Episode 16, "Welcome to the Tombs"

Andrea Harrison (Laurie Holden) had long been one of "The Walking Dead's" least-liked characters, even before she started dating the obviously evil Governor of Woodbury. She realizes his true nature too late, just two episodes before her death, when she learns that he intends to kill all of her former friends and viciously torture Michonne.

She tries to flee Woodbury, but is captured by the Governor and thrown into the very chamber meant for Michonne. In the room with her is Milton (Dallas Roberts), another disillusioned former ally of the Governor, who is stabbed and intentionally left to turn so that he will kill Andrea. It works, with Michonne finding Andrea just after the zombified Milton bites her. She shoots herself in the head.

Season 4, Episode 8, "Too Far Gone"

The final major victim of the Governor's reign of torment was fittingly the most tragic. Scott Wilson's Hershel Greene had been the show's source of sanctuary since he welcomed the group into his farm. The audience no doubt wanted to believe the Governor when he claimed he didn't want to hurt anyone after taking both Hershel and Michonne hostage in an attempt to force Rick's group out of the prison.

Rick refuses, telling the Governor that the two groups can live together as one community inside the prison, echoing the more compassionate outlook Hershel had long encouraged. Ironically, the Governor calls Rick a "liar" and decapitates Hershel with Michonne's katana. His death instantly became one of the show's biggest moments yet, immortalizing "Too Far Gone" as an all-time great episode of "The Walking Dead."

Season 4, Episode 8, "Too Far Gone"

Hershel's death triggers a bloody shootout between the prison group and the Governor's new militia. It ends when it's revealed that Meghan Chambler (Meyrick Murphy) has been bitten by a walker nearby. The Governor (real name Philip Blake) had basically been treating Meghan as a stand-in for his own daughter, whom he kept as a zombified prisoner before Michonne killed her.

Philip, in a state of deranged grief, continues the assault that will destroy the prison for good. During the process, he comes face to face with Rick and nearly chokes him to death, only for Michonne to skewer him from behind. He's ultimately killed by Meghan's mother, Lilly (Audrey Marie Anderson), whom he briefly dated after Andrea died.

Season 5, Episode 3, "Four Walls and a Roof"

The main reason why Dale's death in Season 2 was so shocking was that his character had a pretty memorable end in the comics. The TV show honored the moment's importance — they just had to give it to another, ill-fated character.

While on a supply run, Bob Stookey (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) is bitten by a walker and chooses to keep it secret. Sadly, before he can tell his girlfriend Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), Bob is taken hostage by the cannibals from Terminus, who begin eating him. It's only after they've eaten a significant portion of his leg that Bob exposes the truth (as Dale did in the comics) with two chilling words – "Tainted meat!" Later, a rescued Bob gets to say his goodbyes before dying from the walker bite. Tyreese Williams (Chad L. Coleman) then stabs him in the head to prevent him from reanimating.

Season 5, Episode 3, "Four Walls and a Roof"

Unfortunately, Bob's bite doesn't actually harm his captors (that's not how the infection works in "The Walking Dead" — everyone's already infected). The Terminus cannibals live to feast another day, led by Gareth (Andrew J. West).

They return Bob to the group and later track them to St. Sarah's Church, where Rick's group had taken refuge and met Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). During the final confrontation, Rick outsmarts Gareth and manages to overpower him. Despite Gareth's pleas for mercy, Rick chooses to make good on the promise he made in the Season 5 premiere — he hacks Gareth to death with a machete as the rest of the group terminates Terminus for good.

Season 5, Episode 8, "Coda"

One of the most divisive main-character deaths in the series, the loss of Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) is still gut-wrenching. The group's caregiver was abducted after the prison's fall by a group of corrupt first responders holed up in Grady Memorial Hospital. She was safe, but forced to live under the abusive rule of Officer Dawn Lerner (Christine Woods). Carol (Melissa McBride) was eventually captured as well.

When Rick's group learns where they are, they arrange to exchange two captured Grady officers for Beth and Carol. Dawn agrees, but also demands the return of Noah (Tyler James Williams), Beth's friend on the inside who had previously escaped. When Noah agrees, an angry Beth stabs Dawn with a pair of scissors, causing Dawn to reflexively fire a round through Beth's head. Poor Maggie hasn't caught a break since she left the farm, and it's only going to get worse.

Season 5, Episode 9, "What Happened and What's Going On"

Weeks after Beth's death, the group follows Noah back to Shirewilt Estates in Virginia, hoping his secluded, walled community has survived the apocalypse and could serve as a potential long-term shelter. When they arrive, Noah is devastated to learn that his home has been destroyed by a band of raiders later revealed as the Wolves.

As Chad L. Coleman's Tyreese Williams attempts to console him in private, reassuring him that there are better days beyond tragedy, Tyreese is bitten by one of Noah's zombified brothers. Tyreese spends the remainder of the episode hallucinating conversations with other dead characters, including Bob and the Governor, before peacefully succumbing to his wounds. In a postmortem with TVLine, Coleman expressed that Tyreese's no-kill policy was always going to limit his time within Rick's group.

Season 6, Episode 8, "Start to Finish"

Once a congresswoman representing Ohio's 15th District, Deanna Monroe (Tovah Feldshuh) was able to found one of the most successful post-apocalyptic communities. Rick's group found sanctuary within the Alexandria Safe-Zone for some time, acquiescing to life under someone else's rule.

She was a complicated but overall beloved and respected leader through to the very end. When one of Alexandria's walls is destroyed, leaving the town vulnerable to a herd of walkers, Deanna is bitten while helping Rick escape the herd. She entrusts the future of the community to Rick and resolves to take her own life when the time comes — but in her final moments, she decides to spend her remaining bullets taking down as many walkers as she can. She turns up as a walker a few episodes later, in "The Next World," and is killed by her son, Spencer (Austin Nichols).

Season 6, Episode 9, "No Way Out"

With Alexandria swiftly overrun by walkers, Rick and his group attempt to escape the town with the old zombie-cosplay trick he learned back in Season 1. He douses himself and Carl in walker guts, and helps the Anderson family do the same.

While they walk hand in hand through the horde of walkers, Jessie's young son, Sam (Major Dodson), is devoured when he begins to cry in fear. Jessie is understandably horrified by the scene and begins to scream herself, which, of course, causes the walkers to turn on her. She's eaten while gripping Carl's hand, forcing Rick to chop off her arm with a hatchet. Jessie's surviving son, Ron (Austin Abrams), tries to get revenge on Rick using his own gun, but is killed by Michonne. He gets a single stray shot off that accidentally takes out Carl's eye.

Season 7, Episode 1, "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be"

This would be one of the most talked-about deaths in TV history if it weren't rightly overshadowed by the next entry on the list. The leader of the Saviors, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), arrived in the Season 6 finale. Having captured Rick's group, he kills one of them at random, playing eeny meeny miny moe with his bat, Lucille. The attack is shot from the victim's point of view to hide their identity until the next season. The cliffhanger was not well received by audiences, but it nonetheless generated immense online discourse, and the Season 7 premiere ultimately achieved the series' second-highest Nielsen ratings at the time.

So who does Negan decide to kill after months of buildup? Poor Abraham Ford, Michael Cudlitz's Army vet who had just started to settle into his post-apocalyptic life with the romantically ill-fated Sasha.

Season 7, Episode 1, "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be"

But wait, there's more! The death scene shot in the Season 6 finale closely resembled the comic-book death scene of Steven Yeun's Glenn Rhee. The character's demise in the source material, also at the hands of Negan, was one of the most dreaded potential plotlines for viewers aware of his fate.

Amid the speculation between seasons, audiences couldn't decide whether the resemblance to Glenn's death was a misdirect or confirmation that the fan-favorite character was about to meet his end. When Negan initially chose Abraham, many Glenn fans breathed a sigh of relief — then Daryl had to get involved.

When Daryl takes a reckless swing at Negan after Abraham's murder, Negan retaliates by killing another member of their party. This time, he chooses Glenn, and everyone is forced to watch what is arguably the show's most upsetting and gratuitously gruesome kill.

Season 7, Episode 8, "Hearts Still Beating"

At this point, Rick's group has managed to retake Alexandria from the walkers, only to find themselves under the boot of Negan's Saviors. It's a bleak state of affairs, which only further erodes the trust of Deanna Monroe's broken and traumatized son, Spencer.

The show does little to emphasize how much Austin Nichols' character has gone through by the time he makes a play against Rick. He mostly comes off like an arrogant boy. As a result, there's little sympathy to be found when Negan ultimately guts him in the middle of town in broad daylight, following Spencer's misguided attempt to convince Negan to make him leader of Alexandria. Ironically, it's Rick who has to kill Spencer again when he comes back as a walker.

Season 7, Episode 16, "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life"

Sasha Williams had to watch her brother and two of her lovers die in horrific ways in just a couple of years. This drives her to attempt a reckless one-woman assassination of Negan. It fails, and she spends the final episodes of Season 7 locked in the Saviors' compound before Negan eventually decides to use her as leverage to finally subjugate Alexandria. Eugene (Josh McDermitt), a former friend turned reluctant ally of Negan's, secretly gives her a poison capsule out of mercy.

Choosing death over being used against her friends, Sasha takes the pill while being transported to Alexandria in a coffin, imagining a final conversation with Abraham as she dies. When Negan attempts to reveal her to Alexandria, she emerges as a walker and nearly kills him. Maggie ultimately puts her down.

Season 8, Episode 9, "Honor"

Over the course of eight seasons, audiences had watched Chandler Riggs' Carl Grimes grow up in a world that could've easily shaped him into a heartless killer. He struggled with those pressures, yet fought to keep his humanity up until the end.

During the "All Out War" between the Saviors and the resisting communities of Rick's militia, Carl reveals that he was bitten while helping a lone wanderer, Avi Nash's Siddiq. He has written a series of letters to several characters, including one to Negan, who had come to respect Carl so much that he is genuinely mournful when he learns of his death. His letters to Rick and Negan urge them to find a peaceful resolution to their conflict. Before Rick and Negan can fully act on his wishes, however, Carl shoots himself to prevent reanimation.

Season 8, Episode 15, "Worth"

Sadly, Carl's pleas for peace fall on deaf ears, and the All Out War rages on. Amid the bloodshed, Negan's right-hand man, Simon (Steven Ogg), begins to openly question the decision to continue fighting a war of subjugation when the Saviors could simply exterminate the rival communities with overwhelming force.

Negan finds out that Simon has been planning a mutiny and challenges him to a duel for leadership of the Saviors. Negan wins by strangling Simon, after which Simon reanimates as a walker and is tethered to the fence of the compound.

Season 9, Episode 1, "A New Beginning"

By Season 9, the war has ended, prisoners have been taken, and the allied communities are enjoying an uneasy era of peace. Gregory (Xander Berkeley), the former leader of the Hilltop community who had enabled the Saviors to exploit his people, is now a bitter drunkard sowing dissent against his successor, Maggie.

Maggie herself is in a tricky state, betrayed by Rick's decision to extend mercy to Negan. When Gregory manipulates a grieving Hilltop resident into trying to kill Maggie, she has Gregory publicly hanged for the assassination attempt.

Season 9, Episode 8, "Evolution"

Just a few episodes later, "The Walking Dead" leaps ahead six years. By this point, the communities are struggling and isolated, and Rick has been presumed dead after seemingly sacrificing himself to stop a herd. In reality, he survived to lead a spinoff series, "The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live."

Maggie has also departed, leaving Jesus (Tom Payne) as the new acting leader of Hilltop. While searching for a missing Eugene, Jesus and several others encounter a group of walkers in a foggy cemetery. Jesus stays behind to fight them off, which he likely could've done if there weren't humans hiding among them. His death serves as the introduction to the Whisperers, a group of survivors who wear the skin of walkers.

Season 9, Episode 15, "The Calm Before"

The conflict between the surviving communities and the Whisperers escalates dramatically in this episode. While the allied communities of the Alexandria Safe-Zone, the Hilltop Colony, the Kingdom, and Oceanside are attempting to form a formal, constitutionally bound coalition of survivors, the Whisperers are dead set on embracing the post-apocalyptic chaos established by the walkers — and they make it clear they want that wish respected.

With the communities gathering for a fair to celebrate their union, the Whisperers abduct several of their citizens. This includes Siddiq, Tara Chambler (a redeemed soldier of Philip Blake's, played by Alanna Masterson), Enid (Carl's former girlfriend who became a medic, played by Katelyn Nacon), and Henry (the adopted son of Carol, played by Matt Lintz). All but Siddiq are decapitated, their zombified heads then mounted on pikes demarcating the Whisperers' border.

Season 10, Episode 7, "Open Your Eyes"

Siddiq (Avi Nash) entered the series as the stranger who cost Carl Grimes his life. He spent the rest of his life trying to honor Carl's sacrifice, largely by serving as a medic for Alexandria. The Whisperers spared him to send a message to the allied communities, leaving him with severe PTSD.

He also begins working with newcomer Dante (Juan Javier Cardenas), who serves as a fellow medic in Alexandria. The two form a real bond — only for Siddiq to realize that Dante was one of the Whisperers present during the massacre of the 10 pike victims. During the fight that follows this discovery, Siddiq is strangled to death by Dante and left to turn into a walker. He reanimates in the following episode and nearly kills his son, forcing his partner, Rosita (Christian Serratos), to put him down.

Season 10, Episode 12, "Walk With Us"

The Whisperers are led by Alpha (Samantha Morton), a psychopath who believes cruelty is the only way to rule. It sounds a heck of a lot like the doctrine once espoused by Negan — which is why Carol tasked the reforming Savior with infiltrating the Whisperers in return for his freedom. He gains Alpha's trust and whatever counts as affection between the two of them.

In what is easily the deadliest episode of the season, Negan leads Alpha to believe that he has tracked down her estranged daughter, Lydia (Cassady McClincy), who Alpha intends to kill. The whole thing is a ruse that allows Negan to assassinate Alpha, which he does by slitting her throat and delivering her severed head to Carol.

Season 10, Episode 16, "A Certain Doom"

Alpha's second-in-command, Beta, played by the ill-fated former "God of War" star Ryan Hurst, dies trying to finish the war his leader started. In particular, he wants revenge against her traitorous assassin.

In the final battle of the Whisperer War, Negan draws Beta into a grudge match to save Lydia's life. Beta is consumed by rage and nearly kills Negan, but is ultimately thwarted by Daryl. Taking two apparently nonlethal knife wounds directly to his eyes, a blinded and eerily blissful Beta allows himself to be swallowed by the walker horde, smiling as they tear him apart.

Season 11, Episode 9, "No Other Way"

The first main-character death of the final season of "The Walking Dead" is Alden, Callan McAuliffe's ex-Savior who joined in Season 8. He begins Season 11 as one of the many Hilltop refugees living in the decaying Alexandria Safe-Zone, now in conflict with the cultlike, ex-special forces unit calling themselves the Reapers.

In Episode 3, 'Hunted,' Alden is critically injured by a Reaper while on a mission with Maggie and Negan. The three take shelter in a church, where Alden urges them to leave him and save themselves. Maggie reluctantly agrees, but leaves Alden with weapons and supplies to survive. She doesn't make it back to the church until Episode 9 (the midseason premiere, mind you), where she finds a zombified Alden waiting. His exact cause of death is never revealed, though Maggie finds a dead Reaper inside the church alongside the zombified Alden.

Season 11, Episode 16, "Acts of God"

Viewers were first introduced to Reaper Leah Shaw (Lynn Collins) in a one-off Season 10 episode, before the actual group was established. At the time, she was just a loner in a cabin who forged an intimate bond with Daryl during the years he spent searching for Rick. She disappeared before Daryl could return to her cabin, presumably reuniting with her unit and leaving Dog behind.

Leah returns as a member of the Reapers and survives their eventual defeat to become a vengeful mercenary for Alexandria's final enemy — Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) and the Commonwealth. Lance wants to take control of the independent coalition communities, and sends Leah to assassinate Maggie in a play for Hilltop. Leah succeeds in capturing Maggie and taking her back to her cabin, but is shot in the head by Daryl before she can exact her revenge.

Season 11, Episode 20, "What's Been Lost"

As the deputy governor of the Commonwealth (the vast, functional proto-civilization trying to force the old world into the new one), Lance Hornsby's personal project was the annexation of the allied communities. His brash abuse of authority ran afoul of Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins), a villain in her own right who was all too ready to let Lance take the fall so she could maintain power.

Daryl and Carol set him free to find the Commonwealth labor camp where members of their community were being held. After the escape, Lance tries to convince them to let him defect. When they refuse, insisting he forge his own way in the wild, Lance reaches for a rifle — and, without missing a beat, Carol fires an arrow into his neck. He is last seen as a walker in the series finale, wherein he is killed by Maggie.

Season 11, Episode 24, "Rest in Peace"

The series finale of "The Walking Dead" demanded major blood to be impactful. Thus, it killed off one of its few remaining longtime cast members — Christian Serratos' Rosita Espinosa.

With the Commonwealth in chaos, Governor Milton diverts a massive walker horde toward the lower wards to protect the Estates. While saving children with Eugene and Gabriel during the chaos, Rosita is bitten. She keeps the wound a secret until the fighting is over. During a celebratory community feast, she reveals her fate to Eugene, with whom she had traveled since shortly after both characters joined the series. He presumably stabs her off-screen to prevent reanimation.

Rick, Michonne, Daryl, Carol, Negan, and Maggie are among the surviving main characters by the end of the series. All of them went on to lead or co-lead the spinoffs that keep "The Walking Dead" alive — or, at the very least, undead.