With 11 seasons under its belt, picking out the best Walking Dead episodes is no easy task. In total, AMC released a whopping 177 of 'em between 2010 and 2022 – and some are tense, some are gory, and some are downright heartbreaking. In short, there was something for everyone across the zombie horror's run.
While the franchise is living on through the likes of Manhattan-based The Walking Dead: Dead City and Spain-set The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, there's really nothing like the original show. And since we're in between seasons of those spin-offs right now, there's never been a better time to revisit its peaks. From the 2010 pilot that redefined genre TV through to Rick Grimes' explosive exit, we've picked out our personal highlights to help streamline your next rewatch.
17. "Them" (season 5, episode 10)
'Them', also known as, the episode where the gang were on the road so long they resorted to eat wild dogs to survive. In short, 'Them' is bleak and gnarly, but it's memorable for being one of the last times the show's greatest line-up of characters were all together. Reeling from Tyreese and Beth's shocking deaths, Rick and co run out of gas 60 miles out from Washington D.C. and are forced to take the rest of their journey on foot. They hit several obstacles on the way, from hordes of walkers to torrential rain, the latter of which encourages them to take shelter in a nearby barn. I damn-near teared up at the moment where they work together to shut its door against the heavy winds, and collapse in an exhausted heap, shoulder to shoulder, after they manage to.
"We do what we need to do, and then we get to live," Rick solemnly tells the others, recalling what his grandfather once told him about making it through World War I. "He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up and told himself, 'Rest in peace, now get up and go to war.' Then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive. That's the trick, I think. No matter what comes our way, I know we'll be okay because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the Walking Dead."
16. "Here's Negan" (season 10, episode 22)
By this point in the show, the writers really had to start justifying keeping Negan around. It's been years and we've still not forgiven him for what he did to Glenn and Abraham, so you can imagine how seething we were still in 2021. But 'Here's Negan' finally let us see a vulnerable side to the baseball bat-wielding villain – and it packed quite the emotional punch.
Lifting a storyline straight from the comics, the flashback-heavy bottleneck episode offers us a glimpse at Negan's life in the run-up to, and in the first few weeks of, the apocalypse, when he spent his days scavenging medicine for his dying wife, Lucille. Dwindling supplies aren't the only source of tension, however, with Lucille confronting a guilt-stricken Negan about a previous affair he had – and asking him whether that's why he feels so obligated to look after her now. A relationship drama wrapped up in a sci-fi horror package!
15. "Scars" (season 9, episode 14)
Coming late in the show's ninth season, 'Scars' takes place after The Walking Dead's well-worked time jump, which allowed the show's characters to emotionally develop without having to show every minor event in their lives on screen.
The scars of the episode's title are both literal and metaphorical. In flashbacks, we see that Daryl and Michonne are mentally wounded after Rick's death as they go out searching for the hero's remains. However, they are soon captured, with the episode coming to a head with a scene that ranks up the show’s most harrowing – what we'll call the "Michonne massacre" to avoid spoilers. After the doldrums of the Negan years, this is the show reborn once more, bursting at the seams with fresh ideas and instantly iconic moments.
14. "The Calm Before" (season 9, episode 15)
The pike episode... The One Where Everyone Dies.... Call it what you will, 'The Calm Before' is proof that the Whisperers, despite only having been around for a few episodes, deserve a place on the Mount Rushmore of Walking Dead villains.
While the episode's first half – a B-plot about a film screening – may not be particularly tense, it acts as the perfect window dressing for the horror to come. Alpha and her Walker-skinned gang soon close in on our survivors and deliver a gut-punch unlike any other. At first, as you see Siddiq tied to a tree, you may think the show has, once again, pulled back from the abyss. It doesn't. Instead, several of the ensemble cast are murdered, their heads displayed on pikes and lined up as a makeshift border across Whisperer territory. This is The Walking Dead at its brutal, excruciating best.
13. "A" (season 4, episode 16)
Some episodes belong here simply because they either shook the show’s foundations or delivered devastating deaths. 'A', the season 4 finale, belongs here because of neither. There are no beheadings, no baseball bat bludgeonings – just a group of people who have suffered through four seasons of torment and are no longer going to take things lying down.
Rick's final speech, despite being trapped in a boxcar in Terminus, is immensely cathartic – even if the F-bomb was cut for syndication. As the camera flits between each individual, from Daryl and Sasha, to newcomers Tara, Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita, it feels like the beginning of a new era in The Walking Dead; one which, as we came to learn, is filled with a steely determination and a desire to do the right thing, no matter the cost.
12. "TS-19" (season 1, episode 6)
'TS-19' is unlike any Walking Dead episode for one reason: there's actual hope of a cure being made. Only six episodes in, The Walking Dead provides a chastening, unique reminder of the irreversible post-apocalyptic world which the group inhabits.
The episode takes place entirely in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where Rick meets the sole surviving scientist Edwin Jenner. Soon enough, the bottle claustrophobic environment starts to weigh on the group, and, as the scramble for a solution to the undead pandemic begins to look hopeless, Rick and Edwin butt heads. It's one of Andrew Lincoln's most commanding early performances, as he starts to grow into the well-worn cowboy boots of Rick Grimes. The explosive final scene put everyone at home on notice – and placed The Walking Dead firmly at the top of many people's must-watch list that year.
11. "No Sanctuary" (season 5, episode 1)
The immediate follow-up to 'A' does not mess around. In the space of an hour, 'No Sanctuary' squeezes in more fist-pumping moments and fan-favorite reconciliations than most seasons achieve in 13 episodes.
Rick is reunited with Judith, Carol completes her transformation into full-on badass, and the group takes down the cannibals who held them captive at the tail-end of season 4. It's an episode filled with action but, unlike some later seasons, all of it is meaningful as it adds extra dimensions to each character. While the fifth season would eventually falter somewhat by the time the survivors reach Alexandria, 'No Sanctuary' races out of the blocks and proved that, in a packed Peak TV landscape that, at the time, included the likes of Game of Thrones and Mad Men, The Walking Dead could still slug it out with the best of them.
10. "What Comes After" (season 9, episode 5)
It's hard to say goodbye. While The Walking Dead may conclude for a long, long time to come, this is as close – and perhaps as perfect – an ending as we'll get for the foreseeable future.
Rick's on his last legs and, thanks to some lucid dreaming, goes on one more trip down memory lane. Not only do the flashbacks serve as a proper goodbye for the show's leading man, but they are also well-measured fan service for those who have followed his eight-year journey. The best scene, amid the handful of returns, involves Scott Wilson, who plays Herschel. The actor passed away just weeks before the episode aired, making this final farewell all the more poignant.
9. "Better Angels" (season 2, episode 12)
Shane and Rick were never going to kiss and make up. It's not in their nature. The two alpha males eventually lock horns in the tense penultimate episode of The Walking Dead's second season, which takes place on Hershel's farm while an army of Walkers closes in.
In many ways, this is the show's Red Wedding. Sure, the body count's nowhere near as high as that infamous Game of Thrones episode, but 'Better Angels' is the moment you realise no one is ever safe on The Walking Dead, not even the leads. After Shane dies, Carl shoots his re-animated corpse through the head, helpfully elevating Chandler Riggs from background child actor to bonafide star – a role he would seize without skipping a beat.
8. "Conquer" (season 5, episode 16)
Arguably one of the most overlooked episodes in the show's run, 'Conquer' is a pressure cooker of a season finale, letting several tensions boil over as Alexandrians run amok, left, right and centre.
Chief among them is Rick. Fresh from being rightly slapped silly by Michonne in the previous episode, Rick eventually escapes the threat of exile thanks to Pete murdering Reg, the husband of Alexandria's leader. That, coupled with Sasha and Gabriel’s tense stand-off, plus Glenn and Nicholas' showdown, makes for a perfect example of pacing done right. Everything comes to the fore here, and it's done in such a way that you're unlikely to take a breath during the 64-minute runtime.
7. "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be" (season 7, episode 1)
The Walking Dead's producers did all they could to keep the victim of Negan's deadly swinging a secret following that jaw-dropping season 6 ending. When the season 7 premiere finally arrived, even then, the opening minutes held back that information. That delayed answer works in the episode's favour. Glenn and Abraham may have been hit for a horrific home run, but it's everything else before and after that should be remembered best.
Andrew Lincoln has never been better as Rick, for one thing. His simmering, apoplectic rage, despite remaining utterly helpless throughout the massacre, is a juggling act that only the very best actors can pull off convincingly. And, despite Negan eventually slowing the Walking Dead as a whole down, its during 'The Day Will Come When You Won't Be' where the villain feels like a truly disgusting human being who is far scarier than any zombie.
6. "Too Far Gone" (season 4, episode 8)
The first-ever Walking Dead mid-season finale made good use of the show's re-jigged structure, offering both a serious sense of closure (killing off The Governor may be the writers' best-ever decision) while also offering us hope for the future.
Of course, 'Too Far Gone' didn't come without its casualties. The Walking Dead is never a show that can revel in its victories and so it was here, with Hershel being beheaded and the prison being overrun. Both were huge moments for a show that rapidly lost its innocence and replaced it with a harder, more morally ambiguous edge.
5. "Killer Within" (season 3, episode 4)
While The Walking Dead has never slavishly followed Robert Kirkman's comic series, the TV adaptation has never carved out its own route as confidently as with season 3's 'Killer Within'. This episode marks the last chronological appearance of T-Dog and Rick's wife, Lori. It's the latter that hits hardest; an uncomfortable slog of a scene involving Maggie delivering Lori's baby despite knowing that giving birth will kill her. The final parting shot is not left to Lori; it's Carl who steps up to the plate and delivers the killing blow.
Neither of those things happen in the comic – newborn Judith is dead long before they leave the prison – but it speaks volumes that the show felt comfortable enough to completely change an expected outcome in the most heart-wrenching way, all while tearing up the blueprint to the show's future in the process.
4. "Pretty Much Dead Already" (season 2, episode 7)
For the majority of its early run, The Walking Dead struggled to forge a clear identity for itself. Part adventure, part horror – the show never truly hit the mark on either. Come 'Pretty Much Dead Already' an episode that sees the missing Sophia eventually found, then gone again almost as quickly as she stumbled out of Hershel's barn, the show convincingly became the shocking drama we would all come to love.
It's hard to downplay just how much of an impact the episode had on the show's tone. The act of killing a child – walker or otherwise – made it stand out from anything else on TV, and helped pave the way for more stomach-churning acts in the years that followed. This isn't a power fantasy; it is a group of people trying their hardest to survive and often coming up short. That's the hook the creative team chose to come back to again and again, and it’s one borne from this episode. Essential viewing and reviewing for any fan of the show.
3. "Days Gone Bye" (season 1, episode 1)
First impressions count. The Walking Dead's premiere, happily, doesn't waste a single second. The writers of 'Days Gone Bye' should be commended for just how much they snugly fit into a single opening episode: the premise of the outbreak, the mystery of Rick in an abandoned hospital, and the very first face-to-face interaction with a walker – all communicated effectively and efficiently, a masterwork in showing and not telling.
It's a tricky balancing act, but one the opener pulls off thanks to smartly anchoring the viewer to Andrew Lincoln's wide-eyed Rick throughout. Oh, and there's a tank during the episode's final minutes. A freaking tank! If nothing else, the show made you want to watch next week.
2. "Here's Not Here" (season 6, episode 4)
Morgan's return at the end of season 5 was a missed opportunity, with actor Lennie James getting zero time to breathe. After all, the character went from being a father, to a maniac, to a pacifist in just a handful of episodes and we never found out why. 'Here's Not Here' powerfully fills in the gaps, presenting a tour-de-force in quiet, introspective storytelling.
The dialogue, for example, hasn't been bettered on the show before or since. Each interaction with Morgan and his captor-turned-mentor, Eastman, feels important instead of just filling in empty air. The methodical rhythm of the episode, complete with long periods of reflective silence, helps Morgan come to terms with his wife and child's death. Flashbacks can often be lazy, trite methods of storytelling. Not so here. The sole season 6 entry on this list transforms Morgan from a steady presence permeating the early seasons with his cameos to a fully-fleshed out regular – one you were dying to see more of.
1. "The Grove" (season 4, episode 14)
'The Grove' isn't just the best Walking Dead episode – it's one of the best episodes of television. Period. At its heart, this season 4 outing is all about confronting ugly truths, though it doesn't start that way. The idyllic house that Carol, Tyreese, Lizzie, and Mika have found sanctuary within is one of the sweeter moments in the show. After all, things are normal. There's a kettle, a nice garden. People are happy. Everyone is loved.
There's an inescapable feeling, however – like a Twilight Zone episode that's about to unveil its twist – that punctures each strained smile from Carol and warm embrace from Tyreese: this domestic detour can't last in a world as messed up as The Walking Dead's. It's a genuinely painful experience to re-visit because, arguably, it's the last time Carol found real peace, even if for just a fleeting moment.
Things inevitably break down as the walls of the house seem to close in – the direction becoming more claustrophobic with each passing act – and Lizzie gives the child from the horror movie Hereditary a run for her money in the creepy kid stakes. By the episode's end, Carol tells Tyreese she was the one who murdered Karen, while she also has to kill a frenzied Lizzie in the series' ultimate lump-in-the-throat scene. Both hurt in very different, equally traumatizing, ways.
But why does it deserve its place here ahead of all others? Because of the ending. Where some shows may look behind to survey the carnage, 'The Grove' unflinchingly leaves the home and barely reflects upon what just happened, almost as if it was an everyday occurrence. Carol and Tyreese depart with barely a word said between them; 'The Grove' had already said everything it needed to say.
Want more of the best TV on the airwaves? Check out our best It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes and best Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episodes.
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