The Walking Dead: The Best Episode In Every Season, Ranked

It’s amazing to realize that AMC’s landmark horror series The Walking Dead is actually going into its tenth season, but TWD was a pretty undeniable and irresistible hit from its very first episode. This series may exist in a world overrun by zombies, but the humanity of its characters and their experiences is what has made The Walking Dead‘s audience come back to the show season after season.

The Walking Dead has hit some pretty high highs and some pretty low lows, but the show has been able to survive this long because it ultimately knows how to deliver some exceptional storytelling, even after a decade. Every season of The Walking Dead has it’s unforgettable moments, and although every year they have an array of excellent episodes there are always particular installments into the series that stand out above the rest. So here is the best episode of every TWD season, ranked.

9 Season 1: Days Gone Bye

Something that seems to be a very typical problem for a lot of TV shows is that their pilot episodes oftentimes seem to be one of the weakest episodes in the entire series. And that’s not a huge shock, since the show has to introduce the audience to a new story and new characters, and the creators of the show probably don’t even know what exactly they want their series to be yet.

But that’s not so for The Walking Dead. Their pilot episode, “Days Gone Bye”, is the strongest episode of the first season, and arguably one of the strongest episodes in the entire series.

8 Season 8: Honor

The Walking Dead has a nasty habit of killing half of its characters before the audience even has the opportunity to get attached to them, but despite the fact that it’s a nearly constant bloodbath there are a few characters that are always presumed to be safe.

But the writers of the series apparently wanted to throw everyone for a loop when they decided to abruptly kill off one of those few characters, Carl Grimes. His death came as a big surprise, but at least his farewell episode was an entertaining and heartfelt homage to his character, and it was nice to see him go out on the most hopeful note that he could have.

7 Season 2: Pretty Much Dead Already

Two of the major storylines of season two of The Walking Dead was the tension between the current group and Hershel’s family, as well as the tension of Sophia’s mysterious absence. The quest to find Sophia motivated the characters for quite a while, but the ending was not something anyone was expecting.

After discovering that Hershel was storing a barn full of walkers a couple hundred yards from the house and their camp, Shane unsurprisingly absolutely lost his mind, and in order to demonstrate how truly dead the walkers were, Shane releases them all and kills them. And a zombified Sophia is the last one to emerge from the horde.

6 Season 3: Killer Within

Something that The Walking Dead is never one to shy away from is the fact that the walkers are obviously the main threat to survival, but the lack of medical care can kill anyone just as quickly. This episode culminates with the newly evicted prisoners coming back for revenge against the group, and in the ensuing panic, everyone is split up within the prison.

Lori inconveniently goes into labor at the same time, and when complications arrive in the delivery Lori decides that she’s willing to die to ensure that her baby lives. Lori may not have been a fan favorite, but her final episode was undeniably heart wrenching.

5 Season 6: No Way Out

An enormous point of contention between the residents of Alexandria and Rick’s group of survivors is that the group understood that this idyllic life was never going to last, and the Alexandrians were very resistant to accepting that.

When Alexandria winds up being overrun by walkers, everyone in the enclave must figure out how to get out without getting killed. And of course, a whole lot of chaos, caused both by the walkers and by the humans, ensues. Fans of The Walking Dead have learned to expect the unexpected, but no one was expecting Carl to get shot in the face (he miraculously survived, but lost an eye).

4 Season 9: The Calm Before

The characters on The Walking Dead have faced plenty of human and monster threats before, but what makes Alpha and her group feel so uniquely dangerous is that they can so quickly transform into something that is indistinguishable from a walker, and then turn around and become something indistinguishable from a normal person. And Alpha demonstrated both her abilities as an opponent and her willingness to go hard on the offense in this episode.

After infiltrating the community fair she abducts a select few members of the community, and she demarcates the boundaries of her land by putting their heads on spikes. Oh, and she shows Daryl a literal ocean of walkers that her crew has learned to herd.

3 Season 5: No Sanctuary

One thing that The Walking Dead is really great at is giving its characters and by extension it’s audience a glimmer of hope for the future, only to snatch that glimmer of hope away in the most insanely violent and terrifying way possible. When Rick’s group discovered the existence of a place called Terminus it seemed like there was finally hope that they’d find a real community of like-minded people.

They all headed off towards this sanctuary with hope in their hearts, only to discover it was actually a trap, and the residents of Terminus were a bunch of cannibals. And in another epic twist, Carol and her considerable firepower rescues everyone just in the nick of time.

2 Season 7: The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be

After what seemed like a century of buildup towards Negan and the Saviors, everyone who watched The Walking Dead was expecting Negan’s arrival to have the impact of a freight train going at full speed. And Negan’s first appearance certainly lived up to expectations.

Everyone who was familiar with the TWD comics knew that Glenn wasn’t likely to make it out of the confrontation with the Saviors out alive, but the show’s writers added in Abraham’s untimely death just for that extra insult to injury. No enemy is impossible to defeat, but this introduction to the Saviors certainly made themselves seem nearly invincible.

1 Season 4: Too Far Gone

The Walking Dead has seen an almost never-ending array of villains of every shape and size, but honestly, it has always been really hard to top the Governor. His genial exterior that concealed the darkest, dangerous impulses of humanity just made him seem to be a threat unlike anyone else.

And when the Governor rolled up on the prison that became Rick & company’s home he proved just how dangerous and insane he really was. The confrontations, the character deaths, the epic speeches, nothing about this episode of The Walking Dead hit a wrong note, and no other episode of the series has been able to top it yet.