The 10 Most Traumatizing Moments on "The Walking Dead"

As a comic book, The Walking Dead always had a cult following since its debut in 2003. It wasn’t until AMC turned it into an ongoing TV series in 2010, however, that the property became a pop culture phenomenon. The story of Rick Grimes and his group of misfits trying to survive after the zombie apocalypse is just as much a horror fantasy as it is a real world exploration of the human condition. Plus, it’s so damn entertaining to sit back and watch zombies get beheaded every Sunday night.

Although the show does try to explore deeper themes and character studies, The Walking Dead is mostly celebrated for its unadulterated gore. The producers and special effects wizards (endless respect to KNB EFX Group's Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger) seem to take a masochistic glee in pushing the envelope of what's allowed on cable television each week. Zombie guts, severed limbs, and buckets of blood have become the norm as AMC continues to give us big-screen horror right in our living room every week.

As we wait impatiently for the show's fourth season to kick off this Sunday, at 9 p.m. EST, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at The 10 Most Traumatizing Moments on The Walking Dead.

Warning: Heavy spoilers are on deck.

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Episode: "Days Gone By" (October 31, 2010)

The Walking Dead is one of those rare television shows where the first episode still stands as the best, and one of the reasons why is because of the George Romero stylings and creepy effects work. One of the most striking images of the first episode, and of the entire series, really, is that of the half walker, known as “The Bicycle Girl,” who Rick stumbles upon soon after waking up in the hospital.

There is something so pathetic and terrifying about this undead woman desperately crawling after Rick. This was one of our first glimpses of this post-apocalyptic world, and it still sticks with us today.

Episode: “Judge, Jury, Executioner” (March 4, 2012)

Let’s face it, we all knew Dale, The Walking Dead’s loveable old curmudgeon, wasn’t long for this series. After all, how long did you expect a geriatric in a bucket hat to survive a zombie apocalypse? Still, when he got killed toward the end of season 2, it was one of the most genuinely depressing moments of the entire series.

Dale’s brutal end came when he was attacked by a lone walker that Carl saw earlier in the day and forgot to tell anyone about. He is quickly and violently disemboweled by the zombie and left with his guts hanging out for everyone to see. Mercifully, Daryl puts a bullet in his head to end the misery.

It all happens so fast, so viciously, and so pointlessly that it left us shellshocked. Dale was one of those quiet characters acting as the group's conscience. It's a shame we only realized that once the dynamic fell apart without him.

Episode: "Days Gone By" (October 31, 2010)

No one is safe in The Walking Dead, not even the equine.

In the show’s debut episode, Rick ventures off into the heart of Atlanta on horseback in order to find answers for the zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately Rick and his horse are soon swarmed by a group of walkers, which doesn’t end well for his four-legged mode of transportation.

The sight of the horse writhing in pain while literally being torn apart by an undead horde is almost as disturbing as those Sarah McLachlan animal shelter commercials. More than a few PETA supporters probably got an itchy trigger finger after watching this. We’re not sure what this says about society, when the death of a horse makes us recoil in horror, when, meanwhile, the brutal killings of Amy and T-Dog barely cause a stir.

Episode: "Walk with Me" (October 28, 2012)

We don’t know if it’s his syrupy Southern accent or his inviting grin, but we really wanted to like The Governor. Sure, we knew from the comics that he's an undeniable sociopath, but he came across so charming on TV at first that we thought things could be different. However, that all came to a screeching halt when it was revealed that The Governor keeps an aquarium filled with decapitated walker heads in his man cave. After that, there was no denying that he's just as evil on the screen as he is on the page.

This unsettling reveal is Horror 101. It comes completely out of nowhere and will likely leave the uninitiated sick to their stomachs. It didn’t leave us traumatized because of over-the-top gore like many of the entries on this list—it was the understated creepiness that kept us up at night.

Episode: "Seed" (October 14, 2012)

One of the hallmarks of The Walking Dead is its focus on extreme moments of torturous violence. Example: The scene where Hershel loses his leg. This all goes down after Hershel is bit on the leg during an epic zombie battle. Instead of letting the infection spread and putting him out of his misery, Rick attempts to cut the infection off at its source by doing a little impromptu surgery with his handy axe.

It’s the type of scene that will have you clutching the couch cushions and biting down on your wallet, if you don't pass out first. Worst of all, as Dr. Rick hacks at Hershel’s leg, a swarm of walkers is in the next room, struggling to get to them. This is the type of white-knuckle madness that other shows just can't touch.

Episode: “Better Angels” (March 11, 2012)

The character arc of Shane in The Walking Dead TV series may differ greatly from that of the comic, but to us, the show actually did a much better job than the source material ever could with him. He started the series as Rick’s sidekick, and together they brought the hammer down on countless zombies during the first two seasons. But Shane’s jealously of Rick’s relationship with Lori slowly began to drive him insane, culminating with a tense standoff during the penultimate episode of the second season.

Shane leads Rick to the woods in order to secretly kill him, but Rick's been onto him all along, and winds up stabbing his former best friend before he could act. It was the shocking climax of a conflict months in the making, and the payoff here was excellent. But what drives this scene over the edge is when Shane’s body reanimates and goes after Rick, leaving Carl no choice but to shoot him point blank in order to save his father.

The whole scene has a nightmarish quality that makes it stand as one of the series’ tensest moments.

Episode: “Killer Within” (November 4, 2012)

Longtime readers of The Walking Dead comic knew that Lori Grimes wouldn’t last long in the show. But while her death in the TV series didn’t follow the comics exactly, it was still just as traumatic. Though most characters on this show wind up meeting their demise at the jaws of a walker, Lori died during childbirth, which admittedly failed to match the horror of her death in the comics.

However, the show one-upped the comic series in a haunting scene when Carl grabbed his handy pistol and put a bullet in his dead mother’s head in order to stop her from turning into a walker. It was the symbolic passing of the torch as Carl instantly claimed the throne of the most irritating character on the show now. Snark aside, this is one of those devastating bits of tortured humanity that makes The Walking Dead worth watching every week.

Episode: "Seed" (November 11, 2012)

For some viewers, Lori’s death was heart-wrenching; for others it was long overdue . But there's no arguing about what happened afterward. Once Rick learned of his wife’s death, he went off by himself into the bowels of the prison to unleash hell on an army of walkers. But when he went to the site of his wife’s body, she was no longer there. Instead, in her place was a bloated zombie that just got done devouring her corpse.

The effects on this walker are just perfect—and by "perfect," we mean absolutely repulsive. The foul creature had engorged himself on Lori’s entire body, leaving nothing but a few strands of hair around his blood-soaked mouth. In a rage, Rick repeatedly stabs the walker, splashing zombie juice all over, leaving the creature dead on the floor with his wife half digested inside.

Sure, Lori was a bit of a pill at points, but we certainly never wanted her to turn into zombie chow. Right?

Episode: "Pretty Much Dead Already" (November 27, 2011)

One of the most important aspects that The Walking Dead TV series brought over from the comic are those small moments of bleak humanity. They remind us that a world full of zombies isn’t as great as Hot Topic customers would have you think. No moment from the show illustrates this better than the reveal of little Sophia as a walker. This brought a devastating close to the season-long search for the girl, previously assumed to be missing.

The horrifying image of Sophia corrupted by the zombie virus brought real gravitas to the show's already bleak universe. It reminded us that this virus has real consequences, and the zombies here are more than just cannon fodder to be mowed down with an axe or shotgun. We knew what Rick had to do once he was confronted by the infected Sophia, but it was still tough to watch.

Episode: "Cherokee Rose" (November 6, 2011)

The Walking Dead has its fair share of pure gross-out moments, but for the most part they're nothing that veteran horror fans can’t stomach. That all changed in the episode "Cherokee Rose," though, when we were introduced to the infamous well walker. This nauseating scene begins when Rick’s crew is forced to remove a bloated walker from the well at Herschel’s farm in order to prevent an infection. As they try to drag the creature out from the well, the walker suddenly splits in two, leaving its bottom half falling back into the water below.

We haven’t witnessed a creature this grotesque on screen since Marlon Brando in his later years though, thankfully, we never saw his innards strewn about like this. The well walker is still The Walking Dead's highpoint in terms of Tom-Savini-esque brutality. Just be sure to have your lunch nice and digested before staring at that GIF for too long.