12 Best Character Arcs In The Walking Dead
Who has had the best development in AMC's epic zombie drama?
The Walking Dead has seen many fantastic characters come and go. Whether a hardened survivor or a vengeful bad guy, the hit zombie epic has featured some of the greatest character arcs on TV, and despite its longevity keeps finding ways to add new key players and further develop the more long-standing figures on the show.
The Walking Dead is set to air its eleventh and final season later this year, bringing the show to an end in 2022. Now, then, seems like a good time to remember some of the show's most complex and interesting characters, in honour of the decade-long journey the show has created.
Within the show, fans have met everyone from lone survivors who learned how to lead, eccentric community leaders who slowly began to lose their faith in a happy ending, timid housewives who adapted quickly to the new world in order to survive, and twisted antagonists who have never really been easy to read.
With that in mind, here are the 12 best character arcs that The Walking Dead has ever graced us with. Major spoilers follow.
12. Ezekiel
The leader of the Kingdom, Ezekiel was always one of the oddest characters in The Walking Dead. He spoke as if he lived in a Shakespeare play and called himself king, leading his close-knit community as if it were a medieval village. Under the eccentricities, though, there proved to be a normal man, deeply changed by the new world.
Ezekiel was jovial, a great leader and motivator who formed a bond with Carol Peletier and refused to see the world in an overly negative, pessimistic way. During the war against Negan, his confidence began to waver and he slipped into a depression until Carol and Rick Grimes came along and brought him back to reality.
Most recently, he has seen his brief marriage to Carol come to an end after the brutal murder of their adoptive son, Henry, and later learned he has cancer. As of this writing, his days seem numbered, but Ezekiel's upbeat nature and hopeful outlook on the future has never completely vanished, and his story has been great to see play out.