10 TV Shows That Redeemed Hated Characters In A Single Episode

5. Merle Dixon - The Walking Dead

The Episode: Season 3, Episode 15 ("This Sorrowful Life")

The older brother of fan favourite The Walking Dead character Daryl (Norman Reedus), Merle (Michael Rooker) was incredibly easy to hate right from the jump, quickly outing himself as a vile misogynist and racist.

Early response to the character, who along with his brother didn't appear in the comics, was mixed, noting him to be an overly broad, stereotyped antagonist, despite Rooker's game performance.

Merle was eventually left for dead in season one, only to return in the show's third season, now acting as a lackey to the vicious Governor (David Morrissey) and wearing a knife attachment over his hand stump.

Basically, Merle instantly became more interesting in season three, aided by more nuanced and less trope-filled writing, culminating in his redemptive demise in the season's penultimate episode.

Merle ends up standing up to the Governor, and though for his trouble he gets two fingers bitten off, is shot dead, and ultimately re-animated as a Walker, no longer was Merle the irritating one-note hick of two seasons prior. When Daryl consequently killed him for good, we actually felt something.