10 Walking Dead Fates Worse Than Death
6. Finding Sophia - Pretty Much Dead Already
Few TWD characters have been put through the wringer quite as much as poor Carol Peletier.
An OG of The Walking Dead, Melissa McBride's Carol has gone from mild, meek, bullied housewife, to ass-kicking, zombie-slaying warrior across the show's 11 seasons. And for Carol, one of the most brutal moments for that character came in Season 2's Pretty Much Dead Already episode.
At that point in the show, Carol and her fellow survivors had been desperately searching for Carol's missing daughter Sophia.
Unfortunately for our central protagonists, the result of this quest served them up a zombified Sophia who was eventually put out of her misery by Rick Grimes.
This discovery is made during the group's time spent on the farm of Hershel Greene and his family, with the oft-erratic Shane letting loose a slew of walkers Hershel had kept locked up in his barn. After it looks like all of these walkers have been put down, one final, solitary, shuffling figure comes into view - as poor Carol realises her beloved daughter has been turned into a zombie.
Even now, approaching ten years since this moment first aired, the realisation of Sophia's fate remains one of the biggest gut punches ever served up by The Walking Dead.