30 Greatest Ever Moments In The Walking Dead
27. Daryl Vs. Beta
Following a couple of painfully lackluster seasons, The Walking Dead's ninth year saw a massive leap in quality, simultaneously in terms of its tone, characterisation, and its compelling villainy.
After coming face-to-face with the skin-wearing Whisperers and their leader Alpha, Daryl risks everything to save Alpha's abused daughter Lydia from her clutches, and pays the price when he's forced to do battle with the monstrous Beta.
By this point, Daryl had been basically indestructible, but the psychotic Beta makes light work of the bowman, throwing him around like a ragdoll and nearly killing him before he uses a pre-set trap to push the brute down an elevator shaft. It's white-knuckle intensity at its finest, and a blunt foreshadowing of deadlier things to come.