The Walking Dead: Every Season 2 Episode Ranked Worst To Best

Looking back, it's a miracle the second season of The Walking Dead was actually made. Despite being greenlit with more than double the episodes of the previous season, AMC cut funding for the show by 20%, and after a clash with showrunner Frank Darabont, they controversially fired him and replaced him with Glen Mazzara.

Despite the hardships, though, season two managed to churn out thirteen mostly fantastic episodes of TV, some of which remain the show's most influential and game-changing instalments.

Picking up where things left off at the end of season one, the Survivors start the season fleeing from a horde unlike any they've ever seen, before taking refugee at the Greene family farm in order to look for the tragically missing Sophia Peletier. Amidst all of this, Shane begins to lose touch with reality, and Rick takes charge.

It's an admittedly slow season set, really, in only one place, but what it lacks in extravagant set pieces and epic scale, it more than makes up for in hard-hitting drama, character development, plot twists and violent carnage.

With that in mind, here are all 13 episodes of The Walking Dead's iconic second season ranked worst to best.

In many ways, Secrets should have been one of the best episodes of the season, revealing a slew of shock twists before squandering its potential with a slow, meandering hour that wastes its emotional pay-offs.

The main focus of the episode is on Lori, who spends the hour conflicted about her pregnancy and whether or not she should tell Rick about her affair with Shane. She sends Glenn and Maggie to scavenge for abortion pills, whilst Shane spends a dull B-plot teaching Andrea how to shoot.

There are some interesting sparks of brilliance peppered throughout, including a face-off between Dale and Hershel about the walker-infested barn, but in the end it all comes down to Rick and Lori, who finally admits her sins to her husband only for Rick to casually reveal he already knew them all.

It should have been a harrowing confrontation, and although it eventually leads to the downfall of Rick and Shane's friendship, the whole thing feels like something of a non-ending capping off an hour of motionless filler.