The Walking Dead: Every Season Ranked Worst To Best

Season five takes what made its predecessor great -- the bleakness and the hope, the horror and the focussed character work -- and surpassed it, crafting a compelling and almost flawless story of a group of hopeless souls who help one another find a way forward and start again. Again.

On the road and beaten down, Rick and the group are at their lowest low here, mentally and physically exhausted, untrusting of outsiders. It's hard to see them all sink so far and so violently, but this harsh reality serves as the show's driving force; that amongst the carnage, there's always something better on the horizon.

Watching Rick lose his mind trying to protect his family and friends makes for tough viewing -- Lincoln, on series-best form, purposefully makes him unreasonable and cruel -- but seeing the group rally behind him to look to a new future serves as a stark reminder that The Walking Dead isn't all blood and depression.

Season five is The Walking Dead at its finest, most confrontational, sad, and twisting. But it's also a step in the right direction, pushing its characters to face themselves and their hopes with plenty of catharsis and change.