The Walking Dead: Every Season Ranked Worst To Best
3. Season Four
In a narrative move later adopted by its aforementioned ninth season, The Walking Dead's fourth chapter spends the first half of its run telling a wholly different story to the one that would follow.
Starting things off with a mysterious and deadly flu epidemic in the prison, which sends its characters in wildly different directions, the season starts fast and strong as we're given early insight into what a peaceful future for the Survivors may look like. Hell, Rick and Carl are farmers!
The second half follows the group as they're scattered, displaced and beaten down by The Governor's vicious return. It's this half, where the group is forced to reconcile their failings, cement their relationships, and strive to overcome their losses that the season becomes one of the show's greats.
It may slump with The Governor's two-episode re-introduction, but watching Rick lose his humanity, Daryl and Beth bond, Carol and Tyreese contend with a damaged child and Glenn and Maggie hopefully seek each other out makes it all worthwhile. This is The Walking Dead at its desperate, brutal, empathetic best.