The Walking Dead: Ranking All 9 Seasons From Worst To Best

It's easy to knock Scott Gimple for the latter years of his tenure as showrunner, but when he took over from Glen Mazzara for the show's fourth season, he came out swinging. Starting with the entertaining "30 Days Without an Accident," season four felt re-energized and ready to move into new territory, particularly in introducing the deadly flu storyline, an arc that provided the survivors with a unique threat they couldn't physically combat.

Of course, season four also had to deal with the third season finale's lack of closure, chiefly the fact that the Governor was still out there, and when he finally returned to wage war on the prison in "Too Far Gone," fans were gifted with one of the best episodes of the series. Hershel was killed, the prison was lost, and the survivors were all set adrift for the back half of the season.

And what a back half of the season it was, as the show introduced Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita, set the survivors on their fateful path to Terminus, gave us beloved episodes like "The Grove" and "A," and explored the world beyond the prison for the first time in a long time. By letting the characters hit the road, the status quo was upended, providing the show with one of its single best stretches of episodes while cementing the season overall as one of incredible diversity, where danger lurked in every corner and the story always kept moving forward.