The Walking Dead: Rick Grimes' 10 Stupidest Mistakes So Far

6. Going Back For Merle Dixon

If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Merle Dixon sucks. Not in an all-round way, as he can hold a pretty awesome fight scene when he's pushed. Yet as a human being, he's downright terrible. He's racist, misogynist, out for himself and capable of awful, awful deeds (his beatdown of Glen especially sticking in the mind). All in all, he's not the guy you really want around, especially when you're in a situation that totally requires teamwork. So when you take all this into account, Rick's decision to go back and help Merle on the extremely flimsy logic that he might've survived being chained to a pipe with walkers on his tail looks all the more stupid. He deprives the campsite of a number of able bodies to repel their eventual walker ambush, and all to save a guy who later admits that he and Daryl were going to knock the place over anyhow. It's no wonder Shane calls him out for it €“ it's a catastrophically stupid decision that results in catastrophically awful consequences. His guilt and eventual one-chance-in-a-million mission resulted in the deaths of several people who didn't deserve it, Carol's husband aside.