The Walking Dead Carl’s 10 most memorable moments

10. Carl and Rick At The Prison

Season 4, “Internment”

“Internment” was mostly focused on what was happening inside the sick ward in the prison and Hershel’s valiant attempts to save the sick. But there was a great moment between Rick and Carl outside the main buildings when the fences fell. Rick and Carl had been trying to pick off enough walkers to leave the fences up but they were pushed back to the prison yard. A corner of the fence around the yard, close to the buildings, fell. And walkers started to pour through the hole in the fence very quickly.

At the moment Rick had to look at Carl not as a boy, and not as his son, but as one more soldier trying to save the group. He tossed Carl an automatic weapon, gave him a brief instruction of how to use it, and the two started firing side by side at the walkers streaming through. It was a tense and scary scene but it was clear that the Grimes boys had the situation under control.

Rick told Carl that if he started to get surrounded by walkers to run and leave Rick there. But Carl stayed. Shoulder to shoulder with his dad he kept firing until they had managed to kill all the walkers. That moment was the first of many moments where Carl faced the post-apocalypse world with the strength of a man and not the fear and doubt of a boy.

Forced to grow up fast in order to survive Carl adapted seamlessly to the harsh reality of The Walking Dead world. This one moment was the start of Carl, in some ways, becoming more of a pragmatist than Rick. This scene defines father and son bonding, The Walking Dead style.