The Walking Dead: 15 greatest Rick Grimes moments of all-time

No. 13: A Shocking Betrayal

Season 2, Episode 12: “Better Angels”

In a single episode, we learned so much about The Walking Dead. And at the center of it was, of course, Rick Grimes. While out and about, Rick and company hold a man hostage after him and his group tries to shoot at them. This man, Randall, became quite the aggravating nuisance as time went on until eventually Shane snapped his neck and killed him.

This death is important for many reasons, which we’ll get to in a moment. Shane returns to the group and makes up lies about why Randall is MIA, so Rick and the others go out to search for him. Rick is following Shane as they embark on this search, but he can tell something is up. Shane and Rick haven’t been getting along much at this point, you know, with the awkward “Lori is pregnant with Shane’s baby” secret looming above them.

At some point, Shane made the decision to just kill Rick off but Rick Grimes isn’t stupid and realizes what Shane is up to. His suspicions are confirmed when Shane pulls his gun out, trying to take advantage of an unarmed Rick. This early on the series, Rick was still refusing to engage in such behavior and didn’t want to argue or fight with Shane. The season 9 Rick Grimes may have handled things a bit differently.

However, once Shane was close enough, Rick proceeded to take his life via stabbing. It’s not something he wanted to do, but what choice did he have? One of the many choices Rick Grimes would have to make over the course of the series. This moment’s intensity only grew when little Carl Grimes came along and pulled a gun out, aiming it towards what looked like Rick. However, he was just aiming for an undead Shane–and he hit his mark spot-on.

Side note: This is the episode where the group learns that people who die without getting bit still turn, which goes on to be a frightening game-changer for the series.