The Worst Deaths In The Walking Dead

Noah

Grr.

Noah was a character first introduced to us in the first half of the fifth season of The Walking Dead, meeting Beth at Grady Memorial Hospital before he escaped and found Daryl and Carol and explained he and Beth’s plight at the increasingly thin mercy of Lieutenant Dawn Lerner.

After Carol was injured and grabbed by Dawn’s subordinates, Noah and Daryl returned to Father Gabriel’s church, collected Rick, Sasha, and Tyreese and sought to rescue Beth and Carol, a mission that was only half successful, with Beth being accidentally killed by Dawn.

Following Beth’s death, Noah was adopted into Rick’s group as they traveled toward Washington, with the plan to return him to his home in Richmond. Sadly, much like the rescue of Beth, it wasn’t meant to be.

The group found Noah’s home in ruins, his family murdered, the rest of his community beheaded. It was carnage.

After this, Noah accompanied the group to Alexandria, having no other home or family to go to. He was taken under Glenn’s wing, learning the finer points of being a scout for Alexandria from an expert.

However, this wasn’t meant to be, either. After a scouting operation took an especially bad turn, Noah and Glenn were left to die at the hands of a coward. As they were trapped in a revolving door, Noah was snatched by a gang of walkers, who yanked him through the opening in the door, and, in one of the most graphic deaths in the entire series, tore him apart in front of Glenn. It was visceral and brutal, and visually, probably one of the best deaths in the show.

“So…what’s the problem?”

Well, the problem is, we barely got a chance to know Noah before he died in one of the most brutal deaths in the show.

I’m not even kidding.

After the episode where we saw his home (“What Happened And What’s Going On” Which was mostly focused on Tyreese’s death — One I neglected to mention on my best deaths list last week), I can’t remember much of anything he did of note until his death. It felt like the writers just gave up on giving him anything meaningful to do and decided to remove him as quickly as possible.

And then, after his death, it felt like, once Glenn beat up Nicholas in the Season Five finale, “Conquer”, neither Noah, nor his death, were ever brought up again, though, considering how little he did after Tyreese’s final episode, I’m not that surprised.

Basically, for a character who seemed like he was going to become something, even after Beth’s death, he was given nothing to do, and after his season ended — Seriously, he only existed in ten episodes of Season Five…at least Bob got to live for a whole season — it was like he was never there in the first place. In my “Best Deaths” list, I talked a lot about impact, well, Noah’s death is on this list not only because it largely didn’t have an impact, but also, because it was never given the opportunity to.