The Walking Dead villains: Who’s the worst? Part 10

Alpha

Last season, I pondered whether Alpha was the worst villain, not just of that season, but, of the entire Walking Dead series. I didn’t think she could be worse, but, oh, how wrong I was…

During this season, rather than show us what we already know about her — Her cruel, violent, duplicitous, and manipulative nature — she chose instead to put something else on her display: The horrific lengths she will go to bring those that defy her to heel.

When Alpha decided to go to war with the communities, she didn’t just decide to throw the whole horde at them at once (Like some luckless Whisperer suggested…and was killed for), no, instead, she coldly and methodically threw wave after wave of (Relatively) small herds at the communities, wearing them down with a war of attrition.

As if that weren’t enough, she had Mary/Gamma contaminate Alexandria’s water supply with walker blood, which, as we learned from Negan using a similar tactic in Season Eight, is not very conducive to the prolonged health of the living.

On top of that, Alpha had Dante infiltrate Alexandria, so that he could sow distrust, discord, and paranoia amongst the populace, all the while aiding in the poisoning operation by giving people as much contaminated water as he could! All of this was part of an attempt to weaken Alexandria before war even truly started.

Of course, this was only the tip of the iceberg for just how loathsome Alpha was this season.

After getting badly wounded during a fight with Daryl, Alpha was found by Lydia, whom she hoped would put her down and assume leadership of the Whisperers with her passing, which Lydia refused.

Now, while we did see this season that Alpha did, in fact, care about her daughter, the fact remains that she cared more about the Whisperers, and the philosophy she created (And having Lydia carry on with them) than about Lydia herself. When she recovered, and learned that Lydia had, again, rejected her way of life, she decided to stop beating around the bush, and destroy the communities once and for all…including Lydia.

For my money, that, the fact she was determined to kill her own daughter for not following in her footsteps, is what puts Alpha over the top, even more so than last season. It actually manages to get even worse, though: If this was something she decided when she got angry and dialed it back, that would be one thing, but, no, even well after she’d recovered from her injuries, and Negan was giving her every chance to reconsider, Alpha calmly told him that Lydia would rejoin her…as a walker.

How?! How could you decide that your philosophy of marching with zombies is so important, that you’d sacrifice your only child for it?!

Be Alpha. That’s how.

When it comes down to it, if you were to ask me who is the most irredeemable villain in Season Ten of The Walking Dead, I have to give it to Alpha. As bad as even Beta was, he was clearly left disturbed by the outbreak, as we saw across this season. Alpha, however, had no such excuse. We saw how bad she was even at the very beginning of the outbreak last season, and saw nothing to mitigate that. At no point did we see a single thing that convinced us that Alpha was anything but the picture of mental clarity, meaning that her callous, vicious, brutal, and downright vile behavior was…just her. She’s just plain evil.

What else can I say?

So, what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Is there someone else you think should be on this list? Is there someone else in this season you think was worse? Let me know in the comments!

And, of course, if you enjoyed this, and want to hear my ideas on how to survive a zombie apocalypse, you can always pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also find it at Amazon here, and, on iTunes here!