The Walking Dead: Deaths that SHOULDN’T have happened

1) Morales

I can sum up this death in one word: “Why?”

Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?!

For those who may not know, Morales was a member of the original Atlanta camp in the first season of The Walking Dead and departed the group before that season had even finished, trying to reunite with relatives in Birmingham, Alabama. This was before Rick Grimes, and the rest of the Atlanta group made for the CDC. Suffice it to say; they didn’t get very far.

For years, we the fans were left wondering what had happened to Morales and whether or not he’d ever make a return to the show. This was compounded both by Morgan’s return to the show at the end of the season five premiere, “No Sanctuary,” which got people’s hopes up that other long-lost characters might return and by Juan Gabriel Pareja’s playful teasing at such a return every so often on social media. Speculation ran rampant about when or if Morales would return and what would happen should such a return occur.

Well, in the eighth season of the show, we finally found out. Morales made his surprising return to the show as a member of the villainous Saviors, confronting Rick as he led an assault on one of the Saviors’ outposts. He gave Rick a great speech, revealing that, since losing his family, he’d turned heel, becoming a card-carrying devotee to Negan, and was looking forward to bringing his former friend back to his boss to make an example of him.

…And then Daryl killed him.

That’s it. No epic battle, no confrontation with Daryl, no Morales questioning whether he was on the wrong side, not even a moment of Rick lamenting the loss of a man he knew to be good, just Daryl shooting him. That’s it.

This brings me back to where we started: Why?

Why do this? Why bring Morales back if you were just going to kill him off? You could have had some other scuzzy Savior catch Rick at the outpost (There were plenty to go around), you could have had Morales reappear after the war with the Saviors, you could have even just not had Morales reappear at all and kept teasing us with it, any of those would have been better than bringing Morales back just to kill him off.

This was thoroughly unnecessary and felt like death just for the sake of having a death.