It's hard for a TV show to run for 11 seasons without a few major slip-ups along the way, and The Walking Dead is no exception. Almost all of our favorite characters were brutally killed in one way or another over the course of the series, but there were a few character deaths that were major mistakes at the time and continue to be major mistakes years later.
Overall, I love that The Walking Dead played a high stakes game with its best characters. Some of the good characters must die along the way for the stakes to feel real for the other characters. But, there's a line that The Walking Dead didn't need to cross, and it hurt the show and hurt the franchise, as a whole.
I picked the three character deaths in The Walking Dead that shouldn't have happened the way they did and shared reasoning about each decision.
Let's get the list started with one of the most baffling deaths in the show's history.
Andrea Harrison
Andrea, played by Laurie Holden, is one of the strongest characters in The Walking Dead. We got to see a great character arc from the beginning of the series through season 3, but the decision to kill off Andrea was simply a mistake.
While Andrea was not-so-loved member of the group by some parts of the fandom, Andrea was a beloved character. She has an incredible story in the graphic novels, and that story came to an end way too soon in season 3. And, it didn't have to. Andrea's death, in the context of the show, didn't even make sense. They could have easily revealed the Governor's (David Morrissey) plan without killing off Andrea.
Instead, Andrea killed herself after she was bitten by Milton (Dallas Roberts). It's one of the toughest scenes in the early part of the series to watch, and it was especially shocking because Andrea survives so much longer in this story. That's another reason it's so disappointing. They wrote off a great character in a bad way with sloppy writing going for pure shock value than anything story related.
And, that's just in terms of the context of the show's plot. Outside of that, Andrea was one of the show's strongest female characters in a male-dominated series, especially those early seasons. It just wasn't a good look killing off Andrea in this way.
On top of that, and as we have seen, killing off Andrea was extremely shortsighted. If the plan was to expand the world of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, you have to find a way to keep characters like Andrea alive, even if they aren't part of the central story. An Andrea spinoff would have been an incredible direction to take the franchise because she
Glenn Rhee
To me, Glenn, played by Steven Yeun, is the best character in The Walking Dead. His story is basically perfect for me... until the end. There's just no way to justify Glenn's death as anything other than a mistake, and for very similar reasons as Andrea.
While Andrea was a fan-favorite character to the majority of The Walking Dead fandom, or felt like it anyway, Glenn is simply the fan-favorite of the series for most fans. There's just something so lovable about Glenn, which is why he was clearly chosen to suffer one of the worst deaths in the history of this show.
Glenn was, of course, killed by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the season 7 premiere along with Abraham, and it was so unnecessary. Killing Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) was enough, but they had to push it and take out one of the best characters in the series for, again, shock value.
The thing about shock value in TV is that it almost never pays off in the long run, unless you're Game of Thrones. Even with that show, I would argue that those individual moments of shock value felt so much more earned than what happened to Glenn.
Killing Glenn was the worst mistake the show made in 11 seasons, and the ratings prove it. While ratings were already dropping slightly and the industry was changing, the seventh season of The Walking Dead was the beginning of the end. The Walking Dead season 7 premiere, which was the episode Glenn died, was watched by 17 million fans, which was up from 14.1 million for the season 6 finale, which ended on that Negan cliffhanger. Well, by the end of season 7, the finale was only watched by 11 million fans. That's the steepest drop within one season in the show's history.
To me, the ratings drop proves just how important Glenn was to the show.
On top of that, Glenn was the perfect character for a spinoff series like The Ones Who Live, Daryl Dixon, and Dead City. We could have easily watched Glenn leave with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and go on more adventures. We've been forever robbed of that story continuing, and it's a travesty as far as TV goes.
Carl Grimes
Speaking of travesties, we have one more travesty to touch on. Carl, played by Chandler Riggs, should not have died in The Walking Dead at all. I don't care how bad, at times, Carl's story was; he was the perfect character to build around in the future.
Carl could have left the group and gone on his own adventure away from his father. He could have become a better version of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in his own show years later. He could have printed money for AMC for years to come, but no. They had to kill off the kid for no reason at all, basically.
Carl died after sustaining a walker bite in season 8. By that time, the show was already headed off the rails for a while, but it still made no sense to kill off Carl. There was so much potential for more. Instead, he was used as a crutch for Rick's development.
Even after all these years, it still doesn't sit well with me, especially with how Carl's story goes in the comics.
Carl's death is probably a little easier to embrace than Glenn's, but it's still a huge mistake made by a show that needed to use some restraint to killing off its most important and marketable characters.
There are definitely other Walking Dead characters who deserved a longer time in the story, but these three were the most shocking deaths and inexcusable mistakes The Walking Dead made over its 11 seasons.