With a show like The Walking Dead, which ran for so many seasons and so many episodes, there are plenty of times when the series has…lagged, for lack of a better word. And when that happens, it’s up to us to pick out the truly boring episodes and…skip them, or look up a synopsis online.
Here are the eleven episodes from The Walking Dead, in my humble opinion.
Season 1 – “Wildfire”
It’s hard to pick an episode from a season that only has six episodes, but if I had to pick one, I’d go with “Wildfire,” which was the fifth episode of the season, serving as the penultimate episode.
It’s just…boring, if we’re being honest. It’s a slow build to get to the CDC, and it's mostly the group traveling on the road to get somewhere else. And nine times out of ten, those kinds of episodes never really work.
Season 2 – “Chupacabra”
I actually really love season 2 of The Walking Dead. It’s one of the show’s best seasons, in my opinion. But “Chupacabra,” which was the fifth episode, was a drag. If we’re being honest, the most interesting part about this episode was Daryl (Norman Reedus) and his adventures in the woods when he hallucinated his brother Merle (Michael Rooker).
Every other aspect is really slow compared to the rest of the season. And then Andrea (Laurie Holden) had to go and shoot and graze Daryl when he stumbled back to the farm. He never saw it coming.
Season 3 – “I Ain’t A Judas”
The eleventh episode of season 3 of The Walking Dead is fine, but not the best. Season 3, in reality, was a fantastic entry into the series, but this episode is mainly just…talking. Like, a lot of talking and trying to figure out what to do next. In a season that was flourishing with action for so long, this episode felt out of place.
Season 4 – “Dead Weight”
Look, I love the villains of Walking Dead, but “Dead Weight” is just…too focused on the Governor (David Morrissey). It’s the seventh episode of season 4 and shows the Governor working with his new group of followers and how he’s essentially just the same man he was before, choosing to be brutal and forcing people to join him. It’s just…fine. I don’t know. I hardly remember the episode.
Season 5 – “Them”
Remember when I said those episodes that focused on the group just going places were boring? Yeah, that was “Them.” It’s the tenth episode of season 5, right after both Beth’s death and Tyreese’s death, and it shows the group just trying to survive on the road. It’s agonizing and downright depressing. I mean, they straight up killed dogs in this episode to survive. Dogs. I can’t. The only good thing about this is that it’s the first time we meet Aaron (Ross Marquand)
Season 6 – “Twice As Far”
The fourteenth episode of season 6 was about as good as it could be. It feels like for ages we’ve been building up to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) appearing with his group of Saviors. This episode is just another case of that. The only impactful moment is when an arrow to the eye kills off Denise (Merritt Wever).
Season 7 – “Swear”
While season 7 of The Walking Dead is arguably where the show lost a lot of people (because of Glenn’s death and several other factors), it still had some great episodes and some not so great. One was “Swear,” the sixth episode of the season, and it mainly focused on Tara (Alanna Masterson) as she came across Oceanside for the first time—and began the age-long question of where Heath (Corey Hawkins) vanished to. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s forgettable.
Season 8 – “Monsters”
Season 8 of The Walking Dead feels like a fever dream half the time because every episode felt as if it either had violence, war, or poor story decisions (rest in peace, Carl). I put “Monsters,” the third episode, here because I’m annoyed at how it began—bringing Morales (Juan Pareja) back to confront Rick (Andrew Lincoln) to have some big standoff, only for Daryl to suddenly come out of nowhere and kill him without any remorse. Like, what do you mean you just bring him back to kill him?? It still bothers me.
Season 9 – “What Comes After”
Yup, I’m putting this here. I actually think season 9 is, overall, a good season, but I will always hate how they decided to just “kill” Rick off, then let him live and have him taken away for his own set of Rick movies, which we never even got. All we received was the spinoff series, The Ones Who Live, which is good, but still. Why do all this for the payoff we were originally promised? I couldn’t get behind it.
Season 10 – “Find Me”
You want to know what little teenage me wanted more than anything? For Daryl to find happiness. And when adult me watched “Find Me,” I was… underwhelmed? I was just so confused as to why they decided to have Daryl be with someone completely different and someone we had no connection to, all for it to fall apart at the very end. It was off-putting story-wise, and then the girl, Leah (Lynn Collins), ended up becoming a villain anyway, so I’m always going to be upset.
Season 11 – “Warlords”
Season 11 was a relatively decent season for a last season, but one episode I can’t stand is “Warlords.” Why? Because it’s overwhelmingly unnecessary in the war plots it tries to deliver and confuses the viewer altogether. I understand that The Walking Dead has long expanded past zombies and survivors, and now we’re moving into the world of politics in an apocalypse. Still, this episode was just overstuffed and featured twists that felt clunky even to the avid fan.
Either way, several other episodes are still far better than these. Maybe next time I’ll skip ‘em altogether.
You can watch all 11 seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix.
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