The Walking Dead is an American horror drama television series developed by Frank Darabont, based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. Andrew Lincoln plays the show's lead character, sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes,[3] who awakens from a months-long coma to confront a new, apocalyptic world overrun by flesh-eating zombies.

Grimes reunites with his family and becomes the leader of a group he forms with some of the many other survivors whom he encounters in his quest for a safe haven. Together they are forced to survive in a world filled with zombies (aka walkers) and certain humans who are even more dangerous than the zombies themselves.[4] The first season takes place in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and the second through fourth seasons are set in the surrounding countryside of northern Georgia.

The Walking Dead premiered on October 31, 2010, on the cable television channel AMC in the United States.[5] The show debuted internationally during the first week of November 2010 on Fox International Channels.[6] AMC has renewed the series each year because of its consistently increasing Nielsen ratings, which have been unprecedentedly high for a cable series, including viewership of 17.3 million for its season five premiere, making it the most-watched drama series telecast in cable history.[7] The series completed airing its fifth season on March 29, 2015, and has been renewed for a sixth season.[8] In addition, AMC has ordered a companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, to debut in summer 2015.[9]

The series has been well received by critics[10][11] and has been nominated for several awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: New Series[12] and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series Drama.[13]

Contents [hide] 1 Series overview1.1 Season 1 (2010)1.2 Season 2 (201112)1.3 Season 3 (201213)1.4 Season 4 (201314)1.5 Season 5 (201415)1.6 Future seasons2 Cast and characters2.1 Main2.2 Recurring2.3 Darabont connections3 Production3.1 Development3.2 Crew3.3 Music3.3.1 Soundtracks3.4 Makeup3.5 Filming3.6 Marketing3.7 Green initiatives3.8 Webisodes3.9 Motion comic3.10 Talking Dead3.11 Fear the Walking Dead3.12 Parodies and spoofs4 Release4.1 Home media4.2 Syndication5 Reception5.1 Critical reception5.2 Ratings5.3 Awards and nominations6 References7 External linksSeries overviewMain article: List of The Walking Dead episodesSeries overviewSeasonEpisodesOriginally airedFirst airedLast aired16October 31, 2010December 5, 2010213October 16, 2011March 18, 2012316October 14, 2012March 31, 2013416October 13, 2013March 30, 2014516October 12, 2014March 29, 2015Season 1 (2010)Main article: The Walking Dead (season 1)Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes is shot and wounded in an altercation with criminals. He awakens from a months-long coma in an abandoned and badly-damaged hospital. Rick leaves the hospital and discovers an apocalyptic world overrun with zombies, colloquially called "walkers" and "biters". He returns to his house to find his wife and son missing, then meets survivors Morgan Jones and Morgan's son Duane, who initially mistrust Rick but take him in and explain the situation. Morgan arms Rick who then travels to Atlanta, Georgia, wherein the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is said to have set up a quarantined Safe Zone within the city. Instead, he discovers that the city has been overrun by walkers and soon finds himself surrounded by them. After being rescued by Glenn Rhee, Rick meets part of Glenn's group hiding in a nearby department store, including Andrea, T-Dog, Morales and Jacqui. Walkers overrun the store, forcing the group to leave behind Merle Dixon, an unstable and violent member of the group whom Rick had handcuffed to a drain pipe on the roof.

A few miles outside Atlanta, Rick's wife Lori and son Carl have been surviving at a camp with Shane Walsh, Rick's police partner and best friend. Other people at the camp include Andrea's younger sister Amy, Dale Horvath, who's RV is at the heart of the camp, Carol Peletier, her abusive husband Ed and preteen daughter Sophia, and mechanic Jim. Rick does not know that his family is part of the other half of Glenn's group. Shane unintentionally misleads Lori into believing that Rick is dead, as he himself believes. Thinking herself a widow, Lori begins an affair with Shane.

Rick reunites with his family and the rest of the group at the camp and begins sharing the command with Shane. Upon discovering that Rick is alive, Lori immediately ends her affair with Shane. Rick decides to return to Atlanta with Glenn, T-Dog, and Merle's younger brother Daryl, to rescue Merle and collect a cache of guns Rick had left behind. They discover that Merle had fled after sawing off his hand. They arrive back at the camp to find it under attack by walkers. Several group members are killed, including Ed and Amy. Jim is later revealed to have been bitten. The group decides to travel to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta in hopes of finding answers and a possible cure for Jim. Mid-journey, Jim asks to be left on the side of the road to die.

At the CDC, only one staff member, Dr. Edwin Jenner, remains. He is the widower of the former CDC director (the "Einstein of her field") whom he was forced to fatally shoot after she was bitten by a walker. He shows the video of her hours-long demise and eventual killing to the adults in Rick's group to help explain the disease and its progression. All other CDC personnel have either fled or committed suicide. Jenner explains that he continued researching the pandemic only to fulfill a promise to his wife as he believes the outbreak is the human "extinction event". He suspects that the disease is caused by an organism; such as a virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite; or possibly even Divine Intervention.

Jenner concedes that he has been unable to find a cure, although researchers at France's version of the CDC may have been about to discover one before their generators ran out of fuel, causing that facility to automatically self-destruct as it had been designed to do under such circumstances to prevent the escape of deadly pathogens. Lack of fuel for the Atlanta CDC's own emergency generators soon initiates building safety protocols also designed to destroy that facility and all of its occupants. Jenner and Jacqui decide to remain inside. Andrea initially decides to remain behind, but Dale coaxes her to leave under threat of him remaining, too. Before Rick and the others escape, Jenner whispers something into Rick's ear which causes his face to register a look of shock. The remaining survivors escape just before an explosion incinerates the CDC building, killing Jenner and Jacqui.

Season 2 (201112)Main article: The Walking Dead (season 2)The second season begins with Rick and his group of survivors escaping the CDC. They choose Fort Benning as their next destination. Along the way, they encounter a traffic jam of abandoned vehicles on Interstate 85. The group loots several vehicles, and the group assumes that all is well until a large herd of walkers approaches, and they are forced to disperse and hide under cars. A walker chases Sophia out from her hiding spot and, with another walker, pursues her into the woods. Rick finds her but loses her again after drawing off the walkers. During the search for Sophia, hunter Otis accidentally shoots Carl. To get medical help for him, Otis leads Rick and Shane to a large, isolated farm owned by veterinarian Hershel Greene, then helps Shane look for medical supplies at the local high school. After finding the supplies, Shane injures his leg and leaves Otis for the walkers so that he can get away. The survivors then move to the farm while Carl recovers, trying to co-exist with Hershel's family, but dangerous secrets and disagreements over leadership cause tensions to rise. Lori is revealed to be pregnant (she is unsure whether Rick or Shane is the father), and Glenn builds a romantic relationship with Maggie, Hershel's elder daughter. Glenn also discovers then reveals that the barn is full of walkers, some of whom are Hershel's family members and neighbors. After an angry Shane releases the walkers to be exterminated, Sophia emerges from the barn as a walker, so a reluctant Rick fatally shoots shoots her.

Beth, Hershel's youngest daughter, collapses in shock over the barn incident, which included her face-to-face encounter on the ground with her mother-turned-walker who tried to bite her. Hershel disappears to grieve for his wife and other family as well. Rick and Glenn find him drinking at a local tavern, then try to coax him to return to the farm. At the tavern, they meet two other survivors (Dave and Tony). The situation rapidly turns sour, so Rick is forced to kill the two men in a gunfight. The dead men's group quickly finds and opens fire on Rick, Hershel, and Glenn at the bar. The noise attracts a large herd of walkers, forcing all involved to try to flee, but one of the attackers, Randall Culver, is injured and left behind. Rick and his group members take him back to the farm, then realize that he is likely to reveal the farm's location to his original group. As Rick and the others deliberate about what to do with Randall, a walker fatally wounds Dale, forcing Daryl to euthanize him. The group later conducts a search for Randall, whom Shane had secretly released and murdered in the woods. Daryl and Glenn find Randall as a walker and kill him. Daryl concludes that Randall died from a broken neck (rather than a walker's bite or scratch) and subsequently reanimated.

Meanwhile, Shane and Rick confront each other the former having planned the fake search so he could murder Rick. Rick gets the upper hand and stabs Shane in the torso, killing him. Carl arrives just in time to see Shane reanimate as a walker and shoots him down. The gunshot attracts a large herd of other walkers, who quickly overrun the property. In the ensuing battle and escape, Beth's boyfriend Jimmy and Otis's wife Patricia are devoured, and Andrea is left behind. Andrea survives on her own and is later rescued by a hooded woman carrying a katana sword, and accompanied by two chained, armless, jawless walkers. The remaining survivors regroup but are forced to make camp when their vehicles run low on gasoline. Lori at first shuns Rick after learning that he had killed Shane. After hearing of Randall's fate, Rick finally reveals what Jenner had whispered to him at the CDC: every survivor is infected with the walker pathogen and will thus reanimate after death regardless of its cause. Rick also discloses to the rest of the group that he was forced to kill Shane in self-defense. Later that night, the group questions Rick's leadership, but Rick asserts a dictatorship-style ultimatum and solidifies his command of the group. In the final scene, a large prison is shown looming in a pan out.

Season 3 (201213)Main article: The Walking Dead (season 3)The third season begins several months after the group had escaped from the farm, and Lori is in the final days of her pregnancy. The group stumbles on a prison swamped by walkers and sets about converting it into their new home. While securing the prison, Hershel is bitten in the ankle by a walker and Rick is forced to amputate his lower leg to prevent further infection. They soon find several surviving inmates who have been trapped in the cafeteria for months. Although mistrustful of them, Rick, Daryl and T-Dog help the inmates clear a separate cell block for them to live in. After the inmates make several attempts on his life, Rick kills inmate Tomas and locks inmate Andrew inside a walker-infested courtyard. Rick's group helps the surviving prisoners Axel and Oscar clear a separate cellblock, and exiles them from the group. A walker breakout later splits up the survivors into even smaller groups. Andrew is revealed to have escaped the courtyard that Rick locked him in and is the person responsible for the attacks on the prison. Oscar fatally shoots Andrew in the head and as a result he and Axel are accepted into the group. During the attack T-Dog is bitten in the struggle and sacrifices himself to save Carol, while Lori goes into labor and insists that Maggie perform an emergency Caesarean section to save the baby, suspecting that it will kill her due to the lack of necessary medical equipment and personnel. As a result of the operation, Lori dies, and Carl reluctantly shoots her in the head to prevent her reanimation, as he had promised her he would do. After several days of mourning, Carl and Rick name the baby Judith.

Meanwhile, Andrea and Michonne (who rescued Andrea from the farm) are taken to Woodbury, a heavily-fortified town. They meet The Governor, the town's leader, and learn that Merle has taken refuge there as well. Michonne is immediately suspicious of The Governor and the settlement so she decides to leave, but Andrea refuses to go with her because she believes it is safe and is infatuated with The Governor. Merle is ordered to hunt down Michonne, but only manages to wound her. He subsequently captures Maggie and Glenn while they are out scavenging. Michonne, who witnesses the abduction, eventually arrives at the prison and then guides Rick, Daryl, and Oscar back to Woodbury on a rescue mission. The team retrieves the couple, but Oscar is killed and Daryl is captured by the townspeople. Michonne investigates The Governor's apartment, where she kills his reanimated daughter Penny (whom he had kept chained in a back room). As a result, he attacks Michonne there, who stabs and blinds him in the eye with a shard of broken glass, then escapes. In the aftermath, The Governor calls an assembly and publicly accuses Merle of treason, reuniting him with Daryl in front of the angry mob and orders the brothers to fight each other. Rick and Maggie come back and rescue them, but after regrouping outside of town, Daryl decides to leave with Merle, as Rick won't allow Merle to rejoin their group.

Back at the prison, Carl meets another band of survivors led by Tyreese and his sister Sasha and shelters them. Rick returns, but while he is speaking to the newcomers, Lori appears to him in a hallucination, launching him into a rage and ordering Tyreese's group to leave. The two siblings eventually find sanctuary in Woodbury. The Governor and a small team attack the prison the next day, killing Axel and breaching the outer fence before retreating. Merle and Daryl, having decided to try to rejoin Rick's group, return and help him fight off attacking walkers. Rick and Carl, with Michonne in tow, return to the Grimes' hometown to gather weapons from Rick's sheriff's station. There, Rick finds Morgan again and learns that Duane was killed by his reanimated mother, whom Morgan couldn't bring himself to kill after she turned. Instead of joining Rick, Morgan chooses to stay behind. After being initially mistrustful of her, Rick and Carl accept Michonne into the group.

Andrea arranges a meeting between Rick and The Governor, who promises to end all hostilities in exchange for Michonne being handed over to him. Secretly, however, he plans to slaughter the prison group anyway. Andrea discovers the plot and attempts to escape back to the prison, but The Governor captures her. Rick tells Merle about the deal and agrees to do the "dirty work" of kidnapping Michonne and handing her over. En route to the meeting point where the Governor is, Merle and Michonne talk, and Merle has a change of heart and releases her. He goes on to foil The Governor's planned ambush and engages in a gun battle with his townspeople; the two men then get into in a violent physical confrontation which is won by The Governor. Daryl then finds Merle reanimated as a walker and is forced to kill his own brother.

The Governor orders his advisor Milton to kill Andrea, but when he refuses, The Governor fatally stabs Milton and locks him inside a room with Andrea, so that he will bite her after he turns. The Governor then leads an assault on the prison, but Rick's group stages an ambush and repels the attack. When the frightened Woodbury attackers decide to leave the prison alone, The Governor guns most of them down. Rick, Daryl, and Michonne find Karen the massacre's sole survivor (except for two of The Governor's henchmen, Martinez and Shumpert, who disappear with him) while on their way to Woodbury to finish off The Governor; Karen convinces Tyreese and Sasha to allow them in when they arrive. They then find Andrea alive but suffering from a bite from the zombified Milton. Andrea uses Rick's revolver to commit suicide with Michonne by her side. The season ends with Rick's group returning to the prison along with the remaining Woodbury survivors, while The Governor's whereabouts remain unknown.

Season 4 (201314)Main article: The Walking Dead (season 4)The fourth season's story begins several months following the close of the third season's, where life has become relatively peaceful for the growing number of survivors at the prison. Due to Rick's emotional issues, he made the decision months ago to renounce his role as the leader of the group, in which a council was formed as a replacement. The peaceful society is disrupted when a deadly flulike disease ravages the population, killing many of the survivors. After being infected and quarantined, Karen (who has formed a romantic relationship with Tyreese) and another resident at the prison are murdered and their bodies burnt. When Rick realizes that Carol is the culprit, he exiles her from the prison to another town miles away. A scavenging team eventually returns with the medicine needed to contain the outbreak.

Meanwhile, a flashback reveals that The Governor was abandoned by his remaining henchmen following the failed attack on the prison and then depicts Woodbury burning at his hands, before forwarding to the present where he is shown disheveled and wandering aimlessly. He eventually runs into a small town and the Chambler family Lilly, Tara, their terminally ill father David, and Lilly's daughter Meghan. The Governor adopts a false identity and performs numerous good deeds for the family. Following David's death, the Chamblers leave their home with The Governor and soon run into his former henchman Martinez, who is now the leader of a camp of survivors. The Governor kills him to take command of the camp and disguises his death as an accident. He rallies the group behind his cause for revenge against Rick's group.

The Governor finds Michonne and Hershel outside of the prison and takes them hostage. He arrives at the gates with his newfound army and threatens to kill the hostages. Refusing to surrender, Rick proposes that they coexist at the prison instead of fighting. Sensing that some of his group may be persuaded, The Governor decapitates Hershel with Michonne's katana, provoking a firefight between the two camps. Elsewhere, Meghan is fatally bitten; The Governor coldly shoots her in the head. Rick confronts and fights The Governor, who nearly kills him, but Michonne saves Rick in time by mortally wounding The Governor with her sword. An angry Lilly later shoots him in the head. The Governor's army is eventually defeated, but the defending survivors are scattered as the prison is overrun by walkers.

Following the battle, the survivors are split into different groups traveling separately, with each encountering a variety of obstacles as they search for "Terminus", a place described as a "sanctuary for all" by the many signs posted along a network of railroad tracks. Michonne reunites with Rick and Carl. Carol meets up with Tyreese (not knowing that she had killed Karen) and they struggle to deal with Lizzie an emotionally disturbed child who murders her younger sister, Mika which results in Carol reluctantly killing her to protect Judith and the others. Carol eventually confesses to killing Karen in order to save the others from probable infection and death; however, Tyreese decides to forgive her, despite having previously promised that he would kill Karen's murderer. Beth, who was traveling with Daryl and taking shelter with him in a funeral home, is kidnapped during a walker attack. Maggie, Sasha and Bob Stookey (who joined the prison a week prior to the attack) travel together; Sasha and Bob form a romantic relationship. Glenn teams up with Tara to escape the prison and encounter three new survivors Sgt. Abraham Ford, Rosita Espinosa, and Dr. Eugene Porter who are on a mission to Washington, D.C. in search of what remains of the government. Eugene reveals that he knows the cause of the walker outbreak but is unable to elaborate, claiming that the information is classified. On the way to Terminus, Glenn and Maggie's groups reunite. They are the first group shown to arrive at Terminus, where they are greeted by Mary, a friendly woman who welcomes them in and offers food.

Meanwhile, after losing Beth, Daryl encounters a hostile group of men led by Joe. He allows Daryl to join under the condition that he lives by their code a strict set of rules punishable by beatings and even death if broken. They eventually find Rick, Michonne and Carl and hold them hostage, seeking fatal revenge for an earlier run-in with Rick that left one of their members strangled to death. Daryl arrives on the scene to stop the attack, and the bandits are eventually overwhelmed and killed. Reunited with Daryl, the group makes their way to Terminus where they run into the town's inhabitants, who assure Rick and the group that they are now safe. However, a conflict breaks out after Rick notices Hershel's watch, Glenn's riot gear, and Maggie's poncho being worn by several of the townspeople. Greatly outnumbered, Rick and the others are forced to surrender. Gareth, the leader of Terminus, orders them into a nearby railroad car where they discover Glenn and Maggie's group are also being held captive. The season ends with Rick proclaiming, "They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out...they're screwing with the wrong people."