The Walking Dead: 5 Saddest Deaths of Season 5

CAUTION: Spoilers Ahead!

There was certainly no shortage of blood during the fifth season of The Walking Dead.  Beginning with Rick Grimes and his group trapped in a compound run by sadistic cannibals, our protagonists had to slaughter their way to safety, resulting in a lot of spilled blood and lost souls to kick off the season.  Then, the season even ended with a slashed throat followed by a bullet through the head, not to mention the pile of corpses left in between.

Sometimes, along with the bloodshed on the show comes the tears— not only from the characters on the show who are in mourning, but from the fans who grew to care about them as well.  Let’s look at the five saddest deaths of the season:

5. Aiden Monroe

Okay, I’ll be honest; Aiden probably had it coming.  Before his demise, he confessed to Glenn how he and Nicholas had cowardly left four other runners to die on a previous supply run.  It still wasn’t very pleasant to see him impaled on those spikes and subsequently ripped apart, nor was it much fun to see his mother, Deanna, completely distraught over it.  So, for those reasons, Aiden cracks the list at #5.

4. Bob Stookey

A former military medic struggling with an alcohol addiction, it took Bob Stookey most of Season 4 before audiences starting warming up to him.  After overcoming his demons and proving his worth to the group, Bob turned out to be a very likeable guy by the beginning of Season 5.  Fans couldn’t help but feel horrible for Bob when he was bitten by a zombie and feasted on by cannibals, but at least he got to have a heartfelt goodbye with Sasha.

3. Noah

In hindsight, Noah’s death is particularly sad in that it could have been avoided had he stayed behind at Grady Memorial Hospital with Dawn.  Beth not only helped Noah escape, but gave her life so that he could remain free.  It proved to be for naught as he ended up getting eaten by walkers in the most brutal on-screen death in the series.  It didn’t help that this came right after he realized what he wanted to do with his life and how to help Alexandria thrive.

2. Beth Greene

While Hershel’s blonde-haired daughter survived much longer than most people were predicting back in Season 2, she finally met her fate when she was just a hair away from freedom.  While Rick and the others were willing to let Noah stay behind with Dawn, this was completely unacceptable for Beth as she then took matters into her own hands.

She failed in her attempt to incapacitate Dawn with a pair of scissors, receiving a bullet through the brain for her efforts, but this enabled Noah to escape the abuse that was going on at Grady Memorial.  Her death represented a loss of innocence, and it was hard for everybody in the group, especially Maggie and Daryl.

1. Tyreese

Unlike Beth Greene who didn’t see her death coming, Tyreese was bitten by a walker while investigating Noah’s house.  While Noah searched for help, Tyreese had no choice to but to sit by himself and slowly bleed out, having vivid hallucinations of friends and foes he had encountered in his post-apocalyptic life.

As Ty got weaker, he had to deal with verbal lashings from Martin and The Governor, but even as he was dying, he stayed true to himself, proud that he had never gone down the path that these wicked people have.

He was comforted by seeing apparitions of Beth, Bob and even Lizzie and Mika, all assuring him that things were better this way.  Not only was it hard on us to see the man who saved Judith dying like this, we also had to be reminded about the sad deaths of these other characters.  As Tyreese was such a gentle soul, his dead friends were probably right, but it was still completely heartbreaking to see him slowly fade out.

The Walking Dead returns for Season 6 in October 2015, and there will surely be more heart-wrenching scenes to follow.