As The Walking Dead heads into its Season 5 finale, we’re on pins and needles waiting to see what’ll happen to Rick and the gang now that their place in Alexandria has become more scrutinized. Speaking of, perhaps those pins and needles could be used to rip a walker’s face off, or some other disgusting manner of deadly vengeance. And hey, speaking of disgusting manners of vengeance, we’ve pulled together the ten grossest moments from The Walking Dead’s splatter-filled five seasons for a smorgasbord of guts, gore and glory.
It’s no easy feat picking just ten moments, as part of the fun in watching this show is seeing just how far the effects team takes things. But it’s not all about how much blood is shed, as sometimes an act in and of itself can be more heinous than the viscera. For the sake of brevity, we left off the most disgusting element of the show – Carl still being alive – because that’s less a moment than an ongoing scourge.
10. That Time the Bike Girl Appeared
An oldie but a goodie, Season 1’s bicycle girl zombie (who couldn’t walk, despite being a walker) was one of The Walking Dead’s very first showcases of how horrifying this post-apocalypse could be. And all it took was half a body and a set of lingering-behind intestines. Kudos to the creative team for giving her a webisode, so that we could put a name (Hannah) and an unrotting face on our nightmares.
9. That Time the Governor Went All Road House
The Governor had a gun run on The Walking Dead, doing his damnedest to make everyone’s life a living hell, usually under the guise of helping them. But there was nothing secretive about the way he destroyed the pit walkers in Season 4’s “Live Bait,” in which he ripped one walker’s throat out with his bare hands, and then used one walker’s bone to snap another’s head open. Who needs guns when hands are already attached?
8. That Time Rick Bit a Dude
Season 4’s finale “A” already took a mighty disgusting turn when Joe and his horny henchman made it clear that raping Carl was on the horizon, but then Rick put his best bite forward and chomped a chunk out of Joe’s neck, tearing his jugular vein right out. It was a moment that proved just how deep into savagery Rick could get in order to protect his son, and it also proved that Rick is more inventive at ripping throats out than the Governor.
7. That Time They Drove Through All Those Walkers
Never one to trust anyone with anything, Rick took an ill-advised route to potential safety in Season 5’s “The Distance,” driving into and through a massive horde of walkers. All those bodies under the tires, all those bodies splattered across the front, all that nastiness being swiped across the windshield beneath the wipers. There’s no car wash on earth that would make that car look good again, beyond perhaps Eugene with a fire truck hose.
6. That Time That Walker Came Through the Fence
This was one of those times when the plot of the show had very little to do with the grossness happening on screen. In a scene so disgusting that it had to be edited down for airing, a ton of walkers are storming the fences at the prison, and instead of using a gate, one of the walkers makes its way inside by squishing through the fence holes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Play-Doh sales skyrocketed after the episode aired.
5. That Time Dale Lost His Guts
I miss Dale. Let me rephrase that. I miss walking and talking and living Dale, who came to a most gloriously gruesome ending in Season 2 when he is completely disemboweled by a walker that Carl should have killed earlier in the episode. It’s not just that Dale’s midsection is torn inside out, but that he vocalizes his pain arguably more intensely than anyone else in this show. Sorry, brother.
4. That Time Hershel’s Decapitated Head Reanimated
Few characters on The Walking Dead had it rougher than Hershel, who lost family members, his farm, his leg, and his spaghetti Tuesdays. In the Season 4 episode “Too Far Gone,” he even lost his head after the Governor took several whacks at this neck with Michonne’s sword. And it got worse once his body-less head was reanimated as a zombie, Thankfully, he was again put out of his misery before…well, before he just remained a head on the ground for years to come.
3. That Time Noah and Aiden Got Ripped Apart
Season 5 has arguably been the grossest season yet, evidenced best in the recent episode “Spend,” in which the fearful Noah was massacred by walkers while pressed against the glass of a revolving door, getting his cheek completely ripped off of his face. Just before that, Alexandria native Aiden was eviscerated by walkers as he was impaled upon two pieces of metal. Warehouse walkers do not play, guys, and I don’t ever want to see what either of these guys look like while reanimated.
2. That Time Daryl Weaponized a Melted Walker
Already, the parking lot of melted zombies in Season 5’s “Crossed” were enough to make this list, because goddammit, they were nasty. But what gets them so high on this list was the moment when Daryl and generic hospital cop were brawling on the ground, and Daryl pulled a walker head off of its body using the eye sockets like a bowling ball and then used it to smack the cop in the head. If only my grilled cheese sandwiches could look as ooey-gooey as that stunt looked.
1. That Time the Walker from the Well Split in Half
I’m not sure The Walking Dead will ever give viewers a scene as disgusting as the one with the waterlogged walker in the well. Looking like the baby from Dead Alive, the walker was already disgusting enough just shambling around the bottom of the well, but it wasn’t until the group attempted to extract him using a rope that things got vomit-worthy. Once he made it almost to the top, his body ripped apart and an amusement park water ride of innards came tumbling out, contaminating the water they were trying so desperately to save. If only Carl had drank some of that water, it would have been truly perfect.
What were your favorite gross-out moments?
