The Walking Dead: Who Died This Week?

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Walking Dead (obviously)

The Walking Dead is set in a post-apocalyptic future where zombies roam America, and the living seem determined to kill one another, so each new episode tends to rack up at least one or two deaths. Season 8 is particularly fraught with danger, as Rick Grimes and co. are caught up in "All Out War" against Negan and the Saviors. With a revolving door of cast members, as old survivors are killed off and new ones join the crew, it can be hard to keep track of who's dead and who's still alive - but fortunately, we're here to help you keep track.

Here's everyone who has died in the second half of The Walking Dead season 8 (so far). We'll be updating this post each week!

Season 8 Finale: Wrath

The way that "Wrath" was set up in "Worth," it seemed inevitable that fans were in for a bloodbath. After all, Rick and co. were walking right into a trap cleverly laid by Negan, and Eugene was focused on making a massive stockpile of bullets with which the Saviors could lay waste to the Hilltop survivors. But despite the potential for a massacre, no major characters were killed off in The Walking Dead's season 8 finale.

Even in the episode itself, there were several points where it seemed like we were about to say goodbye to someone - in particular when Gabriel ran away to try and warn his friends, but caught by the Saviors. Negan looked like he was about to tee up and take a swing with Lucille, but instead Gabriel was given a stay of execution... until the Saviors had Rick and the gang surrounded, and Negan decided to kick things off by shooting Gabriel in the back of the head.

At least, that was the plan. Unfortunately for Negan, it turns out that Eugene's loyalties hadn't actually changed. The bullet-maker had sabotaged all of the bullets in the Saviors' guns, causing them to backfire and injure the people holding them - Negan included. In the ensuing fight some Saviors were killed by the Hilltop group, but many of them were spared as Rick decided to let mercy prevail over his wrath. Negan himself got his throat cut by Rick, who then ordered Siddiq to save his life (despite Maggie's protests), so that the former leader could serve as an example of justice and punishment in Rick's new world.

All told, the season finale had a surprisingly low body count overall. But with Maggie, Jesus and Daryl already planning a revolt, and a herd of walkers on the way, don't expect things to stay peaceful for long in season 9.

Season 8, Episode 15: Worth

The penultimate episode of season 8 made it clear that things are building up to a bloodbath in the finale, as Negan's dastardly plan was brought into light. It turns out that the person whom Negan picked up on the side of the road was Laura, the only witness to Dwight's betrayal. With all the cards up his leather sleeves, Negan presents Dwight with false information about a plan to attack Hilltop, knowing that Dwight will find a way to deliver that information to Rick and co. (which he does - via Gregory). However, despite obviously being in big trouble, Dwight isn't on the list of characters who bite the dust in "Worth" - though another one of Negan's lieutenants is on that list.

Simon

Yes, it's sadly time to say farewell to Steven Ogg and his entertaining role as Negan's mutinous right-hand man. Upon Negan's surprise and unwelcome return, Simon tries to carry on with his plan to take over the Saviors, and gathers together a group of people who are similarly sick of Negan's plotting. Little does he know that he's actually lining them up for the slaughter. Dwight, who at this point is still trying to pretend that he's on Negan's side and stay in the boss's good books, sells out Simon and his followers - leading to a final confrontation between Negan and the man who would be king.

Instead of simply finishing Simon off with Lucille, or having him shot like the rest of the traitors, Negan decides upon a show of strength - a fair fight, in which whomever wins gets to be in charge. Simon takes the first swing and gets in a few good punches, but ultimately Negan overpowers him and then kills him via slow and painful strangulation. Towards the end of the episode, right before Negan gets a call from Michonne to deliver a message of pacificism and hope for a brighter future, we see the now-undead Simon strung up on the fence with the rest of the captured walkers.

Various Saviors

As mentioned above, Simon manages to sway a few of the Saviors to his side - and things don't end well for them. After the boss-man emerges from behind a dumpster (those things are incredibly useful in the Walking Dead universe), he orders the snipers that he has watching over to shoot all of Simon's allies simultaneously. He then finishes a few of them off with Lucille. Meanwhile, over at Eugene's bullet workshop, a couple of Saviors get taken out by Daryl and Rosita in the process of kidnapping Eugene.

Various Walkers

Despite being hungry, dehydrated, and exposed to the elements for several days, Aaron still manages to rack up an impressive body count in "Worth." He's refusing to leave the vicinity of Oceanside until he can persuade its inhabitants to join the fight against Negan, but they won't take him in or help him, and there are a lot of walkers in the woods. Aaron talks out at least half a dozen of them over the course of the episode, and eventually collapses from exhaustion. At that point the Oceansiders come across him and it seems like he finally manages to sway them to his side - though it might be more out of pity than anything else.

Season 8, Episode 14: Still Gotta Mean Something

"Still Gotta Mean Something" is an episode where no one really needed to die, but a lot of people did. Negan, however, ended up being spared by Jadis, using his wits and silver tongue to somehow wriggle out of a situation where he was strapped to a board with a walker gnashing its teeth just a few feet away. It was during this exchange that Negan revealed to Jadis that his faithful bat Lucille is actually named after his deceased wife, and he loves it so much because it's his last connection to her. Some might question the value of bashing people's heads in as a romantic tribute, but Negan's always been a bit quirky.

While Negan was showing his vulnerable side, Rick showed off his villainous side - giving his word to the escaped Saviors that they could be brought back to Hilltop unharmed and given a second chance, only to turn on them once he was freed. Between Rick's gun, Morgan's stick, and a herd of walkers, a lot of people met their end this week - though none of them were Hilltop survivors or main characters.

Jared

The only significant character death this week was Jared, the Savior who killed Henry's older brother. Jared was the only Savior who was determined to get back to the Sanctuary no matter what, and planned to use the capture of Rick and Morgan to get back into Negan's good books. When Rick tried to persuade the Saviors to let him and Morgan go, Jared insisted that he was lying - and, of course, he was right. Jared was killed after the herd of walkers broke into the building, and Morgan trapped him behind a gate and held him there as the mass of zombies started ripping his face off. You might be thinking that Jared was the person who Negan let into his car at the end of the episode, but that would require a Glenn-dumpster level escape and Talking Dead confirmed that Jared really did die. Negan's old friend must be someone else - possibly Laura, which would mean big trouble for Dwight.

Several Saviors

The other escaped Saviors learned an important lesson about not trusting Rick's word - though it was a lesson that came a little too late. Soon after they let Rick and Morgan go free and gave them back their weapons (one of the Saviors even saved Rick from a walker), Negan's former followers were double-crossed and brutally killed. Although Rick didn't hesitate in the moment, he looked devastated when he was reading Carl's letter at the end of the episode, so it's likely that Carl asked him to do the exact opposite of murdering people who might have been saved.

Various Walkers

During Rick, Morgan and the Saviors' tussle with the walker herd, several of the undead monsters were taken out, though none in a particularly memorable fashion.

Season 8, Episode 13: "Do Not Send Us Astray"

After an episode with no deaths, The Walking Dead ramped things up in "Do Not Send Us Astray" with lots of deaths on both sides. Well... sort of. The people who died were mostly unnamed or minor characters, and Dwight and Simon in were particular gifted with ridiculous levels of plot armor that allowed them to survive three successive ambushes, during which the Hilltop survivors rained down gunfire and arrows. The minimal casualties on Hilltop's side during the initial skirmish made sense, at least, given that they were prepared for the attack and had the upper hand for most of it.

The true evil nature of the Saviors' new approach emerged later, however, when Hilltop fighters who had been injured with tainted weapons died in the night and rose again to chomp down on their former friends. Again, most of the characters who died were just random extras, but there was one casualty this week that came as a particularly hard blow to Carol.

Tobin

There needs to be some kind of rule on The Walking Dead against characters having touching moments filled with hope for the future, since those moments often seem to precede disaster. This week Carol reconnected with Tobin, the Alexandrian with whom she'd started a sweet little romance before she decided to run away from all the fighting. Tobin was injured during the attack on Hilltop by a slash to the chest with a tainted machete, and while he seemed to be recovering at first, he later became one of the first to succumb to the fever. He carved quite a path through the Hilltop residents before eventually being found by Carol, who was understandably upset by his death, but still managed to put him down with a knife to the head. Apparently Carol's love life just can't catch a break.

Dana

Speaking of rules, The Walking Dead employs the Highlander rule when it comes to doctors: there can be only one. Dana, the Hilltop doctor, was introduced in this episode. She pushed Siddiq's buttons by mocking his lack of experience. Then, later, she died - bitten by Tobin. The good news is that Siddiq is probably safe - at least, until another doctor comes along.

Bruce

The number of remaining Alexandrians who were introduced in season 5 is rapidly thinning, and this week's episode saw Bruce - a minor character who has nonetheless been around for quite a while - get injured with a tainted weapon. Bruce begged someone else to kill him before he turned, saying that he couldn't do it himself, and his death occurred off-screen.

Various Hilltop Survivors

Judging by the number of fresh graves at the end of the episode, the Hilltop lost a lot of good people during the nighttime walker attack.

Various Saviors

The Saviors appeared to lose a lot of people during their attack on Hilltop, given that they were ambushed several times. That said, all the named Saviors survived and Negan has a habit of pulling fresh troops out of thin air every time he loses a few dozen people, so don't expect this episode to have made much of a dent in their ranks.

Various Prisoners

At the start of the episode, Maggie had 38 Saviors still held prisoner at Hilltop - something that failed to deter Simon from attacking. By the end of the episode, there were effectively no prisoners left: one of them reanimated in the pen and killed several others; some of the prisoners escaped after Henry helpfully unlocked their cage; and some - including the oh-so-earnest Al - seem to have switched sides, having decided to stay at the Hilltop while their former allies escaped.

Season 8, Episode 12: "The Key"

"The Key" is something of a rarity when it comes to The Walking Dead: an episode where no one dies. This is an especially impressive feat given that much of the episode is dedicated to Rick trying to kill Negan in a building full of hungry walkers who, at one point, are on fire. Audiences may have been expecting a bloodbath after Negan revealed his plan to attack Hilltop with walker blood-infected weapons but, as is often the case with The Walking Dead, it takes a while to get there, and there's an interruption along the way - specifically, an interruption in the form of Rick ramming his car into Negan's.

Back at Hilltop, Maggie's leadership faces a new challenge in the form of a bartering offer from a group of strangers, who promise "the key to the future" in exchange for crates of food and music records. Georgie, along with her two sidekicks Hilda and Midge, says that she has knowledge to share, but won't specify what it is. Maggie, who is naturally suspicious (and probably a bit annoyed by the vagueness of what's on offer) instead decides to bring Georgie and her goons back to Hilltop at gunpoint - but no one gets shot, and Maggie ultimately decides to let Georgie and co. go. This decision brings great rewards: knowledge of how to build essential structures like windmills and watermills, as well as a much-needed stockpile of food.

Unfortunately, that food may not help Hilltop much when the Saviors come knocking next week. Negan had given strict instructions for the Saviors to only wound the survivors at Hilltop, not kill them straight away, so that they could instead slowly succumb to infection. However, Simon has grown impatient with Negan's way of doing things, and uses his boss' disappearance to issue a new order: the Saviors will ride to Hilltop, and they will "expunge" and "redact" the people there. So, the lack of deaths this week may simply be the calm before the storm.

Lucille?

While no living people died this week, there was one possible casualty during Rick and Negan's epic battle. At one point Rick came across a door marked "EATERS" and, driven by the power of his hate for Negan, set Lucille on fire and used her to bash his way through the door. Negan, horrified at the thought of losing his precious bat, chased Rick down and the two of them fought fiercely, though not fatally. Negan eventually got Lucille back, but she was on fire for a long time. Even if she's not completely ruined, she may be too burned up to survive much longer as a bashing weapon.

Various Walkers

Also during the fight with a fiery Lucille, Rick set a few walkers on fire and whacked some more with his axe. It's safe to assume that a few of them stopped moving after that.

Season 8, Episode 11: "Dead or Alive Or"

In this episode, The Walking Dead gets back to one of its favorite pasttimes: walking through the woods. Dwight, Tara and Rosita are leading the Alexandrians to Hilltop, but along the way lie many dangers - from swamp zombies to Saviors. To make matters worse, Tara is still a little annoyed about Dwight killing her girlfriend, Denise, and her efforts to get him killed on the journey escalate to the point where she starts chasing him through the woods with a gun. However, Dwight isn't counted among the dead this week.

Meanwhile, Father Gabriel and Dr. Carson (not the one who got thrown in a furnace - the other one) are also romping through the woods, but Gabriel's infection is gradually robbing him of his eyesight, and the Saviors are hot on their trail. Back at the Saviors' HQ, Eugene gets a promotion from Negan: heading up his very own outpost, where he will produce bullets for the Saviors. Of course, Eugene also has a Sword of Damocles hanging over his head; if Negan finds out that he helped Gabriel and Carson escape, Eugene's stay with the Saviors could get decidedly less comfortable.

Overall, "Dead Or Alive Or" is a fairly slow-paced episode... but that doesn't mean it's without casualties. And there was one significant character death this week.

Dr. Harlan Carson

The Walking Dead fans like to joke that there's a Highlander rule for doctors (there can be only one), so given Siddiq's arrival in Hilltop this episode, it was perhaps inevitable that Dr. Harlan Carson would get pushed off the shelf. Dr. Carson and Father Gabriel spend the episode experiencing a run of improbably good luck: first they are drawn to a house because Gabriel believes he hears the sound of bells; then the house just so happens to contain the antibiotics they need to fight Gabriel's infection; then Gabriel accidentally smashes open a piggy bank that contains a map and a set of car keys for the truck outside. Gabriel chalks all of this up to divine intervention...

...And then the cruel god of the Walking Dead universe pulls the rug out from under them. First Harlan gets his leg caught in a bear trap. Then, when the pair of them reach the car, they are ambushed by Saviors. Harlan, having bought into Gabriel's belief that God is on their side, decides to try and take one of the Saviors' guns and is immediately shot - to Gabriel's horror and dismay. At the end of the episode, Gabriel ends up in Eugene's machine workshop, organizing bullet casings - and he seems a lot less confident that God is on his side.

Various Walkers

There aren't any particularly formidable walkers in this episode - just a handful of biters that the Alexandrians encounter on the way to Hilltop (Tara tries, unsuccessfully, to get them to bite Dwight). However, there is a memorable scene where walkers come lurching out of a swamp, suitably decomposed, and Daryl and co. have to dispatch them.

Season 8, Episode 10: "The Lost and the Plunderers"

In the wake of Carl's death, "The Lost and the Plunderers" was a quieter, more contemplative episode... but that doesn't mean it didn't have a big body count. In fact, nearly an entire faction was wiped out - a development that could prove to be crucial in the ongoing war between Rick and Negan. Notably, Negan and his crew still seem to be unaware that Gavin is dead - though sooner or later they're going to figure it out, when he fails to make contact.

Negan did, however, learn that Carl has died, and interestingly he seemed to be genuinely upset by the news. In general, Negan appeared to be interesting in finding non-lethal ways to bring the other factions to heel, telling Simon to only kill one member of the Scavengers (a.k.a. "the Garbage People") as punishment for Jadis working with Rick.

Simon, however, was feeling a little hot-headed and looking for an excuse to unleash hell, so after coercing the Scavengers into giving up their guns, he pressured Jadis to give him a real apology. Jadis offered some pretty insincere remorse, and Simon began taking lives - leading to the big kill scene of "The Lost and the Plunderers." Here's who died.

The Scavengers (Except For Jadis)

The Walking Dead - Simon kills the Scavengers

Going against Negan's wishes, Simon slaughters every single member of the Scavengers except for Jadis. This massacre includes two notable named characters: Jadis' lieutenants Tamiel and Brion, who are the first two to be shot. The Scavengers then reanimate as zombies, just in time for Rick and Michonne to arrive and find the junkyard in chaos, and Jadis shell-shocked and wearing a nightgown. Rick chooses to leave Jadis to her fate, but she doesn't die. Instead, she takes care of her people.

This is where the episode gets really gruesome. Jadis lures the walkers en masse to a grinding machine, where they fall in and are turned into pulped zombie meat. Their bloody, fleshy remains are then carried along a conveyor belt, splashing Jadis' artwork with gore. Watching her friends get purÃ©ed apparently gives Jadis a snack attack, because the last time we see her in this episode she is eating a tin of applesauce. Hopefully this means she has decided to regain her strength, and perhaps even take her revenge on Simon and Negan.

Various Walkers

There were a few other walker deaths in this episode, since Rick and Michonne had to fight their way out of Alexandria and stopped along the way to try and extinguish the flames consuming a gazebo where Carl used to sit. Their efforts ultimately proved fruitless, and the two of them watched solemnly on their way out of the not-so-safe zone as the gazebo burned down. The pair also killed a few more walkers when they arrived at the junkyard.

Season 8, Episode 9: 'Honor'

Carl Grimes

The big death this week was one of the biggest deaths in the show's history: Carl Grimes, Rick's son, succumbed to a walker bite and shot himself in the head after a prolonged struggle with the infection. Though we found out that he was bitten (in the torso, which isn't exactly an area that can be amputated) in the midseason finale, Carl lingered for almost an entire episode as Rick and Michonne stayed by his deathbed - eventually moving him from the tunnels to an abandoned house. They were spared from having to watch him die, instead waiting outside until they heard the gunshot, and then burying his body.

An opening montage showed that Carl had prepared for his death by spending quality time with Judith and writing notes to his family and loved ones. With his last words, he told Rick about a dream he'd had - the "Old Man Rick" flash-forwards that permeated the episode - in which Rick created a better future for the survivors. In Carl's dream, even Negan was ultimately brought over to the side of the angels.

Gavin

The only other named character death in this episode was that of Negan's lieutenant, Gavin. One of the only Saviors with any apparent sense of decency and diplomacy, Gavin was in charge of collecting weekly tributes from the Kingdom, and had a semi-civil relationship with Ezekiel. In this episode, Gavin has taken Ezekiel prisoner and Morgan and Carol are determined to rescue him - no matter how many Saviors they have to go through. In the end, however, Gavin wasn't killed by Morgan or Carol. He was stabbed in the neck by a Kingdom boy called Henry, who had been taught how to fight with a stuck by Morgan, and whose brother Benjamin was killed by the Saviors last season. After Gavin died, Carol stabbed him in the head to make sure he wouldn't reanimate.

Various Saviors

Carol and Morgan go through a lot of Saviors on their way to rescue Ezekiel, with Morgan in particular demonstrating a great deal of ruthlessness. Easily the most memorable death was when Morgan was being attacked by a Savior and, in order to fend him off, reached inside the man's guts and pulled out his intestines. Gruesome!

Various Walkers

Plenty of walkers were shot in this episode, and early on we see a walker get stabbed in the head by Carol, but there were no particularly memorable walkers or walker executions.

More: Negan Can Still Become A Hero

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.