Shane Walsh

*"What happened, Rick? I thought you weren't the good guy anymore. Ain't that what you said? Even right here, right now, you ain't gonna fight for 'em? **I'm a better father than you, Rick. I'm better for Lori than you, man. It's 'cause I'm a better man than you, Rick.** 'Cause I can be here and I'll fight for it. You come back here and you just destroy everything! You got a **broken woman**. You got a **weak boy.** You ain't got the first clue on how to fix it. **Raise your gun.**"*
―Shane's final words to his best friend Rick during their final confrontation.[src]
**Shane Walsh** was the original leader of the Atlanta camp and a survivor of the apocalypse. Before the outbreak, Shane was Rick Grimes' police partner in the sheriff's department and his best friend. When the apocalypse occurred while Rick was in a coma, Shane saved both Lori and Carl by fleeing with them towards Atlanta, where they settled in a camp on the outskirts of the city with other survivors, where he became their leader.

Shortly after the failed evacuation, Shane began a so desired affair with Lori after assuming that Rick had passed away, but when he reappeared, Shane suddenly found his affections for Lori unreciprocated and his old status as the group's de facto leader challenged. His frustrations over Rick's leadership and choices quickly led to a building tension between the friends.

After trying to rape Lori on a drunken night, Shane planned to abandon the group, but his plans drastically changed after he committed a murder to save Carl's life, and upon learning that Lori was pregnant. Believing himself to be the actual father of the baby, Shane pursued Lori once again, telling her that only he was capable of protecting her and Carl since Rick was not prepared to survive, and arguing that what they had was real.

Following a brutal fight with Rick over the fate of a dangerous prisoner, Shane led his former best friend into the forest to kill him. Aiming his gun at Rick, Shane assured him that both Lori and Carl would get over him. Rick slowly handed over his gun but when Shane momentarily looked down, he stabbed him in the heart and blamed him for forcing him to do that. Moments later, Shane rose as a walker and lumbered towards Rick, but was shot in the head by Carl, putting an end to his existence.

## **Pre-Apocalypse**

During his childhood, Shane grew up alongside his best friend Rick Grimes in Georgia, where the two developed a strong bond together to the point where the pair came to view each other as 'brothers'. In high school, Shane acted as the womanizer of the pair and thus experienced many casual relationships with girls and even once had sex with the women's athletics teacher. Shane was also an avid football enthusiast, playing on his school team.

Throughout his time in high school, Shane was a known prankster, once stealing the principal's car directly from the teachers' parking lot and hid it in a chicken farm. Academically, Shane and Rick studied at college together for police administration, when eventually they became deputies at the King County Sheriff's Department, where the pair was assigned as partners and thus became acquainted with residents of the neighborhood while serving their duty. Shane also served as one of the gun instructors, during which he taught young kids how to shoot.

As a young adult, Shane became a very close friend to the Grimes family, and he helped them out on numerous occasions, such as repairing their basement sink after Rick had broken it. Throughout his romantic life, Shane never married, and instead stayed a womanizer, although he had several true relationships in his life enough to trust these women with the key to his house, however, they never worked out due to his emotional immaturity.

One morning while Shane and Rick were making their daily round of the town, they responded to a radio call requesting reinforcements to help stop a group of fugitive criminals on the road. During the procedure, Rick was unfortunately shot in the lower back by one of the bandits, causing him to lose a lot of blood and fall into a coma. Shane had the difficult task of communicating what had happened to Lori and offered to give the news to Carl but she did it herself.

## **Post-Apocalypse**

When the outbreak happened around the world, Shane went to the hospital to save his comatose best friend, but unable to hear his heartbeat due to the noise, and thinking he had died, decided to leave Rick connected to the medical equipment and left, but not before blocking the room with a gurney. After convincing Lori and Carl that, unfortunately, Rick was dead, Shane managed to get them out of King County.

On the way to a supposedly safe-zone in Atlanta, the trio was caught in a traffic jam, where they also befriended the Peletier family. When the radio transmissions stopped broadcasting and helicopters began to fly towards the city, Shane and Lori watched in horror as the city of Atlanta was napalmed by the military in a last attempt to contain the virus. This event made Shane fearless overprotective over Lori and Carl, considering them his new family.

Shortly after the failed evacuation, Shane and the group formed a campsite along with other survivors on the outskirts of the city, where he became the leader. As time progressed, Shane acted as a father figure to Carl and also began a sexual relationship with Lori after they both discovered newfound feelings for each other.

* Season 1

## Death

Killed By
* Rick Grimes *(Alive)*

When Rick realized Shane had lured him in the middle of a field in the forest with the intention of killing him, Shane aimed his gun at him. Rick made it seem as though he was handing Shane his weapon, as he refused to be armed, telling him that they could forget everything and move on. As Shane grabbed the gun and appeared to believe in his words, Rick pulled out his knife and stabbed Shane in the chest, saying he brought this on himself.

* Carl Grimes *(Zombified)*

As Rick tried to cope with what just happened, Carl appeared, shocked to see Shane dead, and aimed his gun at what at first was assumed to be Rick but was actually a now-zombified Shane. Before he could get closer to Rick, Carl pulled the trigger, shooting Shane in the head and putting him down.

## Killed Victims

* Otis *(Caused)*
* Louise Bush *(Zombified)*
* Doug *(Zombified)*
* Shawn Greene *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Arnold Greene *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Duncan *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Lacey *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Mr. Fischer *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Mrs. Fischer *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Randall Culver *(Alive, Off-Screen)*
* 2 unnamed criminals *(1 Direct, 1 alongside his fellow officers, Pre-Apocalypse)*
* 6 unnamed Greene farm inhabitants *(Zombified, alongside his fellow survivors)*
* Numerous counts of zombies

## Appearances

TV Series
Season 1
* "Days Gone Bye"
* "Guts"
* "Tell It to the Frogs"
* "Vatos"
* "Wildfire"
* "TS-19"

Season 2
* "What Lies Ahead"
* "Bloodletting"
* "Save the Last One"
* "Cherokee Rose"
* "Chupacabra"
* "Secrets"
* "Pretty Much Dead Already"
* "Nebraska"
* "Triggerfinger"
* "18 Miles Out"
* "Judge, Jury, Executioner"
* "Better Angels"

Season 3
* "Made to Suffer" (Hallucination)

Season 9
* "What Comes After" (Dream)

Webisodes
Cold Storage
* "Keys to the Kingdom" (Photograph)

## Trivia

* Shane is the first major recurring primary antagonist in the series.
* While not officially proven on the show, it was revealed by Andrew Lincoln in a 2018 interview that Shane is indeed the biological father of Judith.
* Shane's most noted line throughout the series is 'Let me tell you something'.
* Shane is the first character in the series to cause the death of a living person (Otis) in the apocalypse.
* Robert Kirkman said Shane's death was planned from the beginning of the series, including long before choosing the actor who would play him. Frank Darabont originally planned to do it at the end of the first season but when the show was given a six-episode order, he decided to move it to the second season.
	+ For this reason, the entire second season was aimed at building the character's death.
	+ Glen Mazzara also confirmed that the producers considered not killing off Shane in the second season but eventually scrapped the idea as it did not fit in with the theme of the season.
* According to Jon Bernthal, although he knew that his character's story arc would not span more than two seasons, Darabont's departure scared him that Shane's death would not have the same resonance they originally planned. One of the initial ideas was that during the final confrontation with Rick, Shane's gun was not loaded and that in the end, after Shane became a walker, Rick would pick up the gun and discover that his friend had no intention of murder him but rather force him to be more like him. The producers ultimately decided that it would be too much weight for Rick's character so they scrapped the idea.
* Shane's killers are the opposite of the comic series: In the show, Rick killed him as a human and Carl killed him as a zombie, but in the comic, Carl killed him as a human and Rick killed him as a zombie.
* Jon Bernthal had tried to convince Greg Nicotero to allow Shane to be the only walker in the series with a speaking line, "Riiiiiick", but Nicotero declined since it wasn't part of the direction of the story.
* Shane's death was accidentally leaked by the AMC TV store on March 1, 2012, in promotional materials for the Season 2 Blu-Ray set. Photos of Shane as a walker were leaked and posted on many websites.
* Rick has hallucinated with Shane twice. Coincidentally, both episodes are named after a comic volume.

## References

1. ↑ http://comicbook.com/thewalkingdead/2018/02/07/the-walking-dead-811-synopsis-spoilers-daryl-gabriel-/
2. ↑ Days Gone Bye
3. ↑ Chupacabra
4. ↑ Save the Last One
5. ↑ Days Gone Bye
6. ↑ Secrets
7. ↑ Bloodletting
8. ↑ Days Gone Bye
9. ↑ Days Gone Bye
10. ↑ Bloodletting
11. ↑ TS-19
12. ↑ Tell It to the Frogs
13. ↑ Chupacabra
14. ↑ Better Angels
15. ↑ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/walking-dead-shane-dead-robert-kirkman-298224
16. ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2012/03/11/walking-dead-robert-kirkman-2
17. ↑ http://www.mtv.com/news/1680850/walking-dead-shane-walsh-death/
18. ↑ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/emmys-2012-walking-dead-jon-bernthal-338851
19. ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2012/03/11/jon-bernthal-shane-walking-dead-shocker