Living in a post-apocalyptic world is no picnic, that’s for sure, and The Walking Dead has dug deep into the terrible things the survivors have to do to protect themselves and their loved ones over its first decade. No character understands this struggle better than Rick Grimes, who has had to get his hands dirty many times to keep his friends and family safe. In fact, fans often discuss whether he’s really a hero when he’s taken so many lives across the show.
But how many people has Rick killed? Not including the zombies he’s cut down, he’s had to make the difficult decision to end a human life so many times that it’s hard to keep track. Here’s a pretty exhaustive list though as put together by ScreenRant of every death caused by Rick from season 2, when he takes his first victims, to his exit from the parent series midway through season 9.
- Dave and Tony (season 2, “Nebraska”)
- Shane Walsh (season 2, “Better Angels”)
- Tomas (season 3, “Sick”)
- At least 3 Woodbury fighters (season 3, “Made To Suffer”)
- Lou (season 4, “Claimed”)
- Joe & Dan (season 4, “A”)
- The 2 Terminus Butchers & 5 others (season 5, “No Sanctuary”)
- Gareth & another Termite (season 5, “Four Walls & A Roof”)
- Bob Lamson (season 5, “Coda”)
- Pete Anderson (season 5, “Conquer”)
- Carter (season 6, ” First Time Again”)
- 5Â Wolves (season 6, “Thank You”)
- Ethan (season 6, “Knots Untie”)
- 4 Saviors (season 6, “Not Tomorrow Yet”)
- Primo (season 6, “The Same Boat”)
- Jiro (season 6, “East”)
- 4 Scavengers (season 7, “The First Day of the Rest of your Life”)
- Savior Guard (season 8 “Mercy”)
- Gracie’s Dad (season 8, “The Damned”)
- Yago (season 8 “The Big Scary U”)
- Reilly (season 8 “Still Gotta Mean Something”)
- Around 18 more Unnamed Saviors
Obviously, it’s not always easy to pinpoint Rick’s victims, as during big action scenes, for example, who’s killing who can get muddy. But this is about as complete a list as you can get. So, given that, how many lives has Rick taken? Well, according to this count, the number is a whopping 60. Yup, Rick killed 60 people over the first nine seasons of the show. And as you can see, he tended to get more bloodthirsty from seasons 4 to 8, before he adopted his late son Carl’s call for mercy in his final few episodes.
It’ll be interesting to see, then, whether Rick has to kill again to protect himself and get back to Michonne and their kids in his upcoming movie trilogy, or whether he’ll stand by his newfound merciful outlook. Going by his kill count on The Walking Dead so far, though, it seems there’s a good chance things could turn ugly again.
