The first rule of life after a zombie apocalypse: DON’T TRUST ANYBODY. Remember, civilization as you knew it no longer exists, and by assuming the wrong people have your back, you’re setting yourself up for a potentially fatal betrayal. Several people on the Walking Dead have found this out the hard way, and either wound up dead because of it, or escaped death by the skin of their teeth. If you still think your mom wouldn’t leave you hanging in the world of the Walking Dead, here’s 8 stories that might make you want to rethink that assumption.
#8: The Governor Murders Martinez
If there was ever a man with no illusions about who and what the Governor was, it would have been Martinez. He was always by the Governor’s side through everything, but that changed after he witnessed the Governor’s massacre of his own people at the end of Season 3. After everything he had seen while at Woodbury, that massacre was finally enough for Martinez to decide he couldn’t stay by the Governor’s side any longer, and he disappeared in the middle of the night.
Months later, he stumbled upon the Governor and his surrogate family, and rescued them from the group of walkers they were trapped in a pit with. Martinez found himself with a tough decision to make: he knew better than anyone what the Governor was capable of, and had to decide whether to give him a chance given his apparent change of heart. In the end, he gave the Governor the benefit of the doubt and allowed him to bring his new family back to their camp as long as he didn’t try anything funny.
For a while, the Governor played by the rules and Martinez started getting a little more comfortable with the idea of being around his old boss again. In fact, he even took the Governor out for a beer-and-golf session on top of his RV to prove there were no hard feelings. That turned out to be a fatal mistake, because the Governor first knocked Martinez out, then dragged him to the very walker pit Martinez rescued him from and threw him to his death.
#7: Rick Casts Carol Out Of The Prison
Rick had no reason not to trust Carol, given she had been a reliable member of the group from the beginning, and a tough and loyal warrior. But when they tried to build a structured society at the Prison, everyone had to follow the rules laid down by the the group as a whole. When the plague outbreak began, the council decided that the infected would be quarantined and treated, not killed. Somebody apparently disagreed with that decision, and took it upon themselves to kill two of the infected residents, drag them outside, and burn their corpses.
That somebody obviously turned out to be Carol, and when Rick finally figured out that she was the culprit, he was left with only two choices: he could either tell the others what Carol had done and let them decide what to do with her, or quietly exile Carol on his own without the knowledge of the rest of the group. Complicating his decision was the fact that Tyreese (whose girlfriend was one of the people Carol killed) became violently angry when he found out what happened. Rick knew that if Tyreese found out that Carol was responsible, he would kill her.
Rick eventually decided that the best thing would be to kick her out himself before it got to that point. He never told her what he had in mind when he took her out on the run that day, but while Rick’s decision was probably best for Carol in the short term, she was now left to fend for herself in a world that had already taken her husband, her daughter, and now her friends and even her home.
#6: Nicholas Nearly Kills Glenn By Killing Himself
More than anybody else on the show, Glenn has refused to let go of his humanity and moral compass, including his refusal to take another human life. It was a respectable standard to hold himself by, but Nicholas was one of those cases where Glenn’s principles didn’t do him any favors.
From the top of his head to the bottom of his toes, Nicholas was a coward and a cutthroat. He had abandoned his friends on multiple occasions to save himself, and even once lured Glenn out into the woods to try and kill him. He didn’t get the job done, but when walkers surrounded them, Nicholas took off and left Glenn alone to fend for himself. Glenn finally caught up with Nicholas and beat him within an inch of his life, but instead of killing him, Glenn helped Nicholas back to town and gave him an opportunity to redeem himself.
As wonderful a human being as he is, Glenn really should have known better by that point. When the plan to lure the herd of walkers away from Alexandria went off the rails, Glenn and Nicholas found themselves standing on top of a dumpster, surrounded by walkers, with no hope of escape. Nicholas’ cowardly nature came boiling back to the surface in catastrophic fashion. He calmly thanked Glenn, blew his own brains out, and fell into Glenn, knocking him into the sea of walkers below.
#5: Dr. Jenner Lets Everyone Into The CDC Knowing It’s About To Blow Up
Rick’s company bet everything they had on finding sanctuary at the CDC, and luckily, it turned out to be even better than they had hoped, because Dr. Jenner provided them with many of the amenities that none of the group had seen since the world came to an end. All things considered, Dr. Jenner seemed like a pretty cool guy… At least until he tried to kill them all by trapping them inside when the CDC was about to blow.
As Rick’s group found out, the whole place was rigged to explode once the generators ran out of fuel, and Dr. Jenner decided to trap them inside instead of allowing them to leave while they still could. After losing his wife, his coworkers, and his world, he believed there was no point in continuing, and seemed to think he would be doing the others a favor by sparing them the misery of trying to survive in what was left of the world.
That said, it was still kind of a dick move for him to not tell the others that they were about to die. The rest of the crew (except Jacqui) agreed, and were lucky enough to escape by the skin of their teeth.
#4: Shane Leaves Otis To Die
Shane was known to commit some pretty unsavory acts, and this isn’t the only time we’re going to see him on this list, but this one lands lowest on the Shane Scale for a few reasons. For starters, he had been searching for Carol’s daughter Sophia, and only wound up at Herschel’s farm in the first place because Otis shot Carl while deer hunting.
In order to save Carl’s life, Herschel needed medical supplies that could only be found at a nearby school that was surrounded by walkers. Shane volunteered to go, and Otis, feeling terrible about what he did, decided to tag along and watch Shane’s back in case he got into trouble with the walkers. However, he didn’t expect to assist by being left as walker bait when Shane shot him in the leg and escaped while the walkers devoured him.
From Shane’s perspective, he thought of Carl as he would his own son, and even though it was an accident, he still held Otis responsible for nearly killing the boy. He also knew that he didn’t have much time to escape because, unless the supplies got back to the farm by morning, Carl wouldn’t make it. He wouldn’t have even been there in the first place if it weren’t for Otis, so to him, it made perfect sense if he needed to be sacrificed to save Carl’s life.
#3: Shane Shacks Up With Lori The Instant He Thinks Rick Is Dead
The time between Rick’s shooting and the beginning of the zombie apocalypse was a whirlwind series of events in Shane’s life. First, he had to deliver the news of Rick’s accident to Lori, then after doing everything he could to protect Rick from the death squads exterminating everybody in the hospital, Shane realized that he needed to take care of Rick’s family, and got them out of town as soon as possible.
Before we knew it, Shane had become the new man in Lori’s life. Something should be said for the fact that Lori was able to move on so quickly after her husband’s apparent demise, but she had no reason at the time to doubt Shane’s word. And therein lay the problem, because even though Shane couldn’t imagine Rick surviving, he wasn’t 100% sure that Rick was actually dead.
That ended up coming back to burn Shane when Rick reappeared and was reunited with his family. Lori was furious with Shane, and refused to accept any explanation he tried to give her. Shane honestly believed that Rick was dead, and he had a hard time coming to grips with the way his relationship with Lori and Carl had vanished. Even though they weren’t, Shane began to think of them as his family, and the jealousy that burned inside eventually led to the next entry on the list, as…
#2: Shane Tries To Kill Rick
Before Rick showed up, Shane was the one everybody in his group of survivors looked to: he had the knowledge and skills to protect and keep order, and what he said went. Once Rick showed up, the other survivors turned to him instead, and Shane’s influence began to diminish. Rick’s determination to not devolve into a bunch of savages was incompatible with Shane’s insistence that the rules they used to live by no longer apply.
Their constant clashes only served to push Shane further out of the circle, rejected by people who wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for him. Then there was the issue with Lori and Carl, because as far as Shane was concerned, everything was fine with them before Rick came back. He considered himself a better husband and father than Rick could ever be, not to mention a better leader.
Eventually, Shane decided that the only way he was going to set things right was by killing Rick, and lured him out to an isolated field where he planned to end it. Rick appealed to the very last shreds of humanity that Shane had left, causing him to let his guard down so Rick could get in close and stab him to death. Rick didn’t want things to come to that, and ironically, it proved that Shane was exactly right: the rules of the world they had lived in really did no longer apply, and if Rick couldn’t trust Shane, there really was nobody he could trust.
#1: Andrea Betrays Everyone She Knows Over And Over
Simply put, Andrea was the most disloyal fair-weather sailor we’ve ever seen on the show, and she easily tops the list by doublecrossing almost everyone she came into contact with.
It all began with Dale, who brought her into the group to begin with, risked his life to get Andrea out of the CDC before it blew, and held onto her gun back until he was certain she wouldn’t hurt herself or anyone else with it. Andrea responded b pushing him away and showing no gratitude for everything he did for her up until the day he died.
Next, she offered to join Shane when he was ready to sneak off and disappear, then changed her mind at the last minute. She got into it with Lori for doing laundry instead of helping defend the camp. She even left Beth alone so she could try and commit suicide when Maggie was counting on her to prevent that very thing from happening.
After getting separated from the rest of the group following the walker attack on the farm, Andrea instead found herself traveling in the company of Michonne, who helped keep her safe on the road and treated her influenza. Once she got to Woodbury, however, she was so enthralled with the lifestyle that she didn’t think twice about abandoning Michonne when she decided to leave.
Andrea then pulled off the incredible feat of repeatedly betraying both sides of the Prison-Woodbury conflict at the same time. First, she stooged off everything she knew about the Prison folks, then she pulled a gun on Michonne when she breaks back in to trash the Governor and his home. She sneaks out on the Governor to see her “friends” at the Prison, and helps Rick and company devise a plan where she’ll kill the Governor in his sleep. She changes her mind and lets him live, then she leaves Woodbury and tries running back to the Prison again, but is finally caught and dragged back to Woodbury where she meets her end at the hands of a walker-turned Milton.
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear Andrea’s staggering untrustworthiness was some kind of pathological disorder. It’s amazing to believe that a single human being could be that bad a friend, but Andrea is (formerly) living proof that it can happen.