The scary part of The Walking Dead is meant to come from the zombies that take no prisoners and eat anything that has a pulse. However, we don’t fear these zombies nearly as much as we do the original protagonist Rick Grimes.
Rick was responsible for bringing down a number of hard-hitting antagonists with zero fear, and we believe he wouldn’t have been scared of even someone like Batman. It’s a shame he was written out of the series, but we do have these 10 instances that remind us just how much of a nightmare he was capable of being for the villains on the show.
10 Shooting The Men At The Bar
Before this scene, we’d only ever had the nice guy Rick on our screens who preferred to negotiate and claimed that killing the living was a serious no-no. However, Rick had his first cold manner of killing on the show when two guys entered a bar where our heroes were.
Sensing that these men had no intentions other than either taking Rick and company hostage or killing them, Rick pulled a fast one and shot both these men before they could draw their weapons. It was the first reminder we had that Rick could instantly enter kill mode when needed.
9 Beginning the "Ricktatorship"
Even though he did kill the guys mentioned above, Rick hadn’t gone berserk on his own people, that is until we saw him do just that here. After being forced to kill an insane Shane, Rick chastised his group for not appreciating what he was trying to do for them.
By this point, he’d had enough of being a nice guy and told his group that they had no other choice but to listen to him. This was good enough to shut up a few of the members who had wanted to cause a needless argument over Rick’s methods, as the latter’s stone-cold stare put everyone in their place.
8 The Red Handled Machete
When the people at Terminus had our heroes bound and gagged, Rick still didn’t flinch and made a promise to their leader Gareth that of the bunch of weapons he had stashed outside the facility, Rick would use the machete with a red handle to butcher Gareth.
It only took a couple of episodes for that promise to come true, as Rick had Gareth and his group of human-eaters on their knees and begging for mercy. Rick would counter Gareth’s pleas that he promised he wouldn’t bother him again by reminding him of Rick’s own promise, before proceeding to slaughter Gareth’s group in such a manner that only bloody carcasses remained.
7 Threatening Abraham
Looking at Abraham, who was a bull of a man, one would know better than to challenge him; if that man’s Rick, though, then we’d say the odds of him winning wouldn’t be too bad. As it happened, Rick wouldn’t allow Abraham to take the bus and abandon Daryl and Carol, leading to a tense confrontation between the men.
It was two Alpha males locking horns as neither was ready to relent. However, you could see in Rick’s eyes that he was coming for blood. While Abraham would’ve fought to hold Rick down, we believe the latter would’ve won since he was ready to murder Abraham if it meant keeping the bus.
6 Ripping Out A Person's Throat
All right, the person in question was an antagonist, but that doesn’t change the fact that Rick literally became the Walking Dead when he dug his teeth into the man’s neck and tore apart his throat.
Causing this scene was the fact that the man and his gang were in the midst of manhandling Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Carl, the latter of whom was being mistreated enough for Rick to forego any manner of orderly conduct and led to him ripping the antagonist’s neck apart and killing his friends in such a manner that it was deemed too brutal to be shown onscreen.
5 Breaking His Word
We’ve covered this before when discussing the times where Rick was more of a villain than a hero. Along with committing a terrible act, Rick truly terrified us here when he lied that he would welcome a group of Saviors who had held him captive into Alexandria, only to violently kill them when he was set free.
Even Morgan, a man who had become deranged beyond measure, couldn’t fathom what Rick had done as he broke the code of honor humans are meant to abide by. Rick himself was horrified at his actions later on and accepted he had gone too far.
4 Overcoming Terminus
While the people at Terminus might be the scariest characters we’ve seen so far, what with these guys killing and eating people, Rick was even scarier than them when he managed to break his bonds.
Upon breaking free, Rick sauntered over to his captor and plunged his shiv deep into the man, before instructing his allies to let each one of the Terminus people turn into zombies. Rick would then mow down each member of the faction he found, causing the end of Terminus itself.
3 Ricktatorship Part Two
Upon arriving at Alexandria, Rick realized the people there weren’t suited at all for the harsh realities of the world, and for a time started planning who to kill in order to “save” the rest of the people. When a few of the residents caught on this, they attempted to throw Rick from power, only for him to easily bring them to their knees.
Here, Rick openly boasted that he’d taken charge of the community, asking the leader of the other group if he had any idea what Rick was capable of. In the long-run, Rick was right to take charge, but he definitely used fear as a weapon to get there.
2 Hatchet To Skull
Stuff doesn’t just happen, especially not when someone tries to make stuff happen to Rick Grimes. The consequences of attempting to backstab Rick aren’t pretty, and this guy, in particular, learned it the hard way when he found his skull split open.
When Rick and company cleared the zombies from the prison, the leader of the prisoners attempted to have Rick killed by throwing zombies at him. After Rick survived, he had nothing more to say other than burying his hatchet deep into man’s skull, with not even a slight flinch as he brought the man’s life to a crashing end.
1 Promising To Kill Negan
Rick was in no position to make threats, and yet he still managed to come across as intimidating when Negan had him battered and bruised. Once he’d seen Negan kill both Glenn and Abraham, Rick would look into Negan’s eyes and promise him that one day he would end the man’s life.
While Negan scoffed at the idea, you could tell he was instantly wary of Rick’s capabilities. Rick once again made this promise at the end of the season, before coming close to making Negan bleed to death. He only let Negan live because of Carl’s final wishes; otherwise, it would’ve been curtains for the leader of the Saviors.