AMC’s The Walking Dead has no shortage of villains, which, when you consider the current state of humanity in the show, isn’t terribly surprising. But for the most part, the antagonists who butt heads with Rick Grimes and his merry band of survivors, usually have some sort of justification for their malice. Be it a conflicting worldview or the need to protect themselves, The Walking Dead has seen rational people commit heinous acts of violence, and violent people seem almost rational (we’re looking at you, Rick!). Sadly, though, not all villains in The Walking Dead are created equal. Some are temporary fixtures who stir things up for briefest of moments, while others are long-lasting scourges.

Some of the most terrifying antagonists the show has to offer can flutter between creating more personal turmoil for the heroes and representing a conflicting ideology. In a world belonging to the dead, it’s tough to be one of the good guys. When the world leaves people with little hope, it’s easy to see why they might turn to become the thing they once reviled. From top to bottom these villains have had an effect on the protagonists of The Walking Dead, from the mundane to the earth-shattering.

25 DAVE (AND THE LIVING)

The character of Dave first appeared in the season two episode, “Nebraska.” He and his cohort Tony arrive at a local bar and confront Rick, Glenn, and Hershel. During his exchange with the trio of heroes, Dave, portrayed by the amazingly talented character actor Michael Raymond James (Terriers, Once Upon a Time), unsuccessfully tries to convince Rick and company that he is “one of the good guys.” Rick, seeing through Dave’s façade winds up getting in a firefight with the survivor and kills him and his comrade Tony.

While his appearance it quite brief (even by Walking Dead standards) Dave is a rather unsettling presence due to Michael Raymond James’ fantastic performance.

The rest of the group traveling with Dave and Tony would later confirm Rick’s fear that they were cruel murders, doing unspeakable things to fellow survivors. While Dave’s group, known as “The Living,” don’t give Rick and he group much trouble as they are easily dispatched throughout the season, they are the first band of post-apocalyptic degenerates that our heroes have encountered. They set the stage for many others yet to come. Unfortunately, these antagonists act as nothing more than cannon fodder in season two, which many fans consider the most unnecessarily prolonged season of the show’s history (just get off the farm, already!).

24 TOMAS

The comic book version of Tomas (or Thomas) is an absolutely terrifying inmate the prison Rick and his fellow survivors call home for a spell. He’s a psychotic murderer who preys on the most vulnerable members of the group. While his time in the comic is rather short (mostly serving as the primary antagonist for the ironically titled story arc “Safety Behind Bars”), he causes quite a bit of damage and winds up not just upsetting the apple cart, but completely knocking it over. However, in the show, his tenure is even shorter. Reimagined as Tomas (played by actor Nick Gomez), the character has all the potential homicidal trappings as his comic counterpart, but without any of the follow through.

Tomas first appears in the season three premiere “Seed,” but quickly meets the business end of Rick’s machete in the following episode “Sick.” Tomas doesn’t get much of a character arc other than he’s upset that a group of interlopers have arrived at his prison only to wind up with a split melon. Actor Nick Gomez tries his best with what little he is given, but all the tough guy talk in the world can make him even remotely scary. His death scene, however, is pretty memorable and solidifies the fact that Rick doesn’t play around or take threats lightly.

23 ED

Ed Peletier was not an overly impactful villain in the greater narrative of The Walking Dead, but his abusive nature left permanent scars on his wife and everyone’s favorite Rambo by way of June Cleaver, Carol. The relationship between the Peletier patriarch and monarch was far from anywhere near being healthy. And despite the trauma Ed put his wife through, Carol did seem pretty broken up about his death… but not too broken up to finish the job with a pickaxe once he reanimated as a Walker (and yes, this moment is as gruesome as it sounds).

Ed first appeared in the third episode of the season one, “Tell It to the Frogs.”

His stretch in the show didn’t go much further as he met his demise in the following episode “Vatos.” His time spent on the show was made up of either being a misogynistic bully to his wife and all the other women at their camp or getting his face turned into mush by Shane Walsh. And even though Ed never did much in the way of villainy in the classic comic book sense of the word, his boorish brutality left its mark on Carol, which, for better or worse, aided in forging the tough as nails soccer mom should we grow to be…. well that and losing her daughter and surviving cancer. Now that we think of it, Ed was just a drop in the tragedy bucket for poor Carol.

22 MITCH

The character of Mitch Dolgen in The Walking Dead is mostly carried by an electric performance by the great character actor Kirk Acevedo (Oz, Fringe). Acevedo did not have much to work with in his portrayal of the hardened former Army serviceman. Luckily, his character did not have too long of a shelf life, first appearing the season four episode “Dead Weight” and meeting the tip of one of Daryl’s arrows in the following episode “Too Far Gone,” during the siege on the prison.

The threat he posed to Rick and the rest of the survivors wasn’t not too great on a micro level. However, he was at the forefront of the battle when The Governor commanded his tank to take down the prison fence in an all-out assault. In fact, Mitch was the guy driving it! While Mitch wasn’t specifically integral to the “Battle of Woodbury” story arc that was adapted into the show (anyone could have been in that tank, really), he caused enough direct and indirect chaos for the protagonists of the series to have to flee their sanctuary. Mitch was a bad dude to be sure, but as a memorable villain, there was not much there outside of a rather good performance from a veteran television actor.

21 CAESER

The Walking Dead is often chided for its one dimensional archetypes passing off as empathetic protagonists and complex antagonists who lack any real character development, which in all honesty is a fair assessment in a lot of cases. Viewers can spend entire seasons with a hero or villain and they never become more than just a one note caricature. Even some of the beloved characters in the show fall into these trappings. When we see The Governor, Maggie, and Daryl, it’s easy to pigeonhole them into little boxes like the crazy guy with an eye patch, the tough farm girl next door, and the redneck arrow dude. Now with these examples it’s a bit of a crass (and maybe a bit unfair) observation, but the point remains.

The character of Caeser Martinez sadly is the poster boy for these slim characterizations.

Even though he had a fairly decent episode count under his belt as Philip “The Governor” Blake’s second in command, he never really seems to be anything more than his position. He’s the right hand man to the super evil guy, thus he is just as evil. Caeser, played by actor Jose Pablo Cantillo, does what he can with the character, but aside from being tough and loyal (for the most part), he’s as one note as they come.

20 OWEN (AND THE WOLVES)

When the bizarre cultish marauders known only as “The Wolves” starting causing quite the ruckus for the Alexandria Safe-zone community in The Walking Dead’s six season (and the season five finale), fans had hoped that a new, dangerous villain who might have some staying power had emerged. And while these dirty (no, literally dirty, like unwashed and probably smelly) scavengers made quite a mess in Alexandria, Owen, their de facto leader, was the only “Wolf” to really get any standout moments. There is something to be said for the fact only one character made any sort of impact out of a band of crazies, each with a “W” carved into their foreheads (certainly there’s a better uniform to be had).

During the Wolves’ invasion of Alexandria, Morgan give Owen the “ol’ what for” and keeps him hostage instead of, what many would consider the sensible thing, just kill him. But Owen came upon Morgan during a transitional period in his life (to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction). Morgan is walking the path of peace after a rather lengthy “all clear; kill anything that moves” period. Unfortunately, for one party in particular, Morgan’s pet project in peace is infected when Owen tries to kidnap Denise and escape the overrun Alexandria. Morgan releases Owen from his zombified form, but doesn’t feel good about it… even if the audience does.

19 DAWN

Dawn Lerner (played by Christine Woods) probably had her heart in the right place once upon a time. Surely her background as a police officer set her on the path to protect the people she came across. But the apocalypse changes people. It brings out their best, and more often than not, their worst. Dawn first appeared in the season five episode “Slabtown,” where she served as the acting warden of Grady Memorial Hospital, ruling over her fellow survivors with an iron fist along with her cadre of fellow police officers. Her façade as benevolent overseer soon crumbles when Beth is found by her group. And much to the young survivor’s chagrin, things are not all sunshine and rainbow at Grady Memorial.

Dawn is certainly one of the more complex villains The Walking Dead has ever had.

She has motives that are understandable to some degree despite the blind eye she will often turn when some of the more unsavory members of her group act out of malice toward the innocent. She also serves as an interesting metaphor for what happens when someone in a position of power was trained a certain way when it comes to handling other people. Parallels between real life acts of police brutality and how Dawn handles her situation can certainly be drawn.

18 JARED

Boy, oh, boy Jared is a jerk. Look, a lot of the members of The Saviors are pretty reprehensible, but Jared really seems to revel in the fact that he’s a member of a gang led by a tyrannical nutcase surrounded by sycophants. It was as if after the zombie apocalypse, Jered found his calling. All the darkness coiled up inside him before things fell apart now have an outlet, which make him extremely dangerous and kind of obnoxious for anyone who isn’t on his team of merry maniacs. His thirst for power and the manner in which he seems to live for making shakedowns really make him a character we love to hate.

Played by actor and stunt man Joshua Mikel, Jared first appeared in the season seven episode “The Well.” He would remain a constant threat through the season and throughout season eight, until he finally meets his demise in the episode “Still Gotta mean Something,” in which Morgan traps Jared to be devoured by zombies. It was a brutal way to go out, but after all the nasty encounters Jared had with likeable characters for two whole seasons, it was a fitting end to an unsavory villain. We don’t really miss Jared, and maybe if he had a little more personality, we would.

17 JOE (AND THE CLAIMERS)

In pop culture evil manifests in myriad ways. It can be portrayed as a malicious entity with ties to the supernatural. It can represent a heinous act that is birthed from necessity. But when it is at its most terrifying, is when evil lives in the heart of men and whatever barrier that stood between that inherent darkness and the innocent is broken down. The Walking Dead has no shortage of evil characters. Some people being stripped of accountability make their worst impulses bubble to the surface, and at times, they learn that they like it.

It's almost as if this new world where the dead roam the land was made just for them.

The character of Joe (played by veteran actor Jeff Kober) is the embodiment of human chaos. Joe leads a gang of roaming marauders known as The Claimers. Among his ranks are the worst of the worst, all of whom are given carte blanche to do as they please as long as they play by Joe’s rules. Basically, The Claimers are the human embodiment of absolute horror. However, the threat they pose is quickly snuffed out when they threaten what is most precious to Rick Grimes. It turns out, while Joe and Company’s bark actually matches their bite, it can’t compare to the roar of the show’s heroes.

16 LIZZIE

Villainous kids are a dime a dozen in horror fiction. They are as ubiquitous to the genre as fake out jump scares and haunted dolls. But when the potentially dangerous children in horror are so deeply disturbed by their surroundings that nothing can bring them back from the brink, they operate in a whole different stratosphere than kids who are possessed or haunted by some dark entity. When a child depicted in a work of fiction is bad, there is a level of inherent horror that makes the ordeal difficult for audiences to grapple with.

The Walking Dead has had plenty of adolescent characters who have done questionable things, but none of them have been as twisted as Lizzie Samuels, who was portrayed by Brighton Sharbino. Lizzie is, for lack of a better word, a monster. When she is first introduced in season four, she is seen as a despondent, rebellious preteen who has a penchant for torturing animals and feeding walkers. Her dark side reaches a boiling point when she kills her own sister, Mika in the episode “The Grove.” Carol sees the potential danger Lizzie could pose if her violent temperament has room to germinate further, and does the unimaginable: she stops Lizzie. And you can guess just how she does it.

15 NICHOLAS

Nicholas first appeared in the season five episode “Remember,” and was instantly punchable. He’s a conniving, craven, selfish man child who not only got poor Noah killed in one of the most gruesome deaths ever conjured in The Walking Dead, which is a television show that prides itself on being as grisly as possible when it comes to characters meeting their ends, he is kind of lame. While yes, on a purely villainous level, he is an effective character, which is to say he causes chaos and he gets people we care about killed, he doesn’t have a whole lot else to offer.

To be fair, actor Michael Traynor does what he can with Nicholas.

He plays the role he was given quite well based on the fact that his mere presence on the screen causes some visceral reactions, even before the whole revolving door endeavor (if you haven’t seen it, Google it… or not, maybe that’s for the best). Thankfully, Nicholas has a pretty short shelf life, finally meeting his end in the season six episode “Thank You,” in which he takes his own life when he thinks all hope is loss. And as if Nicholas couldn’t be even more damaging, he almost gets Glenn devoured by Walkers in the process.

14 NATANIA

Some of the most volatile antagonists are the ones who have been pushed to the brink. When a character, who is basically an average citizen, finds themselves faced with dire horrors, they often have two ways to go about coping with it: either compartmentalize it in hope to try to get beyond it, or use that horror to create a new facet of your reality, one that will redefine your outlook on life for better or worse. The character of Natania falls into the latter camp. When she is first introduced in the episode “Swear” from season seven, she is shown to be the tough yet caring leader of The Oceanside Community.

Veteran television actress Deborah May (The Larry Sanders Show, The Last Ship), does a wonderful job of portraying a woman who is doing what she thinks is best for her group, even if that means shunning anyone who comes in contact with her even if they might be able to help her in her plight. It’s this stubbornness that makes her a villain. This one character flaw is what separates her from the heroes. And even with that flaw in place, from a certain perspective, she is a hero even if it’s only in the story she has crafted for herself.

13 SPENCER

Spencer Munroe is the poster boy for the well-to-do entitled brat who grew up and is all bent out of shape because things don’t go the way he wants despite the fact that he now lives in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by reanimated cannibalistic corpses (sorry, Spence, but there are more pressing matters at hand!). Spencer is the son of former U.S. Congresswoman and Alexandria Safe-Zone Leader Deanna Monroe. And while Spencer may have gotten his mother’s desire to lead, he didn’t get a single drop of her grace and humility.

Spencer shows no loyalty and he holds grudges against people for things that are beyond their control.

Played by actor Austin Nichols (Ray Donovan, Bates Motel), Spencer brings a level of whininess that is surprisingly absent from The Walking Dead. He also seems to believe that the world revolves around him and that literally everyone he doesn’t know and/or trusts will somehow rain on his parade. However, if there is a new alpha dog that might be able to give Spencer some sense of achievement, he is quick to jump ship and cozy up to them. Unfortunately for him, when he tries this with the leader of The Saviors, Negan, things don’t go so well. Negan didn’t think Spencer had the guts to hang in his league and he tested that theory with a very big knife in a scene that was ripped from the pages of the comics.

12 GAVIN

Gavin seems to be one of the more rational and ethical members of The Saviors. It’s almost as if he’s simply a guy stuck in a job he hates and just wants to put in his eight hours of harassing people and extorting communities and go home. As far as working class villains go in The Walking Dead, Gavin’s top tier for sure. His diplomatic stance on the awful situation his boss, Negan has put people in is almost refreshing until you remember he’s still a bad guy and will in fact, kill those to even think about rising up against The Saviors.

Actor Jayson Warner Smith does a great job of bringing Gavin to life by putting the character’s reservations on full display. Of all the big stand out Saviors who get more screen time than just to be cannon fodder is pretty memorable and surprisingly likable. However, his loyalty to Negan made him dangerous to Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors. Unwilling to abandon his faith in Negan’s brute force even when the tide of war was turning in Rick’s favor, he told Morgan that killing him would not make a difference and that Negan was going to win the war. Well, Henry either thought it would make a difference or just didn’t care and took care of Gavin for Morgan.

11 THE WALKERS

Over the course of more than a decade of stories, The Walking Dead comic books began to treat the fact there are zombies roaming the world as commonplace. It’s almost as if the reanimated dead are nothing more than window dressing anymore, so much so that there are entire issues where they aren’t seen or even mentioned by the characters. This progression makes sense after characters have learned the rules of how to deal with them. Once communities have been barricaded, they are pretty much nothing more than a pest to be dealt with from time to time even if they can cause massive damage in big groups.

However, The Walkers in AMC’s television adaption often take center stage.

While, yes, their role has been somewhat diminished in recent seasons, almost every episode features a “hero zombie.” Sometimes these undead monsters are chained up by human villains as means of torture or intimidation, or other times they are set pieces that are designed to put some amazing makeup FX on display. Either way, The Walking Dead is pretty proud of their Walkers, as they should be. They don’t need to be chomping away at our heroes on screen to make an impact. All they have to do is look amazing.

10 GREGORY

When the larger world of The Walking Dead opened up and the realization of what many of us already suspected came to life in the form of other communities, we were introduced to a new cast of exciting characters to love and hate. One of the new additions who fell heavily into that latter category was the leader of The Hilltop Community, Gregory, portrayed by the amazing character actor Xander Berkeley (The Booth at the End, Salem). Gregory is a highly intelligent, cunning, manipulative man who will do anything to save his own skin under the guise of altruism, and he’s absolutely amazing to watch on-screen.

Watching Gregory slowly get pushed out of his potion of power in The Hilltop Community is satisfying for viewers of the show. With each notch he’s taken down, we see the veneer he tried so desperately to maintain get chipped away, exposing him as the sniveling sycophant he truly is. The thing that makes Gregory one of the more dangerous villains in the show is his ability to broker deals with the real face of evil in the show, Negan. While he often hangs on the Negan’s loyalty by a thread, he manages to stay alive and prosper to some degree…for now.

9 JADIS (AND THE SCAVENGERS)

When you put your faith in trash people, you get trash results. Rick Grimes learned this the hard way when he employed Jadis (portrayed by Pollyanna McIntosh) and her gang of dump-dwelling Scavengers to battle against Negan and The Saviors. Jadis, who first appeared in the season 7 episode “New Best Friends,” is calm, quirky, and vaguely menacing. She is queen of her garbage kingdom and wears her proverbial crown with a sense of purpose and entitlement. Having brokered a deal with Rick after putting him through a gauntlet involving armored Walkers and heaps of festering garbage, Jadis betrayed him.

Jadis does pay for her betrayal, but not with her life, just her kingdom.

She underestimated Rick’s ability to rally people behind a cause, and by the end of season eight is left to deal with her loss during the “All Out War” story arc. It’s yet to be seen if Jadis will fall in line with Rick’s vision or if she will try to rebuild. But despite setbacks and the death of her fellow Scavengers, she has persisted and even came close to taking the life of the man who, at least in her eyes, caused her world to topple over.

8 SIMON

Some villains are a treat to see on-screen due to their unpredictability and charisma. Simon just happens to be one of those villains. Every time this guy is in a scene, he steals the spotlight. He’s snarky, vicious, and hilarious. Played by Canadian actor Steven Ogg (He Never Died, Grand Theft Auto V), Simon acts as the most volatile mouthpiece of Negan and arguably one of the most dangerous members of The Saviors. First appearing in the season six finale “Last Day on Earth,” he continued to be a huge part of the “All Out War” story arc up until his inevitable death at the hands of Negan in the penultimate season eight finale “Worth.” Despite only appearing in a handful of episodes, his menace for our heroes is omnipresent.

Several members of The Saviors get moments to shine since they first appeared in the show, but few shine quite as brightly as Simon. He can see through other characters’ deceptions, no matter how trivial, and will not hesitate to call them out (or punish them) in front of their followers. He walks away with the attitude of being practically bulletproof… too bad for Simon he was not strangle-proof. Simon was a villain who will strangely be missed, mostly due to his over-the-top attitude toward performing his duties.

7 THE GOVERNOR

One of the most iconic villains from The Walking Dead comic book series is Philip “The Governor” Blake. The image of The Governor riding a tank shouting the words “kill them all!” at the top of his lungs is arguably the most memorable image from the first 50 issues of the book outside of the cover of issue #19 with Michonne strolling across a field with a pair of de-limbed Walkers on chains. The Governor atop his “trusty stead” has been emblazed on T-shirts, posters, and other merchandise and will forever mark a moment where the comic made a huge and tragic turn in its story. With that being said, the hype surrounding this character making an appearance in season three of AMC’s television adaption was well warranted.

Thankfully, actor David Morrissey’s portrayal lived up to it.

While the level of depravity The Governor displays in the comic book is certainly tamer in the show (after all, they can only go buy so far on basic cable), the darkness of the character is on full display. He is a relentless man who lashes out at even those who are most loyal to them. By the end of his run in the season four episode “Made to Suffer,” he takes his personal vendetta against Rick, Michonne, and the rest of the survivors to a terrifying level.

6 THE SAVIORS

Rick Grimes has had a number of run-ins with hostile groups of people. From packs of wandering marauders to seemingly innocent communities that turn out to be harboring maniacs, the heroes of The Walking Dead endure crew after crew of people who pose a threat to their existence or, at the very least, their way of life. But rarely has a group of survivors been so omnipresent in the show as The Saviors, a massive community ruled over by the tyrannical baseball bat-wielding leader, Negan. Members of The Saviors made their first in the season six episode “Always Accountable” in which Dwight and his (ex?)wife Sherry are on the lamb from Negan’s regime.

It isn’t until after Rick and Company make a massive hit against one of the many outposts The Saviors have when we finally see the full force of their ranks. In the season six finale “Last Day on Earth,” The Saviors retaliate, forcing Rick and a small group of fellow survivors to travel to a specific location so that they can repent for what they’ve done. While many viewers claim this finale takes too long to get where it needs to go, it does an excellent job of showing just how strong and cunning of an omnipotent force The Saviors are, and it sets the stage for the war to come.