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With the second half of season 7 of The Walking Dead underway, we decided it’s time to look back at the past few seasons focusing on some of the worst characters in the show’s history.

The show is ultimately character-driven and to say that some of them are absolute jerks is an understatement. The Walking Dead has featured a staggering number of characters over the course of its 7-year run and not all of them have been winners. Fortunately for us, many of the worst characters are now dead. Som met their fate and either bit the bullet or got taken out by a zombie and for some poor b*stards a combination of the two.

There are so many reasons as to why viewers might hate a character on a television show and some of the time it’s thanks to these characters being simply annoying or they just know how to get on your nerves. Others are disliked because they’re just not very interesting or don’t play an important role in the big scheme of things. Then there are the times when it comes down to the way the actors play the roles and sometimes it’s an unfortunate by-product of bad writing.

And then there are those times when the characters are just outright jerks and that’s where The Walking Dead fits in. They have had some of the biggest jerk characters to ever grace the small screen from the most annoying to the frustrating to the downright arrogant. We present to you some of the worst jerks to ever be seen on The Walking Dead.

15. Tyreese

Perhaps it’s a little wrong of us to include Tyreese amongst the company of such jerks but if we were to start feeling bad then we wouldn’t have such a glorious list to begin with. No offense Chad Coleman but we couldn’t help but include your character Tyreese together with the 14 other jerk characters on The Walking Dead as his existence in the show was anything but heart-warming.

We got to welcome the character to the small screen in season 3 and since Daryl was so busy playing Rick’s right-hand man Tyreese sure did have his work cut out for him. With no real purpose or plan his character just simply existed and floated around from season to season until his timely death in season 5. Perhaps we never got to see him develop into a character with substance but instead he resorted to being passive-aggressive and somewhat annoying throughout.

14. T-Dog

We can’t decide what’s more surprising about the character of T-Dog - just how much of a disliked character he was or how he managed to survive until season 3. Perhaps it’s a shock the viewers all share as well.

Besides his rapper-sounding name there wasn’t much else to the character of T-Dog. Sure he wasn’t the worst of the lot but the guy sure didn’t give us much to go on making him one of the least liked characters in the show.

13. Dale

One of the main characters on The Walking Dead is none other than the character of Dale who is an elderly salesman and one of the original survivors from the Atlanta group. He is the owner of the Camp RV and soon went on to have a relationship with fellow character Andrea. They adopted Ben and Billy who lost their father to the war on zombies.

So far so good, right? He sounds quite lovely but looking back over the seasons you get to see Dale is rather needy and somewhat clingy and inserts himself into everyone’s business. He appoints himself as the authoritarian leader and proceeds to create more drama than the actual villains in the show itself by his constant meddling. No one likes a nosey rosey and Dale ultimately was killed off the show…

12. Beth

We had a tough decision in choosing whether or not to include the character of Beth in this list as she was less of a jerk and more unmemorable in a sense. She didn’t really stand out in any real way and was weak and whiny. She took on the role of the forgotten younger daughter of Hershel Greene and lasted on the show close to 4 seasons in total.

You’d have a tough time coming up with three reasons as to why Beth shouldn’t be on this list and it seems that the writers never seemed to know what to do with her as well. She was eventually killed off before ever becoming interesting and it kind of seems like a little bit of a waste.

11. Enid

Enid was the kind of character who constantly rubbed viewers the wrong way and thus makes it onto our list.

She had just the right amount of teenage angst and childlike tendencies to turn the viewers against her and her sullen expression or resting bitch-face as some might say was enough for us to bring out the jerk card. Sure she has reason to be sullen as she lost both of her parents which is sure to have an effect. But, as Glenn once pointed out, everyone has lost someone they care about so there’s not much point in wallowing in self-pity for the rest of eternity when survival should be your biggest focus.

10. Father Gabriel

We feel a little bad including a priest in our list, but when it comes to Father Gabriel we’re a little hard-pressed to find a reason not to. To be completely honest we’re not even sure we know what purpose Father Gabriel serves. He may have tried to redeem himself and gain a bit of courage but Father Gabriel is still one of the worst characters to ever make it onto the show.

He’s cowardly, annoying and has done nothing of merit while quickly wearing out a warm welcome on his arrival. This is the priest who notoriously locked his own flock outside of his church and let them die while saving himself. His flaws might make him interesting but his actions make him a jerk.

9. Andrea

Say hi to Andrea, the next Walking Dead character to grace the list. She’s one of those people you hate to love and love to hate. You really want to like her but you just can’t.

Her world is turned upside down as life as she knew it was forever changed and replaced with one that included flesh-eating zombies and hopelessness. Her sister ultimately dies and things go from bad to worst. We get it. But what we can’t get is how she can turn into an awful monster herself and go on to become one of the most complex characters on the show. She soon went on to become a character to root against rather than for and her incompetence and stupidity led to innocent people getting shot.

8. Daryl

Oh Daryl, how did you land up here? You had so much potential and everyone was rooting for you but alas he started to get on everyone’s nerves. He used to be a great character back in the day when his brother Merle was still alive. Then he went on to become the reason Negan killed Glenn and that’s all it took for the viewers to abandon Team Daryl and focus their attention on other less jerky characters.

These days Daryl doesn’t really do anything and he can’t even scavenge for food properly or hold a decent conversation. Sure we get the strong and silent type but when it comes to the character of Daryl, viewers just couldn’t seem to relate. We would even go so far as to say that Daryl would actually prove to be less annoying and less of a jerk if we were to get more out of him.

7. Carl

Carl’s hair makes him more of a jerk than anything else so we couldn’t help but include him. Sure his hair isn’t actually a character but it very well could be as it has a life of its own!

Regardless of his latest ‘do Carl has become one of the most annoying characters on the show and his mop of hair isn’t doing himself any favors.

He started out in the show as a kid and we saw him grow up only to alienate the viewers rather than befriend them. He had his big chance to win us over when he was armed with a gun and faced with the opportunity to take out Negan. Alas, Carl didn’t for reasons we still don’t know and Negan and his entourage narrowly cheated death.

6. Spencer

When it comes to totally worthless and annoying characters, Spencer takes the cake. He is one jerk on the show that we couldn’t afford to miss.

For some unknown reason the writers decided to let his character survive whilst killing his whole family off. It’s just baffling to us as Spencer is the kind of guy to hoard supplies and to cause unnecessary drama and tension.

Viewers deemed him to be one of the worst characters so it’s only fitting to say he is a downright jerk. To say he doesn’t play well with others is an understatement and perhaps we’d even go so far as to say that he wouldn’t be missed should he become zombie food.

5. Shane

We think it’s safe to say any man who betrays his best friend by sleeping with his wife and then attempting to murder him is a jerk? That’s why Shane is next to make it onto the list and we’re sure you couldn’t agree more.

Okay, okay so Shane wasn’t always a jerk as he had good intentions and actually believed Rick was in fact dead before he developed feelings for Lori. It’s when Rick made his return and his wife chose to go back to him did Shane turn and become unstable to say the least.

He went on to become one of the most hated characters on The Walking Dead with his bad temper, unfaithful ways and unscrupulous outlook on life.

4. Eugene

His character proved to be somewhat valuable when it was revealed that he could make bullets and proved to play an important role in the show following the revelation.

The world was hopeful of his character after that but it soon wore off and his cowardly ways and lack of skills was the making of a terrible character. Coupled with the fact that Eugene was a liar and a fraud and he earns himself the title of jerk.

Eugene has the second worst hair on The Walking Dead and the most annoying way of talking. He's had some good moments---like when he revealed that he could make bullets, which may play an important role later this season---but he's still mostly worthless, and the way he phrases things feels incredibly forced.

3. Merle

When we were first introduced to the ex-drug dealer his appearance in season one does little to win over the fans. So much can be said for the character of Merle. For starters he is a redneck, he is bad-tempered and not to mention violent. Add the fact that he is racist and a misogynist doesn’t do much to save his reputation.

Throughout the show Merle is unrepentant about his actions so perhaps it was only a matter of time before everyone around him tires of him and his racist, sexist ways and locks him on the roof.

2. The Governor

Next up is Philip Blake aka The Governor in the Walking Dead. No surprises here because if you’re going to be a violent psychotic leader prepared to be called a jerk.

The Governor has delusional tendencies of grandeur and is vicious and cruel to say the least. He appoints himself the role of community leader and goes on to become the show’s leading villain to date.

He brutally torments Maggie and Glenn and keeps secret stashes of walker heads. If that’s not enough reason for concern he then goes on to brutally murder the survivors in his very own community turning against the only people who trusts him.

1. Lori

Lori is a strong contender for one of the Walking Dead’s worst characters of all time so she makes this pretty darn easy for us. Critics have argued that the role of Lori was a waste of talent for actress Sarah Wayne Callies but her performance was memorable to say the least.

Unfortunately Lori became a source of constant frustration and agony for the viewers at home. She treated both Rick and Shane poorly and coupled with her little act of indiscretion made the viewers battle to forgive her. Add that to the fact that she told Rick to kill Shane and then became angry at him when he did and we threw in the towel. Lori you jerk.

Sources: comicvine; metro.co.uk