The Walking Dead (TV series)/Awesome

For the comic:

• It's hard not to feel a sense of "hell yeah!" when the cannibal gang finally gets their comeuppance. What comes immediately after... eh, not so much.
• Tyreese wades into the middle of a bunch of zombies after acting suicidal all day. He's later discovered alive, having taken out all of them, and casually greets the people who find him.
• Carl killing three zombies single-handed.
• In the No Way Out arc, Rick is holding off the zombies alone so that Carl has a chance. He's being overwhelmed. Cut to each of the members of the group seeing him fighting alone, and each one of them going out to help fight them. They win. In a series devoid of optimism, this doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

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For the TV show:

• The last moments of the premiere when the hero, after getting surrounded by zombies because of his own stupidity (why were all those empty cars escaping the city?), hides in a tank. Over the radio, a voice says "Hey dumbass, you in the tank, are you feeling cozy now?" Music plays as it cuts to a camera above the tank moving up to show just how many zombies are around it.
• Glenn racing out of Atlanta in the sports car is certainly awesome.
  • Doubles as a CMOF.
• Not one mention of Shane being the one to stand up and beat the crap out of Wifebeater Ed?
• Proving that even racist, dickheads can be awesome, Merle cuts off his own hand to escape, climbs, bleeding down the outside ladder then cauterizes his wound and finally makes it out of town. Double the awesome when you realize he would have had to do this all quietly so as not to attract zombies.
• Lori's defense of Rick after some of the others start to question his leadership, asking if any of them think they could do a better job.
• With his snarky attitude, cool head in intense situations, badass crossbow, and being just crazy enough to be useful in a zombie outbreak, Daryl has proven himself to be a walking, talking awesome machine, including his actions in the episode "Chupacabra".
  • A downed zombie gets up and starts growling, Daryl: "shut up" and shoots it in the head
  • Just to elaborate, in 'Chupacabra' alone: he falls off a cliff and gets impaled on a crossbow bolt, wakes up to see two zombies, beats one to death with a stick, then pulls an arrow out of his own side and kills the other one.
    • And then he climbs up a sheer cliff, all while still bleeding out the hole in his side. Not quite as impressive as the above, but still very awesome.
• Glenn gets one in the episode "Secrets", taking out a zombie solo with the help of a piece of store shelving.
  • In the same episode, Andrea getting over her mental block regarding moving targets and mowing down several zombies until Shane has to yell at her that they can just leave now.
  • Earlier, when Shane is training Andrea to shoot a moving target, he angrily starts telling her that she needs to lock down her emotions or she'll never be able to make a clean shot. Andrea rebuts that he's losing control of his emotions too, so Shane draws, aims and bulls-eyes the swinging stump in less than a second.
• Shane finally breaks everyone out of their complacency in the mid-season 2 finale, showing Hershel that the Walkers are dead, killing all the zombies in the barn with the help of Glenn, T-Dog, Andrea, and Daryl, and finally figuring out what happened to Sophia
  • What really makes the scene is how Shane demonstrates that the Walkers are dead, by repeatedly shooting one of the ones that Hershel is attempting to capture in what would be increasingly vital areas to a living human, almost screaming a demand to know why the Walker is still moving after every shot.
• Andrea finishing off walkerfied Annete with a scythe in the opening of "Nebraska", complete with with meaty crunch.
• Rick quick drawing against the two creepy randoms from out of town. As soon as the first guy goes for his gun, Rick draws, shoots him in the head, turns and puts two in the big guy so fast he can only fire his shotgun in the air. Rick then finishes big guy off with a shot to the head.
• Hershel shooting a gunman at night after he fired at Glenn, weighing up whether he could spare the attacker before he finally put him down.
• Hershel telling Shane to shut up, saying that the only reason Shane's still on the farm is because Rick persuaded Hershel not to kick him off, but that he would if Shane pushed him any further.
• Rick and Shane finally throwing down during "18 Miles Out".
• Rick saving Shane from the bus, by leaning out of the window while another survivor drives, headshotting zombies as he passes. When they burst the head of a zombie like a melon by driving over it, the moment just becomes all the sweeter.
• Rick headshot-ing a zombie through the mouth of one he already killed.
• The ending to "Better Angels" is Holy Shit Quotient to the max. First, Rick killing Shane in a self-defensive move, then an EPIC shot of a GIANT swarm of walkers coming toward the farm, all the while awesome music cues in the background.
  • The brutal zombie killing in the opening when the gang goes out hunting, including Andrea taking one out with a pitchfork through the jaw.
• Andrea being saved by the hooded stranger at the end of the season 2 finale. Fans of the comic will automatically identify this person as Michonne.
• Before this point, Andrea proves that she's made it to badassery by escaping through the horde of walkers and escaping them on foot for, based on the timeline, at least 12 hours. By the time the above action happens, she's only still not killing them because she'd apparently run out of ammo and was too exhausted to continue. The actress playing Andrea mentioned on the Talking Dead show that actually filming the scene was almost as long and gruelling.
• The final shot of season 2 showing that the group is close to a prison, promising that the next season will adapt what is easily the comic's most popular storyline.
• Also from the finale, Herschel picking off walker after walker with a shotgun, never flinching and never falling back, because he's just that determined to protect his farm. He only retreats when he runs out of ammo and Rick convinces him that staying is no longer an option.
• Speaking of Rick, there's also him and Carl leading a part of the herd into the barn and then setting them on fire. If nothing else, this is a CMOA for production — that last shot of the burning barn is just epic.

For the videogame:

• Lee at the motel, taking out each and every zombie out stealthily.
• If you side with Kenny when Larry threatens to toss out Duck under the suspicion of him being bitten (and he clearly wasn't), Lee will dare Larry to try and toss the poor kid out, but warns him that he'll have to go over Lee's dead body first.
• Near the end of episode 1, just when Lee is on the ground, about to get horribly eaten by the living dead, who else but Kenny comes charging back in and saves him with the fire axe Lee gave him before. Needless to say, players were grateful.