Beloved 'Walking Dead' Character's Death Distracts From Dark Reveal

“The Walking Dead” suffered a devastating loss that’s not grrrreat, while hints of another dark moment are on the way.

King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) had a rough episode on Sunday. After waking up and learning that basically all of his army had been killed by Savior guns and that he had a leg wound that made it difficult to walk, the king was captured by this very Jeffrey Dahmer-looking Savior.

It was hard to take that guy seriously, but pretty soon Jerry (Cooper Andrews) came in and sliced the Savior in half, saving the king. Of course, the rescues didn’t end there.

Next up, Carol (Melissa McBride) saved Jerry and the king from walkers, and then all three of them are saved from toxic waste walkers by Ezekiel’s tiger, Shiva. Shiva did her best to fight the zombies off, but, unfortunately, a CGI tiger probably takes a lot out of the show’s budget, so she had to go. In the end, zombies swarmed her, and it was bye-bye, Shiva.

Shiva’s death went down a similar way in the “Walking Dead” comics, so her self-sacrifice for Ezekiel was a hella sad moment, but it was bound to happen.

We’re most disappointed that executive producer David Alpert previously told HuffPost that we could expect “more tiger” in Season 8.

“Tiger is gonna be this year’s cowbell,” he told us at New York Comic-Con.

Thanks, David. If we had a fever, and the only prescription was more tiger, we’d be dead.

Warning: Possible “Walking Dead” spoilers below!

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In addition to Shiva’s death, the episode hinted at another dark moment ahead: Ezekiel’s beheading.

Before Jerry came out of nowhere to save Ezekiel, the Savior captor was about to kill the king and mentioned that he would place his disembodied head on a pike.

This happens to Ezekiel in the comics, though it’s actually someone from a group called The Whisperers that’s responsible for the king’s death. As you can see in the image below, Ezekiel’s head does eventually end up on a pike. (He’s the one on the far right.)

This hint at Ezekiel’s future end is reminiscent of other foreshadowing moments throughout the show, like when someone nearly hit Glenn (Steven Yeun) in the head with a baseball bat.

Glenn dies in the comics (and would eventually die in the show) by Negan’s bat.

It’ll probably be a few more episodes before we lose Ezekiel, but it’s disconcerting that the show already gave us that heads up.

“The Walking Dead” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

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