Lizzie Samuels

"Don't worry, she'll come back. I didn't hurt her brain."

- Lizzie to Carol and Tyreese after slaughtering her younger sister, Mika

Lizzie Samuels was a minor antagonist introduced in Season 4 of AMC's The Walking Dead. She was the daughter of Ryan and the sister of Mika. After her father's death, she looks to Carol Peletier as a parental guardian. Lizzie displays various signs of psychopathic behavior, such as feeding mice to walkers and seeing them as her "friends".

Biography
Lizzie seems harmless for a good period of the show, but it is well notable that she seems to see The Walkers as normal people, shown first when she begins naming them, and shown later when she talks to a walker thinking it will listen to her. Soon enough, in the episode, Inmates, she needlessly kills bunnies and attempts to smother baby Judith.

In the episode "The Grove", Lizzie crosses the Moral Event Horizon when she kills her sister Mika thinking that when you come back as a walker, you remain the same. She is stopped short of killing baby Judith by Tyreese and Carol. Upon realizing that no one is safe around Lizzie due to her inability to perceive the difference between the living and the dead, Carol takes Lizzie out under the ruse of picking flowers for her sister Mika. Believing that Carol was mad at her for an incident involving her pointing a gun at Carol earlier (not regarding her own sister's death), Lizzie begins to cry, and Carol tells her "look at the flowers", which was what Mika told Lizzie to do earlier in the episode in order to calm down. An emotionally distraught Carol lifts her gun, and fires a fatal shot, presumably into the back of Lizzie's head.

Trivia
Her behavior shares similarities of that of Ben from the comics. She is his television series counterpart psychologically since Ben from the comics already has a counterpart, but the TV Ben didn't share any similarites with the comic Ben besides his family & name. She is shown to be a good shot, killing Alisha at short-medium range with a headshot between the eyes.


 * However, Lizzie told Carol she had no intention of shooting her in the head.

Lizzie is shown to have psychopathic tendencies and adjustment issues:

Lizzie's story bears similarity to that of Old Yeller:
 * She names the walkers at the fence, insisting they are still people.
 * Mika outright states that Lizzie is "messed up."
 * She feeds live rats to walkers. The feeder was unknown for a long time, but Tyreese confirmed that Lizzie confessed to it.
 * She rubbed her foot around in Glenn's blood as Hershel was trying to save him.
 * She kills and mutilates helpless rabbits (and other animals) without eating them.
 * She seemingly tried to suffocate Judith by blocking her mouth as she cried.
 * She allows a walker to chase her and flies into a rage when Carol kills it. She insists she was playing with it and that it wouldn't hurt her.
 * She admits to her sister that she can 'hear them' while looking at an incapacitated walker, explaining why she understands them. (She then almost allows herself to be bitten to 'change'.)
 * She murders her sister Mika to show Carol that when she comes back she will be the same, similar to when Ben murdered Billy in volume 11 of the comic series for the same reason.
 * After murdering her sister, she is confused as to why Carol is upset with her.
 * Both are adopted by someone.
 * Both are kept somewhat distant from their respective caretakers, but eventually start to grow more attached.
 * Both end up being put down by their caretaker.
 * Both end up being replaced as a primary focus by an infant.

Lizzie has several qualities that make her distinctly different from her sister: Later a car is seen with a female walker inside and on the windshield, it is written, "Leave Mom Alone." Earlier in the show, Lizzie said she had watched someone die before. This would explain why she acts the way she does. Lizzie's behavior is slightly reminiscent to Carol's demise in the comic series. In the comic's, an increasingly alienated and unstable Carol becomes so lonely that she walks up to a zombie and introduces herself in a pathetic attempts to make a friend. Lizzie, who sees the walkers as people, turns to a walker for friendship and comes close to being killed. Lizzie's death is ironic, because looking at flowers is what stabilizes her from her stress. As she is looking at flowers, Carol shoots her.
 * Lizzie has no difficulty killing living things, including people, but is unable to kill the undead or people who will soon reanimate; Mika will only kill the undead.
 * While younger, Mika is more rational and innocent than Lizzie.
 * Lizzie often runs directly into danger, while Mika usually prefers to run away from it.
 * Lizzie is often pedantic and irrational, especially in regards to the idea of killing Walkers, while Mika is usually calm and level-headed until she and those around her are put in danger

Brighton Sharbino (actress) has received death threats from fans of the series based on her portrayal of Lizzie as a heartless young girl, although she has no control over what scenes the writers give her to perform. The eleven-year-old actress has appeared in small roles in other television shows, but "The Walking Dead" is her first major acting job.