Shane (full name in the television series: Shane Walsh) is a fictional character from the comic book series The Walking Dead and was portrayed by Jon Bernthal in the American television series of the same name.
In the comic series, Shane is portrayed as a Cynthiana Sheriff's Deputy, as well as the longtime friend and fellow police officer of series protagonist Rick Grimes. After Rick is shot and put into a coma, and the zombie outbreak occurs, he rescues Rick's family and leads a group of survivors, becoming romantically involved with Rick's wife, Lori. When Rick returns to his family alive, Shane grows increasingly jealous of their relationship, as well as Rick's role in the group.
In the television series' first season, Shane leads the survivors until Rick's arrival, then becomes Rick's right-hand man. The reunion is not completely amicable; in the second season, Shane develops into an antagonistic character, becoming more aggressive and unpredictable, due to his growing obsession with Lori and subsequent jealousy of Rick. He also becomes willing to abandon or kill those he deems liabilities to the group and has no moral conscience for outsiders. This puts Shane at odds with Rick's moral leadership, as he believes that Rick is ill-equipped to lead and that he would be a better leader. Lori and Carl become his only true concern, as opposed to the group itself.
Appearances Comic book series
Shane was a police officer in Cynthiana, Kentucky, and best friend of the town's deputy sheriff, Rick Grimes. After Rick is shot and put into a coma, and after the dead begin to rise, Shane accompanies Rick's wife, Lori Grimes, and Rick's son, Carl, to a purported safe zone in Atlanta, Georgia. They later form a group of survivors living on the outskirts of the city, with Shane repeatedly telling them that the government will one day return to save them. During this time, Shane and an emotionally destitute Lori share a night of sex, something that Shane had wanted for a long time.
Shane is first overjoyed when Rick joins the group, but gradually becomes jealous of Rick and Lori getting back together. Eventually, Lori brushes off Shane's advances and says that their brief romance must stop. Sent into an emotional meltdown by Lori siding with Rick, Shane leaves in a rage. Rick follows and Shane attempts to murder him, stating that he has nothing left to live for other than Lori. Carl happens upon the scene and shoots Shane through the neck, mortally wounding him. Rick later returns to the grave site and finds out that Shane has reanimated; he shoots him in the head to finally put him to rest, but does not rebury him. Shane's reanimation confirms that it is not necessary for someone to be bitten to turn, something that was previously witnessed at the prison. Shane coming back also confirms that this is not an isolated effect.
Television series Season 1
Prior to the zombie apocalypse, Shane is Rick Grimes's partner in the King County Sheriff's department. Rick is knocked into a coma after trying to capture escaped convicts, and Shane quickly gets him to a hospital.
During the initial onset of the apocalypse, as military forces indiscriminately kill anyone alive at the hospital, Shane tries to revive Rick, but he remains in a coma, and instead Shane secures his hospital room door to keep him hidden from the military. He then helps Rick's wife Lori and son Carl evacuate towards Atlanta. They join the group that camp in a quarry near Atlanta when they find that Atlanta has been overrun. During their time at camp, Lori presumes Rick is dead, and starts a romantic relationship with Shane. Shane is mentioned to have told Lori that Rick is dead and appears to have genuinely believed that. Shane securing Rick's door despite this belief appears to be the thing that kept him alive and protected from both the zombies and the soldiers who were killing everyone in the hospital.
Rick eventually wakes from the coma and makes his way towards Atlanta, and ends up meeting a scavenging group from the camp in the city. They bring him back to camp, both to Lori and Carl's elation and to concern to Shane. Lori ends her affair with Shane and warns Carl from being around Shane, fearing that Rick would take her brief affair with Shane poorly. Further, with Rick's presence, Shane's role in the group's leadership wanes, causing him to lose his temper and self-control. When Rick decides that they should head towards the CDC's Atlanta compound, Shane tries to ask Lori to convince Rick to change his mind, but Lori backs her husband. Dale sees Shane contemplating shooting Rick, and keeps his eye on him. The group meets Dr. Jenner, the last remaining researcher at the CDC, who allows them to stay. During the night, Shane gets drunk and attempts to rape Lori, but she fights back. The group learns that the CDC is running on emergency power, and will be destroyed when the fuel runs out as a means to destroy the infectious samples, and they are forced to flee just before that happens. Rick decides to lead the survivors towards Fort Benning.
Season 2
The group is stopped on the road by a massive car pileup on the highway, and further waylaid when a walker horde passes, which ends up with Sophia Peletier running off on her own for safety. The group starts searching for her, and Shane quietly tells Lori he plans to leave the group soon. Rick, Carl, and Shane look for Sophia when Carl is accidentally shot by Otis, a farmhand from Hershel's farm, and they rush him back to the farm, where Hershel attempts to operate and remove the bullet. However, due to the severity of the wound, Hershel knows he will need more medicine, and Shane offers to go with Otis to recover this from a FEMA trailer located at a nearby school. At the school, the two recover the supplies, but both end up hurting their legs. While trying to limp to safety from a walker horde, Shane shoots Otis in the leg, using him as bait for the walkers so that he can get away. Back at the farm, Shane brings the necessary medicine and claims Otis didn't make it. The others seem to accept Shane's tale, but Shane proceeds to shave his head mostly to hide a patch of hair that Otis had ripped out after being shot. Dale and Daryl later confide that they both suspect Shane of playing a larger role in Otis' death and suspect that Rick is aware as well.
Shane's behavior becomes more and more erratic following this incident, and he has further conflicts with Rick when he insists looking for Sophia is a waste of time. Shane learns that Lori is pregnant with his child but Lori and Rick insist they will raise it as their own. When they learn that Hershel's barn is full of walkers of his family and friends, Shane insists they kill the walkers to protect themselves, and then goes to open the barn doors himself, allowing the walkers loose against Rick's and Hershel's pleas. The group kills the walkers, including the reanimated body of Sophia, although Shane is shown to be equally devastated by her death. After this, Hershel goes missing and Rick sets out to search for him. Lori becomes concerned when Rick doesn't return soon, and drives off to find them but gets in an accident. Shane goes out to rescue Lori, giving him a chance to apologize to her, but she remains distant from him, especially after learning that Shane had lied to her in order to get Lori to go back to the farm. Rick returns with Hershel and another survivor, Randall, who was from another group that was scavenging for supplies and attacked Rick. Randall was injured during the attack, and they brought him back to be healed, but Rick says that once he is well enough, they will drive him far away from the farm. Rick and Shane go together to deposit him at a distant site where Rick finally confronts Shane about Otis' murder which Shane admits to. Randall reveals that he knows Maggie, Hershel's daughter. Shane believes that Randall knows the location of Hershel's farm from this and tries to kill Randall, but Rick intervenes, leading to a loud conflict that draws a walker horde. The three escape, and lock Randall back up on the farm while the group struggles with what to do with him. Shane still insists that they kill him, but the others, particularly Dale, remind them about losing their humanity in this decision.
When the group seems set on letting Randall live, Shane secretly takes Randall to the nearby woods, where he snaps Randall's neck and kills him. When Rick finds Randall missing, Shane arrives at the farm and tells the group Randall ambushed him and escaped. Shane, Rick, Daryl, and Glenn take into the forest in pursuit of Randall, who they thought had escaped. The search party splits into two groups. Shane and Rick search a random area, while Glenn and Daryl follow Randall's tracks. In the process, Daryl and Glenn find and put down the reanimated Randall who has turned despite only dying of a broken neck. Shane reveals to Rick that he killed Randall, after Rick concludes that Shane has lured him away from the group to kill him. Shane pulls a gun on Rick, demanding Rick to draw his weapon. Rick refuses to draw his weapon and hands his revolver to Shane, but then turns and stabs Shane with a knife in the heart, killing him. Rick sees Carl nearby, drawn in by their argument, and Carl suddenly holds a gun to Rick. He fires, but Rick sees that Carl was shooting at the reanimated body of Shane. The noise draws in a walker horde that forces Rick's group and Hershel's family to flee. When they regroup, Rick explains what happened to Shane, knowing that Shane was luring him into a trap, but they ask him how Shane and Randall reanimated despite not being bitten. Rick is forced to tell them the secret Dr. Jenner told him at the CDC: that every living human carries the virus that causes them to become walkers when they die. Rick hadn't told anyone because he didn't believe Jenner until he saw Shane reanimate without being bitten.
In later seasons, Rick accepts that Lori's child, named Judith, was fathered by Shane, but he and Carl love her as if she were their own.
Season 3
When Rick's group attacks the community of Woodbury in Season 3, Rick, who has been struggling with coming to grips with reality after Lori dies in childbirth, thinks he sees Shane among the Woodbury soldiers attacking his friends. Rick kills him and approaches the body, only to find out that it was another Woodbury soldier.
Season 9
Shane returns in a badly wounded Rick's hallucination as he struggles to lead a herd of walkers away from the construction camp, happy to see what Rick has become and tells him to continue fighting.
Shane's corpse appears alongside other past characters before finding Sasha Williams in his hallucination.
Development and reception Shane Walsh was created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, the writer and original artist of The Walking Dead comic book series. The character first appeared in the first issue of the comic book series in October 2003, but was expanded upon greatly in the television show adapted from the comics in 2010. As a result, Shane lives much longer in the chronology of the story in the show than he does in the comics. Kirkman described the comic book version of Shane's character as a short and quick "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" arc compared to that of his counterpart in the television series. Kirkman said he preferred the show's version of Shane and that the differences between the two versions of the character illustrate the ability to explore and evolve elements from the comic book in different ways on the show.