Spoilers for The Walking Dead 8×04.
AMC has released the talked about scene from “Some Guy,” which saw King Ezekiel suffer massive losses — including the heroic death of his beloved pet tiger Shiva. Ezekiel lead Carol and a band of Kingdom soldiers towards a Savior outpost, where a .50 cal gun massacred Ezekiel’s loyal followers. With Ezekiel in bad shape and his forces decimated, he ordered Carol and Jerry to leave him behind and save themselves — an order they refused to obey.
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“I’m not your King!” Ezekiel yelled. “I’m not ‘Your Majesty!’ Look at what’s in front of us,” he said, motioning towards an approaching pack of walkers possibly infected by radioactive waste. “That’s what’s real! Go. Go. I ain’t no king. I ain’t nothing. I’m just some guy. Some guy who found…”
SHIVA! The fearless tigress bursts into action. She ragdolls one walker and stands her ground against half a dozen more closing in. Despite Ezekiel’s cries for Shiva to run, the fierce tiger bites and claws at her attackers. But it’s too much: overwhelmed, Shiva is swarmed. She’s gone.
It was a heartbreaking loss for Ezekiel and viewers, who took to the internet to grieve the fan-favorite CGI tiger.
“It’s a huge turning point for Ezekiel, losing Shiva, losing his people, this is a big deal for him,” The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman said on live after show Talking Dead, which paid tribute to Shiva in its “in memoriam” segment. “But Shiva, you know, somebody that has protected him, that he’s protected, they’ve got a great relationship. It’s a big loss. It’s a big loss for him, it’s a big loss for everyone. I’m upset too, man. I like tigers.”
“Thing is, I lost a lot in the early days… very quickly… people I loved… they were just gone,” Ezekiel said in the comics of his relationship with Shiva. “When I made it to the zoo… she was one of the last animals left, trapped, starving… all alone… like me. Truth is, that cat’s the last thing left in this world that I loved.”
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.