Gale Anne Hurd | ‘The Walking Dead’
The setup: Onetime sheriff ’s Deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) rips the virtual bandages from the eyes of the leader of a utopian community safely sealed away from the zombie apocalypse. After a sudden, vicious slaying — of her husband — Deanna (Tovah Feldshuh) tells Rick to dispense justice.
The effect: “So many of our survivors are suffering from the equivalent of PTSD,” Hurd says. “Deanna has always said, ‘We don’t kill people here, we exile them.’ But in this scene, it’s become personal to her: She loses her husband to one of her own, and she’s the one to say to Rick, ‘Kill him.’ They can’t hide their heads in the sand.”