Leah Shaw was a supporting character in the final two seasons of The Walking Dead. Initially appearing in the Season 10 episode "Find Me", she had met Daryl Dixon during the years he had spent searching for Rick Grimes following his disappearance. In Season 11, it is revealed that she is a member of a violent group of militant survivors known as the Reapers.
History[]
Pre-Apocalypse[]
Not much is known about Leah's early life, except that she grew up in a dysfunctional family. As an adult, she joined a branch of the U.S. military and was fighting in Afghanistan along with the rest of her squad, which included a lot of members that would eventually become the Reapers. After returning from the war, Leah struggled to cope with her trauma and find work. She and her former squadmates would later reunite and form a PMC, becoming soldiers of fortune. Leah would also adopt a boy named Matthew after his mother died in childbirth.
When the zombie outbreak occurred, Leah and her squad were involved in Operation Cobalt, in which the military began firebombing whole cities to stem the tide of the undead. The group managed to escape the bombing of one such city by taking shelter in a church. Seeing that none of his people had been killed or injured when running from the firebombing, the squad leader Pope came to the conclusion that he and the others had been chosen by God to survive in the new world.
Leah and her squad survived for a year together until one day their camp was overrun. Leah took Matthew and her pet dog and fled the camp. She would later find out that Matthew was bitten and put him out of his misery. The same day Matthew died, her dog gave birth to a pup that Leah would simply call "Dog".
Post-Apocalypse[]
During the six years following Rick Grimes' supposed death, Daryl Dixon encountered Leah while living in the woods by himself. The two began to see each other on a frequent basis and they slowly fell in love. Leah revealed her tragic past to Daryl while he revealed his fruitless search for Rick. The two spent the better part of a year together, but Leah grew frustrated with Daryl's continued search for a man who, as far as he knew, is dead and pushed Daryl to make a choice between his family and her. One day, Dog led Daryl back to Leah's cabin which had been trashed and abandoned. Daryl left a note for Leah in case she ever returned, stating that he belonged with her. He would then return to Alexandria, taking Dog with him.
Unbeknownst to Daryl, Leah was found by her old military squad who had survived the attack on their camp. Leah rejoined the squad, now known as the Reapers, who survived by raiding and destroying various settlements for supplies. One such settlement that fell to the Reapers was Meridian, where Maggie Rhee had relocated to after leaving Hilltop. Leah and the Reapers slaughtered most of the people and took Meridian for themselves, with Maggie and the survivors fleeing to Alexandria. One of the Reapers, Montanio, followed them and killed several of Maggie's people, but he was defeated and commited suicide after telling Maggie that she had been "marked" by Pope.
Needing food, Maggie led a team back to Meridian in order to exact vengeance upon the Reapers and to reclaim the food supply. Leah and a number of Reapers, including Brandon Carver, ambushed the team, killing most of them. During the ambush, Leah was reunited with Dog and Daryl who were a part of the team and captured them. Leah eventually convinced Pope to allow Daryl to join the Reapers, unaware that he was actually on Maggie's side and was infiltrating the group. During a patrol, Daryl and Leah encountered a man and his family. Despite orders to kill any other survivors, Leah allowed the man and his son to go, but hesitated to mercy-kill the dying wife at her own request, something that Daryl ended up doing for her instead.
Eventually, Maggie, Negan, Elijah and Gabriel Stokes laid siege to Meridian using a massive herd of walkers as well as tactics they had adopted from the Whisperers. Daryl revealed his true allegiance to Leah in an effort to get her to switch sides. With Pope becoming increasingly unstable and willing to sacrifice his own people whom Leah considered her family, Leah helped Daryl to disarm the Reapers' Hwacha launcher and personally killed Pope. Leah then betrayed Daryl, blaming him for Pope's murder, insisting that she needed to protect her family. Leah allowed Daryl to flee as she turned the Hwacha on the herd, destroying it and accidentally killing Fisher. However, Maggie's group manages to escape into Meridian where they engage in a cat-and-mouse game with the surviving Reapers. After capturing Carver, Daryl contacted Leah and offered to trade him for Meridian's food supply as a way to save both of their families. Leah initially got the upper hand using a sniper, but Gabriel took him out and took possession of his rifle. Leah finally agreed to Daryl's deal, but as she, Boone and Washington left, the vengeful Maggie opened fire, killing Boone and Washington and wounding Leah. As Maggie finished off Carver, Daryl found Leah, now the last surviving Reaper, and allowed her to escape, warning that if he ever saw her again, he would kill her.
Over the next six months, Leah survived on her own, fueled by her hatred of Maggie and intent on exacting revenge against her. One day, she attacked a Commonwealth convoy, killing the soldiers protecting it and stealing its shipment of weapons. Lance Hornsby of the Commonwealth believed that the weapons had been taken by a small community called Riverbend, and so he organized a team to retrieve the shipment and, if necessary, eliminate Riverbend.
Lance and his men eventually tracked down Leah, but Lance offered her a deal as they both wanted Maggie dead. Lance hired Leah as an assassin to take out Maggie, providing her with a team of Commonwealth soldiers as backup. However, Leah only used the soldiers as a distraction and they were killed in a booby-trap set by Maggie, Lydia and Marco. Revealing herself after the explosion, Leah killed Marco and chased Maggie into the woods, leading to a cat-and-mouse game between them before Leah finally captured Maggie.
Death[]
In the episode "Acts of God", Leah took Maggie back to her old cabin where she revealed that she intended to exact revenge by killing everyone that Maggie loved in front of her before finally killing Maggie herself. Maggie knew that Leah thought that it would take away her pain, but also that it wouldn't work and taunted Leah to kill her if she really wanted to. Maggie managed to break free of her bonds, leading to a brutal fight between the two women with Leah eventually gaining the upper hand. As Maggie struggled to keep Leah from stabbing her, Daryl arrived, having realized that Leah was responsible and having tracked her back to the cabin that they had once spent so much time in together. Daryl shot Leah in the head to save Maggie, killing his former lover. After a brief look of sadness at her dead body, Daryl turned his attention to the approaching Hornsby and his men. When Lance entered the cabin after being shot in the face by Daryl, he was enraged to find Leah's body on the floor and Daryl and Maggie gone.