Governors and Negans All the Way Down

A genre writer’s gotta know his limitations. SPOILERS OUT THE YING-YANG, including for the comic book source material, because I have some points to make.

I haven’t seen an episode of The Walking Dead since Tyreese carelessly let himself get bitten at that one kid’s house, hallucinated some dead characters from past episodes, and died. I was morbidly curious to see the end of that kid in a following episode, as he was graphically murdered in a scene the fans on Twitter dubbed “Everyone Ate Chris.”

If you’re not already in on the joke, the actor
playing this doomed character here was the star of
a show called Everyone Hates Chris, whereas here
they’re lovin’ every juicy mouthful. Ha!

I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m reminded why often enough when I check the Twitter hashtag during the course of an episode. The mid-season premiere of 25 February 2018 — the latest episode as of this writing — was no exception. Even knowing a character is going to die, you have to endure much pointless padding in between frequent (very frequent) commercial interruptions.

For my part, if I had to endure another character like Tyreese saying, “We have to talk about this” in relation to the latest fatal calamity, I was going to have a psychotic reaction. For the love of all that’s holy, why can’t people on television shows be more like real life people who understand the need for other people to mourn in silence? If people want to talk, they’ll talk. If they don’t, they shouldn’t have to.

“We have to talk,” of course, is the show writers’ laziness in padding before the big conflict. There are other ways they could build towards the big conflict that takes something and/or someone away from our heroes even as they escape with their lives. One way that would do this, which could make the death of the doomed character all the more poignant due to what we’d learn about said character, is to have everyone working together on a specific project necessary to the group’s survival. 

I’m thinking something along the lines of purifying water—impure water would be a large factor in surviving human fatalities in the post-apocalypse—or organizing a food run, or looking for a defensible place to grow crops. Scouting for a defensible position off the radar of other wandering groups would be a most worthwhile effort.

It’s a tragic waste that, for all the Big Moral Lessons television insists on imparting to us, this show couldn’t show its audience how to survive when the power grid is down. How not just to boil water, but to distill it. How to tell if the canned food is tainted. How safely to deal with waste product. How not to conduct survival activities without attracting the attention of bandits or warlord minions. Useful information that will help people live to be (fashionably) moral another day.

Alas, it is what it is, and, short of making our own media, there is nothing to be done. However, I would like to note a positive development in the series, that may keep the zombie apocalypse genre alive for a little longer on television. 

It’s been a long, long while since I’ve seen this level of enthusiasm for the show.

Everyone knew Carl, the now-grown son of main protagonist Rick, was not long for the world as of the the mid-season finale before Christmas. He’d been bitten, and it was only a matter of time. His imminent death was what kept the audience coming back after the long winter break.

This is a crucial development in the series, for reasons many  critics have yet to grasp. [HERE COME THE SPOILERS. LAST CHANCE TO BAIL.] For one, it diverges in a major way from the comics. In the comics, at least the last I saw from the second volume of The Walking Dead Compendium, (and this was three, maybe four years ago) Carl was still very much alive, and pretty much grown, especially after the year-long time jump following the resolution of the Negan storyline.

There have been many divergences from the comics source material, most of them quite sensible. Perhaps the greatest point of fascination for me about this franchise is how the original comics serve as a brainstorming platform, the ideas of which are reconfigured and refined for the television series. Two of the more extreme divergences are baby Judith’s survival (in the comics, the same bullet that killed her mother tore through her body as well) and the fate of Andrea. In the television show, Andrea is a damaged slut who dies in the Governor’s custody. In the comics, she’s known for her accuracy with a pistol, and as the eventual, and longtime romantic companion with Rick. That we can debate the wisdom of these decisions makes it all the more fun for those who follow the franchise.

Carl’s death is critical because he is Rick’s last link to life before the zombie apocalypse. Aside from satisfying the need for an important death in the series (a curious, if self-limiting feature of this franchise), it had to happen for the simple reason that the show has been on for nearly eight years already. Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl, is too obviously old in a role that should have only aged a couple of years in terms of The Walking Dead’s fictional timeline. We had emotional and rational reasons for this.

This leads me to wonder who has to be next. I’m guessing Daryl Dixon’s time might be up soon, if only because the vast female fan club behind his character and the actor portraying him has ceased all activity on social media. How Norman Reedus went from “Pls follow me back” and “If Daryl dies, I’m out” on Twitter to non-existent over the years is a development I’ve missed out on. My guess it has something to do with the softening of the character that I noticed when it came time to rescue Beth from the work and rape camp run by those former police officers in Atlanta. Daryl’s lame, let’s-not-kill-anyone-if-we-don’t-have-to idea got Beth killed by the merciless psychos they were trying to rescue her from.

Yeah, the psycho woman was “just trying to hold it together” at the Grady Memorial Hospital Slave Labor and Rape Camp. We could have gone with Rick’s idea, but you didn’t have the nerve to hurt slavers and rapists. So Chief Psycho and Rape-Enabler shot Beth.  Shot her good and dead. You should feel bad, son.

Come to think of it, that’s almost exactly when I began to notice the drop-off in Daryl Dixon/Norman Reedus fangirling. That was three seasons ago, during its most highly rated season. If Daryl isn’t the next major character to go, it’s because the network has themselves locked in a term contract with the actor long past his sell-by date.

Used to be the meanest, toughest, fightin’est sumbitch in the group. Then the writers got hold of him. The same ones who think we want to see and hear everyone talk about their feewings after every major zombie attack. Sorry, Daryl, they’ve already long since murdered ya.

For now, Carl is dead, and I expect Rick will be in his Ricktator “These people don’t get to live” mindset, or close enough. Will we see the final defeat of Negan and the Saviors at the end of this season? Or is this conflict going to be dragged out for one more year?

Another major thing that happened was, as Carl was dying, he described what looked to be the communities in the one-year-later time jump after the resolution of the Negan storyline in the comics. Will the series follow the example of the comics, and go with this weak Hail Mary of a narrative pass?

I shouldn’t have to post a spoiler alert to note that the crisis with Negan will eventually be resolved. So who’s the next Worst Living Evil We’ve Encountered Yet?

After a point, about the only way one is going to make this interesting is to provide those warlords with distinctive costumes and gimmicks along the lines of the 1960s Batman TV series. 

“Oh noes, it’s the Sprinkler! He’s got more metal piercings on his body than anyone outside of a traveling circus, and he wants 60 percent of our stuff!”

“Oh noes, it’s Greenface! He has all these tattoos on his face from being the scariest gang warlord ever, and they’ve all turned dark, mossy green with age, making his eyes look really crazy. He wants 70 percent of our stuff!”

“This is the worst ever! It’s Dr. Diarrhea, and he’ll put cholera into our water supply if we don’t give him 80 percent of our stuff!”

Towards the very end, they will have to contend with Satan himself, who not only started the zombie apocalypse, but really, truly, madly, deeply hates these survivors for surviving, and is therefore now sending every undead creature on Earth their way so that he may reap their souls in flesh-rending agonies beyond imagining. Which will be great, because it will be the first time in forever since the living dead stalking the land sleeplessly, relentlessly, ravenously for living flesh will be the central threat. 

For all my exaggeration and general goofing around here, I trust everyone sees the problem. It’s not confined to the characters and setting of The Walking Dead, but an issue baked into the genre itself. The reanimated corpses who brought down civilization—and captured the attention of our audience—become less and less of a threat as our heroes adjust. The largest conflict will be with the Negans and Governors and the worse and even more worse living humans to follow.

My concern with the show now is that, once it’s over, zombie mania passes with it. As someone racing to finish the third and last book in his zombie post-apocalypse series and recoup his investment of time and energy...well.... 

Burnout is inevitable. Don’t be sad it’s almost over. Be glad it’s still happening. And hurry.