The Walking Dead - John

I am upset. I can’t tell you why, because to do so would spoil one of the most upsetting endings to an episode, but I’m not sure I can go on living (or at least enjoying The Walking Dead) because of it. I hate this show.

Okay, that’s not true. I’m obsessed with it, like a massive number of TV-watching Americans. We have the 80s to thank for the world’s obsession with zombies, but The Walking Dead marks the first successful iteration of them on the small screen. With exceptional visual effects and complex characters, the show has the quality of a film or miniseries rather than a weekly series. And with Frank Darabont as the creator of the show, who could expect less? That’s right, the same guy who gave us The Shawshank Redemption also gave us zombies. All hail King Frank!!

With a meager six episodes to work with, Season One was remarkable in reducing a global apocalypse to a stray few characters that we came to care about almost instantly. Characters are gained and lost after an episode or two, and yet we still feel their loss. What’s worse is the characters that are gone but not necessarily dead that we fret about. As if the threat of death and dismemberment weren’t serious enough, the various conflicts that erupt (as we know they must) among the community threaten to destroy the fabric of their humanity. Sometimes waiting for a conflict to come to a head is more suspenseful than preparing for the next zombie attack, and that’s what makes the show work so well.

HOWEVER…Season One is where The Walking Dead’s lauds end. Any affection I felt for the characters in Season One has given way to a surge of irritation, resentment, and (I’ll say it) actual malice. I almost now look forward to the next person to suffer the ole fatal zombie nibble. Maybe that’s the point, that I’m losing my humanity as the community does, but if Season One gave any indication of what was to come, somebody took a long and circuitous detour to get there.

Somewhere between escaping the CDC and trying to make it to a nearby fort, everybody suddenly decided to stop acting like themselves, except for those who were already dumb, who just got dumber. I have to agree with Becky on a couple of things.

Andrea went from a sensible and good-intending woman mourning the loss of her sister in Season One to Annie Oakley with a chip on her shoulder in Season Two. She cleans her gun more than a champion marksman and takes up side with the other gunslinger fellas, pushing away the only character that truly cares for her. I’m waiting for her to start spitting in the sink and peeing at a urinal. And then there’s Lori, Rick’s wife, who spends most of the time NOT owning up to her mistakes in Season One—more on that later. I’m warming up to her, but she’s got a while to go before she gets my vote for Wife (or Mother) of the Year.

But I save the most of my disdain for Rick and Shane. We all knew Shane was bad news from the start, but a person can only handle so much stupidity and arrogance before wishing his contract for Season Three be mysteriously misplaced. That’s my way of saying, “Kill off the jerk!” To say why requires some back story and some spoilers for those who haven’t watched any of the show. Back at the beginning, Lori, thinking husband Rick had died during the initial wave of zombification* slept with Shane, Rick’s best friend and police partner. Just a FEW WEEKS LATER, mind you. Big surprise, Lori turns up pregnant, but is the baby Rick’s or Shane’s? I’ve been waiting an entire season to see the two of them duke it out over this issue when Rick found out. I figure those major betrayals in real life would just be exacerbated by, you know, a zombie apocalypse. The fight was going to be legendary, and the crisis would drive a wedge in the whole community.

This is not what happens. Instead, they spend the entirety of Season Two flexing their muscles at each other, trying to prove who the bigger man is and who has enough bravado to lead their community. “Rick doesn’t have the guts to protect the group. Shane is too impulsive to lead the group.” This goes on and on. The very sensible Rick is apparently also very insecure, so he commits some seriously questionable acts, which are not only ignored, but accepted, by the rest of the group. When Rick finally confronts Shane about the betrayal, they—get this—talk it out like reasonable adults. Nobody even raises their voices. Right…When the fistfight comes later in the episode, it’s over—you guessed it—who is more of a man.

I’m exhausted, Walking Dead writers. With only two episodes left this season, you have me hoping that Season Three will leave our friends as zombie fodder and the show will pick up from the perspective of the zombies. More flesh-chewing, less idle chatter. The one who leads is the one with the most body parts still attached. It’s that simple. For all the groaning these characters do, you’d think they were zombies already.

*A side note: Apparently, “zombification” is actually a word according to Spell Check, which makes me inexpressively happy.

-John