I am not a fan of entertainment that is excessively gory, bloody, or anything along those lines. I’ve never seen any of the Saw movies, and I have absolutely no desire to watch them. I like scary movies in general, but I draw the line when people start getting hacked to pieces. I’m too squeamish for all that gore.
But I love The Walking Dead.
A couple years ago, I was watching an episode — I can’t remember which one, but it wasn’t long after they reached the prison — and my mom and my brother were just watching me watch it. I had to keep hiding my eyes and turning away from all the nasty, gory stuff. Eventually, this conversation took place:
My mom and brother, in unison: “Why do you even watch this show?”
Me: “Because it’s awesome, and I love it! I just don’t like the blood and gore.”
Mom: “But that’s all this show is about!”
Me: “No it’s not! It’s about the people and their relationships with each other and surviving!”
That’s the short answer to their question, but it touches on the heart of why this show is so good, and why it’s become so popular with such a wide audience. It isn’t a show about zombies. (In fact, if you pay attention, they never even refer to the undead as “zombies” at any time in the series.) The Walking Dead has some of the most compelling story lines and characters on television, and if it were just about the zombies, 17 million people wouldn’t have watched the fifth season premiere, where the main threat was another group of humans.
One of the taglines for The Walking Dead is, “Fight the dead, fear the living.” If you’re a fan of the series or the graphic novels it is based on, you know this statement is absolutely true. The “walkers” (as the don’t-call-them-zombies are termed) are just background for the story of the people who are surviving — or, in some unfortunate cases, aren’t. In the last couple of seasons, especially with the introduction of the Governor, we’ve really started to see just how much more dangerous other humans can be.
The walkers just want to eat you, but humans can plan and strategize and manipulate. Humans can move faster, drive vehicles (and tanks), and use weapons. They can deceive and lay traps. Compared to the human threats on this series, the walkers are easy to take care of — a headshot is all it takes.
The other day, a friend was telling me that some of her friends were getting frustrated with the show because they have deviated from the zombie part of the story. In my opinion, those viewers are missing the entire point of the series. Even in the comics, the greatest threat the survivors face is not the undead but the other human survivors. I don’t think this show would be nearly as compelling if the primary threat was always the walkers. Sure, I get worried when there’s a chance someone’s going to be killed or bitten, but it’s so much more interesting when they’re facing an enemy that can think and plan — someone who is also fighting for a cause and has more motivation to win.
This is what I love most about The Walking Dead: the fact that it is about the humans — the survivors. Despite my love for genre television, I wasn’t a big fan of zombies before the series began — mostly because of my issues with blood and gore — but the previews made the show look intriguing, so I thought I’d check it out. I was hooked almost immediately — despite the scene where the walkers tear into that poor horse.
The characters on The Walking Dead are probably some of the most well-written on television. Some series can go an entire run without their characters showing any evidence of change or growth. However, not one of the characters in The Walking Dead is the same person he or she was prior to the zombie apocalypse — and, more importantly, who they were when the series began. One of the best examples would be Carol. When we first met her, she was a mother married to an abusive husband, and now she’s the bad-ass who single-handedly engineered the escape from Terminus.
At New York Comic Con earlier this month, the cast was asked to talk about the journeys their characters have taken to this point. Melissa McBride, the actress who portrays Carol, teared up describing Carol’s path “because I love her so much.” Of all the characters in the series, Carol has come the farthest — and is one of the best, in my opinion.
Another one of the reasons I love The Walking Dead is because I can never predict where the story is going or what is going to happen next. I’m the kind of person who is always trying to solve the mystery first, or guess what’s going to happen next, but I just can’t do that with this series. I haven’t read all the comics — I’m slowly working my way through them — but even if I had, I still wouldn’t be able to predict everything, because the show doesn’t always follow the comics. This is one of those times when I am completely OK with that. I love that I can enjoy the comics and series separately, and one isn’t necessarily going to spoil the other.
For those who wish they would follow the comics more closely, this is your season. According to the Walking Dead panel I attended at NYCC, this season will follow the comics more closely than they have in the past.
Lastly, I love that this show is so real. I don’t mean real as in “I expect the dead to rise up any day now,” but the tone of the show and the way the characters behave and react to situations (even the “villains” of the show) are all extremely realistic. This is exactly how you would expect human beings to act when faced with a world where the living are quickly becoming outnumbered by the dead, and you have to fight to survive. People will go to any length they see necessary to survive. Some of those methods may seem horrifying to outsiders — and the audience — but to them, their actions are imperative to their own survival.
Even the horrors committed by the people in Terminus, which makes me shudder just to think about, are justified to them. These people didn’t start out that way; they were once kind and welcoming — until they were treated as prey and forced to become hunters. Every character on the show, good or evil, is a product of his or her environment. Even Rick Grimes, our good-hearted protagonist, has made questionable decisions that he felt were key to the group’s survival or to protect his family. This struggle is what makes this show so raw and so real.
I recently read an article from Entertainment Weekly that posed the question, “Are we all numb to the atrocities of The Walking Dead?” The article was referring particularly to the final moments of Sunday’s episode, which was pretty horrifying — and we’re only two episodes into the season. But it also called to mind the scene from last season, when Rick ripped out a guy’s throat — with his teeth! — after the guy and his gang of humans threatened to violate Rick’s son, Carl.
I’m not entirely sure I would even agree that Sunday’s episode was more shocking than seeing Rick tear a guy’s throat out; both scenes were stunning and horrifying, and both demonstrated how far the survivors have come from civilized society. They are horrifying because they break our expectations of how people should behave, but one isn’t necessarily worse or more shocking than the other; they simply portray different aspects of the depravity that comes with the world they are now living in.
It is true that the series does feel the need to up its game and be more shocking with each new twist. Every series has to fight inertia and tries to build on the drama, or the action, or whatever it is that people like about that series. However, I don’t feel like I’ve become numb to the horrors The Walking Dead is portraying on screen. I still flinch and close my eyes when we see a particularly disgusting walker death, just as I would have in season 1. The Well Walker would probably shock and gross me out just as much now as it did back in season 2; in fact, I was having traumatic flashbacks to that episode during the food bank scenes this past week.
If we were all truly becoming numb to the atrocities in The Walking Dead, I think the smaller, more human moments that are still prevalent within the series would have less of an effect on us. However, the reaction to the reunions at the end of the fifth season premiere proves we still feel. Sophia walking out of that barn will break my heart each time I see it, and I will always cry every time Daryl cries. As long as we’re still affected by these small human moments — and as long as they still exist within the series to remind us the survivors are still human — I don’t think we’ve become numb to anything.
At the NYCC panel, season 5 was described as “kickass” and “relentless” but also “heartbreaking” and “devastating.” The fact that this show can bring out those more tragic emotions in its fans proves they are anything but numb to what goes on in this show.
And honestly, if we were become numb to the horrors we’re seeing in The Walking Dead, then we’re missing the lesson of the series. In the season premiere, Rick didn’t want to worry about freeing any other prisoners in Terminus, but Glenn insisted, saying, “That’s still who we are, it’s got to be.”
Despite all the horrors they’ve faced — and Glenn had just come within seconds of having his head bashed in and throat slit by the Terminus people — Glenn understands that the survivors can’t let their enemies change them. They can’t become numb. They still have to hold on to some of their morals. And if we’re becoming too numb to the atrocities on The Walking Dead, aren’t we taking Rick’s path more than Glenn’s?
The mere fact that we can have long, deep discussions about topics such as this in relation to a television series like The Walking Dead proves that there is so much more to this show than zombies, blood, and gore. And that is why I watch The Walking Dead.