The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is, in my humble opinion, one of the best shows of recent years, there included the oh-so-famous Lost. I have never read the comic-book this show by AMC is based on, but, if it is even just half as good, I am going to have to!

Zombie apocalypse and a bunch of people that try to survive while keeping their humanity. Mmm. Not my thing: I am quite into disaster scenarios that challenge human nature (from The Lord of the Flies to The Road); but the zombie part was really a bummer. The first episode I watched was by accident and it was the “barn-opening” one. In just one episode I saw everything that this series is: it is thrilling, deep, scary, intense; it induces self-thinking and self-questioning; it puts everything in discussion.

Watching it all in a rush made me quickly numb to the situation, just like the characters on screen. However, now that season 2 is over, sometimes I find myself thinking of what I would do: hunted and surrounded, constantly running and hiding, no way to fight back. And the faces and bodies (bravo to the costumes and make-up) and smell of the Walkers…I feel like I can feel it. Would I stay alive?

I am not wondering if I could physically manage (probably not anyways), but if I would want to. What for? It is simply easier to let go and die. However, I once read the testimony of someone who lived an hell on earth experience (a real one), and I learned that when people’s only goal is survival, it becomes the only thought, the only thing worth investing energies in: keep going until you can and then keep it up a little more and a little more…

Write and wrong, staying alive but at what costs, killing the dead and killing the livings, your life and the other’s: all these aspects and many more are a question- mark in this show, as the people in it evolve with the rotting world they survive in. And these aspects are tackled with honesty and realism.

I like a lot that we get to know all the characters (the surviving ones!) in depth and not, as it often happens in series with many characters, just on the go. In this way, we feel really sorry when, inevitably, something happens to them. The tangling of personal life elements, heritage of the past, and the struggle for survival is somehow unrealistic, but it creates a nice tone and gives us an idea of the extreme exasperation some natural things can get to in such a reality.

I read some reviews and posts on this show: it is mostly appreciated, but there is one recurring critic I would like to yell at right here. They say the show is slow and nothing happens. Hello? It is an apocalypse, almost everyone on the planet is dead and trying to eat the few survivors: how much faster can it go in such a situation? You run and hide and try to keep it together. More importantly, if it was faster, it would just be another Rambo story and we would not get the claustrophobic feeling that is so typical of this great, great show.

Creator: Frank Darabont
Stars: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal and Sarah Wayne Callies