Not in my wildest dreams as a child with my first exposure to zombies in George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” did I believe that we would be blessed to have a well written television show of a post-apocalyptic world after a zombie outbreak. I discovered a new fear and fascination that night as a youngster on a small black and white 14 inch screen in the form of the un-dead and forever after, I would have the zombie bug… or more appropriately, the virus.
George re-wrote the book on what it is to be a zombie. Prior to the Romero zombie, they were drug induced, voodoo doctor controlled, living beings and you could have sympathy for them and their plight. Gone are the days of sympathy for the zombie, as the re-imaging made them something remotely worse than a lumbering thought controlled hunk of living flesh. We now, in what is deemed the official definition of a zombie, are dealing with a far more hideous character, that is in fact the re-animated dead. What is scarier than that I ask? You take our fear of death and the dead and give it our own body, which wants nothing more than to rip the flesh from your bones and devour you, your family and every other living being it can get its rotting spindly fingers on. Then you give it huge numbers of which you are likely to become a part of and an insatiable appetite that never wants to get up from the diner table.
The problem I have always had with the good zombie movie is that they end… and they end with the best part of the story not being told. In walks The Walking Dead, the answer to a dream I had given up on ever seeing and an answer to my questions which always revolved around, what happens next? What happens after surviving that initial shock and we find our world has changed in ways that are nightmarish in nature and scope? I am forever indebted to Robert Kirkman, the ever changing line of directors and actors and a great group of writers that make my Sundays for several months twice a year something to look forward to in bloody anticipation.
In a lot of ways our favorite cryptid and the zombie, light the same fire in our hearts and imaginations. We have grown up with both as iconic characters and they remind ourselves of our humanity and own frailties. They tug at certain emotions that we don’t reflect on in most of our everyday lives and make us think outside of our preconceived norms. While one is definitely a manufactured story created for our entertainment of what can go wrong, the other might be a reality that we can hope brings out the best in us. We all can count our blessings on which one I am referring to as having that chance in reality, for while I love the show, wanting to live in that world, not so much.
I hear great things about the new season, including a new threat that can’t be combated in traditional ways. I am curious and a bit nervous as to what direction we are headed with the new show runner Scott Gimple, but I am sure we are in capable hands. As Hershel said profoundly in season two "I can't profess to understand God's plan, Christ promised the resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had something a little different in mind" I trust in their plan and hope that the writers continue with something a little different in mind and we continue to eat it up.
Here is to our Sundays being filled with Walkers once again and an hour each week of our undying attention.
Ready, set…Bigfoot!
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