“I don’t know what it says about me that I walked into this volume sort of ready to hate Walking Dead. As I have for the last 10 or so volumes, I stood in Barnes & Noble and read the whole thing. And it was pretty good.
Okay, there’s still the plotline where they have this guy (not a spoiler, just some asshole they captured who is really dangerous) locked in jail. Instead of killing him.
They’ve killed, what, hundreds of people by now? More? Seen countless deaths? This part, it feels like the part in every horror movie where a scientist says something like, “Don’t worry. It’s behind 18 inches of unbreakable unbreakabillium. It would take a creature with the strength of ten men to get through there. This fella merely has the strength of 9.8 men, so we’re cool. Now, watch while I murder the creature’s baby in full view of it.”
It’s not just a stupidity moment. It’s a moment where it feels like the characters are ridiculously unaware of narrative and of their own personal narratives.
It’s like that thing where the character in the horror movie investigates the dark basement. Yes, if the movie is realistic, and if nothing really bad has happened to the character, it makes perfect sense for her to check out a noise in the basement. If you’ve been haunted by ghouls for the last 45 minutes, probably go ahead and, as the Goosebumps book title puts it, Stay Out Of The Basement.
Idea: Horror movie in a ranch-style home. Horror Ranch? Open Floor Plan Dracula? I’ll work on it.
Anyway, in the one case, it makes sense to go in the basement. In the other, you yell at the screen.
In Walking Dead, keeping this guy alive is a yelling at the screen moment. If it happened early in the series, it could work. If everyone still kind of thought maybe society would survive, then it makes sense to have some sort of no-kill morality thing. But at this point it’s pretty much ridiculous and feels completely like a way to advance a plot as opposed to making any sense in the story.
Also, this is a gripe with the show more than the books, but I get it. Yes, man is the REAL enemy. That’s great. I understood that message in George Romero’s movies.
I want to see some zombie shit.
Can we get some zombie-centric stories now and then?”