Today I'm sorting out the things about the Walking Dead The Ones Who Live that I don't understand completely.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is a spinoff of the original The Walking Dead, which I stopped watching in season 9 when Rick left the show. This new iteration, the third of which I have watched following Dead City and Daryl Dixon feels a lot like The Walking Dead I remembered. But a lot of it doesn't make sense (probably) because maybe I missed something by skipping out on how The Walking Dead ended. However, everything I read about The Ones Who Live explicitly stated that the series would stand on its own, and that I wouldn't need to know anything from the prior series to understand the events in this series. But just so I can kind of see it all written down, I'm going to go through the things that I don't understand that are in this show as of just three episodes. This is your spoiler warning:

1) There are three cities I guess in the former United States that decided to draw boundaries and keep out the dead. They enacted a form of martial law, built barriers, educated their populace, and essentially became military states. And somehow, this allowed up to 200,000 individuals per metropolis to basically exist as if it was the times before the big event that made the zombie apocalypse. How is it that we are just now hearing of this? Especially when they have helicopters flying everywhere, munitions, and other things like electricity and water treatment and sewage treatment plants. One of the cities in like episode two finally collapsed. So this is like...ten years into the zombie apocalypse (still a hell of a record I think). We don't know all of the details, but it sounds like it just got overwhelmed by a dead army or something weird. I wonder if this has more to it...kinda like maybe they are exploring intelligent forms of undead and there was maybe a leader or something that whipped up all of the zombies. It's easily the most supernatural and interesting lead that this series has dropped, but there hasn't been any more exploration of the potential of that in the remaining episode I watched.

2) Rick cut off his own damn hand. This was...I dunno...unnecessary? Rick was on a tight leash to prevent his escape, and he was doing his job, which is to cull zombies. This particular branch of zombies was on fire for some reason--it wasn't explained. But in order for him to get off the leash, he needed to cut his hand off. It's a parallel to an event that happened in the Daryl Dixon show, because a tertiary character was handcuffed and in order to escape, needed to cut his hand off to get out of the bond. When Rick did it by choice, it just seemed so unnecessary. What was his plan exactly? To run into a forest of burning zombies with no food or water and in pain and dripping blood from a hastily done amputation? It was easily the dumbest thing I've seen, and I just can't imagine why Rick would do this as he's an intelligent character. But he did get a cool prosthetic out of it with a switchblade, and I suppose it also demonstrated how desperate he was to get away from the people in this "secret city." But in the end, this particular thing fell flat with me, and I have questions/don't understand why it happened.

3) There was a whole lot of exposition about the kinds of people they want in the city of 200,000 (referred to as CRM in the series). For one, I guess they don't want any "alphas." They don't want any leader types, and those kinds of people just end up dead. They just want "betas" or people who are relatively good at being sheep to follow whatever shepherds that they have running the government. This is really weird to me. Why is being a person who wants to be in charge a bad thing? People who are driven and don't need someone to take care of them are exactly the kinds of people I think you'd want in an apocalypse. Things are tough already, and these...let's call them "type A" personalities are the kinds of personalities that I think would end up being the most valuable in an apocalyptic scenario.

4) There's a character who is already dead in the show who was named "Okafor." His whole background, which seems kind of pointless at this time since he's dead, was that he was in the military, and that his own wife wanted him NOT to bomb Philadelphia. So, he killed her, but then he refused to bomb the city anyway? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but maybe I missed an important detail somewhere? However, since the character has already kicked the bucket, I'm not sure I can justify a rewatch since it's apparent that none of it mattered anyway other than to say that there are people in the CRM who don't follow orders. And maybe that's the point. If there are people who are in leadership positions (like Okafor) who want to bring the whole government structure down, it sets the ground for some chaotic grasps at power for Rick and Michonne to make in the new world of the Walking Dead.

All that being said though...I'm still going to watch this thing. It's Rick and Michonne, and those two are characters I love and feel like I know after being with them for so long. I'm excited to see what unfolds and what those two decide to do in their post apocalyptic lives.

The Daryl Dixon spinoff for the Walking Dead universe is actually pretty good.

I'm not exactly sure why I keep coming back to the world of The Walking Dead. I left the original series in season nine when they got rid of Rick. Soon after that Michonne left the show. But they are going to be coming back, so I may end up watching the new Rick and Michonne show, which looks a lot like what The Walking Dead looked like. I keep thinking that either through attrition or a cure, there needs to be some hope of the zombie plague ending. But now, at the time of the Daryl Dixon spinoff, it feels a lot like maybe that's not what I want. Maybe it's just more time with these characters. Or maybe it was just to see other parts of the world that were impacted by the zombie plague. France seemed so different from the commercials. So yeah...I got sucked in yet again. But it wasn't a "I've got to watch this week's episode" kinda sucked in. Rather, it was one that I just recorded and eventually got around to watching several months after they aired. I also liked them enough to want to continue to season two, especially now that Carol (also from the original series) has found her way to France. Honestly, I never would have thought people could travel the world in the post-apocalypse but here we are.

Daryl Dixon sees the title character (Daryl) end up in France having washed up on shore. That's pretty much the premise of this show. French people, lots of subtitles, nuns in old nunneries, castles with thick walls to keep out the undead, people using medieval weapons which have really come in handy in the zombie apocalypse, and a world where Europeans are experimenting on zombies. These experiments sometimes turn the zombies into other things like zombies with acidic blood! It's very "Auschwitz-esque" but a French version and not German (we've no idea at this time what horror show a post-apocalyptic Germany or for that matter, Russia, has managed to brew up. When The Walking Dead first started many, many years ago, one of the things that made the story so compelling was the group constantly scraping to survive. Now, most of these spinoffs (especially the Dead City spinoff that I also watched starring Maggie and Negan) have become good vs. evil on a zombie apocalypse backdrop. So kinda like Stephen King's The Stand but with zombies.

As far as the setting goes, it's extraordinarily pretty (I think they may be using different filters on their lenses whilst shooting the show). They've also introduced a character which does appear to bring up questions in me. I wonder if it's a red herring. But there's this boy named Laurent who was born from a mother that died and became a zombie and he was pulled out of the zombie. But Laurent is not a zombie, even though he was connected biologically to his zombie mother. I don't know what this means, or if it actually means anything. But he's special as far as anything in this world goes. A lot of the people in this world (in France) seem to be heaping a tons of hope on the shoulders of this kid because they need something to believe in. But does he actually have powers? Does his blood hold some kind of secret that might stop the zombie apocalypse? I have no idea. It is enough of a hook though that I'd kinda like to see where it is all going. I get the impression that the kid is invisible to walkers. There's a scene where he's on the Normandy Beach and walkers are all around him, and he doesn't appear concerned at all, even though he's standing on an elevated ruin of a bunker. Are the zombies just not able to reach him or is it something else?

Other questions I had by the time I reached the end of the first season of Daryl Dixon include: 1) Why are people mutating zombies? 2) Why did Quinn (a character in this season) act like he knew the outbreak was going to happen? 3) How did the boy Laurent get to the beach by himself unless he is in fact invisible to zombies? 4) How did Carol get to France? Hopefully the next season of Daryl Dixon will shed some light on these things. 

On Wednesday, we'll do our Insecure Writer's Support Group post, and on Friday, I'll put up my analysis of Percy Jackson and how the Greek Gods in that show all seem to have embraced the baby boomer way of raising children. So yeah, the demigods are all "latchkey" kids, and it's just funny to me that this is largely what makes the series entertaining for modern kids to watch.

The War of the Worlds reboot on Epix feels like The Walking Dead with no money spent on computer effects or makeup.

This is probably the best effect in the entirety of the first episode. As you can see, this show is made on the cheap. This is just a person standing on a street, which filming on was probably free, and then they added that shiny star thing for one of the spaceships landing on Earth during the initial invasion. You never get a closeup shot of a spaceship.

The new War of the Worlds series that is on the Epix streaming service doesn't actually feel like it's a War of the Worlds adaptation. Rather, it feels like its The Walking Dead. Most people are familiar with the H.G. Wells story either through having read that story or having seen one of the many movies. With respect to my bias, I've always been a fan of the Spielberg version of War of the Worlds, primarily due to the director's ability to keep a thumb on Tom Cruise and tell a story that Spielberg wants to tell. This as opposed to a story that is written around Tom Cruise who obviously sees himself as "Ethan Hunt" these days. If you want an example of what this looks like, please watch Tom Cruise's The Mummy, and you will see that this is what happens when a story is wrapped around an actor as opposed to a story being true to itself (and then the actor gets to be a part of it). I much prefer the latter, as I don't take too much stock in actors and actresses these days. As the Academy Awards and the many social media accounts point out, all actors and actresses are in modern times are regular people like you and me that have a lot of money and interesting jobs, which they probably got because they got lucky. It's like a winner and a loser at the casino game of roulette: one person is a winner and one person is a loser, but no one honestly can tell you why it happens. It just does.

Spielberg's War of the Worlds feels epic in scope. It has amazing scenes like a train that's on fire speeding toward some unknown destination while people gawk at the horror of it all. It shows planes falling out of the sky, people blown to ashes, and huge tripod spaceships raining terror down upon the human race. The human race is so impossibly outmatched that any conflict between us and the invaders is similar to a grasshopper attacking a tank. That story never ends well, but it's also something that commands a lot of money to do (I'd imagine), which is probably (in part) why the Epix streaming service has opted for low key storytelling similar in vein to The Walking Dead. In the Epix streaming service version, they don't even have to worry about excessive makeup and prosthetics to make people look like zombies. So there's that too.

But does it work? I kinda/sorta like it, but I'm not quite sold on it as something that I'll continue to watch. I think I need to absorb a few more episodes before I can tell you that. What I can tell you is that deciding to present the alien invasion as an apocalyptic event, staging it in Europe, and using subtitles in long stretches because the actors are talking in French...does appear different. But it also feels made on the cheap, as the alien invaders used an invisible pulse to kill all humans who were not either 1) underground, 2) under water, or 3) encased in metal. So like more than half the world's population instantly died, but they just had the actors lie down on the ground. There's no "ash" effect like you see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and there's no expensive C.G.I. like Spielberg might use. And because the people were just "turned off" there's no makeup needed either. People can just lie down and look like they're napping.

By the end of the second episode, there was an introduction to something that actually seemed otherworldly: a dog or canine made of metal that you only see in glimpses that basically chases down survivors and butchers them. These are obviously servants of the invaders. So that adds a scary tension to the show, which I like. And the show does play effectively on the anxieties of a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors embrace the epitome of selfishness. But how quickly this happens is surprising. Almost immediately after the "Big Death," the survivors are already treating each other pretty much like garbage.

Because I like big epic alien movies, I do hope that the show eventually gives us something like this...something that brings a kind of awe to it that you never get from many post-apocalyptic tales, because these kinds of stories are generally comprised of "one small band of people on a deserted road looking at the wreckage of a once vibrant world." This is exactly how this series is right now. And this is also why I feel like what I want is "never gonna happen." Most of that "epic" stuff that I crave in stories like this is the shock and awe that happens during the initial invasion, which is pretty much handled with a whimper. The "survivors" of the silent but deadly brain wave that kills off the majority of the population are probably just going to be pushed into hiding and to the point of extinction by the aliens before the "virus" trope is played and the aliens all die out because they have no immunities to Earth's diseases.

So...yeah, I'm basically looking at watching a series where there's going to be no real or impressive C.G.I. and where everything is going to be "makeup lite." Being filmed on location in Europe and keeping the story on a very personal level with no name actors is just money in the bank for the streaming service. And they don't have to pay money for a lot of extras because in this story, Earth is mostly dead now.

I guess we'll see what happens and whether the showrunner can win me over with cheap but effective storytelling. At least the acting (so far) is decent. Maybe I don't notice bad acting because I'm busy reading subtitles? I'm going to keep watching, and I'll try to keep you apprised of the situation as it evolves.

I wonder if AMC even realizes that The Walking Dead has jumped the shark?

My interest in The Walking Dead has really declined. The fact that this is Rick's last season also may have something to do with it, but I think franchise fatigue (for many) is starting to set in. For one, the show seems to have run out of ideas. The next villains in line after the Saviors are called The Whisperers, and these are just crazy people who walk around in the skin suits made from zombie flesh so that they can exist simultaneously inside huge herds. Just think of the earlier episodes where people used zombie guts to keep the undead from noticing them, and you've figured it out. Second, the show just experienced its worst ratings, which is telling in and of itself. It's weird that Norman Reedus has been signed to a huge contract with the creators of the show saying that this thing could go on for another ten years and could also transition into movies.

In a way, they seem tone deaf to a quintessential part of The Walking Dead: without Rick to bookend the story, and after killing off Carl last season, the show as a piece of mythology is pointless. It shows that the show isn’t actually about anything. It's essentially "stream of consciousness" where each episode is just a story of someone's life until it isn't about that life anymore because they died. I mean...it's really no better than reality tv only with zombies without its bookends. I may watch the remainder of the episodes in this season, but I seriously don't know how this show is supposed to remain interesting with the only plot points being 1) zombies exist, 2) We can build medieval technology like windmills, and 3) there's always some psychotic asshole that tears everything down making us vulnerable to number 1.

It's also weird that they publicized Andrew Lincoln leaving the show. He's gone as of episode five, so everyone has kind of "checked out" of this thing. I figure he gets killed by either zombies or a villain in a zombie skin-suit (read "Whisperer" above).

We live in a strange time for storytelling. Steven Spielberg has remarked that film makers these days don't seem to want to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The new model appears to be this: make season after season until people are so bored with it that they stop caring.  I prefer the model where you have a story, no filler stuff, and it has a clear beginning and an end.  Then again, I am not entirely sure I’d think the same if I was a TV exec.  Those guys live in a world where money is the one thing that matters, and if it was my job, who’s to say I would be any different?

Money kind of ruins everything that's good. However, as a caveat, I think that it would be hard to let go of something that (not too long ago) was the highest rated show in its time slot. I respect Game of Thrones so much more than The Walking Dead, because it has an actual end, and no amount of money is going to change that. The entertainment industry could use a long moment to reflect on itself and find some integrity like in Game of Thrones. 

Why did the Walking Dead deviate so much from the Total War storyline in Robert Kirkman's comics when it was so good?

Jumping the Shark is a term that refers to a Happy Days episode. It's a point-of-no-return kind of place from which every subsequent episode is just bad. In my opinion, The Walking Dead has finally lost it and jumped its own shark. This week's episode was ridiculously bad. Please note that I blame writers...as in bad writing. For all the writers out there reading my words, it probably stings, but the truth shall set you free. Spoilers are ahead.

This week's episode was called "Do Not Send Us Astray." It was just bad. Negan's crew under the leadership of Simon decides to attack Hilltop with their zombie-coated weapons, and they get routed by the Hilltop peeps in pretty rare fashion for this show. But despite all the killing by Rick and company, it doesn't ever appear that Simon's crew diminishes in number even though they showed up in what appeared to be like four trucks. How many frickin' people could there possibly be in four trucks?

And then when some people who were wounded turn into zombies at night, people just blunder into them. "Hey are you okay? I'm going to just go out here and-- w-wait! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! Arrrrggghhh..." and death. Like this happens over and over. Death by zombie bite while I'm just sitting on the couch rolling my eyes. If that's not enough, Hilltop has got no one on guard apparently, and the zombies just walk into the house where the people are all sleeping in a huge communal room. One zombie even frickin' falls down the ENTIRE flight of stairs and no one wakes up. So yeah...more screams... "Arrrggghhh! Aahhhh! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" blah blah blah.

Outside, one of the kids (his name is Henry) grabs a gun and goes into the place where Maggie is holding the Saviors they've taken as prisoners and demands that the one who killed his brother step forward or he'll start killing. Well they rush the kid and he gets knocked over and they all run out and escape. Sigh. Really?

And then this random guy that I don't even remember from any episodes dies and they play the music that they always play when someone dies that a main cast member really liked (this time it's Carol) and Carol looks all sad. But seriously, I don't remember this guy from any episode. Why is Carol even attached to him at all? Why is she looking sad?

There's (of course) no mention of Negan who we last saw with Jadis who honestly has no reason to keep him alive but of course she is doing just that.

This storyline did not have to go this way. I read the "Total War" storyline of The Walking Dead as written by Robert Kirkman. It was good and totally different. Why did they change this storyline? Why did they deviate so far from it to make it just stupid? I hate this idea that in order to entertain readers of the comics, they have to make things "different," especially when "different" is essentially synonymous with "bad."

It's a good thing they don't have any real competition on Sunday night for viewers. Otherwise The Walking Dead would be in a lot of trouble.

The Walking Dead has been telling us for nearly seven years that the key to leadership is playing a role different from your actual self.

The Walking Dead has been full of interesting villains. However, aside from just being evil, each has adopted a certain "character" to play in leading their disparate groups. I also think this is pretty accurate to how society actually functions. For example, F.D.R. didn't want people to know he couldn't walk, so he played a carefully curated role that people could believe in...one that suggested that he was far healthier than the truth. And over the decades, this kind of thinking hasn't changed much. Just recently Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton "weak" and impled that, "she doesn't have the stamina." It's essentially the same thing.

In the second episode of the new season, we met King Ezekiel who is this larger-than-life character living in a place appropriately called "The Kingdom," and who has a sidekick that's a Bengal tiger. All of his men-at-arms are knights and wear armor, and it's kinda/sorta like a modern renaissance fair. And King Ezekiel owns up to what he's doing in a conversation with Carol that takes place near the end of the episode. He says that he knows it's all a ruse, but it's something that the people just needed with all the horror in the world. That's when it occurred to me that all the other "leaders" are also playing a role. The only reason Ezekiel's really sticks out is because it's so wild.

For example, Rick Grimes is still playing at Sheriff. He's changed a lot because of the world, and doesn't hesitate to just kill people these days, but deep down inside he's still very much into justice. And justice from a certain point-of-view can look a lot like revenge. Still, he seems to be able to mete it out without his mind suffering permanent damage because he's sheltered his psyche within this role he's created for himself...he has a job and a responsibility to his people and how he actually feels about doing certain things need to be separated from his duty. As long as he can focus on that, he seems to be able to survive just about anything.

The same could be said for the Governor. Before he ran arrears of Rick Grimes and company, the Governor was a politician, playing this larger-than-life charismatic role as the leader of Woodbury. Anyone that remotely crossed him ended up dead. However, he was fair to most people as long as you had nothing that he wanted or questioned him in any way. And a glimpse inside his psyche via one of the books revealed an even deeper layer: the fact that he was actually playing the role of his twin brother (who died) and the undead daughter he was keeping wasn't actually his biological daughter, but belonged to his brother. He basically assumed the entire role because his brother was a charismatic good man and that's what he wanted to be. People had "admired" his brother. But you only got that story from the book Rise of the Governor.

The latest batch of people, called "The Saviors," and led by Negan are no different. Negan's playing the role of a Mafioso. He's in charge of this huge family that extorts The Walking Dead's version of "protection money" from communities in exchange for keeping the "undead menace" under control. That's basically what his roving army does. It maintains the herds so that they don't overwhelm and threaten the settlements of Alexandria, Hill Top, and the Kingdom. In truth, of course, they're just parasites feeding off the communities and not really doing all that much constructive. But it's the character that Negan has decided to play. It's why he insists on following through and keeping his word in front of everyone. People need to see that he means business so that his orders are never questioned. Who knows what he's actually like in person, or what kind of person he was before the event that made the dead rise from their graves.

It's an interesting thing to think that successful leadership may depend on how well you can play a certain role. I suppose it makes sense that some of our most powerful leaders (and those aspiring to the highest offices in the land) are essentially actors. It's a truth that the Walking Dead has been telling all along, but it took me seven seasons to actually see it.

Okay it's time to weigh in on the season seven premiere of The Walking Dead

SPOILER ALERT: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Along with seventeen million other people, I watched the premiere on Sunday night. I was shocked that we lost two main characters in the same night, and Glenn's death struck me much harder than Abraham's. The camera stayed on him so long...with that eye just bulging out...and saying, "Maggie, I will find you." As if somehow those two could be happy in an afterlife, because the world of The Walking Dead is so cruel.

Negan as a villain is a game-changer for the series. Nothing will ever be the same. Rick's a broken man, Maggie will be ruminating over the death of Glenn for the rest of her life, and the others will have PTSD at seeing their friends bludgeoned to death in front of them by a maniac with a barbed wire baseball bat.

However, I didn't like the way the showrunners handled the introduction of Negan. I think putting all of this into the last season would have been a much better storytelling play. The premiere just seemed to drag on and on and on. It's like The Walking Dead decided to heavily troll its very loyal (and powerful) audience, which smacks of a television show taking its viewers "for granted."

That being said, there are hundreds of articles already written about the season seven premiere. I want to point out that there's always a disconnect between when critics think a show is no longer conveying a meaningful message and when viewers grow tired of it. I consider myself a viewer and not a critic and yes, the show had me on the edge of my seat, frustrated that it was taking soooo long to figure out who Negan killed, and it will have absolutely no impact on whether or not I continue to watch as that is a given. I have to see the new characters, the leader of the Kingdom, and his tiger companion. That will be just too cool.

I have to believe after watching all of this brutality and seeing characters I get emotionally invested in get destroyed, that there is an endgame plan. I want it to be some kind of conclusion that offers a glimmer of hope, where humanity overcomes an insurmountable apocalyptic situation. I also know though that Kirkman (the creator of the comic book) has said this is a really long story. So whatever ends up happening, we won't know for many years to come. And if the premiere is any kind of foreshadowing, there is much more darkness to come before things start to improve.

Not Tomorrow Yet makes it easy to call The Walking Dead the most brutal show that has ever aired on television.

Spoiler Alert: I am talking about Sunday night's The Walking Dead episode called "Not Tomorrow Yet."

Has there ever been a show on television as brutal as The Walking Dead? I'm so thankful for "Talking Dead" because, after watching a show like "Not Tomorrow Yet," I feel like I need to decompress. The brutal slaughtering of people that they didn't even know reached new levels of emotional shock for me than I had anticipated. And yeah, I did know it was coming, but it just seemed far more horrible outside of a comic book and splashed all over the screen (in one scene blood spray stuck to the camera lens in a kind of "Deadpool-esque" break the Fourth Wall moment).

So last night we saw Rick's group of warriors go up against what I think is a small contingent of "The Saviors" who probably have a much larger and stronger army. This was a kind of "outpost," but the killing is definitely stirring up a hornet's nest that will lead to all out war. And the reasoning behind the attack was very logical: it's us or them. To some extent, it's a reflection of modern politics with fear spreading through a population and more and more people raising their voices in a chorus demanding radical action to guarantee safety.

Negan's compound in The Walking Dead comic book. This is the hornet's
nest that Rick and crew have stirred up. And something tells me we're going
to be seeing it next week with that gut-wrenching ending of last night's episode.

This episode was a dramatic shift in the narrative of The Walking Dead. Instead of being defenders, Rick's group moved into the position of being the predator at the watering hole. I suppose the transition has been a long time coming with Rick's crew trying to avoid violence whenever possible. It reminds me of a quote I heard one time that went something like this: "Hostility and violence doesn't solve anything. It solves everything."  If you lived in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies and knew that a violent group was out there that would come and take all of your resources and perhaps harm or even kill people in your community, could you take on the role of an assassin and strike them first?

I'm glad we don't live in a world like that...yet. And I hope we never will.

The Walking Dead introduced Jesus and Richonne became a thing so could a tiger named Shiva be next?

Walking Dead spoilers ahead folks. You have been warned.

This is the Hilltop Colony where Jesus comes from. It's full of nice people and
has about twice the survivors that Alexandria does (that's Rick's community).

Yay. For once, the Walking Dead had a relatively good episode where none of the major cast members died, and we met an interesting character (that's in the comic book adaptation) that isn't a total douche bag. For what it's worth, I've been really looking forward to the introduction of Jesus from the comics. And from what I remember, the way in which he is introduced in the show pretty much mirrors how it happened in the graphic novel. For one, Jesus was this guy that could do all kinds of martial arts moves and secondly, he was an incredibly nimble escape artist. We saw both of those in the episode that aired last night.

So the Walking Dead's world is about to get blown up really big. Jesus is from this community that has like 200 people living in it and they have chickens and livestock and a wall and more resources than even Alexandria has. And they're actually pretty nice people. There's also a third community that's called "The Kingdom," which will be introduced through Jesus. So he's kind of a big catalyst to move the show in an entirely different direction.

The Kingdom is ruled by a very colorful character called Ezekiel and he has a pet tiger named "Shiva" that he keeps on a chain. A former zookeeper with delusions of grandeur, in the post apocalyptic world he's essentially a benevolent king with a unique fascination on medieval life, i.e., he holds court, calls himself a king, and has knights. Interesting, right? I guess you gotta do something in the apocalypse to keep yourself busy. And I think it's going to be really cool for the Walking Dead to introduced a tiger...I really do.

All of this is to prepare viewers for basically all out war between those three communities (allying together) to fight Negan because he's that awful. I'll be curious to see how the television show handles Negan because he monologues a lot and says "F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!" all the time. Of course, the show does differ from the comic in major ways. For one, there's no Daryl. And for another, I can't quite remember Rick and Michonne getting together, so I'm glad to see it happen on the show. It seemed very organic and honestly, they're perfect for each other. They're both tough as nails, and she's Rick's moral center for pretty much everything.

I don't think we're going to be seeing the kinds of people that aren't suited for this world anymore. The apocalypse happened years ago and people are adapting to it in so many creative ways. Anyone that couldn't adapt just died so it really is the rise of a new world order doing things in a different way and just learning to manage the zombies. So in a way, Jesus is an obvious biblical symbol. He represents a rebirth for everyone that's made it that far and now will open the minds of those who managed to survive.

This show really is the most brilliant thing on television. Thank you Robert Kirkman. :) You've made Sunday nights so awesome.

Here's Not Here felt artsy and comforting and psychologically wonderful compared to last week's episode of The Walking Dead

There are spoilers in this episode analysis :). You have been warned.

Last night, The Walking Dead treated us to a special 90-minute episode that was all about Morgan. At first, I was irritated that it looked like there would be nothing on the developments of last week. But once I settled into the episode called "Here's Not Here," the actor John Carroll Lynch (who played Eastman) gave an astounding performance as the cheesemaker that gave Morgan a reason to live.

Reflecting on the episode now that it's over, I realize that this was a really strong story. I loved the way Gimple decided to explore who Morgan is and why he seems to think now (of all times) that all life is precious. And then there's the quote from Eastman when he tells Morgan (as he's dying) that he "could stay" in the cabin but he hopes that Morgan doesn't. Life is about people, and he encourages Morgan to seek out others so that he won't be alone.

It's too bad really that "the Wolf" Morgan was relating his tale to in the jail there in Alexandria couldn't get the message. Despite how touching the tale of Morgan's redemption was, the surviving prisoner of the wolf invasion promised to continue to kill just like the psychopath that Eastman starved to death in his cabin.

Also I love the subtle answers we all got in this episode. There was the chocolate candies that we saw last year when Morgan laid them on the altar at the church just outside Terminus. Well now we know where he got them from. There was the answer as to why Eastman had a jail in his cabin. We were shown how Morgan learned aikido and how to use a staff so effectively. I just hope Morgan eventually finds a way to "pay it forward" so to speak and finally find peace.

AMC is trolling the whole world with Glenn's death on The Walking Dead.

AMC is trolling the whole world with Glenn's death. Sometimes, I feel like (to use Lady Gaga's words) that I'm in a "Bad Romance" with The Walking Dead. Week after week, it beats me up to the point that I need therapy. Yet I still come crawling back.

If you don't know, we're three episodes into the sixth season, and Glenn was in a pretty hopeless situation having fallen from atop a garbage bin into a herd of walkers. Our last shot of him were guts being pulled all red and glistening from what looks like his corpse. I say this last point with caution because Glenn fell from atop the garbage bin with Nicholas in his arms. Did Nicholas land on top of him? Is that Nicholas' body we're seeing being ripped apart? And if so, Will Glenn survive by being coated in zombie parts and blood and all things vile and be able to walk out of there?

Are those Glenn's innards? Or are they Nicholas'? Damn you AMC!

It honestly doesn't seem very likely that Glenn could be alive. At this point, I'm comfortable saying that 95% of me thinks he's dead. But I hate this "uncertainty." The showrunner didn't have to film this sequence with such ambiguity. None of the other deaths have been ambiguous at all. Glenn could have fallen from atop the garbage bin a few seconds after Nicholas fell. That would have dispelled any and all theories that Glenn could somehow survive. As it is, even The Talking Dead featured no interview with Steven Yeun, which is normally how the show likes to play major deaths. It also didn't list him in the official list of deaths and then it referred to Glenn's death as "the most shocking moment from tonight" rather than "Glenn's death."

Shame on you AMC. You did this on purpose. It's not going to make me stop watching the show, but to shamelessly troll the emotions of a HUGE audience that will want to make up reasons for a beloved character to be alive seems like a desperate cash grab. Sigh. I guess I'll have to just put up with it until they decide to definitively answer the question by showing Glenn's reanimated corpse. However, if AMC holds true to form (like they did with Beth), it will be half a season before we get any more clarity on what happened to Glenn.

What do you Walking Dead fans think? Is Glenn dead? Is it possible for him to somehow survive? Is AMC trolling all of us and laughing its ass off?

I just don't want to admit that this is how it ends. Not for Glenn. He deserved better. 

Fear the Walking Dead actually looks better than The Walking Dead. How is that even possible?

You all know how much of a HUGE fan I am of The Walking Dead. I like the characters, the setting, zombies...what more could you ask for from an ongoing series? Everybody else seems to agree with me because The Walking Dead is a monster hit. In the world of cable shows, it's basically what Harry Potter was to young adult fiction. With only a couple weeks and counting from the premiere, AMC released another trailer with some "behind the scenes" peeks at the series from showrunner Dave Erickson and many of the cast members.

What can you expect from season 1? Well it's going to take place in the time that Rick was in a coma (a period of about five weeks). But what I get from the sneak peek embedded below is a tremendous sense of dread, fear, and full on horror. It also promises to be action-packed because we all know how the world basically ends. That it ends in a mere five weeks is incredible. Imagine going from everything that we take for granted right now to five weeks later where we see the total and complete collapse of civilization as we know it. 

On Forget does the Walking Dead ask is it human nature to be mad at those who haven't had to suffer?

The Walking Dead is masterful at the art of reinvention. This week's episode called Forget basically asks the question: is it human nature to be mad at those who haven't had to suffer? When Rick's group first went through the gates of Alexandria last week, they looked like feral animals. Every single one of them had been pushed to the point of exhaustion, and Glen even said, "I think we were almost out there too long."

Now this week the people in charge of Alexandria threw a party at their house, Carol made cookies, Michonne put on a dress, and Sasha completely lost it when a friendly neighbor asked her what her favorite dish was so that she could make it. "I'm worried that I'd get it wrong," she says to Sasha which causes the meltdown with her yelling, "THIS IS WHAT YOU WORRY ABOUT?!"

Then there's Carol breaking into the gun storage. Sure, the first thing she steals is more chocolate from the freezer, but then she gets down to business stealing guns for them to carry (because they don't have the ability to trust anymore). A small boy follows her through the window to the gun storage and surprises her. His motivation? He was hoping she'd bake him more cookies. Carol responds by threatening to remove him from the safety of his bed and leave him outside the wall, tied to a tree, and screaming while the dead come for him to eat him alive if he tells anyone. It was truly frightening and really shows how the zombie apocalypse has turned her in particular into a psychopath.

However, to get back to my original point (that being is it human nature to be mad at those who haven't had to suffer) I'd have to say yes. Who among us who has had a hard time at various stages of life doesn't experience some kind of jealousy or resentment for those who appear to have had it easy? How many times do you come across articles on Facebook where people disparage those coming from wealth or privilege? It's fascinating that five seasons into this show, we are now tackling this very modern question having to do with income inequality and society. To effect, it's incredibly creepy and awkward and contrasts so hard against the harshness of reality that even those in that world (a.k.a. Sasha) say, "This isn't real!" Why? Because life's too good, right? You're only alive if you're suffering...so, there has to be some catch to it. And this is after facing communities of cannibals and communities where rape is institutionalized and communities where the living are in denial of the dead and just think of them as being sick and end up getting eaten.

It makes me wonder, can we put up our own psychological barriers that keep us from enjoying life? Can a hard life make us feel undeserving of something good when it comes our way. It's frightening to think that can be true, but with the financial success I've been having lately, I found myself realizing that it took some time to get used to the fact that I've earned my success and deserve it, rather than looking at it as if it somehow could evaporate or that it wasn't "real." Maybe I've looked at things so pessimistically with a "this has to fail" attitude that I've closed myself off from real opportunities. And it's so strange that it took an episode of a tv show to realize that I may be the feral human that's been invited into an Alexandria (of sorts) and have been suspicious of it ever since I moved in. Maybe all of us could take a moment and ask ourselves the question: am I truly ready for success when it comes or will I be terrified of it because it means it will change my life?

What do you guys think?

The second half of season five on the Walking Dead may hold clues to the zombie spinoff planned for the fall

"The Walking Dead" by Ron Kurniawan, originally published in the December 23, 2013
issue of The New Yorker. You can read "Utter Rot" HERE.

It's that time of year again. No, I'm not talking about Valentine's Day, but about the spring sweeps that the Nielsen's perform to try and gauge what people are watching. I got my phone call yesterday, and I'm doing another Nielsen's diary. Yes, this technically does make me a professional couch potato, and I wear that badge with honor!

Honestly, they couldn't send it to a better household. I'm looking forward to making my choices known on all things nerdy and geeky. Like, for example, The Walking Dead. The penultimate zombie drama returns with its mid-season premiere this Sunday. Actually, it's a double header because AMC is also giving us Better Call Saul and from what I've read about it from those who've seen it, the spinoff to Breaking Bad is just as good. Let's hope I'm not disappointed. However, I gotta say that the hype on this thing is pretty high, and my friend Patrick warns that things rarely (if ever) live up to their hype.

The two minute opening scene for this week's Walking Dead premiere is online now. I watched it twice yesterday, and it picks up pretty much where I thought it would. In other words (spoiler alert) they are taking care of Beth's body and everyone is pretty much asking where they're gonna go from here. From the trailer, I think they'll go south and then meet a community that's been able to thrive in the apocalypse before the next major story arc starts up that leads to all out war with the leader of a huge gang of thugs (named Negan). I'm really excited for this story arc because we get to meet some awesome characters: Ezekiel who is ruler over a place called "The Kingdom" and who has a huge tiger as a pet, Jesus who is a charismatic and athletically gifted warrior from a friendly town of 200, and Aaron (the first really openly gay character who's also smart and not a psychopath). But before you get excited too, realize that the series is basically hovering around issue 67 and we don't get to Negan until about issue 100, so it could be as much as a year away before we meet the next big bad who's so awful, he makes the Governor look like a boy scout.

The second half of season five on The Walking Dead may also hold clues to the zombie spinoff planned for the fall.

So hear me out. One of the rumors I heard on this as yet unnamed show (The Rising Dead sounds nice!) was that there might be one or two characters that move between the original series to this new one. So what two characters do we know that are already in the cast who have no reason to really stick with the group? Duh...Daryl and Carol. Both basically got nothin' holding them emotionally to the others. Everyone they loved is now dead and both are looking for some way to start over fresh and with a clean slate.

I think that this might be an opportunity for Daryl and Carol to go off and join one of the three communities that we are about to get introduced to. You see, in the comics there are towns that are about a day's journey apart from each other by car. Without a car, they're about a week apart. The comics always stay with Rick's group, but this doesn't mean that they couldn't jump to another group of survivors and tell the story from one of these other towns. That'd be perfect for the show because it would allow them to expand the story and spinoff characters that viewers love to "head" another community. Honestly, it seems like an easily mined pit of gold for AMC, and if I were an executive calling the shots, I'd greenlight this idea tomorrow.

Anyway, if you're a fan and haven't seen the trailer for the first two minutes of the mid-season premiere, then you should click play. It sucks you in the same way that Attack on Titan sucks you in. And you know another great thing about the return of The Walking Dead? When it ends, Game of Thrones starts up. Ah spring, how I love thee.

Of course shows made from comics comprised my four favorite among a huge lineup that aired in fall 2014

I figure that my post today will mostly be a reflection post (with spoilers) in regards to my four favorite selections from fall tv. Now, when it comes to entertaining television I watch a lot but rarely do I think "Wow this is so good that you must watch it!" In other words, I have high standards and try not to recommend crap to my friends because I know they probably value their time more than I value mine. So what follows in the next paragraph is a rundown of my disappointments.

The "I'm SO DISSAPOINTED!" Pile

"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." overall has been very meh, and I hope they pick up the pace and start providing answers or I may just tune out. It seems obvious to me that we're only going to get satisfaction from the Marvel movies, and I think that's just too bad. "Supernatural" should get canceled, because the only thing making it even remotely interesting anymore is Crowley. Big Bang Theory has stopped being funny for the most part, and the cast is way too big now for 20 minutes. Elementary just seems like another detective show. Gotham is starting to gel, but only when they start featuring more of the Bruce Wayne storyline. Fish Mooney is a way better villain than Penguin, and it's too bad they don't go in that direction more. And Constantine is absolutely terrible. I hate this show, find it boringly derivative of other shows like Grimm and Supernatural, and think that it should just get canceled. The best thing about American Horror Story: Freak Show has been the opening credits. The storyline on the other hand, is just not all that good and the characters are barely holding my interest this year. It's too bad that this is Jessica Lang's last season, but honestly, the cast is so huge now that they don't need her. The 100 fails to get me to care about any of the characters. I just don't think any of them are very well-developed. Dr. Who was remarkably terrible for the ENTIRE season. I've decided I don't like Peter Capaldi because he's a know-it-all jerkface that's all caught up in his own greatness, and then the show decided to be absolutely cruel to Clara and destroy any happy ending she could possibly have, which just sealed the deal for me on hating Peter Capaldi's doctor. Finally, The Newsroom had its last remaining episodes aired on HBO. I loved the majority of them and really fell in love with Olivia Munn's character Sloan Sabbith. It's too bad this show has been canceled and that's why I'm putting it in the "I'm so disappointed" pile.

But there were some bright spots in fall television, and here they are:

The Flash -- (spoiler warning) This did end up being my favorite new series as I had predicted somewhere around mid-summer. I think that the casting of Grant Gustin as Barry Allen was perfect. I love how the show is creating the Rogues gallery for Flash by putting together Captain Cold, Reverse Flash (part of the greater storyline), Heat Wave, and Gorilla Grodd (we haven't seen him yet, but he's coming). I also like the secondary characters: Cisco, Catelyn Snow, and Iris. But the show's greatest strength just might be the multiple crossovers with Arrow. These are like mining gold every single time, because they have a greater universe appeal kinda like a micro-sized Avengers custom-fit for your t.v.

Arrow -- (spoiler warning) I have to admit that when I first started watching this show three years ago, I had really low expectations. I thought it was going to travel down the same path that Smallville did, forever setting up love triangles and going "freak of the week" or something like that. Boy was I ever wrong. Instead we got introduced to a whole cast of characters and the CW proceeded to kill them off one by one. It's hard to have a love triangle when the points of the triangle perish horribly. 2014 marked the third season of Arrow and it started off with a bang by killing off Sara, one of my favorite characters from season two. I was like, "Are you f*cking serious?!" But yeah...Sara died (horribly) and the rest of the season pretty much went like a chess game played by Malcolm Merlyn who skillfully used Sara's death to checkmate Ollie into a battle to the death versus Ra's al Ghul, a fight Oliver couldn't win. So in the fall finale, the CW killed off Oliver Queen. What the hell?! I NEED ANSWERS CW!!! He can't be dead!!! *bawls loudly*

Negan talking to Rick and crew (who are on their knees).

The Walking Dead -- (spoiler warning for the comic books) With the Terminus storyline resolved and Beth dead, this show is heading toward the Negan storyline that literally had me up late many nights as I read comic after comic. Negan is perhaps the worst villain I have ever seen. This guy makes the Governor and the Terminus cannibals look like nothing. Things I am looking forward to from this show are the first gay couple (who are actually great guys with many redeeming qualities) that lead Rick and his rag-tag group of survivors to a town that has electricity, a big wall around it, and houses for people to live in. They even have kids that play in the streets. So for a while, things will be great, but The Walking Dead does not allow its characters to stay happy for very long. Negan's the storm on the horizon. He has an army see, that roams the countryside to find survivors of the apocalypse and force them to pay tribute (half of everything they possess). What they get in return (these "communes" of survivors) is half-assed protection from zombie hordes. But if they don't pay the tribute or haven't gathered enough to keep Negan happy, then Negan gets angry and people die. I am very curious how they will handle Negan, because his brutality in the comic books is such that I don't think they can show it on television. That, and he drops the "F-bomb" all the time.

Sleepy Hollow -- The fall finale ended with a conclusion to a major storyline involving the return of Moloch and an impending Armageddon straight out of the Book of Revelation. This series continuously surprises me with its ability to go to historical fact and spin the supernatural from American history. With its return this week, I got a few answers and the show appears to be heading in a fresh direction with a new villain and the possible redemption of an old one. If you aren't watching Sleepy Hollow, I suggest you give it a try, because it's consistently one of the best on t.v. And you know what, the cinematography and cast are everything that Supernatural once was (thinking season five).

So that pretty much rounds out what I thought of fall television. With the new year, let's all hope that there's plenty of entertainment and fun things to watch on the horizon, because who doesn't love a good story?

If you had to choose which society to belong to in the Walking Dead in order to survive which one would you choose?

The Walking Dead is really about the survivors, and ultimately how they cope with the apocalypse. It makes me wonder which society you would choose from were you to find yourself suddenly in this world (no, you do not get to be part of Rick's group). At this point in season five, we've seen societies formed by survivors that have embraced principles of:

1) Delusional ignorance, a.k.a., Hershel's Farm. This group of survivors thought that the undead were just really sick people. So even though there were no "moral" boundaries broken with this group, if you ended up with them, your chances of survival were low because a herd of walkers was being kept secret in a barn. At any time, they could have gotten out and overran the farm and then you'd be dead because of someone else's stupidity.

2) Psychopathic leader, a.k.a., the Governor and "Woodbury." This group was led by a charismatic "Jim Jones" leader-type that willfully murdered outsiders for their weapons and resources and just lied about everything. He also tried to rape Maggie, but if you found yourself in Woodbury, and you "towed the line" there's a good chance you'd be better off at the end of the day. But keep in mind that the Governor is completely insane and can commit mass-murder at any sign of displeasure.

3) Institutionalized cannibalism, a.k.a. Terminus. The "Termites" were a functioning society that had only one small quirk: they slaughtered people like pigs so that they could feed themselves delicious BBQ. They had accepted their institutionalized evil to such an extent that it was just part of the day, like taking a bathroom break. If you landed here, you'd obviously have to be part of those that do the killing and eating, and not the ones that get slaughtered.

4) Institutionalized rape, a.k.a. the Hospital Crew. This is where Beth ended up. They have food, clean clothing, even electricity. They have safety, a doctor, and the ability to mend you when you get wounded or sick. But at the same time, they (much like Terminus) look the other way for the "rapes" designed to keep the men happy. I call it "institutionalized" because that's they way they viewed it, basically keeping a schedule kind of like breakfast, paperwork, lunch, a rape, checking in with the doctor, dinner, etc. So if you choose this particular society, I guess you'd have to be okay with the occasional rape. And you're also basically a slave. You work every day that you are able, and you can't just up and leave.

If you had to choose which one of these societies to land in, which one would you choose and why? I look forward to reading your comments. And again, you don't get to choose Rick's group because everyone would choose Rick's group.

Or would you try to go it alone? 

Common Sense is in short supply on the Walking Dead as Bob goes for a walk in the dark woods alone.

I kind of expected what happened to Bob in last night's episode of The Walking Dead, but I was hoping they wouldn't go there. In the comics, it's Dale that gets his legs amputated and eaten by the Hunters (in a world with no refrigeration a tourniquet is a handy cannibal item). However, Dale died in season two, so that wasn't a possibility. And then there's the whole fact that the guy that threatened baby Judith in the season premiere last week, remains alive. So yeah, Tyrese didn't kill him even though he was hitting him so hard I thought it plausible that the guy wouldn't survive. But did Tyrese know the guy wasn't dead? He stopped Carol from going into the cabin covered in zombie guts, reassuring her that he finished the job. Oy, I just don't know. Needless to say, it's disappointing. In Rick Grimes words to Carl, "You are not safe. You are never safe." And leaving loose ends of the "cannibal" kind will always come back and bite you in the ass.

But "Bob B Que" aside, the title of last night's episode, Strangers, is probably a nod to Father Gabriel, a preacher incapable of protecting himself who has been hiding out in a church, eating what remains of the food drive before the apocalypse started, and apparently the subject of something scrawled on the backside of the church that reads, "You will burn for what you did." Hmm. He did lead the group to the food bank, but the imagery of his arms against the wall in the pool of slime was too much like a guy just accepting his fate in a crucifixion to a walker that we later learned was probably his wife before the apocalypse. I'd be remiss to say that I don't trust Father Gabriel all that much at this point, and this leads me to my next subject: trust (or the lack thereof).

Trust is what makes societies work, and it's probably one of the single elements that has the most impact on a story being considered "dark." We've all seen or read stories where there's violence and death, and there are plenty of examples of such stories that I wouldn't brand as "dark" fiction. Rather, I'd consider them "action" stories or possibly in the "thriller" genre but not "dark." However, when you start to mess with trust, that turns a story away from the sunlight. American Horror Story: Murder House is a masterwork in this respect. The first season eroded all trust that Vivien had for Ben by exposing lie after lie after lie.

By contrast, the world of The Walking Dead is a place where trust is a scarce commodity. Rick and crew decided to trust that Terminus would be a sanctuary for them and instead, it became a slaughterhouse. They escaped, but only because Carol decided to morph into the most badass female heroine of all time, single-handedly assaulting the prison with a zombie army and facilitating the implosion of a place that was a hive of institutional evil. This is the push and pull of this world, and is its most hopeless aspect.

Sigh. Oh Bob, why oh why did you go for a stroll in the dark woods away from the church? The world may never know. It kinda sucks though that I was just starting to like his character. 

The body count in the Walking Dead and a Game of Thrones results in the ultimate question.

"Valar Morghulis" means "All men must die." But actors in need of a job
may be hoping that it is not their turn for the cutting room floor.

So now that HBO's Game of Thrones is back on television and dripping with the stench of those they carved up last season in the infamous "Red Wedding" episode...and given that "The Walking Dead" is on hiatus until fall but left Rick Grimes and crew basically locked up in the post-apocalyptic version of a larder for cannibals...there is a question that's been burning in the back of my mind. But before I get to that question for you (my readers) to decide, I want to present a thorough analysis beginning with George R.R. Martin's work. These are deaths of major and/or semi major characters in the story (they all appeared in more than one episode and had lines).

Eddard Stark was played by well-known fan favorite and actor Sean Bean. Many of us thought for sure that with this casting, he wouldn't get killed. But he got his head chopped off in season one.

What about Robb Stark, his son? Well Robb got murdered along with his mother Catelyn Stark at the Red Wedding. Weddings are supposed to be happy occasions. I guess Walder Fray never got the memo.

Renly Baratheon? Murdered by a demon sent by Melisandre the witch.

Kal Drogo? Poisoned by a soothsayer and witch. The best parts of him died when Daenerys refused to let him go and was rewarded with a body that lived but had no mind. Then she killed him.

Robert Baratheon? He was a king and I quite like the actor. But he got done in by conspirators and traitors and died too.

Talisa Stark (Robb's wife)? She got stabbed in the baby maker at the Red Wedding. That's like killing two wolves with one rock.

Viserys Targaryen? Kal Drogo crowned him with molten gold. That had to hurt.

Ros? Littlefinger found out she was spying on him for Varys so he gave her to King Joffrey who used her as a live target, brutally killing her by filling her with crossbow bolts.

Jeor Mormont, leader of the Crows, has his watch ended in Crastor's keep by Rast who betrays him.

Xaro Xhoan Daxos is killed when Dany seals him in his own vault from which there is no escape.

Pyat Pree the necromancer is set on fire by Daenerys' dragons.

Rakharo, one of Daenerys' blood riders, dies off screen when his horse returns bearing a severed head.

Body count for HBO's Game of Thrones is 13 (and this excludes probably a hundred minor characters). Okay, so now for The Walking Dead. Here's who we've lost thus far (by the end of season four):

These iconic characters didn't die yet. But do the actors have job security?
Decide by taking my poll!

Amy (Andrea's sister) got bitten in the neck and died of blood loss.

Jim got bit in the stomach, died of infection.

Dr. Edwin Jenner and Jacqui died in an explosion at the CDC via suicide.

Otis was hobbled by Shane and devoured by walkers.

Sophia (Carol's daughter) died of infection from a walker bite.

Dale got disemboweled by a walker. Rick Grimes put him out of his misery with the trusty colt python.

Randall got his neck broke by Shane.

Shane was stabbed in the heart by his best friend Rick.

Jimmy got devoured by walkers.

Big Tiny got his head bashed in repeatedly.

Tomas got his head split in half by Rick and a machete.

T-Dog got devoured by walkers.

Andrew was shot in the head.

Lori was dying from childbirth complications so her son, Carl, killed her out of mercy.

Merle was shot in the chest by the Governor.

Milton was stabbed repeatedly in the stomach by the Governor.

Andrea got bitten on the shoulder by Milton and then committed suicide.

Karen and David were killed by Carol and then set on fire.

Caleb (the doctor) died from an unknown flu.

Caesar Martinez got bashed over the head by the Governor who then fed him (while still alive) to walkers.

Hershel got decapitated by the Governor.

The Governor was stabbed in the chest by Michonne (and killed).

Lizzie got put down by Carol (in one of the most shocking episodes ever).

Joe (leader of the claim gang) got his throat ripped out by Rick Grimes (and he bled to death).

That's twenty-four deaths of characters that got varying degrees of screen time, but all of them had speaking parts on the show. Just from memory (and looking at these numbers) I'd have to say that the group of actors in HBO's Game of Thrones probably have better job security in their characters. The Walking Dead is just way more brutal.

Agree? Disagree? What say you? Please take my poll and have a good Wednesday.

Which group of actors have better job security?
	Those starring in the AMC horror drama "The Walking Dead."
	Those starring in the HBO epic fantasy drama "Game of Thrones."
pollcode.com free polls

The Walking Dead explores the last taboo by hinting at cannibalism in season five

Sunday's "A" episode of The Walking Dead had what looked like a
slaughtering pit filled with human skeletons. I could be wrong though.

If there is insecurity in my writing, it's that the things that I like to read or watch broach subjects so hard-hitting and in ways that are so real, that I doubt my own abilities to recreate the same. I think I'll never be able to evoke this kind of emotion. Take dark fiction as an example. Everyone knows that I'm a fan, especially when it comes to science fiction that takes on a horror twist. When I'm engrossed in these kinds of stories, inevitably I compare them to my own works. The little voice inside pipes up and says, "Your stuff is boring compared to this." Maybe it's just an uncomfortable truth; I guess only a lifetime of writing will give me the perspective to answer this to my liking.

Cormac McCarthy published The Road in 2006. It's a post-apocalyptic story where a father and his young son (over a period of several months) cross a landscape languishing in the fall of civilization. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. In thinking of the blasted environs of The Road I am reminded of the sardonic voice of Tyrion Lannister in George R.R. Martin's magnum opus, A Clash of Kings. Tyrion at one point turns to his "beloved" sister Cersei and says, “A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

In The Road, there is no debt to pay unless it is to the unnamed sins of the survivors who are ambiguous in the insistence that they are the good guys. The land is ashes, it is devoid of living animals and vegetation, and many of the remaining human survivors are cannibals, scavenging the detritus of city and country for flesh to eat. The horrors they face include seeing a newborn infant roasted on a spit and captives being gradually harvested for food.

This is the kind of darkness that has come to The Walking Dead whether by caveat that it was always this way and we were in denial, or whether it was driven in this direction because it is exhausting its ability to continually shock the audience. In either case by the close of season four Rick, Michonne, his young son Carl, and the other survivors reached "the end of the line" at Terminus, are now imprisoned in a rail car painted with an "A" (by what we can presume are cannibals), and are in a heap of trouble.

Is it disturbing how effectively Scott Gimple has been able to build attachment in these characters? Disturbing, yes but also brilliant. It's hard for me to not squirm in my seat. The creepiness of Terminus makes the Governor look tame. I can only imagine that next season will probably be a grotesque blood bath, with amputations being done via tourniquet because the world has no refrigeration. In other words, the living monsters are alive while they eat you (and probably discussing the day's business and how much they miss Facebook). The hints have been strong, from the constant barbecuing of meat when there are no animals around, to what looks like a slaughter pit filled with the bloody skeletal remains of butchered humans (shown only briefly on screen), and the strange foreshadowing of the rabbit trap.

And what about previous episodes? Remember this painting? Contrast it with the appearance of Mary, the woman we met at Terminus played by Denise Crosby, a.k.a. Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The image (posted on Reddit) suggests that Michonne and Carl were in this lady's house. Take a look at the hair, the layers of clothing, and remember the bloodbath in the nursery. There was also a picture of a dog on the wall that looks eerily similar to the dog that distracted Daryl and led to Beth's kidnapping. 

The dog on the wall behind Carl looks a lot like the one-eyed dog in
the episode that resulted in Beth's kidnapping.

The theme for this season's The Walking Dead has pretty much been "internal monsters." It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine that the food on Mary's barbecue is human (probably Beth's and that makes me sad). Unfortunately, these events also parallel those that occur in The Walking Dead comic book, a.k.a. the appearance of "The Hunters" that I mentioned in a post last week. This leads me to the next question: what is it about cannibalism that we find so terrifying? Perhaps it's the idea of being someone else's food, and that we can imagine those around us adopting this lifestyle were times to get tough. Yes, you read that last line right. Your neighbors are perfectly capable of eating you if they were starving.

According to a new poll from the Society for Progressive Meat, I learned that 10% of Americans would consider eating humans while a measly 3% would consider going all vegan. 2,500 respondents were polled over a two-week period. Interesting eh? Admittedly, this poll was commissioned by an organization associated with efforts to introduce human meat to the mainstream. So there's no doubt that the members of this society get their buddies to drive up the numbers similar to how bloggers get their followers to do the same on goodreads (should I be disturbed that there's a society devoted to cannibalism?) But the study does seem to point to an unsettling fact: many of us could become monsters if the situation warranted it.

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that The Walking Dead is exploring this last human taboo. It's arguably one of the components that led Forbes to declare the season finale "the most watched hour ever." Zombies have been chomping down on humans through four seasons now, so why should it be any different when those humans are actually alive? For me it has to do with the horror of a reality check in which there is no sanctuary at all in a society that utterly collapses. Without some measure of trust, society is impossible. After all, how can you trust anyone who could possibly view you as dinner?

I've got to hand it to the likes of The Walking Dead. The story (in my opinion) is part of a select group of fiction I label "the best in the business." Can something be so good that it actually discourages you in your own ambitions? I think so.

This post is part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group collective. Go HERE to find out more.