Why I Love The Walking Dead
If you’d told me even four months ago if I would be really looking forward to the return of AMC’s The Walking Dead for the second half of its fifth season, I would have thought you were crazy. I couldn’t, quite frankly, figure out the growing cultural fascination with zombies. Really? Slow moving, mindless creatures that eat whatever living thing they can find and can only be killed with a terminal shot to the brain? I just didn’t get it.
But then one friend kept mentioning what a great show it was, and another told me that if I could get through the first episode with lots of shooting zombies in the head, I’d be hooked. And, well, I was…and so I watched the first four seasons on Netflix and the first half of season five on demand over the last three months.
Because here’s the thing: The Walking Dead isn’t really about the zombies. Interestingly, you get quite used to zombies – and more to the point, killing zombies – pretty quickly. Yes, the occasional scene where one comes out of nowhere to terrorize a character can make you jump out of your seat, and watching a zombie tear the flesh of a character – at least a favorite character – can still both gross and bum you out. But otherwise the whole zombie-thing isn’t what the show it about.
Rather, the show is about us. Humans. And, more to the point, human nature. At the heart of The Walking Dead are a series of questions: How do we react in extreme situations? What makes some of us develop into better persons when faced with adversity while it seems to undo others? How do we know when to trust others and when to fear them? How do we cope with loss? Where do you find the hope to go on when it feels like there is no hope? When we’ve made mistakes – even huge moral mistakes – can we find forgiveness, from others and from ourselves? Will we let circumstances dominate us and determine who we are, or will our character allow us to rise above our challenges to imprint and affirm our values in the most difficult of circumstances? And when circumstances do the get the best of us, and we’ve gone pretty far down a path we regret, how do we find a way back to ourselves.
And all of this points to the show’s central question: what does it really mean to be human? It’s a question that is amplified by the omnipresent threat of the non-human (and inhuman) zombies.
Very quickly, actually, you the viewer realize the scariest thing in the show isn’t the zombies, but the people. And as you get invested in the characters and plot twists you can’t help but wonder how you’d do in similar circumstances. Or even in circumstances that aren’t nearly as apocalyptic but still seriously threatening to your sense of self.
The kinds of questions I find myself thinking about after watching The Walking Dead, in short, are the kinds of questions good art always raises, and the kind I wish I heard raised a little more often at church, as I think the Gospel has some responses to these questions, or at least can provide us with tools to answering them. And they are asked there, I know, once in a while. Until they come up more frequently, at least I’ve got the second half of the season to look forward to.
I’ve never seen The Walking Dead, but it sounds like it might be a good show! Your description brought some thoughts to mind…
How do we know when we, ourselves, have become a zombie? When does it dawn on a person that they’re just going through the motions and have become a caricature, a product of the cultural norm, someone who’s given over their soul to be acceptable to society, religion, other people, etc. Zombies all look alike, act alike. They have their own zombie club of conformity.
Can such numbed creatures be raised from the dead? Is there a question or statement that will make them shake off the grave clothes and come forth? That would be an interesting program…seeing a zombie brought back to life! Lazarus reanimated from a zombie to a living being.
Zombie back to life: check out the movie “Warm Bodies.” It lured me into pop-culture’s fascination with zombies. World War Z, I Am Legend, and the like followed – all the way to The Walking Dead. All give rise to some interesting questions.
just like one of Jesus’s best zingers: “let the dead bury their own dead.” It always left me with the idea that Jesus had a different definition of living than the rest of us.
Right on Dr. Lose! Thank you for putting more eloquently than I could why (after much nagging from my brother) I, too, became a huge fan of the series. The questions shows such as Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and so many others raise are the same questions we wrestle with each and every Sunday. Perhaps we as the church can imagine ways not only to wrestle with these questions, but to hear what God has to say to them that are just as appealing.
By the way, in season 5 episode 2 when they enter the church the lesson for the day is Romans 6:4
4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Well done writers! Maybe they are Lutheran as T-Dog’s van is from Holy Coss Lutheran Church!
Did you notice the verse that decorates the arch in the same church (later episode, I believe)? Marvelous tongue-in-cheek/black humor! Another “thumbs up” to the show’s production/writing team.
My husband is doing a dance right now because he loves this show and after he read this he is shouting, “I told you so!” Everyone I know loves this show but I cannot get over the zombies! As always, great blog and great insight!
Just had a near identical discussion with our office assistant the other day! She’d confessed her addiction to the show ages ago but I turned my nose up to the prevailing fascination with zombies. Over the last few months, after watching “Warm Bodies” as noted above, I gave “The Walking Dead” a shot. Got hooked and proceeded to go through the seasons. You’re spot on, David, the show is wrestling with issues of identity, of what is “human,” and so on. All interesting. Looking forward to tonight.
And keep up the good work that you do! Not sure how you manage to do all that you do but remain ever grateful for it, fellow working preacher 😉
Thanks for posting this. I, too, reluctantly became a fan of the show. I have been wrestling with the undertones since Rick spoke the line, “we’re all infected…” The first half of season 5 had been so much about forgiveness. And the scriptural imagery—tongue in cheek or not—in the church was incredibly well done. Not to mention Gabriel’s story of the pastor who locked himself up, shutting the doors of the church, to leave his flock to suffer. Man!
We haven’t seen too much of Gabriel – HOPE they don’t ‘take him out’…would love to see a ‘well done, faithful servant’ moment…ah, Redemption…