The Walking Dead and the Cycle of Death

(This post will contain spoilers from the most recent season of The Walking Dead. It is written under the assumption that the reader has some level of familiarity with the series)

The Walking Dead wrapped up its most recent season on March 29th, and it was…decent. Not the best they’ve done, but far from the worst. The issue at the center of the season’s second half, whether or not Rick could acclimate to Alexandria and be trusted, was resolved. All of Rick’s “family” stood up for him, and Deanna gave Rick the order to kill Pete (the wife-beater). It was all in service of getting Rick into a leadership role at Alexandria, which should help them fight off their next threat (presumably the “wolves”) when the show returns.

You wouldn’t hear that from the fan reaction online, though. The most common complaint seems to be that the finale was “boring,” or that “nothing happened.” Others are pointing out something Norman Reedus said prior to the episode airing, telling fans to “bring a tissue.” In retrospect, this was probably an intentional misdirect to make a particular scene (with Daryl and Aaron trapped in a car surrounded by walkers) more dramatic, but fans did not appreciate the added stakes.

In truth, the reason why fans found the finale “boring” was because nobody died, and The Walking Dead is essentially “that show that always kills people” now. It’s not that this season hasn’t had its fair share of character deaths: Bob died halfway through the first set of episode, Beth in the mid-season finale, Tyreese in the mid-season premiere, and Noah about halfway through the second set. However, fans simply have expectations that premieres and finales mean death, and Rick killing the wife-beater just didn’t cut it.

This demand could be a bit of a problem from a narrative perspective. On the one hand, The Walking Dead has done a great job of regularly introducing new faces without it feeling forced. It seems that every major plot point brings with it a few new characters who, after being developed for a few episodes, are entered into the potential “death pool.”

However, because the only consistent narrative element in The Walking Dead (aside from, you know, the walking dead) is the characters, it creates something of a schism between the “death pool” and the characters who serve as the show’s “rock.” Simply put: the show is absolutely not going to kill Rick, Carl, Daryl, Carol, or Michonne in the near future. Not only are most of them “fan favorites,” but they function as the driving force of the narrative. Other “second-tier” characters, such as Glenn and Maggie (or Tyreese, Dale, Beth, and others from the show’s past), have been around for a long time and  serve as major potential shocks, only to bust out if the audience really needs to be surprised. Other characters, like Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita, eventually end up in this second-tier if they survive long enough.

In and of itself, this isn’t a bad device. Even when The Walking Dead is simply killing off characters in the “death pool,” there is enough interest around those losses to keep the show in the public consciousness. It’s clearly working, given the gangbusters ratings. But it is a bit of a shame that the conversation around the show is so focused around death that there is less concern about the quality of the actual narrative.

The Walking Dead has improved significantly since Scott Gimple took over as showrunner. There is a renewed interest in character development that has taken one-note caricatures like Michonne and fleshed them out into interesting, nuanced people. In addition to character work, lots of care has been put into pacing out the various locations and “events” so that the show is not as repetitive as before. It’s all still made up of the same general narrative components as before (safeholds, crazy bad guys, walker hordes) but it has become harder to predict exactly how long any given “stage” will last, or the order in which events will occur. This is as sustainable as the show has ever been.

As I come to the end of this piece, I have to ask myself: is the “cycle of death” and the bloodlust of the fanbase a real problem for the show? And to be totally honest, no, it probably isn’t. It’s a shame that The Walking Dead has to resort to frequent deaths to avoid being considered “boring,” but the system they have in place does allow for character development while feeding the more bloodthirsty viewers. If that is what’s necessary to keep the show growing and improving, then perhaps it’s a small price to pay.