I just finished season four of The Walking Dead. I realize it might not be particularly relevant to be discussing my thoughts about a season that ended in March 2014, especially since an entirely new season has been released since, but I have been watching on Netflix and season five isn't slated to to be released online until the end of this month. Once that happens I figure I will have a couple weeks to binge watch season five before season six premieres on October 11. I also wanted to finish season four before I started watching the spin off series Fear the Walking Dead which premiered last month.
I seem to be a late bloomer in regards to most television shows. It was *seven years* after Buffy the Vampire Slayer *ended* before I discovered that show. It wasn't until a movie spin off was made (Serenity) that I discovered Firefly. Parks and Rec, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, and 30 Rock I started watching on Netflix when the shows were already seasons deep. I actually remember watching the first episode of Parks and Rec in 2009, thinking "eh", and not continuing. I did the same thing to Orange is the New Black, not even finishing episode one when it premiered on Netflix, and to this day I have still not looked back. I have not seen Breaking Bad or House of Cards or Community or Girls. If I'm not looking like your best and most knowledgeable cultural guide right now, at least take comfort in the fact that in the past I have always eventually caught up. I promise I will try to stay on top of the trends so that this blog doesn't just become a summary of what everyone was taking about *yesterday*.
Cultural analysts have all sorts of things to say about why zombie movies, television shows, graphic novels, and video games are so popular right now. Human beings seem to cycle through a variety of classic antagonists, themes, and character archetypes depending on the mood of the time. There is a reason I, as a Californian watching every plant in my garden keel over and die in the current drought, found Mad Max: Fury Road so appealing. This is a version of my future life that frightens me, and that which frightens us in reality excites us in fiction. Zombies, depending on the medium, represent all sorts of human fears and flaws. Whether it is a representation of the fear of world wide pandemics, a commentary on modern day consumerism, or a imagination of a post-nuclear world, zombies are general enough to tackle all of these issues.
Unlike vampires, werewolves, and other fantasy creatures, two things about zombies make them eternally fascinating. The first is simply that they are so broad. There are no rules in zombie world building. Writers are not restricted by night time, or fang bites, or full moons, or false identities. They are not restricted by the ways in which the outbreak begins or how it spreads or even how to deal with it. Zombies can be fast or they can be slow, they can be interested in brains or they can be interested in more generalized mayhem. No one has ever left a movie theater or turned off the television after watching something with zombies in it and said, "That's not how zombies work!" Because they are so broad and can represent so many different things, they are flexible to the culture that is consuming their story lines. As the culture changes, the zombies change with it, and they remain universally relevant and universally terrifying.
The other thing that makes them unique from other popular supernatural creatures is that you cannot sexualize a zombie. You cannot. I think they might have tried in Warm Bodies (2013), but the whole point of that movie was that he got cuter the less zombie-fied he became. Just to be sure, I did a quick Google search of "sexy zombies". That did not reveal a part of human sexuality I care to discuss further. "Sexy zombie movies" did not uncover any more pleasant results. You've been warned. Zombies are always gross and they are always terrifying. This is not the case for vampires who *from their inception* have been sensual creatures, and have continued to be represented as mysterious and sexy (True Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Twilight series). The same goes for werewolves (True Blood, Teen Wolf, Harry Potter-- or was I the only one who found Lupin just a little bit sexy?). Even Ghosts have sexy counterparts thanks to Patrick Swayze in Ghost. But please, if you know of a movie or television show wherein a sexy zombie is present, let me know. I'd love to see an example of it.
The Walking Dead is near perfect zombie world building, thanks to a great foundation from the Robert Kirkman's comic books. The comic books and show have been, from the very start, obtuse about the origins of this zombie apocalypse. At this point we know that everyone is infected and that as long as your brain is in tact, as soon as you die, you can become a zombie--excuse me, a walker. Other than that, we don't have much to go on besides the introduction of a Texan with a mullet in season four who may or may not have the cure. At first the fact that I didn't know more frustrated me to no end, but while sneaking around the internet for spoilers a few months ago (I know, I am a very bad person), I found out some of the reasons why there are no outright explanations, and now that I know them I feel better about being kept in the dark.
Glen Mazzara, an executive producer of the show for a period of time said in an interview that he had no interest in revealing the cause of the outbreak. In his mind horror relies on a certain amount of ignorance; people fear the unknown. As long as the details of the outbreak are not understood, either by the characters or by the audience, there will continue to be intrigue. This may be disappointing to hear as an audience member, but it also true. If I knew the science side of things, I would not be as fascinated or horrified.
The other explanation about why we still know so little is that that information is irrelevant to the characters we are dealing with. These people are survivors, more concerned with fending off zombies, avoiding other potentially dangerous human beings, and finding food and shelter than with why this is happening. After the CDC incident you get the feeling Rick and friends are about as interested in solving the mystery of the outbreak as they are about curing cancer. They just want to get through the day, maybe even the week, without getting mauled by the undead.
Season four was stunning. After running through season one and two as fast as I could, I stalled in season three. The Governor (David Morrissey) was a two dimensional baddie, the prison made Rick and the rest complacent, and the writing was boring. Season four brought a jolt of electricity back into the show and it was alive once again. Even The Governor held more interest for me. The relationships between unlikely characters began to bloom, small obstacles drove the characters forward, and new faces shook up the dynamics of the core group in refreshing ways. It took a notable amount of will power to log off Netflix and go to bed each night and I continually found that I was negotiating with myself about how many more episodes I could watch in one day. Now that I'm done I can't help but be relieved that I only have to wait a couple of weeks for season five to be on Netflix, and until then I will have to be satisfied with Fear the Walking Dead.
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