Why I'm Giving Up on The Walking Dead.

*SIGH*

I know what you're all thinking. "This is going to be one of those posts about the new big bad every week and how it's cyclical and Jimbo is giving us the same regurgitated line that we've heard everywhere else and I'm just tired of hearing it.."

Nope.

We here at Jimbo's are not all about the same old thing. We are not about agreeing with everyone else simply for the sake of doing so. Don't get me wrong. I'm not about DISagreeing simply for the sake of doing so either, but there are definitely times when I've gone against the grain. My Star Wars posts have occasionally received criticism on Facebook. I am apparently the only person on the planet who liked Another Life. I've also done some stuff that was seen in a positive light. My post about the Ghost Busters trailer is one of my most popular, and everyone else seems to agree with me that it looks awesome and I've been thanked over email for my Stan Lee tribute. I'[m not sure why I decided to make this point on this post, but my point is that I am who I am, I like what I like and I don't rely on others for my opinions.

So here's my opinion on The Walking Dead: It sucks now. It's not because of the new big bad every season. I like that aspect of it. I always have. Every story needs a problem and in a post-apocalyptic setting it makes sense that the problem is someone trying to carve out their own empire. Of course, this completely ignores the fact that The Group was always (well, after the first season anyway) looking to care out its own empire, with Rick Grimes in the lead. Speaking as the guy with the history degree there empire building always has its big bad, whether it's the Soviet Union (they want to take your rights away), the United States(those capitalist running pig-dogs have poor people in their country!), the Carthaginians (they're taking over our trade markets!) , the Romans (OMG they're taking over our trade markets!) or whatever. For the story to progress The Group needed to be up against something that was preventing them from doing their thing and succeeding. Those were usually dictators, because the show is written by Americans and has a huge American following and our history teaches us that Dictators are Bad.

No, my problem is not that The Group fought against others and there was always someone else to fight. That's how the real world works. It always has. It always will.

No, my problem is that there is no one left to root for. I am of the opinion that a story, regardless of setting, or even genre, has to be about people the audience cares about. If the audience loves the characters they will be interested in what happens to them. The story is about what happens to the characters. Ergo character we care about = interest in the story.

I'm not some multi-million selling author. I haven't even built a website to rival IO9. Maybe I'm full of crap, but it seems to me that I just discovered the secret to writing a good story.

My point as it relates to The Walking Dead is this:

They've killed off most of the characters I cared about and made the rest boring.

Seriously: Remember when Carol was a psychotic, gun wielding nutcase who murdered two people and burned their bodies just because they were sick? Remember when she killed that little girls whose name I cant remember because she was dangerous to everyone else? Remember how you felt about her? About how you wanted someone like her on your side... probably... as long as she didn't think you were a threat to her or hers?

And now she's been reduced to negotiating deals using a movie projector. She's not borderline crazy anymore. She has lost the edge that made Carol who she was and really just needs to shuffle off somewhere for a nap and not come back for a season or two.

Remember Herschel? Remember how he was a man who would do anything to protect his daughters? How he helped form the government of the first colony? How he was an advisor to Rick and kept him from going too far? Remember his severed head lying in a field with a bullet hole in it?

Remember Negan? Remember him dancing around in front of his followers? Remember how he used to draw others to him? Do you remember how much you hated him? Do you remember how badly you wanted to see Rick put a bullet in his brain? Now he's some schlub in a jail cell.

Remember Maggie? Remember how much she loved Glenn? How she carried a baby to term during the Zombie Apocalypse? How she was the only one who could lead once Rick was gone? Remember her always trying to do the right thing, but doing the necessary thing when she couldn't avoid it? And she's where again? Now, I heard that she'll be back for Season Eleven, but that means she's MIA for the bulk of this season at least.

Remember Glenn? Glenn was the guy I always wanted to be if the ZA broke out. I even loved the fact that he was always in a baseball cap.  He was the gamer. The smart one. The guy with the right moves and the irreverent attitude. Remember Glenn chewing Rick out when he was lost in Atlanta at the beginning of Season One? Remember Glenn escaping time and again using methods that only made sense in hindsight? Remember Glenn loving his woman and protecting her with everything he had? Remember Glenn kneeling in a puddle of headlights and having his skull caved in by Negan?

What about Carl? Remember him barely surviving because he was a kid? Remember him always being slightly off? Remember him delivering his baby sister via C-section knowing it was going to kill his mother but doing it anyway because it was either that or lose them both? Remember hoping that he would finally find his first girlfriend (ok, maybe that was just me.) Remember him dying stupidly in a situation he had faced millions of times before?



Remember Laurie and the mess she was part of that led to the death of Shane? Remember her doing her best to keep things together for The Group before they even started calling themselves that? Remember her carrying Judith knowing it was going to kill her? Remember Rick crying as Carl told him what had happened?

Remember Michonne as an enigmatic loner? Remember her leading two toothless, armless zombies around on chains? Remember her always being off by herself somewhere but somehow always doing something that no one else would think to do or finding something that would save The Group? Why in the blue hell is she a shy retiring type now? How does it make sense for her to be the negotiator? Ok, I'll admit that she isn't boring per se, but dammit she's not Michonne anymore, either.

Remember Daryll? Remember how he was Rick's right hand, the man who carried out the orders, the guy who had the guts to do anything? When is he going to come in out of the woods and matter again?

Remember the Governor? Remember the sick society he had built? The Zombie fights? Ah, nevermind. I was glad to see him get what he had coming. But he's still a missing character that added a lot to the show.

But most of all: Remember Rick? Remember him leading The Group? Remember him longing and struggling to build a place worth living in the ashes of society? Remember how hard he worked to be the man everyone needed to be? Remember him negotiating with Negan to buy enough time to figure out how to defeat him? Remember him flying away in a helicopter that an entire village of people couldn't hear? I get the fact that this one is not the writer's fault. I get that Andrew Lincoln decided to leave the show to be with his family. I respect him for that. I think he made the right decision. It still had a negative effect on the show.

I haven't watched the Game of Thrones TV show because I don't have HBO and I don't pirate but I have read the books. I remember the Death of Sturm and how it made the entire Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy work, even though I hated it at the time. I get that killing off major characters can work. I just question whether or not the show creators have made the right choices along the way.And that, my friends is why I just deleted the Season Ten preview and Season Ten Episode One from my DVR without watching them.

The Walking Dead
A&E, 2010-2019


Some The Walking Dead merchandise is available at the following link:

Best Villain Ev-ARRRRRR!!!!!

(There will be spoilers for The Walking Dead below.  I don't mean a couple and I don't mean minor. They're big time and there are oodles and bunches of them. They're unavoidable)

I am an aspiring writer. As of yet, I have not been published and seeing as I'm currently writing this while I should be working on a submission for an anthology, I guess I'm not getting a whole lot closer. That much being said, I do have several kind of goals. (I'm told it's not REALLY a goal unless it includes a date.) I want to be able to write a world spanning epic like Harry Turtledove. I want to write a space battle like David Weber. I want to write a character as complicated as Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Raistlin Majere (Dragonlance Chronicles, Dragonlance Legends, The Lost Chronicles, The Raistlin Chronicles and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. No, the Meetings Sextet doesn't count because it wasn't written by Weis and Hickman.) I want to be able to conceive a universe as optimistic as Star Trek and make it as believable. I want to write an epic as magnificent as the Lord of the Rings. I want to write a Hero's Journey as engaging as Luke Skywalker's. I've had most of these goals for years and I'm still progressing toward them. I may never make it, but there is honor in the pursuit. Today though, today I've adopted a new goal: I want to write a villain that is as entertainingly capricious and evil as Negan.

Negan is a slimy fuck but he's charismatic. He uses methods that can charitably be called questionable. I mean, he crushes skulls with a baseball bat as a method of teaching a lesson. He shows up and within a few minutes he's murdered both Abraham and Glenn. That was one of the most shocking moments I've ever seen on television. Seriously. I mean, I watched the series late (I just finished season seven about thirty minutes ago) and I knew Glenn was going to get it. I remember when the entire internet lost its shit over his death. But dude, I've never seen it done that way. The murder of Glenn and Abraham was as much about theater as it was about killing. Negan killed the two as an example to their friends and to excite his followers.

It's worth mention his other side though. Negan rewards those who support his rule. As big of an asshole as a guy like Eugene is, he's well taken care of. I mean, who else gets to have a video game system after the zombie apocalypse? Who else gets to hang out with the bosses wives? He provides his most important followers with anything they want that he can provide. All they have to do is ask for it.

Of course, his method of acquiring assets is not exactly polite. He forces others to work for him. They have to get what he wants somehow. Whether it's the Kingdom growing produce for him or Rick and the rest of the crew at Alexandria foraging for whatever they can find that he will like, they do it. I find this interesting because basically what Negan does is basically taxing a conquered population but the way it is presented is as the horrible thing that taxation really is. He seizes merely because his position as leader of a group of armed people allows him to do so. It makes us hate him more when he takes more than he should.

While his followers get anything they want, his enemies get hurt badly. He's so twisted that he doesn't even kill the person who wronged him. He kills someone else that the wrongdoer knows while they watch. He imprisons people. Negan tortures the families of those who won't follow orders. If you can think of something horrible Negan has probably done it. Well, except for one thing. Negan does not commit rape.

It's a weird thing. Negan won't hesitate to kill a woman if he feels it's necessary. He has a whole freaking harem of wives. Yet the women are all welcome to leave him if they wish to. He kills a man in cold blood once Negan realizes that said individual is about to rape a woman. Upon walking in on  Mr. Rapey McShitface, Negan pulls a knife and runs it directly through his neck. He does it quickly but with no hesitation and no remorse. Negan then apologizes to Sasha, the potential victim who was in prison for trying to kill him.

The weird thing is that it almost makes him feel more slimy. Negan is not insane, at least not by the legal definition. He knows right and wrong. He is an enforcer of rules and talks about how they're all that are keeping his people alive. He has a twisted sense about of constitutes right and wrong but he definitely has one. And if he sometimes gets a little weird and talks about Lucille, his baseball bat, as if she is a real person, well maybe it's just an eccentricity.

All of this adds up to a leader that people will follow. His methods are harsh toward his enemies but his followers love him. In the climactic battle of Season 7, he is nearly eaten by Sasha, newly turned to a zombie after committing suicide as part of a plan to save her friends. One of Negan's followers gives his life to save him from Sasha. Another follower, Dwight runs out into gunfire to pull Negan to safety. As evil as the man is, he inspires incredible amounts of loyalty in his followers.

Negan calls his faction The Saviors. He believes that he is going to save the entire human race. How he is going to do so given his methodology is something only he seems to make sense to him yet he believes that it will work. It almost seems like he believes in himself as the savior of humanity all on his own. I'm wondering if the writers of the series didn't speak to a trained psychologist or psychiatrist to get an idea of the symptoms of megalomania. Negan genuinely seems to be afflicted with it.

The Negan character is so well written it's disgusting. It should not be humanly possible to  write a villain this well. He's complicated. He's motivated. It makes sense that those who follow him do so. (If you disagree, think about it. Would you rather have a comfortable home and a good meal or a baseball bat upside the dome?) He has a semi-definable goal. He has a twisted code of honor. What a sick, twisted, disgust slimeball shit. Negan says things that should be shocking but coming from him it's just what's expected. He's freaking perfect.

Now listen, a WHOLE FREAKING LOT of the credit goes to actor Jeffery Dean Morgan. That guy can play a villain like a stinking champion. I don't watch awards shows. They're just not my thing. But seriously, if there is a single show that gives awards to American TV shows and hasn't at least nominated Morgan for an award they've lost all credibility. Tell them to shove their award up their ass and stop watching because they no longer matter. The fact remains that the character was conceived by the production team and without them, Morgan wouldn't even have a job.

So long live Negan! I mean, at least until Rick and Company finally hunt this POS down and take him out with extreme prejudice. On one hand, I can't wait to see it. On the other hand, I'll miss this guy when he's gone. He has added a lot to the show. A good hero gives us someone to root for. A good villain gives us someone to root against. Combine the two and you've got one hell of a story. Negan has made a terrific show even better. I can't think of a better compliment.

The Walking Dead
American Movie Classics
2012-2018

Some The Walking Dead merchandise is available at the links below