The Walking Dumb

I got together with a group of friends on Wednesday night, and as usual, conversation turned to zombies.

(We’re an easy group to please.)

We ended up discussing the opener of The Walking Dead and how it compared to last season. This was a nice change from the WDS (Walking Dead Shindig) crowd; that group watches the show because it’s fun and enjoyable and hey, zombies.

This crowd is a little more discerning.

For starters, a lot of their frustration with last season is geared toward the characters doing stupid things. Not because the storyline seemingly stalled out at the farm (that was my main complaint), but because they “were not handling the zombies appropriately.”

I love that I live in a world where we can say things like appropriate zombie handling.

I admit to feeling a slight twinge of annoyance with the characters during the second season. They did okay in the first season, survival-wise (the whole zombie attack on their camp aside), but during season two the whole bunch of them, Daryl aside, seemed to suffer from a collective case of The Stupid.

It did bug me, until I realized that this is a show that is praised for its realism, and frankly, when shit hits the fan…people do stupid things. Hell, people do stupid things when life is going swimmingly. Of course they’re going to do dumb shit when the living dead start wandering around.

Frankly, I like the action/horror movies where everyone is doing things the right way (Tallahassee in Zombieland won my heart immediately). I can’t speak for everyone else, but my reasoning is this: Real life is hard enough as it is. I make tons of mistakes, I stumble, I do stupid things. I don’t want to watch people doing the same thing in the face of crazy obstacles unless it’s for comedic value.

So yeah, I get what the guys were saying about Walking Dead. Some days I even agree with them. But that’s why I was so pleased with the time jump–it finally showed them acting as a team, doing what they should be doing after months of surviving. No more silly blunders like not checking the dead guy on the floor and then letting him bite you…

Oh, wait. Oops.

Better find that leg armor. Frankly, I’m worried about Maggie and her tank tops. Get some leather on those arms, girl. The dead love wings.

Addendum: One thing we all agreed on is that the folks in the WD-verse have never seen a zombie movie. It’s easy for you and me to complain about them not knowing what to do; George Romero has been educating us for decades. These poor saps have nothing.

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