How an okay show about zombies became my #1 coping mechanism
A personal reflection on survival, chronic illness, and why the media we cling to matters more than we’re supposed to admit.
Gene Page/AMC
Content warning: Swearing, rage, mullets.
I’m a die-hard fan of British television, so The Walking Dead was always a bit of an anomaly for me. I fell in love with it when it appeared back in 2010 because I’ve always been a sucker for post apocalyptic fiction; there’s something about abandoned buildings and empty, overgrown streets that just does it for me. I like imagining what the world would look like without people. Nature claiming it back, all the manmade structures and systems we think are important crumbling and losing all of the meaning we attach to them.
And… I mean…
Despite how much I loved it, I checked out after a few too many long episodes of the group wandering through the woods (I think I stopped watching shortly after Hershel V The Governor, which still hurts). Then, in typical ADHD fashion, I forgot it existed entirely. Chucked all my merch on Facebook Marketplace and moved onto something else.
Flash forward 10-15 years, and with an onslaught of multiple chronic illnesses came a lot of spare time.
I’ve never had such an appreciation for what television can do.
It always bugged me that I didn’t know how The Walking Dead ended, and so, running out of things to watch, I started it from episode one and got through all 11 seasons, then the spin-offs. I had to push through some questionable plot lines and very annoying characters (Alpha, Jadis, ugh) but everything felt forgivable — I fell in love with it all over again, and ugly-cried into my pillow after watching the final episode.
I half-jokingly asked my therapist what it said about me that my comfort show is something so dark and violent, and why I love something so much when intellectually I know it’s not exactly the best show ever written (at times it is downright silly 🐯).
When she gently pointed out what the common themes of the show are, I realised my reason for grabbing onto this show with both hands while coming to terms with my health conditions couldn’t have been more obvious.
1. Anger
The group are constantly fighting off walkers who want to eat them, and protecting themselves from other survivors who want to steal their supplies or worse.
Day in and day out they’re face-to-face with another reminder that the thing that robbed them of the lives they once lived still exists. Is still a threat.
It satisfies something deep down in my gut when they get all fired up and fight, wild-eyed and fuelled by the animalistic need to protect themselves and what they have left. And they usually win — in very dramatic, far fetched and glorious ways (that are sometimes just really fun to watch).
Sometimes they fail. Sometimes they lose someone, lose supplies, or lose their lives. But that just adds to it for me.
And there’s no cure, no end in sight — people will keep dying, turning into walkers, and repeat. And they push on, for the sake of the people they love. Even in the quiet moments when they’d rather not.
2. Chosen family
Eugene is the most underrated character in the entire franchise and that is a hill I will die on ❤︎
The group — made up of strangers who have been brought together with nothing in common except survival — risk it all for each other. Choose each other, over and over again. Never leaving anyone behind, even when they lie about having the secret antidote so that a buff redhead with a handlebar moustache will protect them, or if they mess up and get someone killed by acting recklessly. It’s pretty much unconditional when you’re the last people on earth.
Sometimes it’s purely about survival and safety in numbers, but often it’s about something deeper, more pure, and harder to explain.
3. Trauma
There isn’t a single character who isn’t traumatised but to me this theme is all summed up in one character: Daryl Dixon. The fact that he’s not an original character from the comic books and therefore almost didn’t exist is wild to me.
Dark, quiet, observant, guarded, and traumatised before the apocalypse even started, Daryl finds himself alone in a group of strangers who slowly and quietly crack him open.
They see him.
They value him and love him, despite his shady reasons for finding the group in the first place, and despite Merle. They see his heart, his pain, and his seemingly tiny acts of kindness for how meaningful they actually are. They hold up a mirror to him, and slowly, he starts to see his worth. He gets even stronger. And in them, he finds something to protect. He ends up being the fucking hero.
4. The little things
Considering the subject matter, The Walking Dead is full of unexpected tender moments. From Daryl, Carol and the Cherokee rose, to Carl eating pudding on a roof and giving no fucks while a walker tries desperately to have him as a snack. All the way through to the blink-and-you-miss-it “You are so loved” moment that Aaron devastated me with when Lydia is about to have her arm lopped off in a train carriage.
There are so many of these peppered throughout the show; not enough to break up the horror completely, but enough to make me pause (and sometimes cry). Because of course, it’s the small stuff that makes the hard stuff worth it.
Even with the spin-offs, the story never really ends. As far as we know, what’s left of the group is still making the best of things at The Commonwealth, up against a world that is still unpredictable and scary.
It doesn’t promise a happy ending, but I like that. Because what it promises is love and loyalty, despite flaws and differences and mistakes. It promises connection against all odds. And right now, even with the dips and gaps in the plot, the CGI tiger, the garbage people who for some reason refuse to speak in full sentences, and the sometimes almost excessive gore… it makes me a feel a little bit better about things.
I guess sometimes watching other people fight to survive makes it a little easier to keep doing it yourself.
