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Posted on April 4, 2016

Stay Tuned: Serialized Storytelling and The Walking Dead

In 2013, George A. Romero famously told The Big Issue, “They asked me to do a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead but I didn’t want to be a part of it. Basically it’s just a soap opera with a zombie occasionally. I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and I find that missing in what’s happening now.” While I disagree with Romero’s assertion that The Walking Dead lacks social commentary, last night’s cliffhanger ending does raise some questions as to the show’s approach to serialized storytelling.

That the show utilizes established soap opera tropes is without question. From the Rick/Lori/Shane love triangle that results in a pregnancy of questionable parentage to an ample supply of teenage angst courtesy of Carl and Enid, the show has a consistent track record of employing storytelling devices first manifested in the soap opera format. Yet, unlike Romero, I believe that this approach to the narrative is ultimately beneficial because it creates an unusually high degree of audience involvement.

Posted on April 3, 2016

3 Clues about Glenn’s Fate Tonight on AMC’S The Walking Dead

Dawn Keetley

I want to say up front that I have not read any spoilers for the season six finale of The Walking Dead, which is due to air tonight. But I have read the comics, and I don’t think there’s anyone out there at this point who isn’t anticipating the appearance of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on tonight’s episode—along with his trusty bat Lucille. Not least, Negan and the bat have featured in the most recent trailer for the finale.

Speculation has been rife that a major character will die tonight at the hands of Negan—or, I should say, rumors are flying about which major character will die tonight.

Posted on March 28, 2016

The Birds and Night of the Living Dead

Dawn Keetley

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful film, The Birds, was released on March 28, 1963—fifty-three years ago today.

Among the many ways in which The Birds broke new ground, helping to shape the modern horror film, is in its profound influence on George A. Romero’s inaugural zombie film, Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Numerous critics have pointed out the similarities of the two films, and the ways in which The Birds created the narrative formula that would be emulated by so many zombie films. [i] The birds, like zombies, are dangerous en masse, as they flock and herd—and birds and zombies are also largely silent. Both The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, moreover, involve humans trying to board themselves up in structures that inevitably prove vulnerable: grasping dead hands and beaks always manage to penetrate their walls.

Both films also left in obscurity the origins of the mysterious attacks by the birds and the returned dead, each of which represented a grotesque overturning of natural law. As The Birds’ ornithologist, Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies) proclaims, birds are “peaceful” and different species of birds would “never” flock together. Her definitive pronouncements (like those that insist the dead are dead) prove, of course, spectacularly wrong.

Posted on March 27, 2016

Easter in the Land of The Walking Dead

Dawn Keetley

Season 5, episode 3, “Four Walls and a Roof”

The above screenshot is taken from a scene in Father Gabriel’s church in the season 5 episode, “Four Walls and a Roof.” Rick and his group have laid a trap for Gareth and the other cannibals, who have just ambushed Bob and eaten his leg. Two of the Cannibals stand on either side of the door, where they think the survivors are hiding, and they’re about to break in and kill them. Rick has other plans, though. He, Abraham, Sasha, and Michonne will soon slaughter the Cannibals in what a horrified Gabriel calls “the Lord’s House.”

A list of Bible verses hangs conspicuously on the wall, and is featured in countless shots during the course of this episode. The Bible verses are below (at the end of this post)—and, as you’ll see, they all feature the dead who do not stay dead—the resurrected dead.

Posted on March 16, 2016

“Raised up from the Dead”*: The Walking Dead and Religion

Dawn Keetley

There is much to say about the role of religion in AMC’s The Walking Dead, but here I want to focus on the three crucial church scenes that have punctuated the series so far.

1. In season two, episode one, “What Lies Beneath,” the group is searching for Carol’s (Melissa McBride) lost daughter. They hear church bells and are drawn to the Southern Baptist Church, where, after killing the three walkers sitting in its pews, Carol and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and even Daryl (Norman Reedus) ask God to help them.

Season 2, “What Lies Beneath”

2. In a much different scene in the season five episode, “Four Walls and a Roof,” the group lures those remaining survivors from Terminus who had captured Bob (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.) and eaten his leg into Father Gabriel’s (Seth Gilliam) church and brutally slaughters them.

3. And finally, in the season six episode, “Not Tomorrow Yet,” Rick stands at the front of Alexandria’s church and exhorts the survivors that their very lives depend on a preemptive attack on Negan’s Saviors—that they must find them and kill them.

The most obvious point to make about the trajectory of these scenes is the dramatic increase in brutality on the part of Rick and his group, which goes hand-in-hand with Rick’s movement from supplicating Christ to taking his place.