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In 2009, AMC debuted a brand new slogan: “Story issues right here.” Kicked off throughout the season 2 finale of Breaking Dangerous, simply one of many status TV exhibits that had just lately made a splash on the channel, it recalled the same tagline introduced by HBO in 1996: “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.” Each harkened a way of crucial self-importance, dictating that whereas the remainder of TV was a blended bag, these networks had narratives you may depend on. Inside a number of years of the creation of the landmark mantra, HBO can be the house of The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Wire. And some years after that, AMC would air Mad Males, Breaking Dangerous, and The Strolling Useless.
That final present is necessary as a result of zombie movies (and the horror style at giant) usually aren’t praised for his or her storytelling. In fact, this perspective is fairly inconsiderate — horror is simply as wealthy a vein for good tales and characters as every other style, and one want look no additional than George Romero’s Daybreak of the Useless or Yeon Sang-ho’s Practice to Busan for very efficient zombie movies. However this was a serialized zombie story on TV, a comparatively new idea. Though it was based mostly on Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s wildly standard comedian guide sequence, there was an opportunity The Strolling Useless might put AMC’s new slogan to the take a look at.
And it did… time and again. As a result of what began as an immediately acclaimed sequence that appeared to rewrite the foundations for what folks have been accustomed to on TV advanced right into a rote instance of a narrative overstaying its welcome. The finale of The Strolling Useless has been a very long time coming (even because it aired alongside three spinoff sequence, with three extra within the pipeline), and the truth that it’s continued its resurrected march lengthy after its contemporaries have wrapped up calls into query its complete thematic spine: How lengthy ought to a narrative about survival proceed to outlive?
From the outset, the hype round The Strolling Useless wasn’t simply restricted to its excessive manufacturing values and top-notch particular results make-up. Its showrunner was Frank Darabont, the director behind movies like The Shawshank Redemption, The Inexperienced Mile, and The Mist, lending his mastery of the difference to a zombie comedian guide. And by the tip of season 1, there have been even talks of Stephen King (to whom Darabont owed a significant chunk of his filmography) writing an episode within the second season. Kirkman was additionally closely concerned with the sequence, government producing and writing episodes within the first few seasons as an final show of his blessing (although he’d finally be concerned in a mega lawsuit in opposition to the community, one thing that at this level is type of a behavior).
As The Strolling Useless wraps up its eleventh season, it’s type of laborious to really seize what made the present so alluring at first. Clearly, it tapped into a component of wannabe survivalist want achievement. For a lot of, it’s their most well-liked type of apocalypse: A killer virus is just too uncontrollable. Atomic destruction makes one really feel too helpless. However zombies? You simply stab ’em within the mind. Anybody with the barest degree of intuition and a few bullets might do it, proper?
Nonetheless, no matter fist-pumping delight that may be taken when watching Rick Grimes remove a horde of zombies is countered by what would grow to be The Strolling Useless’s MO: Anybody can die at any time. At first, that is heart-wrenching: Andrea being compelled to stab her zombified sister, Morgan being unable to shoot his spouse as she shuffles towards the house they as soon as shared collectively, Rick stabbing his former finest pal Shane to dying as a result of the desperation of this new actuality has introduced his buddy previous the brink of sanity, and so forth. These have been all milked for optimum drama, with lengthy, lingering, tense standoffs and copious crying. At its finest, it makes for thrilling tv, particularly in the event you’re new to “status” TV, which, judging by The Strolling Useless’s skyrocketing scores, many have been.
When you’d seen The Sopranos or Deadwood or different exhibits of their ilk, you’d know that main supporting characters abruptly consuming it’s extra characteristic than bug. It makes for gripping stakes and subsequent watercooler dialog. Title within the opening credit be damned: One of many marks of “status TV” was its allowance for dangerous narrative selections that main networks would’ve shied away from. The Strolling Useless took this to its furthest potential restrict, usually being nudged alongside Sport of Thrones (which premiered a yr after) for his or her penchant for disposing of characters abruptly and shockingly.
Nonetheless, the disparate attitudes between these two exhibits would grow to be clear with time. Sport of Thrones would reveal itself to be working with somewhat extra thematic heft than The Strolling Useless, a present that stored coming again to the effectively of “Life is merciless and it’ll in all probability make you merciless.” It’s a nihilistic strategy, with any victories, ethical or bodily, usually marked by a swift pulling of the rug. The little lady, Sophia, who the solid spends a literal half season in search of, is found to simply be a zombie in a barn proper subsequent to the place they’ve been staying. Rick’s spouse provides delivery to his new daughter, however dies after a brutal C-section and is shot by her son to stop her from resurrecting. The listing goes on, however one factor is made clear: Any excessive factors within the present, regardless of how lengthy the buildup has been, are destined to be temporary. Dissatisfaction is the core.
On one hand, it’s fairly true to life. It doesn’t matter what visions one sees of their very own overcome the undead, essentially the most assured actuality is a depressing one. Nonetheless, from a story standpoint, it means enjoying tug of battle with the character of fiction itself. A typical story arc permits for development and for realization and for change. The world you’re in after it’s finished is totally different than the one you began in. However by focusing so closely on “Guess what? It nonetheless sucks!” moments of brutality in opposition to the one characters an viewers can discover any relatable kinship with, you enter a bizarre Pavlov’s canine experiment. The bell dings and also you anticipate to be disillusioned by what you’re left with. And in a number of seasons, it could come again to hurt the present in a giant means.
Crucial slaying, although, didn’t happen on digital camera. The second season would kick off with Darabont being fired from the sequence, annoyed with each the funds and the artistic path AMC desired. His plans clearly concerned one thing somewhat extra free vary (his concept for the primary episode of the brand new season concerned principally abandoning the principle solid for a bit, as a substitute specializing in a doomed group of troopers waging a futile battle in opposition to a zombie onslaught in Atlanta). What adopted can be a particularly expensive authorized battle between Darabont and AMC, resolved in 2021 to the tune of $200 million.
In a little bit of telling timing, the episode that noticed Darabont’s exit additionally noticed the arrival of Speaking Useless, an aftershow devoted to praising and discussing the evening’s episode with solid and crew members and step one of the TV present’s eventual empire.
Darabont’s departure didn’t appear to shake up any core ethos of The Strolling Useless, particularly because it adopted most of the main beats of the comics, which additionally had its toes firmly planted in “Oh, holy shit! Wait, what?” bloodlust. However because the sequence went on, these beats and the shocking deaths grew to become all of the present might really matter on. It adopted a components for the primary few years: The surviving solid finds a brand new location to bunker down in and some extra survivors to hang around with. Then, the situation turns into poisonous, a bunch of individuals die both by the zombie mouth or deranged human hand, and the solid (or no matter is left of them) is compelled to maneuver on. From the camp to the farm, from the farm to the jail, from the jail to Alexandria — within the fifth season, protagonist Rick tells others, “We’re the strolling useless,” and as foolish as that sounds for one particular person to say to a different, it rang true. They aren’t too dissimilar from the military of corpses they’re attempting to resist. All they’ll do is trudge from place to position and hope to not get unceremoniously murdered.
Within the grand scheme of issues, the primary half of the present appears simply as marked by the identical narrative exhaustion because the final half. However one factor was totally different: an increase in scores that performed out like an arms race for recognition in opposition to itself. The primary season finale grew to become essentially the most watched episode in fundamental cable historical past for the grownup 18-49 demographic. The season 2 finale gave AMC its highest scores ever, solely to be handily crushed by the third-season premiere. You get the thought — the primary episode of the seventh season noticed the second-highest scores within the present’s historical past, driving excessive off the final season’s cliffhanger ending.
By the tip of the seventh season, these can be practically lower in half.
The dying of Glenn, the fan-favorite character and by far essentially the most personable one amidst a sea of more and more grim macho poses, wasn’t essentially a shock when it happened within the season 7 premiere. It had already occurred within the comics in the very same vogue a number of years earlier, proper right down to Glenn pathetically calling out the identify of his spouse between baseball bat blows to the cranium. However what ought to’ve been the energized emergence of Negan, a beloved dangerous man that had been constructed up for a complete season and one performed by the effortlessly charismatic Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was met with huge distaste. The present that had declared open season by itself solid had lastly gone too far.
Had the wool lastly been pulled away from the viewers’s eyes? The distinction between Glenn’s dying and the deaths of Hickok and Bonpensiero is the latter two had meant one thing for the opposite characters, and one thing for the story at giant. It reverberated throughout the present in a means that was felt extra deeply than guts on the bottom. Apart from some offended characters, The Strolling Useless would discover no overhaul within the wake of its supreme second of barbarism. By killing off a mainstay because the finish of the primary episode, it had come full circle and wound up empty-handed.
The character of comedian guide storytelling, even one as finite as Kirkman’s (it ended on concern 193 in 2019), is cyclical. As components of longer story arcs or long-running sequence, returns to the established order are obligatory each every so often to permit for brand spanking new readers to leap in. However what in case your establishment, like The Strolling Useless’s, is constructed on the concept there actually isn’t one? That even a return to normalcy means layers of intense grief and drudgery and little hope that something will get higher?
Within the dying of Glenn, no matter magic trick the sequence had been pulling off was laid naked to the viewers. It had at all times been that means and would at all times be this fashion; there is no such thing as a actual shock or payoff. The characters you want are doomed by what looks as if a dice-roll strategy to their fates. The Strolling Useless season 8 poster promised “ALL OUT WAR” between Rick’s and Negan’s teams, a dramatic endgame to the climax of the sequence to this point. However viewers have been effectively accustomed to its endings. Even a titanic battle between the avenging stalwart protagonist and its most heinous villain held little promise that the story’s nature would change.
After Glenn’s dying, what ought to’ve been a story victory lap grew to become a time killer between bushwhacks. The largest distinction between these later parts and its earlier seasons is that extra human factions are launched. This builds the pretense the present has managed to evolve from small teams scrambling for a foothold in a “walker”-infested East Coast to one thing resembling the return of group in a chaotic world. It will be a succesful change if the present hadn’t beforehand relied a lot on sweeping the legs out from underneath itself.
In the meantime, a by-product sequence, Worry the Strolling Useless, chugged alongside. In a number of years, it could be joined by The Strolling Useless: World Past and Tales of the Strolling Useless, neither of which provided something all too totally different from the unique sequence. They’d even commerce off varied solid members in a Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque try to offer a watchable part for these hesitant to commit extra time to one more aimless zombie sequence. The tough elements that had made The Strolling Useless appear so gritty and nasty had devolved. In season 9, Rick was carried off in a mysterious helicopter to components unknown, a artistic alternative that mystified audiences till they learn that he was to star in one more spinoff.
It was the final word shortchange, stopping the ultimate few seasons from ever reaching a comeback. When you couldn’t have a correct send-off of Rick, the one character round because the first episode and the spine of the sequence, then what was the purpose? Why was it nonetheless going if solid members survived on the premise of who was getting a tie-in present developed? That’s not an exaggeration: Surviving into the ultimate episode are Daryl (getting a by-product,) Michonne (equally disappeared from the present and now becoming a member of Rick in his spinoff,) Negan (getting a by-product,) and Maggie (accompanying Negan, the person who violently clubbed her husband to dying, in his spinoff. What an odd couple!). If The Strolling Useless is doing nothing however priming its stars for expanded-universe hijinks, then why does its ending matter in any respect? Even when one might nonetheless discover solace in its shock deaths, characters being protected by sheer franchising is, at finest, a betrayal of what was as soon as its most potent approach.
Its existence now feels as archaic because the rotting undead that tempo round in it, a reminder of a sequence that in its nascent years, whereas removed from hopeful, remained vibrantly ugly. Ultimately, the one factor The Strolling Useless couldn’t survive was its personal success.
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