‘The Walking Dead’ movies force re-evaluation of tv series

“The Walking Dead” is one of my favorite TV series of all time. I started watching the series around 2015 when I was 12 years old. Pre-teen years are definitely very prominent years in shaping a human’s life, and I think this TV show changed me in ways I will never know. 

I’m almost positive the only reason I like it as much as I like it now is because I watched it at such a young age, and it has ultimately become a large factor of remembering my childhood. At random moments I can vividly picture myself watching the show on my tablet under the covers. Now with the current circumstances of school (AMI), I am able to rewatch through season nine, which is what is available on Netflix at the time of me writing this.

Season one is not my favorite season, but the pilot of a TV series is usually never the best season they have to offer. Their main goal is to grab an audience in the hopes that they will have more funding to produce more seasons. We are introduced to the main character of the series, Rick Grimes, and he is by far one of my favorite fictional characters. I believe Rick is supposed to exemplify the perfect person to have with you during the apocalypse. He is the character who does whatever it takes to make sure the ones who depend on him are safe. 

We are also introduced to a slew of other initial characters, but I will be pretty blunt with my opinions on them. The list of people who deserve the world: Glenn, Dale, T-Dog, Daryl and Carl. The list of people who are trash: Shane, Lori, Andrea, Morgan, Merle and Carol. For those of you who haven’t watched the series, some of these opinions might be pretty hot takes. I can only explain by the fact that if they are bad at any point in the series, I immediately dislike them.

My favorite season is by far season three. This is the season where the majority of Rick’s group remains in a prison that they cleared out by themselves. The main antagonist in this season is known as the Governor. The Governor’s goal is to take the prison away from Rick’s group because he doesn’t want anyone to be safer than his own group is. We are also introduced to Michonne in this season. Michonne is a queen, a goddess, a legend. She starts out as a cold and elusive loner, but then slowly warms up to Rick’s group and becomes an integral part of it. T

This is my favorite season because of the sheer focus on Rick’s group and the remaining initial characters. It’s also my favorite season because Lori and Andrea die; the two of my least favorite characters. I also very much enjoyed the build-up of Rick and the Governor meeting. They are two very similar men, yet they both have very different moral compasses. As much as I hate the Governor, they really are quite the power duo. This is one of the only seasons that actually ends on a high note which I also very much enjoy.

Now I do have to admit something quite shameful. I have not seen all 10 seasons of the show. The end of season six and the beginning of season seven absolutely destroyed me as a prepubescent tween. When Negan killed Glenn and Abraham and then took Daryl as a hostage, I became a broken person. I had the pleasure of watching this live on television on Oct. 23, 2016, and I remember feeling completely empty inside. I ran to my parents crying, and I felt dead at school the next day. I got through about six more episodes before I ultimately decided I no longer liked what the show had become. There would be times when there were episodes in a row where Rick didn’t even appear. There would be whole episodes dedicated to characters I had no interest in. *cough cough* Carol. 

In addition, there was a complete overload of new characters. More people I didn’t care about. I really only cared about Rick and Daryl, and it was like I never saw them anymore. These details ultimately made me stop watching the show.

However, some news about the show has recently piqued my interest. There is supposedly going to be a three-part movie series based around Rick following his absence from the series in season nine. This was quite some news to me considering I had no idea what had been going on for three seasons, so to hear that I would be able to get three whole movies about Rick made me quite excited and eventually forced me to start the show over again. I anticipate the movies to be very good, and I am really looking forward to catching up.