Daryl Dixon Needs to Die

That's right, I said it.

Alright, first off, if the above line truly upset you, then go ahead and just saunter on out of here now, because I'm pretty much going to spend the next few paragraphs explaining why America's newest darling needs to die. Preferably soon, if at all possible. I'm not really sure if anybody habitually reads this thing, honestly, beyond the random visit by someone who just so happens upon it, but if there is anybody out there who reads these little diatribes I like to put up, then I should probably tell you now that I do LIKE Daryl. In fact, one of my favorite things about him was the way he just about constantly felt the need to bum-rush anybody who mildly annoyed him with a gun or an axe, just for Rick or Shane to restrain him. Classic crazy redneck stuff, dude. Get 'er done!

Anyway, yeah, I like Daryl. I just think it's a bit of a problem when you have people threatening to stop watching a show wherein the central focus, even the very name itself is DEATH, should one specific character happen to be subjected to the same rules as all the others on it. God forbid, right? Except the whole "anybody can die" thing becomes a little cheap when it's more like, "Anybody but Daryl can die. Mostly Lori can die. Also every black dude can die." I'm not very much inclined to fear for a character if I know the creators don't have the balls to off them just because the fanbase loves them. It was basically how I predicted Hurley would survive Lost regardless of what perils he faced. Seriously, a sinking submarine and somehow he manages to get himself, PLUS Kate out alive? I figured I was already accepting a magic tunnel of light, why not suspend disbelief for that little miracle, too.

The thing about The Walking Dead is, it's always been very good at off'ing characters at any instant, no matter how liked they are or fucked up it would be to do so. In fact, Kirkman seems to sometimes sit down, ask himself which character and circumstances would be the most disturbing for fans, and goes ahead and does just that. Now, a show is a different beast altogether, I get that. For a multitude of reasons, it's harder to just arbitrarily kill off a character and send the actor packing. It's like just deciding to fire your employee out of the blue. Still, I think if Lori's death taught us anything, it's that the show WAS willing to kill off important characters seemingly at the drop of a hat, so long as there was a plan in mind and it wasn't done just for the "oh shit" factor. I'm not saying Daryl should just like, I don't know, be crushed by a falling anvil or something, but he should be just as vulnerable as everybody else. Probably not as vulnerable as the black characters, mind you, because then a falling anvil probably will just drop out of the air and kill him.

I've made this argument a few times to friends and coworkers who have been watching the show, and usually my argument is met with a counter-argument that Daryl is just to badass to die. He eats bullets, he shits gunpowder. He could piss his name into a brick wall. To that I say you're right, Daryl is very badass. He uses a crossbow and rides motorcycle, which is loud as all hell and completely counterproductive to the whole avoiding zombies thing the other characters are so keen about doing. Not Daryl, though. He probably rides that thing for that very reason, because if he doesn't kill a walker at least once and hour, with something completely mundane like a shoe or a hatchback door, he will get restless and lose his mind, and then we'll have him running around with ears around his neck again.

You know who else is badass? Tyreese. He's pretty badass. He's built like a brick wall and kills zombies with a hammer. Ask his comic book counterpart how that's working out for him, though. Or Shane, for that matter, who had the training and the smarts to keep himself alive and lead a group for a while. Or Abraham, who was in the military and tough as nails. Okay, I know fans of the show don't know him yet, but trust me, he was tough. He had a handlebar mustache and everything. The point I'm trying to make is that Daryl is tough, sure. The thing is, being tough and clever will only keep you alive for so long, because all it takes is just one second for luck to swing south and BAM, some guy is bludgeoning you with a barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat they've gone and given a feminine name to.

Speaking of Tyreese, he's around now, huh? And hopefully he's likely to eventually do more than apologize feverishly to anybody willing to letting him crash on their couch. Michonne is becoming a bigger player in the Rick Grimes Halfway Home for the Mentally Traumatized, as well. Right there, there's your right AND your left hand. You don't need any more hands than that, even if you had any. Daryl's role as the groups badass and second-in-command is quickly becoming a little redundant, no? From the perspective of an ensemble cast, what else are you going to do with the guy if you've got people lining up to fill the only role he's filled?

 Every character has their own arc in a story. For Rick and Carl, The Walking Dead basically IS their arc. For a guy like Daryl, his arc would be watching him go from crude, violent loner, to a humbled anti-hero, who has learned the value of teamwork and friendship, and the true meaning of Christmas and whatnot. In three seasons, Daryl has gone from being all axe-crazy and impulsive, like I mentioned earlier, to having heart-to-hearts with Carl and cooing at babies. He's even found Merle, so what else can the character really do? It's not like Walking Dead is the sort of show where they'll spend three seasons more building up whether or not Daryl and Carol will ever be a couple. I mean, I hope not, anyway. Maybe next season will be more like Friends, and the opening will instead be everyone dancing in a fountain in post-apocalyptic New York. I'd probably watch that, actually.

Bottom line is this, though: the biggest reason I can think of for Daryl to get killed off is drama. It's a drama television show, guys. Doing stuff like that just to get a reaction out of the audience is what shows like this are supposed to do. I mean, why would you ever invest in any story, if nothing it ever did made you feel emotionally connected? You shouldn't want Daryl to die, not really, but if he DOES, would that mean you should stop watching? If anything it means the writers have just given you a great show, something that reached out and got a hold of you, which is what we want fiction to do. Demanding a story turn out the way you want isn't what makes it fun and memorable. People like Michael Bay are the ones who just keep giving us the same old shit, and we've all seen how that goes. You want new, you want unexpected things, you want things you even dread to happen, because it makes the story that much richer an experience. So if I have a final message here, it's that nobody should riot if Daryl dies. You should riot the moment a show you've become so invested in suddenly stops striking that emotional cord with you, where the fate of an entirely non-existent person means so very much to you.

Besides, we all know if anybody should die, it's Andrea.

A Joke About The Walking Dead Not Being Dead Yet Or Something

It's Halloween, everyone. A time for children to get dressed up in ridiculous clothing and it's encouraged. I'm not going to make a joke about women getting drunk in ridiculous clothing, because I think I did that last time. Personally, my favorite part of Halloween has never been the whole idea of drinking while dressed like David Tenant. No, I always loved the horror movies. Tons and tons of horror movies on TV all the time. I love horror movies, and all manner of generally unpleasant things myself and others like me should not dig so much. For a few years, I remember Bravo would air some awesome marathons including The Exorcist, The Omen, Pumpkinhead, and a whole lot of Halloween. Then, one year, they stopped airing classic movies in favor of shit like Valentine or something. I can't really remember what it was specifically, but let's go with that. Newer, lamer flicks. On top of that, the only Halloween I think they aired was Resurrection. Needless to say, I was so outraged, I never watched again.

Wait, I'm way off topic here. Somehow this was going to be a segway into how Walking Dead is back, but whatever, there it is. Walking Dead is back. 

I don't remember being particularly concerned with immediately catching the premiere episode this season. Not because I wouldn't see it, but because the show had so far been somewhat underwhelming, as it had been for a lot of folks apparently. I mean, I liked it, but there had been only fleeting moments of awesomeness throughout the show so far. The first episode of season 3 was basically one straight, nonstop moment of awesomeness. Awesomeness the likes of which we had only glimpsed ever so briefly at the end of season two. This moment comes to mind: 

Also this one.

But then, most of season one and two were kind of like this:

See, it's like, that's a totally awesome image. It's Rick Grimes and a horse, just chilling out and looking all cool as can be. I didn't even KNOW horses did that, and Andrew Lincoln is all like, "Yeah, 'sup. Just chilling with my sitting horse." But then, on the other hand, as awesome as this picture is, it sort of sums up the show. I mean, yeah, the concept is cool, but most of the time it's just like, sitting there waiting to do something mildly interesting, and in the meantime it's just like, "Yeah, it's a pretty cool idea and stuff, I guess."

Seriously, I did like the first two seasons of Walking Dead. So far I thought it had a great concept going, and sometimes it knew just how to take advantage of it, but most of the time, it just felt confused about what it wanted to be. 

So, let's back up to season one here. The show kicks off, and the first episode holds great promise. You've got zombies everywhere, a sweet post-apocalyptic setting, a great cast, and also the zombies I mentioned. It also set up some interesting ideas to play around with, like Lori and Shane's affair, or the Center for Disease Control. The first season ran short, and so it was mostly just a few episodes of excellent quality, but then things just slowed further and further down, once the show got going and was in that awkward phase of figuring out how to turn a pilot into a show. 

Then, season two came about. Oh, season two, you were not the favorite, were you? People said you had jumped the shark already, they talked about the inconsistent behavior of the characters, the stupid subplots. Worst of all, though, they called you boring. Boring, season two! BORING! How in the world can you be boring when you've decided to set your show against the fucking ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE? How do you pull that off, exactly? Oh, wait, I'll tell you how: film it on the set of god damn Little House on the Prairie.

Okay, just to make things clear, the whole thing with Hershel's farm happened in the comic. The problem is, the comic didn't dwell on the place that long, with absolutely nothing of any interest happening for months at a time. Not to mention, when they were there, their concerns were a little more fucking dire than love connections, or Dale fixing the RV. 

Alright, maybe that's a little unfair. You see, as I've said, the show has a great concept, that being Robert Kirkman's comic book source material. The problem is, the writers were having trouble figuring out exactly how to turn it into a TV show. Sometimes it hit the tone of the comic down note for note. The hopelessness, the desperation, horror and fear. Most of the time though, it just kind of filled the gap between these moments with your standard television drama. There's a mixed cast of characters, all just finding conflict in even the most mundane of issues with each other. Sure, the Lori/Shane/Rick thing seemed important, but trust me, it wasn't.

You see, we're dealing with the end of the world here, people. Walking corpses roam the Earth, society has collapsed, and the remaining day-to-day lives of those living through it are unimaginable hell. The things we were worried about before have been replaced by a constant state of terror, and your only real concern is staying alive. Even stuff like Lori's affair has no place for long. Hell, if you want proof of what the show thought it should have been, look no further than Shane. In the comic, yes, he had a fling with Lori and then went nuts and tried to kill Rick. The thing is, though, it happened almost immediately, like before the survivors even left Atlanta. It drove the point home that the life Rick now had was a harsh, brutal nightmare of his former one, paving the way only for the further mind fucks our Mr. Grimes would live through. The show, however, strung the Shane thing along, and while it did make for some interesting ideas which could not go realized in the comic, it seemed more convinced that a juicy affair was good television. 

This isn't the CW, guys. Drama on Walking Dead comes not from who fucked who, or who got pregnant, or who the hottest guy is. Those things are incidental. It comes from the way that every-single-moment is just one awful thing after another for these people. It comes from wondering just how in the hell a person can live in a world like that one, without completely losing their marbles. oh, and some do. In fact, many of them do. Even the children.

Think we'll see THAT on television? No, but we can recreate those same disturbing and often shocking moments the comic is so damn good at delivering. It may not have to be done like Kirkman is the word of God himself, but the same atmosphere can be recreated. Watching people wrangle cattle and discuss for 45 minutes whether or not Rick knows what he's doing is not that interesting. Not when there are psychotic human beings running around, ready to murder your loved ones for fun, or shambling corpses hungry for your flesh. 

Now we come back to where this whole thing started. Season 3 aired Sunday night, and for those of you who saw it... Wasn't that fucking AWESOME? You've got Rick and the gang stabbing zombies in the face left and right, Michonne swinging a bitchin' katana around like it's going out of style, and the zombies. Lord, there were zombies. Zombies that were SCARY, not zombies that aimlessly roamed around only to look gross and then get conked on the head. My personal favorite moment? Rick hacks off Hershel's leg. Sorry if you haven't watched yet, but being as this is my own personal corner of the Internet, I feel comfortable spoiling whatever I damn well like. Still, Grimes just cut that sucker off, didn't he? No questioning it, no asking permission, no waiting for a response. Hershel lives, or Hershel dies. He chose Hershel lives, and that meant Hershel lives like a pirate, with a peg-leg and stuff. Oh, I so hope he gets a peg-leg. 

This is the Walking Dead I saw in black and white in Kirkman's comic. There is no time to mourn the loss of the dead, there is no time for long debates about what is moral and what isn't. It's just survival. You survive, or you die a terrible, gruesome death, and the choice to take either course comes fast. There is no middle ground. That, to me, is what makes The Walking Dead such an incredibly compelling story. I feel like a jump forward in time was what the show needed, it gave the writers a chance to take a new crack at the characters. Gone are the bickering, sullen group of people we saw last season. Well, they're still sullen, but now there is no time for bickering. What we see now is a desperate, tired, hopeless crew of survivors, simply trying to outrun their own inevitable deaths - and they will die. Of all the things that I think make Walking Dead so terrible, yet interesting at the same time, it's the foregone assumption that, at some point in time, we will see every one of these characters meet a terrible demise. Some, in the comics anyway, already have. For others, it's only a matter of time. It's a truly uncomfortable thought, but one that I think keeps bringing people back. Like a train wreck - you don't want to see it, but at the same time, some morbid part of you does, just to see how bad it's going to get.

And that, my friends, is what The Walking Dead is truly all about. To drive the point home, I'll leave you with one final image to give you an idea of the direction this show is going in. You know The Governor? The guy we keep seeing in the trailer with Andrea and Michonne, who's all, "Welcome to Woodbury"? He's not a good man. Like, at all.