Rick Grimes and I have accompanied each other on our journeys. His journey took him through the zombie apocalypse. My journey, just as heroically, was getting to know the people of Texas.
I was a young buck in my 20s when The Walking Dead premiered. I had just recently moved to DFW. The show even predates #ScaiaBlog and the TV review page. If that comprehensive encyclopedia of random TV shows had been with us then, I’d have written about how naming a character “Grimes” was just copying The Simpsons.
But now The Walking Dead has come to an end with my DVR electing to record approximately 47 hours of, apparently, very special programming around the show. For you young bucks in your 20s, a “DVR” is a device us millennials consider cutting-edge compared to a “VCR”, which I believe is some sort of salad.
The ending was classy with them showing a wide variety of people getting eaten and bleeding everywhere but cutting away before they had to stab Rosita right in her brain. Having everyone else say, “We’re the ones who live,” a few minutes later was a nice message, but it seems like a bit of a brag.
For Grimey’s last episode a few years ago, I cooked up this plan to reveal the show was all a dream Bob Newhart was having. I feel like it would have worked well for the finale, too.
Loyal Scaiaholics will recall I became a walker myself for a couple months back in 2014. When I came to, I was also wondering what happened and what’s going on, so Walking Dead was even following my timeline.
To return the favor, I have several ideas for spinoffs to help AMC avoid a dearth of cutting edge programming.
In The Electioneering Dead, the walkers could form a PAC to get some doggone representation in the Commonwealth government.
“Scaia, you dashing ol’ so and so,” you’re screaming at your computer. “The politicians on The West Wing were constantly having conversations while they were briskly striding through the halls. Zombies can neither stride briskly nor have a conversation.”
The editorial board here at 1 Scaianalysis Esplanade has other ideas if you’re going to be a stickler about how characters stride.
For example, I noticed everyone who survived the zombie apocalypse is still driving around in cars. JD Power reports gasoline only has a shelf life of 3-6 months.
In our spinoff, The Refining Dead, the dad, a middle-aged human, complains about having to bust his hump down at the refinery for a foreman who keeps trying to eat his brain. That way, we could keep the cars running.
To lighten the mood, consider The Odd, Dead Couple. Because Commonwealth rents are getting too high, a walker moves in with a neat, tidy fellow who still has all his skin. They argue hilariously about how loud the walker snarls, but in the end, they realize they both want the same thing: for the neighbors to stop parking in their spot. The human’s plan is to go to the condo board. The walker eats the neighbor’s brains.
I am also the one who lives, so I look forward to your call, AMC.
