Back From the Dead

I lost track of how many days and hours I’ve ignored housework, grocery shopping, laundry, my regular TV programs, sleep, as I sat on the couch needlepointing while immersed in the Walking Dead Marathon — every episode from Season 1 to tonight’s start of Season 9.

That's probably why I heard nothing, saw nothing, when the neighbor across the quad moved out. 

At times, mostly during Negan’s season, there were episodes completely new to me, because Negan so scared me that I couldn’t handle the suspense and watch. I’d just read a synopsis of what happened online. But now that Negan is defeated, that knowing how it ended, I was able to catch up on what I missed of his season, which turned out to be a lot.

This season is going to be tough, because they’re going to kill off Rick. I may have to once again read rather than watch if things get too gnarly.

The Walking Dead (TWD) is not just about reanimated corpses, it tells you a lot about people — how people react or fail to react in crisis situations, how self-interest takes over causing good people to do wrong things and/or to support wrong doers because they themselves are weak, don’t have the strength or courage to survive independent of relying on the approval of the more powerful.

Even though this is just a television program, I could see how art was imitating life and, in fact, the behavior of the different groups during the Apocalypse, as depicted in TWD, displayed a strong parallel to what I saw happening in the Senate recently.

Just like on TWD, in the Senate there were lies, manipulations, lack of empathy, self-interest being the dominant motivation, prompting the weak to get behind the more powerful privileged ranting raging Negan-like character; not to mention there were speaking parts by senate members who looked more like reanimated corpses than actual living breathing human beings.

Which, by the way, it appears TWD is going to have their dead walkers develop the ability to speak.

Spooky!

The parallels I saw were a sad commentary on what I now see as life imitating TWD art, but it is what it is. And, like they say in TWD when something horrible happens, "We go on" and "JSS" -- just survive somehow.

On tap this week is catching up on all I neglected while immersed in TWD — housework, grocery shopping, laundry, my regular TV programs, sleep.