The Walking Dead; Black Guy Theory

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The Hypothesis of Ethnic Cleansing the African American Male in AMC's [2^nd] Greatest Television Show Ever

Prelude

If you don't know what The Walking Dead is, where the fuck have you been? It's the story of Rick Grimes [played by Simon Casey from Teachers]; a cop trying to keep his family and friends together in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. A quite-popular and extremely-good comic that became an extremely-popular and quite-good TV show.

Warning

If you are not up to date with the television show, be warned that there are SPOILERS ahead. I also draw on knowledge of the comics, so there could also be SPOILERS from that too. You've been warned.

Introduction

Let's kick things off by stating I love The Walking Dead, love it. Love the TV show, love the comics, love the novels, love playing my TWD edition of Monopoly, love TWD PS3 game, love TWD Assault iPhone game.

It's far from the best show on TV, I could probably list a great deal of TV shows that are better written, better directed and more well rounded than TWD, but I don't love them as much. But there's a thin line between love and hate, so it's easy to pick up on aspects of the television series that slightly annoy me, but as we are over midway through the fifth season, I've decided to present my theory on The Walking Dead... the Black Guy Theory.

I feel I'm probably best to relay this theory as I'm practically a black guy without the correct skin pigment, so here it is; The Walking Dead; Black Guy Theory; One in One out.

Evidence

In episode two of season one [“Guts”], we are introduced to Theodore Douglas, our first major role African American character. Better known as 'T-Dog', and that woefully poor nickname was basically all the character development the guy got. Apparently he was only supposed to be in three episodes, but he stuck around and did “things and stuff” way before Rick Grimes made it cool. By season two T-Dog was pretty much a background feature, in fact I think Hershel's Barn got more camera time. In fact by this point, I even reckon the character had got so boring that even the writers kept forgetting to kill him off. But before season three there was word that that Tea-Dawg was going to play more of a role in the group and IronE Singleton might get some actual dialogue on his copy of the script instead of crudely drawn pictures of the faces he should be pulling while stood in the background. There was even speculation aspects of Tyreese's character [from the comic] maybe incorporated into T-Dog. But instead episode four of season three [“Killer Within”] T-Dog gets sent to the kennel in the sky.

But before Theodore Douglas got caught in that Zombie eat [T-]Dog world, we were introduced to the prisoners in episode one of season three [“Seed”]. The group of prisoners as a whole didn't really last too long due to conflicts with Rick's group, but one that did was Oscar, my second case-study. Oscar, like T-Dog before him was a creation for the TV show, neither of them feature in the comics, so the dullness of them both falls heavily on the shoulders of the TV writers. Oscar soon moved into T-Dog's spot; follow and keep your mouth shut [within Rick's group] and looked as if he be taking up the role of 'token black guy' … until the gang rock up to Woodbury and Oscar gets shot in episode eight of season three [“Made to Suffer”] and dies soon after.

But fuck Oscar, we'd forgotten about him after the opening credits of “Made to Suffer”, because finally, we'd got the male African American character we'd been pining for; Tyreese [played by Dennis “Cutty” Wise from The Wire]. Rick's right-hand man from the comic book, a tough son of a bitch that wasn't going to retire to the shadows like Mr. Douglas and Mr. the Prisoner [just assuming Oscar's second name here, by the way]. From the moment he stepped onto the scene swinging his hammer with such ferocity Thor would blush, we knew we were in for a treat. But did we get a treat?

Yeah, Tyreese was cool and all, but after that fist fight with Rick, taking on a gang of zombies [after they surrounded a car], eventually he kind of dwindled slightly in season four and after the fall of the prison he's left babysitting. He shouldn't be doing that, he killed Chris [a 16 year old] in the comic, so I was hoping he'd punch Lizzie's crazy brain out the back of her skull at some point, but no he left that to Carol and a gun.

But while Tyreese was left – literally - holding the baby we got a new black guy entering the mix – WHILE THERE WAS ANOTHER BLACK GUY STILL ON THE SHOW and it only took them four seasons. Bob Stookey [played by D'Angelo Barksdale from The Wire] drunkenly staggered into the mix on the first episode of season four [“30 Days Without an Accident”]. Now Bob features in the comic and heavily in the novels, so the writers had something to play with, they did alter the character slightly, as he's white in print, maybe the person in charge of casting thought Lawrence Gilliard, Jr. was a Caucasian name and never bothered following up. Bob was decent in my opinion, his alcoholic storyline was interesting [to me at least, but I've got love my brothers in the struggle].

But wait, hold the phone – and not because dead Lori is on the line – because this revelation changes the whole complexity of the argument I'm making, as now we do actually have another African American male on the cast without the proceeding one making way for him. This is true; Rick's list of multicultural friends did allow for two black men to be on it at the same time and this would go on to become the new 'norm', but the one in one out hypothesis would evolve and season four just acted as the transition period. And we make it all the way through season four without either of our black guys dying, in fact they've become strong individuals in the group. But what looms in season five?

ANOTHER BLACK GUY!

Welcome on board Father Gabriel Stokes [played by Detective Ellis Carter from The Wire]. Yes, that's correct, not only do we have three actual African American men in prominent roles in TWD all in the cast at the same time, but all of them are from The Wire, was TWD hosting a reunion party for them? I don't know and neither do I care, I'm not bitching about them using these [very talented] actors from a far superior TV show, I'm just saying if I was at AMC I'm be bringing something else from The Wire … cough-writers-cough.

It's at this point my theory begins to weaken. How can it be one in and one out if we have three black guys at the same time? Well, as I've stated, season four was the turning point of adding another African American male to the cast, but my theory still stands, please continue...

So in the second episode of season five [“Strangers”], we find Father Gabriel cowering on a rock like a typical Christian, until Rick and the gang come to his aid. Gabriel is another character taken from the comic, but picked up in the correct time frame [the comic and TV show run almost parallel, but sometimes characters are introduced earlier/later] so the formula is set up for the television writers, if they choose to follow it. Later in that very episode Rick, Michonne, Sasha, Father Gabriel and Bob go on a little mission, and the later of the group is giving a little speech, always a bad sign if it's out of character for them. And low and behold in the dying minutes of the episode we get the feeling something's up with Bobby Boy. It's the same old story; got bitten but hid it, went to wander off, got his leg eaten by the Hunters, it's a story as old as time.

Bob kicks the bucket – with his one good foot – an episode later in “Four Walls and a Roof” [season five episode three] and the equilibrium started in season four is returned; two black guys. But at least we cared slightly more about Bob's passing, he's played more of a role than T-Dog and Black Prisoner #1, plus he'd actually formed bonds within the group especially with Sasha.

As this is all happening, we have Beth's solo little storyline taking place, she's been taken and has found herself in some weird hospital run by some nasty cops or something, but in this arc we are introduced to Noah [played by Chris from Everybody Hates Chris]. At first I wasn't sure if Noah would be sticking around, I mean he has 'zombie feast' written all over him. I expected him to be in a handful of episodes then he'd be a handful of guts getting crammed into the snapping blacken jaws of a walker. Even after Beth died – yes, white people do actually die too, they're just not so obviously replaced, in fact people of all ethnic backgrounds die... apart from Koreans apparently – and he [Noah] joined the group.

For that mid-season break my mind pondered... will 'so-and-so' attempt suicide... will 'you know, that one!' meet their fate... how will they kill Noah off straight away?

When season five returned with episode nine [“What Happened and What's Going On”] about six minutes in I begin to feel a little uneasy as Tyreese rattled off a little speech to Noah, and as things progressed, things went from bad to absolutely fucking devastating – even once Tyreese was “bit” I still had hope – amputated limbs hasn't played half the role in the TV show as it does in the comics – but eventually we lost another black guy. But it was a meaningless death, we'd just lost Beth, now Tyreese would breathe his last breath! I mean; “What the F... are the writers thinking?”

And now we're left with Gabriel and Noah, two Biblical names to characters that we're highly expecting to meet their maker soon. But who will step in and take up the role of “token black guy”?

Conclusion

Look, I'm not trying to Kanye West it here and claim that TWD hates black people; Michonne has [rightfully] held her place and [somehow] Sasha has survived [until this point – somehow, despite being meaningless]. It doesn't seem as African Americans males have such a bad time in the TV TWD world until they stubble upon Rick Grimes, but when they do they do it seems as if their days are numbered, it's starting to seem apparent that black males can't last long around a white cop... but it is America after all. The TV show just struggles to create a convincingly good African American male to join the ranks – Tyreese came across as an half-hearted go in the end [introduced too late IMHO]– while other mediums of TWD franchise did it successfully with Tyreese & Morgan [comics], Josh Hamilton [novels] and Lee Everett [game], yet their television counterpart can't muster the same efforts.

In conclusion the hypothesis stands true; as soon as one black male is integrated into Rick Grimes' group another one must make way for him and even after the slight shift in season four of having two African Americans in the cast, the theory continues.

The Morgan Jones Paradox

Now, some eagle-eyed TWD fans, have probably already noticed I've neglected to mention Morgan Jones yet, as he's a difficult character to quantify in this whole hypothesis. He is the first African American male character we are introduced to [if he ignore his son, obviously] in the very first episode of TWD. But then he's gone and presumed dead – he is black after all – until episode twelve of season three [“Clear”], when he makes a reappearance. It was good to see the writers had taken time to develop Morgan's character, it's just a shame we didn't see any of it. And then Morgan was gone again, until just recently when he made two appearances [so far] in season five [episode one;”No Sanctuary” and episode eight; “Coda”], suggesting that he may finally link up with Rick and the group. Obviously by this point in the comic Morgan has a primary role within the group, so it will be interesting to see how he incorporates himself into the group on the television series.

The Noah Hypothesis

[POSSIBLE SPOILERS] So, using information from the comics a main character is soon to die at the hands of a new villain, and while I think the writers of the the TV show have made blatant nods to this, I'm starting to assume it won't happen and instead Noah will suffer the fate of Lucille. He's young, he's innocent – so we should care – but it wont have the same effect, in my opinion, but in turn this will open the [Alexandria] door for Morgan to enter.