Post Mortem: The Walking Dead, Season Three

With the release on DVD and Blu-ray of what may be the finest season of "The Walking Dead" yet, The Film Yap takes a look back at the hard lessons learned from the series' fatally flawed Season Three.

When AMC's "The Walking Dead" burst into mainstream popularity back in 2010, it captured the attention of viewers with a bold combination of intense action, supernatural horror and intrinsically human drama. While survival horror and the mythology of the “zombie apocalypse” scenario have surged to new pop culture heights in recent years, even films like “28 Days Later...” and “Dawn of the Dead” or gaming franchises like "Resident Evil" or "Left 4 Dead" have failed to tap into a broader audience in quite the way “The Walking Dead” has.

While "The Walking Dead" excels at all the typical zombie tropes you would expect — violence, gore, suspense, more gore — it is the characterization of the human survivors and how they handle the horrific circumstances and choices they are forced to make that draws in many viewers. The drama of the show lies in how the characters must constantly navigate shifting moral boundaries between faith and pragmatism, hope and despair, humanity and horror. The result is a moral high-wire juggling act that commands a viewer's engagement and, when combined with the episodic format, allows for longer story arcs that resonate with viewers in a way previously untapped by the zombie genre.

But just as these themes of conflict and duality are a balancing act for the show's characters, so, too, are they a challenge for the show's creators. "The Walking Dead" has famously gone through three showrunners in four seasons. Series developer Frank Darabont ("The Mist") was fired after one season due to disputes with AMC executives over budget cuts. His replacement, Glen Mazzara, stepped down after Season 3 due to mutually declared "creative differences" with the network. Although "The Walking Dead" set ratings records for a basic cable television show under Mazzara's guidance, it can be argued that the show drifted away from its core dynamic in its third season, with unsatisfying results.

While Season 3 had the commendable goal of exploring the power politics between two disparate camps of human survivors, too often the underlying terror that the show delivered so masterfully during its first two seasons simply evaporated. Once formidable, the zombies of Season 3 were repeatedly shown flailing impotently against fences or bumbling around haplessly as survivors easily evaded them in what seemed like an endless parade back and forth between the prison camp of the show’s principal cast and the town of Woodbury. The undead, once the thematic engine that propelled the show, had now taken a backseat to the sometimes cartoonish super-villainy of Woodbury’s leader, the Governor (David Morrissey, "Is Anybody There?"), and as a result, the show lost a measure of its narrative gravitas.

This creative misstep was perhaps most clearly illustrated in a conversation between the Governor and Andrea (Laurie Holden, "The Mist"), one of show's primary protagonists. Watching the post-apocalyptic version of a WWE match between humans and captive zombies (aka "walkers"), the Governor declares: "We're shining a light on the monster under the bed, teaching people not to be afraid." Andrea responds by saying "You're teaching them walkers aren't dangerous!"

More importantly however, the show was teaching the audience that walkers aren't dangerous. The fear of an unseen "monster under the bed" is exactly what makes a horror story work; shining a light on it releases much of the dramatic tension that keeps the show taught and compelling. Marginalizing your show's primary dramatic conceit is a risky proposition no matter how you look at it. Marginalizing it in favor of a storyline (Andrea's relationship with the Governor and her torn loyalties between the two camps) that ultimately withered on the vine and died due to poor characterization and plot development was a gamble that backfired in a major way.

The decision to put less emphasis on the supernatural elements and more on the human ones wasn't a completely misguided one. There was an opportunity in that storyline to create a powerful narrative contrasting these two opposing factions and their different approaches to survival. Unfortunately, the story development felt rushed; Andrea's relationships with new characters Michonne (Danai Gurira) and the Governor in particular felt forced, and the character's motivations as put forth by the writers were downright non-sensical at times. When asked why she would stay in Woodbury even when faced with incontrovertible evidence of the Governor's insanity, Andrea replies: "Because there are good people here!" The line rings quite hollow given the fact that little on-screen time was devoted to developing the background inhabitants of Woodbury or their relationships with Andrea. It's a classic case of "telling" and not "showing," one of the cardinal sins of storytelling, and it cuts to the heart of why the second half of Season 3 falls flat: Exposition makes a poor substitute for characterization.

There were a number of high points in Season 3, but many of them occurred at the beginning of the season and, as such, were greatly undermined by the rudderless and unconvincing second half. Still, despite the bumps along the way, "The Walking Dead" actually managed to improve its ratings and cement itself as the top scripted series among the 18-49 demographic in 2013, so there is ample reason for optimism as the show moves forward under new showrunner Scott M. Gimple. Gimple joined "The Walking Dead" as a writer in Season 2 and has written a number of fan-favorite and critically acclaimed episodes, including Season 2’s “Save the Last One” and “Pretty Much Dead Already” and Season 3’s “Clear,” widely considered a highlight of both the season and the series as a whole. In an interview prior to Season 4, when asked what direction he envisioned the show taking, Gimple replied “As far as my own personal stamp, it's more of what we do here already with character-driven stories and really delving into these characters while having some amazing, horrible scares and exciting sequences but all in service to a greater story that builds … When 'The Walking Dead' has been its best, all that stuff is happening at once: the emotion, action, horror, scares.”

Gimple seems to understand the balancing act necessary for "The Walking Dead" to succeed. The first-time showrunner definitely can talk the talk. And as Season 4 showed, he made "The Walking Dead" walk the walk again.

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