I never watched The Walking Dead when it first aired, in 2010, because I thought I didn’t like zombies. Then I had a work experience kid who was right about almost everything, who told me to watch it. She didn’t even say that, just that she was sad for me that I hadn’t. It turns out my first three zombies (Shaun of the Dead, Zombies, World War Z) were just the wrong zombies.
So now it’s 2024, I’m the last person on earth to see The Walking Dead, all I want to talk about is zombie lore and character arc, and everyone else is over it. How come we haven’t even thrashed out the basics with zombies? Do they prefer to live indoors or outdoors? What do they taste like? If there is an inter-zombie solidarity, which there must be if they all move in the same direction, are they sad when other zombies die? If zombies cannot die by natural means, they presumably cannot starve; so how come they’re always so hungry? If their blood is also poisonous, why isn’t it a bigger deal when it splashes all over you? How come they were incredibly difficult to kill in seasons one through three, and then by season eight you could just stick a twig in their ear and you were golden? Just how incredibly lucky is Andrew Lincoln?
It is messing with my peripheral vision, so that when I walk past a thin person with an uneven gait, I look around for something sharp. It turns out my brother was similarly obsessed, but took a different direction, and for ages, whenever he arrived anywhere new, started scoping it out for postapocalyptic suitability. But he is a regularly fast adopter, so that was years ago; he can’t remember most of it, just that he decided somewhere in Devon was good for an independent water supply but less good for looting, unless you were urgently in need of some antiques. And while he is somewhat happy to discuss this and the wider zombie universe, it isn’t all he wants to talk about. So he is no use to me. Watch things at the same time as everyone else, is the moral of this.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
