I’m still making my way through The Mist.
Faithful readers would know that I made a valiant attempt at Fear the Walking Dead.
I am noticing a new trope emerge in these shows. Call them the Noble Junkie. It is similar to the Erudite Stoner but not a pot smoking hippy throwback. The character is addicted to something hard like opiates or meth. They are having some sort of existential crisis and their “hit rock bottom” addiction gives them some sort of spiritual clarity.
In Fear the Walking Dead, Nick the Junkie somehow ends up being a super survivor because he is a junkie.
In The Mist, the Junkie girl is a street wise, get-er-done sort, not held back by middle class social mores.
I don’t from which Hollywood sphincter this character came from, but it needs to go back there quick.
Being a rock-bottom junkie isn’t doesn’t give a person nihilistic superpowers to handle an apocalypse.
The problem is, that being a Junkie, as soon as the craving hits, they will undermine the survival of the whole group to get their next fix.
What I have learned from these pose apocalyptic TV shows is this: if you have a junkie in your group, just take them aside and shoot them in the first 5 minutes. The strife they bring you is not worth the gritty emotional insight they bring to the situation.
As a recovering alkie I tell Jackie that if the zombies comes and I don’t have enough coffee and want to start drinking bourbon again then just in the towel because it is over and I might not as well velcro stars to my ACUs and proclaim my self the Second Father of the Country
Nick is the reason I couldn’t get through season 1 of FTWD.
FTWD was a poorly done spin off from the walking dead,which is much better but still from hollywierd and has its little PC thingsthat in real life would dissapear. This is why I quit watching regular tv,besides being a huge time waster.
I was disappointed in FTWD by the end of episode 3. What I wanted to see was what was missed in TWD, watching society collapse as zombies overran the population.
We missed that again. IN TWD it happened when Rick was in a coma. In FTWD it was when the people were on the boat. I want to see the apocalypse and not just a handful of people in the aftermath.
I think it was Episode one where I lost it. A guy breaks in your house, covered in blood, eats your fucking dog in front of you and you try to sooth him and take him to the hospital?
That is not suspension of disbelief needed, you’d need gamma knife removal of disbelief.
Well it is Cali, so…
The actual collapse is too expensive to film.
Likewise, TWD had some PC angst about the sheriff’s son carrying a sidearm that occurred several seasons in after half the group became zombie chow.
Really? You are going to worry about Junior packing in a world gone mad. I almost stopped watching at that point.
In Mira Grant’s book “Feed”, the eeevil Rethuglican presidential candidate being interviewed by the main character has the absolutely insane idea that gun laws should be relaxed post zombocalypse (currently there’s tight control and even government licensing for certain types of ammunition ). The main character points out that, if this were to happen, people might commit murder and get away with it by claiming they thought the victim was a zombie, so OMG what a horrible idea….
Yes, it was a remarkably stupid book and I’ll let y’all draw your own conclusions about Ms. Grant.
In a post zombie world, carry should be mandatory. Live Svalbard with bears.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/07/08/norwegian-island-firearms-mandatory-to-carry/
The only thing in the series worth mentioning was her idea that zeds have a group intelligence and get ‘smarter’ as their numbers increase: one zed is a slow shambler, ten will try to flank you, two dozen will actively cut off your retreat routes and a full mob is a serious problem.
You will be hearing from Junkie Lives Matter concerning this microaggression, sir.