Bunny Slipper Girl: The Walking Dead’s First Walker
By Susie Graham
An empty intersection. Abandoned and turned over cars. Tents, toys, clothes strewn. A sheriff’s car pulls up and the uniformed man walks with a red gas can in hand through the makeshift town in the grass. He sees flies circling the head of a dead driver and keeps walking. Then from under a car he sees dirty bunny slippers shuffling and a little hand pick up a matted teddy bear from the ground.
“Little girl. I’m a policeman. Little girl. Don’t be afraid. Okay. Little girl.”
She turns showing her pale skin and bloody, rotted mouth. The policeman cocks his head in recognition and sadness. She starts toward him shuffling faster. He backs up. He shoots her. She falls to the ground losing a slipper and the bear, blood splattering everywhere. The now familiar Walking Dead theme music begins.
Bunny Slipper Girl as she is known by many Walking Dead fans is the first walker we meet on The Walking Dead. We meet her before we even know we’re supposed to call them walkers. She is one of the most important walkers for many reasons associated with her first walker status.
First of all, she was a little girl and she looks like a little girl. She doesn’t look like a rotted zombie like bicycle girl. Killing a little girl in pajamas and bunny slippers in the first sixty seconds– it’s a rather dramatic way to start an entire series! It lets us know that the show is fearless.
Little girl. I’m a policeman. Little girl. Don’t be afraid. Okay. Little girl.
By showing us the killing of Bunny Slipper Girl in the first scene and then returning to the past, we are aware of walkers before we meet Morgan and learn more about them through him. We know Rick will be able to kill them, but it’s more interesting now to see how he has to work up to it after awakening from the coma.
We also realize that they are not people, no matter how much they look like people. So even viewers like me who are new to zombie stories and are not familiar with all the rules and zombie lore know the walkers are not people if this gentle man can so quickly shoot a little girl even with the sadness in his eyes, we see it’s what must be done.
Lastly, and I’ve shared this with people before who were not at all intrigued by my thoughts on this, I found Bunny Slipper Girl to be important to me in season 2 when Sophia came out of the barn.
After the shock of realizing she was in the barn, during the silence and goosebumps and Carol’s sobs, when Rick came from the back of the pack with his gun drawn, I remember distinctly thinking, he can do it–he can shoot her; he was able to shoot Bunny Slipper Girl.