The Walking Dead: Kirkman’s endgame not so surprising

Robert Kirkman recently revealed that his long range plan for The Walking Dead is for the survivors of the apocalypse to wipe out the walkers. “The goal…I hope

The Walking Dead

goes on long enough that at the end, everyone is like, ‘

Good thing we took care of those zombies

!'”

The goal…I hope The Walking Dead goes on long enough that at the end, everyone is like, ‘Good thing we took care of those zombies!’

This surprised many people, who interpreted “taking care of the zombies” as a happy ending–a seemingly out-of-character move for Kirkman. I’m not all that surprised. Especially, after hearing the rest of what he told Marc Maron during the WTF podcast.

They never solve it. At the end of every movie, they’re like ‘The world is covered in zombies, and we’re out of time, so see ya later!

He disclosed that

The Walking Dead itself is sort of a response to the ending of most zombie movies–the zombie problem is never solved.

So it makes sense to me that solving the zombie problem would be a good goal for the series. If the goal were to have the world wiped out by the zombies, that’s too easy.

Kirkman wanted to explore what happens during that long stretch in the middle. That’s the show we know and love. What happens after the credits roll. After the survivors start to deal with the zombies long-term. He wanted to make a show about the survivors. So it also makes sense to me that he wants them to survive.

"“I see the story from beginning to end, over many many years about humanity overcoming this insurmountable apocalyptic situation.”"

On the surface, happy ending and Kirkman don’t seem to go together. But if we really look at the themes in The Walking Dead, they are quite positive: hope, forgiveness, strength, family, loyalty, humanity, sacrifice. Yes, bad things happen and people die. It’s the apocalypse. It’s not Little House in the Apocalypse.

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