The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Have A Backup Plan
By Liam O'Leary
On this week’s Walking Dead, Carl showed us what can happen to you in a zombie apocalypse if you don’t have a backup plan.
This week, courtesy of Carl, we get to go back to survival basics a bit. With Carl’s bold, but ultimately futile attempt to assassinate Negan, I’ve been given the opportunity to address a critical flaw in many a zombie apocalypse survival strategy.
I suppose I can’t give Carl all the credit, as Rosita, Michonne, and Spencer (Though for different reasons) deserve some, too. All of them exhibited a sort of hastiness that, if you behaved as such in an actual zombie apocalypse, you’d die.
Which brings me to our Survival Rule Of The Week. If you’re going to survive anything involving zombies, always follow this rule…
Rule #4: ALWAYS Have A Backup Plan.
Let’s take a look at this, shall we?
This week, we watched Carl sneak his way into The Saviors’ base by stowing away on a truck with the intent of killing Negan. He grabbed an assault rifle and came out of the truck shooting, demanding Negan, who answered. Then…it all fell apart. He killed two Saviors, neither of whom were Negan and then…nothing.
What exactly was Carl thinking he was gonna do? When he didn’t see Negan from the truck, and had to ask for him, he lost the one thing his plan had going for it: The Element of Surprise.
What was his exit strategy? Even if Carl had succeeded, what would his next move have been? It’s not like he could have snuck out, they knew exactly where he was!
Most likely, the rest of The Saviors would have either killed him or just decided to make open war on Alexandria in revenge! Everyone would have died!
The same goes for Rosita and Michonne. What’s the next move? They both clearly have a plan to kill Negan, but, do they have any idea how they’re going to deal with the aftermath? Honestly…it doesn’t really seem like it.
But, if we need another example, why not Spencer?!
Okay, cards on the table: While I don’t want to spoil things, I’m 100% certain Spencer is going to try to betray Rick. I mean, did you listen to his rant about Rick to Father Gabriel (Whose reaction I absolutely loved, by the way…)? This is clearly a guy who thinks Rick is unfit to lead, and that he is.
Let’s just play this through to its ultimate conclusion for a second: If Spencer were to usurp Rick…what’s his next move?
Does Spencer think he can handle The Saviors as well as Rick? Does he think he’s somehow going to suddenly find a huge cache of supplies to appease Negan with? Or is he going to convince Negan to leave Alexandria alone for some reason? And even if he did, does he think the rest of the community will accept him, while knowing he betrayed Rick?
If you limit yourself to one plan and think you’re finished, you will be finished, just not the way you hope.
Whatever Spencer’s plan is, he has no idea what to do afterwards. Spencer seems to think things will just fall into place, while not really having a plan for making them fall into place.
And that, ultimately, is the point: In a zombie apocalypse, you can’t just stumble into it and expect things to turn out perfectly. To survive beyond the first day, you need a plan, and you need backup plans if or when your original plan falls through.
If you limit yourself to one plan and think you’re finished, you will be finished, just not the way you hope. With things being so unpredictable, it’s highly likely unforeseen circumstances will arise that will derail your original plan. You will need to have strategies in place so that when the worst happens, you’re not left scrambling.
This is why you Follow…The Rules.
Next: The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Trust
And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it will help you should you ever need it and give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.
If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!