Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The People Problem

While the most immediate threat in a zombie apocalypse is zombies, as the Fear The Walking Dead finale shows, the BIGGEST threat is PEOPLE.

The Fear The Walking Dead Season Three finale has come and gone. After not having a true hostile for nearly the entire season, the finale sure made up for it.

I speak, of course, of The Proctors, the ominous overlords of El Bazar who have lurked in the shadows for the latter half of this season.

Yet, I don’t mean just The Proctors, as this finale had more than just them providing threats. This brings me to my point: When surviving a zombie apocalypse, whether early or late into it, the biggest problem is always people.

Let’s face it: Between, Troy, Strand, Daniel, and even Madison, there was plenty of threat to go around.

Let’s start with Strand, who sold out the dam to The Proctors in when he returned to El Bazar.

Sure, he did so under the agreement that Madison, Alicia, and Nick be spared, but, still, selling the dam to a bunch of gangsters? Did he not see how short-sighted of a move that was? What was he thinking?

…Oh, wait, I know what he was thinking.

He was thinking about how Daniel left him die at the hands of a horde of infected at The Rosarito.

He was thinking that, sooner or later, Daniel would try to kill him again, perhaps more directly.

And he was thinking that, whatever sanctuary Daniel and Lola were providing him, it was, at best, temporary.

Strand made a deal with the devil he didn’t know, because he was afraid of the devil he did know. I guess, when you think of it that way, Strand’s decision makes a little more sense. Still short-sighted as Hell.

Of course, none that would have mattered had it not been for Troy.

When Nick tried to convince Madison to leave the dam, Troy fessed up to what we already knew about his role in leading the horde to the ranch. While we already saw that, his assertion that he’d do it again reminded us of just how unhinged he truly is.

While a horde of zombies is a tremendous threat, they become far more dangerous when you have someone crazy enough to send them in your direction roaming around.

…Which brings me to Madison.

Now, while Troy said she shouldered some responsibility for letting him go into exile, I won’t begrudge her having mercy — It’s admirable — I will begrudge her letting Troy loose as part of her attempts to gain control in the first place.

If Strand’s decision to make a deal with Proctor John was short-sighted, Madison’s decision to use Troy as a means of wedging herself into a position of control at the ranch is borderline blind.

Maybe, had she done more to curtail Troy or came up with a better idea than blame Black Hat for killing the Trimbols, who knows, maybe Troy wouldn’t have been out in the wilderness to summon the horde in the first place!

But, I digress…

And now, last but certainly not least, we go back to where we started, with The Proctors.

For all the slick, violent, unhinged, or controlling people we might come across in a zombie apocalypse, none of them are quite as dangerous as a coordinated group dedicated to evil. The Proctors are just that.

With Proctor John having designs to create his own trade empire/extortion ring, he was going to slaughter anyone and everyone who got in his way, and that’s what he did.

He didn’t simply want to usurp Lola, but, made a point of not only killing her, but all of the other dam workers, too! Not only that, he planned on killing the Clarks, too, even though they wouldn’t have ever had the means of attacking him! There really would have been no point, but he was insisting on doing it, anyways!

In a zombie apocalypse, zombies will, not surprisingly, be the most common threat. But, zombies can’t deceive, they can’t go crazy, they can’t be cruel, they can’t organize, they can’t plan, they can’t think. People, on the other hand, can.

This will always make people infinitely more dangerous. Think of it like this: Where zombies can be deadly, like gun just firing off into space, people are the ones capable of pointing them.

Next: Reanimated Review: Train To Busan

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!