The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The many faces of evil

1) Pretending to be harmless.

If you recall back to Season Two of The Walking Dead, Rick’s group rescued a young man named Randall after killing much of his scouting party. Throughout his time in captivity, Randall continually professed his innocence, passing himself off as little more than a bystander to his groups’ more repulsive habits and only being with them out of necessity.

Yet, as time wore on, Randall showed himself to be more than he let on, first, by attempting to manipulate Carl into freeing him, and then, as Shane lied to Randall about wanting to join his group, Randall replied by enthusiastically informing Shane how “good” of a bunch of guys his group was; If these were the same guys that attacked a lone father and his two daughters, raping them while forcing the father to watch, it meant Randall thought much higher of them (And, more importantly, their heinous tactics) than he first let on.

Should you encounter a person you know was part of a hostile group, be extremely careful trusting them. I normally hate the idea of “guilt by association”, but, in a zombie apocalypse, you can’t afford to trust the wrong people, and, if you know a person is from a group that used especially vile tactics, they could very well be the wrong people.

Furthermore, if the person you meet is trying to convince you that they were the “sole voice of reason” or something like that against their group’s behavior, the less convinced by them you should be; I mean, if they were so innocent and disagreed with their group’s more despicable practices…why wouldn’t they just leave?