7 things I want to see from Tales Of The Walking Dead

1) “Last Man Standing”

When we met Bob back in season four of The Walking Dead, one of the things we learned about him was that, before meeting Daryl and Glenn, he was the last survivor of not one, but two groups, a dubious distinction which left him rather psychologically scarred, and would go on to color much of his time in the first half of that season, as his drinking problems were largely borne of that trauma. As character backstories go, Bob’s was one of the most interesting…and, we saw none of it. This is a tragedy.

Honestly, if there was ever a character who’s backstory warranted being told, it’s Bob. Of all the other characters we’ve met in The Walking Dead since, none of them have had as tragic of a backstory, or, at least, if they have, we don’t know about it yet.

Now, how this story could play out really depends on the specifics of Tales Of The Walking Dead’s format. Will each story be self-contained? Will they be stretched out over a whole season? Half a season? At this stage, the lingering questions make how Bob’s story would be told a little bit difficult to nail down, but, I do have a general idea where we’d want to go with it, and, ultimately, I envision it being broken into three acts.

Firstly, we’d start with Bob joining his first group. Whether this would be right at the beginning of the outbreak (Something I’m always up for seeing) or not is up in the air, but, regardless, Bob’s story would really begin with him joining his first group.

We would follow Bob as he makes friends with the rest of his group, builds a rapport with them, probably going on a few harrowing expeditions with them, all the things you’d expect watching a character bond with a new group.

After we’d established Bob’s group, and his place in it, the first act would end with walkers decimating the group, and Bob being left as the eponymous “Last Man Standing”.

The second act would follow Bob as he wanders Georgia alone following the demise of his first group, probably looking something like how he appeared in his flashback in season four, with him living alone in the wilderness, and possibly introducing his drinking problems, and the trauma which instigates it, finally ending with his introduction to his second group.

The third and final act would focus on his time with his second group, replaying Bob’s assimilation into the group, and the various relationships that entails…certainly enough that we see him getting attached to them.

This act would end, not surprisingly, with the destruction of this second group at the hands of the walkers (Maybe even caused, indirectly, by his drinking problem, much like Zach’s death in the season four opener), and Bob, once again, being the “Last Man Standing”, perhaps ending with a reshoot of his meeting with Glenn and Daryl.

I do this in broad brush strokes because, honestly, I feel like there’s so much you could do with Bob being part of these groups that we’ve never met before and whom we know almost nothing about, that I could never set down specifics until I knew how much time we had to play with the story; Either way, I think Bob’s backstory would be a great addition to The Walking Dead universe, and it would be a shame to leave it on the table.