Tales Of The Walking Dead is my kind of show, and I have few ideas for it.
The announcement of Scott Gimple starting the new Tales Of The Walking Dead” series, which will be an anthology series following both old and new characters from The Walking Dead universe makes me want to quote Jay O. Sander’s Ranch Wilder from “Angels In The Outfield”…
“…All I can say is: It’s about time.“
I feel like I’ve been calling for this forever, and, finally, they’re doing it. To say the least, I’m excited.
In light of this announcement, I’ve decided to list off the top seven stories I need to see tackled in this new spinoff. Some of these will be from The Walking Dead, some will be from Fear The Walking Dead, some will even be from the webisodes! Whatever the case may be, while these stories may not have been big enough to warrant a Walking Dead episode, with Tales now being a thing, maybe it’s time Mr. Gimple took a look a second look at these stories, and give them the treatment I think they so richly deserve.
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.
2) “The True Story Of Brian Heriot”
In season four of The Walking Dead, we watched the “death” and redemption and actual death of The Governor, the series first true recurring villain. During that redemption, The Governor sought to give himself a new identity (Hence the “death” I mentioned earlier), and, he found one on the side of a barn, in the form of messages written out to a man by the name of Brian Heriot.
Who was this man? Who was writing messages to him? Where was this home his loved ones were warning him not to return to? Was he still alive? Did he ever reunite with whomever was leaving messages for him?
What I want Tales Of The Walking Dead to do is answer these questions in what I’m calling “The True Story Of Brian Heriot”.
This would be a series of episodes where we follow this mysterious man’s journey from wherever he was when the messages were first being written for him, to either his untimely demise, or, reuniting with whomever his messenger was.
What’s so great about this is that there’s so many directions you can take it. If Gimple wanted to, he could make this a tragic story about a man who had someone out there in the apocalypse waiting for him, whom he never returns to (You could even have him find the shed in the last scene of his story, just before he turns into a biter due to an injury). Conversely, his story could be a triumphant one, where, after going through an odyssey across Georgia, he finally locates his family or his friends, or whomever it was that was trying to communicate with him. If they wanted, the producers could even have Brian Heriot’s identity be some kind of secret, where the final scene reveals him to be some character we met at some other point in the Walking Dead universe, and this is his backstory. Like I said: Lots of directions you can go with this.
Whatever direction the show goes in, I feel like this story would be a great little addition to the universe at large, as it would give us a window into the story of man who we only got to see through the eyes (Or eye, in The Governor’s case…) of everyone but him.
3) “Homecoming”
I loved the original webisodes for The Walking Dead. For me, they were like little slices of what Fear The Walking Dead was supposed to be (Seeing how the apocalypse happened), before Fear The Walking Dead even was a concept.
Each of the original three webisodes were also loosely tied to Rick in some way: The first followed Hannah, a.k.a. “Bicycle Girl”, the first walker Rick encountered, the third followed Paul, the man who wrote “DON’T OPEN. DEAD INSIDE” on the doors of the hospital cafeteria, which Rick found upon waking up, and the second followed a man named Chase.
Of the three, Chase’s might have been the most interesting. Chase was a scavenger who, alongside his friend, Harris, was searching for supplies in Atlanta (So he could leave the city to reunite with his younger sister in Kentucky), before stumbling upon a self-storage facility run by B.J., the manager of the facility. After allowing Chase to take a shirt from an abandoned storage locker (Owned by Rick) B.J. had Chase help him clear out some walkers and restore power to the facility (Under the pretense of giving Chase a truck in exchange for the chores) before ultimately betraying him. Upon waking up from B.J.’s botched betrayal, Chase infiltrated the facility once again, this time discovering a young woman, Kelly (Who also used to work at the facility), who was being held captive by B.J. for…nefarious reasons.
The webisode ends with Chase and Kelly leaving the storage facility together, and with B.J.’s severed head left to turn, as the pair take his truck and head north for Kentucky, though with their fuel not being enough to get them there.
My proposal for this story would pick up where The Walking Dead: Cold Storage left off, with Chase and Kelly making for Kentucky, and from that point, their journey truly begins.
What’s so great about Chase’s story is that it would be so simple of a premise and so many things you could do with it. Obviously, the truck wouldn’t have enough gas to reach Kentucky, but…how far would they get? What would happen when they tried to get gas? Who might they run into? Would they be hostile? Would they be someone who would tell Chase that Kentucky had devolved into a war zone, and that his sister was probably dead? What would he do then? What would the relationship with Chase and Kelly be like? Would they have any to speak of, or would it simply be an alliance of convenience? Would they even trust each other at all? Would they ever reach Kentucky? What would they find there? Would they have to make a meandering journey through Tennessee? What would they find there?
You see? There is sooo much you could do with that story. Think of it like Rick’s journey to find Lori and Carl, only, he had to go through all the events of seasons one and two, and all the danger, suffering, heartache, and loss they entailed, before finding them. That is what Chase’s story could be like.
If you ask me, it’s about time the webisodes got some proper love.
4) “The Story Of Tobias”
Honestly, of all the characters we met in the first season of Fear The Walking Dead, Tobias might have been my favorite. A person trying to warn people of what was coming, and being as prepared as he could? Yeah, there’s just something about such a character that I can’t help but identify with…
Sadly, we only saw this visionary character for two episodes that season, and that is a travesty. What I want, what I hope we get from Tales Of The Walking Dead, is more Tobias. I want to know if he survived the outbreak, I want to know if he survived the destruction of L.A., I want to see someone who, by being prepared, managed to stay a step ahead of the apocalypse.
As I sit here, I can almost imagine how a first episode following Tobias could play out.
First of all, I’m imagining that, since this would be the beginning of the outbreak, the episode could play something of a long game, where as Tobias’s day goes on, he passes by (Or, being that the show would, ideally, highlight how much more aware of the situation Tobias is than everyone else around him, notices) people who are looking more….under the weather than normal, maybe even a few of the other students on the bus with him as the school is evacuated. Maybe seeing those students is what compels him to return to the school for his knife?
Next, I’d love to see the bully Tobias wound up tutoring become a major character in Tobias’s story, the Daryl to his Rick, one might say.
Once the outbreak begins in earnest, I’d love to see Tobias (Presumably with his family and maybe his neighbors), sort of like how Nick and Daniel were in the beginning of Fear, being the person who sees the next disaster coming, i.e. being the first to realize the infected are dead, the first to realize the situation will escalate, and the first to realize that the government can’t control the outbreak. Having that one character who truly grasps the situation in any zombie story is always something I enjoy, and, who better than Tobias?
What’s so great about Tobias’s story is that the sky’s the limit. You could have Tobias be a survivor of Cobalt (Which, I don’t know about you, but, I would like see how the Hell that happened), you could have him escape into the suburbs of L.A., he could make his way to San Diego, he could go east, he could go anywhere, all the while becoming a stronger survivor.
…Damn it. Now I’ve convinced myself that I want an entire Walking Dead series revolving around Tobias.
5) “An Important Mission”
When we were first introduced to Abraham Ford, Eugene Porter, and Rosita Espinosa in season four of The Walking Dead, we (And they) were led to believe that they were on a mission to reach Washington D.C., well, to get “Doctor” Eugene Porter there at the very least, because he had the means to solve the zombie apocalypse, and destroy the walker hordes.
…Of course, as we all learned, Eugene was lying about having the solution to the apocalypse. No one had that, and as far as Abraham was concerned, his life seemed to lose purpose, bringing him back to the state of despair he found himself in when he and Eugene first met, whereupon Eugene, seeing the state Abraham was in, began the lie, to save the life of the stranger who’d just saved his.
In the same season five episode where we learned of Eugene’s deceit, “Self Help”, we also learned that Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita were not alone in their journey from Houston to Atlanta, as Rosita recalls those they lost along the way: Warren, Dirk, Stephanie, Josephine, Rex, Pam, Josiah, and Roger.
Having learned about all these friends the trio had made along the way, it has always bothered me that their names all we’ve ever known about them, and, I hope that Tales Of The Walking Dead fills this gap.
Think about all the questions this could answer: Were all the people Rosita named the only people who joined Abraham and Eugene, or, were there others who died before Rosita even met them? What were Warren, Dirk, Stephanie, Josephine, Rex, Pam, Josiah, and Roger like? Were they all together at once, or did some die before others joined? Did their group run into hostiles? What happened when Abraham and Eugene met Althea?! And, most importantly, how did the rest of Abraham, Eugene, and Rostia’s group die?
This is the massive gap in Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita’s stories that needs to be filled. The fact it hasn’t been filled yet is ridiculous.
…Plus, if we were to get this story in Tales, we’d get Abraham back, and who doesn’t want that?
6) “The Fall And Rise Of Terminus”
I remember watching Talking Dead across season five of The Walking Dead, and hearing the producers (Perhaps even Scott Gimple himself, I can’t remember) say how the theme of the season was “good people going bad”. They weren’t wrong: The whole season was hammering home otherwise good people (Even Rick) becoming bad people.
However, I think the best case-study in this was the first one we saw: Terminus.
In the season five premiere episode, “No Sanctuary”, we learn that the people of Terminus didn’t begin as a community of depraved cannibals, and that the signs leading people to them weren’t always an insidious trap: They used to be a normal community who legitimately invited weary survivors to find sanctuary at their community, until, one day, they invited in the wrong people.
We caught glimpses of this dark period in Terminus’s history, wherein they let in members of The Crazy Guy’s group, who, it turned out, were a gang violent rapists, who murdered several members of the community, imprisoned the rest, and began raping the women, all the while rubbing it in the face of Gareth and the rest of the community.
We also learned that, somehow, the people of Terminus got free, and exacted a terrible vengeance upon The Crazy Guy’s gang, killing or capturing them all, and systematically reducing their numbers…by eating them. Eventually, only The Crazy Guy was left, having been sentenced to a life of solitary confinement, likely after watching the rest of his cronies be taken away to be eaten, and probably being forced to do so himself (He was alive when Rick’s group got there, soooooo…they had to be feeding him something).
What I want Tales Of The Walking Dead to tackle is how this all happened. In “No Sanctuary”, we’re only shown a minute or so of flashbacks in the midst of The Crazy Guy’s reign, with no real indication of how long it was from when he and his goons took over nor how long before Gareth and company would reclaim the community.
I feel like this could be a great horror tragedy, with us initially sympathizing with the people of Terminus, becoming introduced to them when they were normal and seeing how much they’re suffering under the yolk of The Crazy Guy’s tyranny, then, cheering them on as they defeat their enemies, then, watching in horror as they become the monsters, first by eating said enemies, and then, turning their evil outward, luring in their first innocent victims.
In a series that’s, ostensibly, a horror show, I think this might be the most horrific story we could see, well, almost…
7) “The Beginning Of The End”
I have in the past and will continue to lament the poor pacing of the first season of Fear The Walking Dead, in fact, of my many grievances with the show, that might be the one that irritates me the most, because it deprived us a real glimpse into the true horror of the zombie apocalypse.
For example: We skipped over nine days of the outbreak. NINE. Within that time, the situation in Los Angeles became so untenable that the government decided the best course of action was to try to incinerate the city. Somehow, that was, apparently, not important enough for us to see…if only you could see my face as I type this. Just thinking about it leaves me dumbfounded and angry.
Anyway, maybe more so than any other story I’ve pitched yet, I sincerely hope that Tales Of The Walking Dead tackle this one.
What story am I talking about, specifically? Well, in the penultimate episode of the first season of Fear, “Cobalt”, Daniel Salazar (Through the use of torture) gets one of the National Guardsmen assigned to watch over Madison’s neighborhood, Andrew Adams, to reveal what the titular “Cobalt” is: The planned firebombing of the city. But, more importantly, Adams revealed why the military decided such extreme measures were necessary. He reveals to Daniel that some time earlier, the National Guard had collected some two thousand refugees from the city and placed them all inside an arena a short distance from Madison’s neighborhood.
According to Adams, things, eventually, began to fall apart. While he didn’t elaborate on just how it began, he explained that someone inside the arena turned, and quickly, panic ensued. The refugees began trampling each other to escape the infected (Which, unbeknownst to them, was creating more infected), and, all Hell broke loose. He ended his harrowing tale by telling Daniel that, to stop them from getting out into the city, he had to lock the living refugees inside with the infected…and listen to them scream for help he simply could not give.
This is what I want Tales to show.
For the longest time, I have wanted Walking Dead to give us some really great zombie horror. We’ve had snippets of it here and there across the two shows, we’ve seen the aftermath of it time and again, but, outside of maybe the downfall of Broke Jaw Ranch, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a classic mass zombie horror scene like this, but, this story would give us one.
Basically, whether it be an episode or several episodes, “The Beginning Of The End” would follow Adams as his unit as they oversaw all the refugees inside the arena. We’d see the chaos unfold from his perspective, and get a window into just how harrowing being a soldier in a major city, in a situation they were never trained for, would be on Adams and his brothers-in-arms.
And, the cherry on top? The last scene of the episode(s) would be Adams just barely having enough time to lock the arena doors behind him, as a persons hand attempts to squeeze through the door to grab for him, just like they walkers inside the hospital cafeteria did way back in the very first episode of The Walking Dead; A nice visual clue that this is the beginning of the end of the world Rick knew when he went into a coma and start of the world Rick woke up to.
I think it would be glorious. It would be a perfect way to kick off Tales Of The Walking Dead, showing us a story we only ever heard, never saw, one with some genuine zombie horror, and one that would get the series started with a bang.
But, what do you want to see from Tales Of The Walking Dead? More of Michonne? Merle? The Governor? A whole new character? One we only saw once? More of the beginning of the apocalypse? The apocalypse in a completely different place? Let me know in the comments! The possibilities are endless! And, if you enjoyed this and want to read more from me, like my tips on surviving a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also find it at Amazon here, and on iTunes here!