The Walking Dead: The outbreak through the lens of season 1

What Does This Tell Us?

Well, simply going but what this season of The Walking Dead (And this season alone) reveals, it tells us that, once the zombie virus went global, its results hit extremely quickly, with much of the population panicking, and the government scrambling to contain it, attempting to turn the major cities into safe zones against the infected.

However, as the outbreak progressed, and, with the government apparently unaware initially of the virus’s ability to reanimate anyone who died, the cities soon failed as a safe zone…spectacularly.

The collapse was incredibly rapid, with many law enforcement and military personnel caught by surprise, leading many to become infected and threaten the very people they were trying to save.

Once the government apparatus began to unravel, the survivors inside of Atlanta attempted to flee en masse, though the mass traffic and mass panic made that slow and plodding at best, and deathly perilous at worst. Those soldiers and medical personnel not taken by the dead fled, but, not before putting down anyone who was believed to be infected, hoping in some small way to stem the tide.

At the CDC, society’s best hope for finding a cure, the collapse was taken very badly, with many assuming their quest hopeless, and either committing suicide, or abandoning their posts, which appeared to have the same result.

And finally, through means not yet revealed during season one, it seems that many of those who attempted to flee Atlanta didn’t make it, as hundreds of cars were left at a standstill on Interstate 85, and those who attempted to flee by the last trains leaving the city were derailed, and the cars destroyed, leaving their success at escape very much in doubt.

All in all, the first season of The Walking Dead paints a very bleak picture, one of a society that was ill-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with the zombie outbreak, and the result was mass chaos, destruction, carnage, and death. While some of the details are fuzzy, the aftermath is crystal clear. It was a good thing for Rick that he missed all of it.

But, what do you think? Were there any details of the outbreak from the first season of The Walking Dead that I overlooked? Do you think it did a good job of portraying the horror of a zombie apocalypse? Let me know! And, if you want to hear how to survive a zombie apocalypse in the real world, 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!