FearTWD, Survival Rule Of The Week: Choices and consequences
By Liam O'Leary
3) When You Do Dangerous Things, Danger Usually Follows
Since I’ve already discussed the sub-plot of this week’s Fear, it’s only fair that I tackle the main plot, which focused on Alicia trying to locate Dakota, and eventually, get her away from her rescuer/captor(?), Ed.
The thing is, Ed is really a tragic figure (So tragic, in fact, he’s already taking the lead in my “Who ISN’T The Worst” list for this season…): He brought his wife and daughter to the Buck’s Landing hunting lodge when the apocalypse began, but, his penchant to preserve and “augment” the walkers as a scare tactic against the Pioneers…proved to be his family’s undoing, as one of his “creations” got loose while he was working on it, killing his wife and daughter, a loss Ed had never quite been able to recover from.
What makes Ed sympathetic though, in spite of his slowly dancing at the borders of Crazytown, is the fact that he knows he screwed up, and legitimately wanted to try to protect Dakota, where his mistakes ensured that he would fail to do so with his own family. Ed realized that, if he hadn’t been monkeying around with walkers in the first place, his family would still be alive to protect.
The lesson to be learned in Ed’s story? When you do unnecessarily dangerous things, you’re gambling with your life, and the lives of those you care about, and, the thing about gambling is…sooner or later, you lose.
Risking your life is something that, frankly, is just going to happen in a zombie apocalypse — The mere act of surviving the outbreak means that every day afterward is one where you’re taking your life into your hands — but, that doesn’t mean you need to willfully increase the odds of disaster happening when you don’t really need to.
If you can find away to avoid getting into confrontations with animals, hostiles, or zombies, do it. You don’t need to fight things all the time: You can outsmart them, outmaneuver them, or outrun them.
The apocalypse will be dangerous as it is, no need to make it worse.