The Walking Dead Theory: The Fall Of Washington

The Walking Dead universe has shown us the fallen cities of Los Angeles, Tijuana, Dallas, Atlanta, and most recently, Washington, D.C. We’ve seen each of these cities in various states of decay, including seeing L.A. and Atlanta destroyed by Operation: Cobalt.

However, DC seems different. When we saw Rick, Michonne, and various members of the coalition harvest supplies from the Smithsonian, DC looked no different from Atlanta, LA, or any other cities we’ve caught glimpses of in the show.

Yet, with the first two episodes of this season taking us into the literal underbelly of the nation’s capital, we’ve seen hints of Washington suffering a fate even worse than that of other major cities across the U.S.

Daryl, having been separated from the rest of the group, discovered the ruins of a makeshift community in the train tunnels, where once only the homeless resided; now they were coexisting with people across the socioeconomic spectrum, all trying to avoid the chaos on the surface. Among these ruins, Daryl found the body of a man who was very rich at the start of the outbreak but wound up being murdered and having his arm amputated for his briefcase full of (Untouched) money. Across from him was a mural, a drawing that seemed to depict people of higher wealth and status getting into fights or being mobbed by those who didn’t on the steps of the capital.

So, what, exactly, happened? We saw riots in Los Angeles as the outbreak was beginning in Fear The Walking Dead; they just seemed like general riots, not especially directed at any group inside the city. If they had been, one would think it would be something the National Guard would try to tamp down amongst the survivors and refugees. Yet, the riots aren’t even mentioned in their aftermath, so it stands to reason that there wasn’t any directed violence.

The Walking Dead Theory

Washington is the reason why Operation: Cobalt happened.

Since The Walking Dead moved to Alexandria in season five, we’ve slowly gotten bits and pieces of Washington’s downfall, painting an increasingly bleak picture of what happened in the nation’s capital.

First, we learned the backstory of one of Negan’s lieutenants, Paula. From listening to her tell her story to Carol in the season six episode, “The Same Boat,” we learned that, when things started breaking down, the military moved essential government officials and Congress (As evidenced by Deanna being sent to Alexandria) out of the city, yet, everyone else was left behind.

Then, as seen over the last two episodes, things inside the DC Metro didn’t go very well, as a train was, apparently, trapped inside a tunnel during the middle of, what had been, a normal day, until part of the tunnel collapsed, with some of the passengers appearing to have died the moment this happened (As seen by Gabriel being attacked by walkers who were still sitting in the train seats they died in).

Lastly, we have Daryl’s discovery. If we take the mural at face value, the “class warfare” (For lack of a better term) was taking place on the surface of Washington. This is important because this would mean this chaos and (Seemingly) directed violence — Angry mobs attacking people either because they were people of wealth and status in the city or were perceived as such — was happening before Cobalt. This seems like it was, perhaps subconsciously, a problem across the city: Paula specifically recounted to Carol that she murdered her boss not long after Congress was evacuated.

Wouldn’t it make perfect sense that military officials, seeing that this crisis had caused a frighteningly quick break down incivility, and with the numbers of dead increasing rapidly, both between the victims of the mob violence, as well as the infected being drawn to and attacking both the rioters and those they were attacking, decide that they need to consider a catch-all option, both to deal with the mass violence and the infected? I think so.

I think, after seeing how badly society broke down in the nation’s capital, the military was horrified and came up with Cobalt, implementing it in DC first, hoping that they wouldn’t need it anywhere else, but, after seeing what happened in the arena in Los Angeles, as well as instances like in Texas or New York (Like with Huck), of soldiers killing their own units rather than kill civilians from infected zones, deemed the entire situation untenable and set Cobalt into motion nationwide.

Whatever the case may be, I think the situation in Washington, D.C., was far worse than anywhere else in the U.S., with seething conflicts erupting into violence as soon as order broke down in the face of the outbreak. After that initial breakdown, the remaining portions of the government decided that things were far worse than they initially anticipated and created the ultimate fail-safe operation to try to stop what they saw in DC from erupting into a wave of destruction across the rest of the country, as well as stymie the infected and try to stop the zombie virus as best as possible, and created Cobalt.

Is that why Cobalt was conceived? I don’t know, but what I do know is that, by all appearances, the situation in Washington was far worse than anywhere else in the U.S., with society breaking down completely when the outbreak hit, far more than it did in any other city we’ve seen in North America in the Walking Dead universe. I think that breakdown was so shocking to the remaining government that it made them legitimately fear that the likelihood of holding the nation together was crumbling, and decided their only course left was to try to destroy the mobs in the city and take the infected with them, in the hope of giving people outside of the city a fighting chance.

But, what do you think? Do you think the situation in Washington was uniquely bad compared to the rest of the continent? Do you think this changed how the U.S. military perceived the outbreak and how they’d react to it? Do you think Negan saw some of this? Was this the “bad memories” he told Father Gabriel about but wouldn’t elaborate on? Let me know; I’m curious! And, if you want to hear my theories on 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 on Amazon here and iTunes here!