The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Your Apocalypse Family

The Walking Dead, those you survive with become like family.

It was kind of tough for me, for a little while, trying to figure out what bit of wisdom I could glean from this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. After all, the episode focused mostly on Daryl being captive of the Reapers and showing us how they operate, not necessarily a wealth of survival lessons to be found there.

However, the more I thought about the Reapers, their backstory, and how they operate, the more a cohesive thread formed. The Reapers, in their own way, are a family, and that sense of family is a good reason why they’ve survived as long as they have in the apocalypse, where so many other highly skilled and capable survivors have not.

Thus, it hit me: To survive a zombie apocalypse, people, especially if they’re not actually related, need to come to see each other as family. Where more loosely connected groups may suffer from desertion, disintegration, or betrayal, those who’ve come to see each other as a family will make efforts to preserve their group, especially in times of existential threat. In this week’s The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week, we’re going to tackle how and why you should treat those you survive with like your family.