The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Plan, Plan, Plan

The Walking Dead – Lockdown

Have an exit strategy.

While Maggie, Daryl, Aaron, Father Gabriel, and Annie were fighting off Lance Hornsby and his minions, the rest of the group now (Effectively) trapped in the Commonwealth began thinking about just how sideways things could go on them, as Hornsby’s spy ring worked to try to stymie Maggie’s team from the other end, and the political situation inside the Commonwealth began to get dicey. While discussing this circumstance with Magna, Yumiko brought up something she believed they all needed to consider: An exit strategy.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but in a zombie apocalypse, there’s always the possibility that things can get pretty screwed up on you pretty quickly — Whether that’s because of zombies, hostiles, the weather, or even because the larger group you might be part of is tearing apart or turning out to be not as friendly as you thought — and you need to have a plan in place to get yourself and everyone you care about out of the situation before it’s too late.

For this, you and your group need to arrange a shared plan for what to do and where to go in the event these worst-case scenarios emerge. How will you escape your base, your city, or whatever larger group you’re stuck with if things go bad? Where will you meet up? What if you get separated? You have to have answers to these questions and make sure that everyone in your group knows them.

Additionally, you should all have a general idea of when you need to use an exit strategy. We’ve seen times when our heroes in The Walking Dead have managed to slip out of some extremely close calls and manage to extricate large threats from their homes despite the odds initially being stacked against them, but…you don’t really want to wait until a thousand zombies are flooding your street before you decide to leave, do you? There’s no single answer for this, as each situation is different, but if you genuinely believe the threat is coming or you’re going to move against an enemy, that seems like a good time to either bail or at least get the most vulnerable members of your group somewhere safe where your enemies can’t get at them.

If survival is the name of the game, then your exit strategy may be the most important plan you come up with in the zombie apocalypse.