The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Deals And Compromises

The Walking Dead – final season

Be careful who you’re making deals with.

If I’m being honest. I think, over these last two episodes, Carol made a pretty rare miscalculation. Ever since season four, Carol has become increasingly thoughtful and pragmatic, looking at a bigger picture that others may not be able to see, and has made good judgments with people like Morgan and Negan. Her decision to make a deal with Pamela Milton, however, was not such a good judgment. I think it will be the beginning of a massive issue not only with Milton but the entire Commonwealth.

Why do I say this? Because Pamela is a career politician from a long-time political family. Politicians are master liars and manipulators, and Pamela Milton may be the best still going. Her whole career has been dedicated to convincing people to give her power and ensuring she retains as much as she can for as long as she can. What’s more, her father was president before she rose to power, and don’t think for a minute that he didn’t teach her every lie and scheme he knew from a career that took him all the way to the White House. I think Carol is out of her depth. I think she made a deal thinking that Lance Hornsby was the group’s greatest threat and turned to Pamela for help, not taking into account that a person powerful enough to help put an end to Hornsby’s machinations is a far more dangerous adversary.

In a zombie apocalypse, you need to be extremely careful with who you make deals. People are willing to screw others over in deals right now, where there are social and legal consequences for it, they will be even worse when those consequences are gone, in fact, there are some people who might have never considered screwing someone over before the apocalypse, who might be more than willing to do so in one, that’s how serious this issue can be.

Ask yourself these questions before making any deals with anyone in the apocalypse: 1) What am I really getting from the other person in this deal? 2) What am I actually giving up to this person? 3) Is it more beneficial for the other party to screw me over than it is to uphold the deal?  4) What do I really know about the person I’m dealing with? and most importantly, 5) Can I trust this person?

If you don’t like the answers to any of these questions or don’t know enough to really have answers, that should be a sign to you that making a deal with this other party might cause you more problems than it solves.

Speaking of which…