‘The Walking Dead’ Could Learn A Thing Or Two From Netflix’s Best New Show

1 year ago 67

The Walking Dead (Left) American Primeval (Right)

Credit: AMC / Netflix

There are many things about AMC’s The Walking Dead and its litany of spinoffs that bother me, but one thing that irks me like no other is the fact that so many of the characters on these shows look so clean and put-together.

Just look at Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in the above picture. She’s wearing a nice, clean denim jacket. Her hair is perfectly styled. If you saw that picture without knowing it was The Walking Dead, you’d have no idea she was in a zombie apocalypse.

Here’s Carol (Melissa McBride) from the recent Daryl Dixon: The Book Of Carol:

The Walking Dead

Credit: AMC

Again, nice hair, brand-new leather jacket. Some jewelry. This doesn’t look like a woman in a zombie apocalypse who just got into a scrap with a guy, locked him in her truck and then drove off on a motorcycle. A normal person going about their day doesn’t look this put-together.

Check out Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) in The Ones Who Live, currently on the run from the powerful CRM:

Michonne and Rick

Credit: AMC

They sure look clean and well taken care of with those stylish outdoors clothes and perfect hair! And Rick’s beard sure is nice and trimmed. I swear, Rick/Lincoln looks years younger in the spinoff than he did way back in Season 5!

Rick Grimes Season 5 (Left) Rick Grimes The Ones Who Live (Right)

Credit: AMC

What all of this does—along with the ease by which characters happen upon electricity and fuel and working vehicles and all the myriad conveniences of modern life—is break immersion for viewers. Yes, the actors all get to look good with their wavy stylized hair and trimmed beards and designer clothing, but audiences are robbed of the one thing that made The Walking Dead so good in the beginning: Realism.

I’m dirtier and more beat-up looking after a few days of camping than these hardened survivors of a deadly world, where civilization has collapsed entirely and shambling undead lurk around every corner. Scarcity matters in stories about the end of the world. Scarcity of water, food, safety, supplies, gasoline. Living by a fire means you’re covered in smoke. Living without running water makes it harder to bathe as often. Living with constant threat of death means your priorities shift away from things like nice hairdos and swanky outfits.

Even Daryl (Norman Reedus) who is by far the most reliably dirty, ragged and shaggy of the bunch manages to always make it look intentional.

Daryl Dixon

Credit: AMC

We’ll call this “Hobo chic” and it’s probably Daryl at his worst in recent years. Normally he’s more svelte:

Isabelle and Daryl

Credit: AMC

Of course, in the spinoffs there are plenty of the same or slightly different problems with later-day The Walking Dead. In Dead City, there are bars with neon signs. No shortage of power there. In The Ones Who Live, our heroes encounter a completely powered and secure apartment, completely randomly, still untouched by the end of the world a decade plus into the apocalypse. In Daryl Dixon, all the French people dress like they’re in pre-war Europe, and all their fashionable, homespun attire is clean and pressed.

Totally accurate clothes for modern-day France.

Credit: AMC

It wasn’t always this way. In the earlier seasons of the show, characters were often filthy, caked with dirt and blood, clothes tattered. In Fear The Walking Dead, Frank Dillane’s character Nick often looked something like this:

Nick Clark

Credit: AMC

By the end of that show, even at her lowest point, Nick’s sister Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) looked like a total smokeshow, just a little worse for wear at death’s door:

Alicia

Credit: AMC

American Primeval

I recently reviewed the brand new Netflix Western limited series American Primeval, and one of the things that jumped out at me about that show was just how dirty everyone and everything was, from the costumes to skin. One character (pictured above) who survives a scalping, constantly has blood all over his grimy face. Nobody can escape the dirt. Everyone is scarred and ragged. The American frontier was a brutal place, but no more brutal than a zombie apocalypse. But just imagine if The Walking Dead paid this much attention to detail! Imagine if that translated not just into sets and costumes and makeup, but into the writing and story.

Courtesy of Netflix

The head of makeup on American Primeval told The Salt Lake Tribune some of the demands made by the show’s director, Peter Berg:

Howard Berger, the head of makeup on “American Primeval,” a Netflix limited series, thought he had achieved the optimal level of grime. He prepared a makeup test — muddied necks, blackened fingernails, dirt painted inside an actor’s ears — and showed it to Peter Berg, the series’ director.
Berg was unsatisfied. “‘More! More!’” Berger recalled him saying. “‘Come on, man. Cover him in dirt, like he hasn’t bathed in a year.’”
Berger did. “We went ahead,” Berger said, “and just kept making it more and more grungy.”

Berg himself noted the importance of realism in creating a powerful story. “It’s important that we represent the world as it truly was — good, bad, indifferent, ugly,” he said. “Once you cheat that, it doesn’t land the same.”

The six-episode show built an exact replica of Fort Bridger. 1,300 garments were made along with hundreds of pairs of moccasins. Artisans aged and dyed the costumes over and over again, relentlessly pursuing verisimilitude in all things. Over 3,500 indigenous items—including teepees—were constructed by Native Americans for the show. The effect is powerful. American Primeval is far from perfect, but what it gets right it does in stunning fashion.

The denizens of Fort Bridger are all covered in dirt and grime. Black smudges mar every visage. From clothing to fingernails, everything is soot and mud and ash and blood. What a welcome sight! If only The Walking Dead would pay such close attention to this level of gritty realism. I have said before and I’ll say it again: If AMC paid half as much attention to its writing and characters as it did to creating cool-looking zombies, it would be a masterpiece instead of wallowing in endless mediocrity.

You can read my review of American Primeval right here. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live lands on the streaming service next Monday, January 13th.

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