Posts from the ‘Television’ Category

The Walking Dead season 3 finale: Thoughts on Andrea

Laurie Holden as Andrea, on The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead has had a change of leadership. Three times in fact. The show, an adaptation of a comic book series, was developed by Frank Darabont, who brought Canadian actress Laurie Holden to the show to play Andrea. Darabont often casts Holden in his movies, including The Mist and The Majestic. Prior to the second season, and after much contrition, AMC replaced Darabont with Glen Mazzara, who has since resigned from his position. That’s a lot of turnover for a show that’s only 3-years-old.

I mention this because The Walking Dead is a show about change. A lot of characters die in a postapocalyptic zombie wonderland. The last episode of season three aired Sunday night with the death of a major character: Andrea put a bullet in her head after being bitten by a zombie.

This is not reflective of the comic book Andrea, who is still alive. Unfortunately the television character was never fully developed, at least not like the male characters have been, and it’s this reality that I take some issue with.

Bear with me for a moment. At the end of season two Andrea was separated from her group and rescued by Michonne, a katana wielding stranger who keeps pet zombies. At the beginning of season three Michonne and Andrea have bonded over the long winter months, surviving against all odds until Andrea becomes sick. The dynamic duo are taken in by a protected community called Woodbury, led by a man referred to as The Governor who Michonne takes an instant dislike to. Andrea, after the death of her sister, and tired of fighting, is drawn to the people of Woodbury, and to The Governor. The two begin a romantic relationship.

Eventually Michonne and Andrea are separated and Michonne is taken in by Andrea’s old friends who are living at an abandoned prison, and who are unaware that Andrea is still alive.

16 episodes later, a war breaks out between Woodbury and the prison and Andrea attempts to reconcile both sides, but is naively ignorant to the fact that her boyfriend, The Governor, is insane. It’s a bit of a stretch that it takes her so long to realize what is obvious to everyone else, and in the end The Governor turns on her when she tries to escape Woodbury, a move that leads to her demise.

Okay so synopsis aside, my main problem with the death of Andrea is that there isn’t a lead female character on the show now. The women that are left are underdeveloped, like Michonne, or defined entirely by the male characters. Though I like the way Carol is growing and becoming stronger, I’m annoyed that she is primarily known for asking Daryl to have sex with her. Maggie may grow on me, but so far she cannot exist outside of her relationship with Glenn, though he exists independently of her. I also didn’t warm to the show where she was humiliated in removing her clothes in an attempted rape, and later risked her life to have sex with Glenn.

I’ve noticed that shows similar to this, like LOST for example, poorly plan the female characters’ storylines. They begin as interesting and independent people, but eventually become a romantic interest to one of the male characters, and serve only as a means to propel the male characters’ story arcs forward.

I was disappointed in the way the writers handled the character of Andrea because her intentions were always good, she was committed to ending the killings, and bringing people together, but she was so sloppily and inconsistently written that she became annoying, and a nuisance. Rick and The Governor are clearly ineffective and stubborn leaders, and it’s a shame that Andrea’s solutions were treated with disdain, laughable even.

Contrast the way the men are developed and the story is very different. Great care has been taken to ensure that Rick and Daryl remain heroes, elevating their characters from the comic book to even more iconic status.

The Andrea in the comic book is a warrior, an equal to Rick, who is the main protagonist. She’s a fan favourite, and many of them were disappointed with how the television Andrea was developed. Instead of fixing their mistakes, and simply honouring the comic book Andrea, like they have done with the male characters on the show, they killed her off, bowing to market research that probably showed that Andrea was a character few people enjoyed.

This is exactly what I saw happen with LOST, where Juliet and Kate were relegated to the love interests of Jack and Sawyer, the leaders of two separate factions. These two characters began as strong, independent women, but a decision was made to demote them to mere girlfriends.

Someone once told me that this representation of women in movies and television is actually a reflection of what women want to see, and that focus group research demonstrates that when actresses play these submissive roles, the television show is more popular, because test audiences only see females as a wife, mother, or a girlfriend, and are weary of fictional female characters who are dissimilar.

I was speaking to Lisa about this the other day and she made a good point also. Because Andrea broke from the group, and then tried to escape her adopted home, she achieved independence from the male characters, namely The Governor and Rick. As a result, she had to be punished with death.

I also read an interview with Laurie Holden who admitted that Andrea’s death was not included in the blue-print of the third season and she learned of her character’s death a few days before filming the finale. She expressed disappointment that Andrea wasn’t written more like the comic book character but was grateful for the opportunity to star in such a successful television show. A class act indeed. Very Canadian.

Certainly, Frank Darabont did not plan the demise of this character when he developed the show and cast Holden in the role back in 2010. It appears that Andrea was a casualty of leadership change, and bad planning. Very rarely are the male story arcs handled so carelessly, and if they are, they’re usually gay.

I am not sure why it’s so challenging for men to write for women, and why they can’t see them as more than sexual beings, existing merely for the entertainment of men, but they do. It makes it difficult to invest in the female characters, because the writers can’t consistently develop them, and they’re rarely as revered as the men.

Andrea was my favourite character on The Walking Dead, I believed in her, and she helped break the male centricity of a very macho show. I hope that Michonne lives up to her comic book persona, and that the writers spend more time developing her as a human being who speaks sometimes.