Season 4;
Episode 1
They have
built a new Garden of Eden! There is a
barnyard in the prison yard, there is a fence to keep them out, they go
trawling for supplies…all seems good…but it is a new season, so bad things have
to happen.
I am not
entirely sure what it is that brings me back to the fourth season of the show. Zombies, cool, over a series, it is working
pretty well. The idea that main
characters get bit at seemingly random times, all that plays in.
But the
piece that really gets me is how they portray real people in extraordinary
circumstances. I want to play out one
bit tonight. SPOILER ALERT!!! DON’T READ
ON IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED!!
Beth, not a
primary fighter, the younger daughter, little sister, the one who sang songs to
keep up the spirits last season, she has a suitor. His name is Zach. And they have an “aw shucks” moment before
Zach heads out with the supply party. “Aren’t
you going say goodbye?” And she answers,
“No.”
And then he
gets bit, a couple of times, ending rather badly. When Darryl brings the news back to Beth, her
reaction was one of cautious indifference.
She was glad she didn’t say good bye, because she hates good byes. And she casually changes the sign that said “30
days without an accident” back to zero.
That is why
I like this series. Hers was not a
healthy reaction. One mourns someone
when you lose them, it is human nature.
It is how we recover from the shock and trauma. The mourning process or the grieving process
works well when we are able to, for ourselves, complete what was left
incomplete when we lost something important in our lives.
She is so
calm. And I’ve seen people who have been
calm like that in the face of tragedy.
But the very nature of the show, the circumstances that they have set
up, that are so extreme that it is somehow ‘the new normal’ for her to act this
way. The extreme of the situation that
make her reaction a ‘healthy’ one, that contrasts with our ‘old normal’.
As a pastor,
I’ve met people with the ‘Beth-face’ in the face of personal tragic
circumstances. And I don’t want to
provoke anguish, but I know how important grieving is. I know the necessity of completing that work
to be able to live fully once again. And
you have to get them to talk about it.
Let them
tell you the stories, press for the stories, even if they are being shared by a
smiling face. Because we are hard wired
to recover by a grieving process. That
process is a gift from God so that we do not get stuck in the gloom of despair.
And I sit
here, and rehash the episode in my mind, and wonder why Beth’s reaction provoked
me. And that is what good art is
supposed to do. Welcome season 4!
