Unlike many other zombie movies or TV shows, The Walking Dead has always shied away from explaining just how the zombies came about as well as the ins and outs of surviving the undead outbreak. Speaking at this past weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con, creator Robert Kirkman was asked about this and explained why he doesn’t want to tackle anything like that on the show.
“When we get questions like these [about a cure], we like to not be as definitive as possible because we don’t want to reveal anything. But the answers are ‘no’ and ‘no’.”
Kirkman then went on to give two reasons why he isn’t interested in elaborating on it, saying:
“One, because it’s been done on a lot of other zombie stories. And two, because you know it’s kind of a mythology-breaking proposition. You don’t want that kind of thing as far as somebody being immune. And we have dabbled in that a little bit in the other show [Fear The Walking Dead].”
“But as far as actually trying to solve the thing, I’ve always thought that one of the best things about this show is that it’s not about scientists and it’s not about people that would take that on as a task – because I feel like that’s unrelatable. I think if there were a zombie apocalypse, I don’t know that there’s maybe five people in this room that would have that job.”
“To go off and try to solve this would be a boring show, so definitely not.”
We can see Kirkman’s points – the fact that the zombie outbreak is basically just a backdrop for the drama of having a group of people survive the dangers of an uncivilized post-apocalyptic world is at the core of the show. To push too far on the mythology of it would mean that it loses a little of its uniqueness.
That said, fans would love to find out more about the backstory. After all, we’ve had a few hints over the years, as it was revealed back in season 2 that the zombie pathogen kicks in at the point of death, meaning that no one is immune from it. It was also revealed in Fear The Walking Dead that the whole world has been affected by the infection. But aside from that, we haven’t gotten very much, unfortunately.
The Walking Dead returns for its eighth season on October 22nd, just don’t expect it to dive too far into the history of the zombie outbreak.
