With everything going on in the world – including Capitol Hill being on lockdown as I type this sentence due to someone ramming their car into a barrier and injuring two Capitol Hill police officers – I want to write about “jumping the shark”.
I want to write about “jumping the shark” in relation to what was once one of my favorite shows to watch with others – The Walking Dead.
First of all, I want to confess I had no idea until I searched the internets where the expression “jump the shark” originated. I understood what it meant but I was amused to learn its origins can be traced to a scene in the television sitcom Happy Days when The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, literally jumps a shark Evel Kneivel-style.
By 1977, I was in Bellingham attending Western Washington State College – soon to be a university – and I was officially in the “cultural blackout” stage of my life. I’ve mentioned this before but I don’t think I’ve gone into detail.
I watched Happy Days in my senior year of high school. I watched many hours of television in my youth. But for the six plus years I was in college and several years thereafter, I did not own a television, I did not have roommates who owned televisions, I had no access to televisions and, of course, the world wide web – even computers with graphics – was still far off into the future.
This meant – for me – I was frozen in a cultural amber. I read newspapers. I read magazines. I read books. I went to movies as if they were prerequisites for my existence. (Like the time my nephew and I raced around Seattle on typical cloudy day to catch The Stunt Man, Cutter’s Way and Breaker Morant one after the other at three separate theaters. A movie trifecta!) I listened to radio stations in a haphazard manner – predominantly while driving somewhere. I’d hear the latest music but rarely catch the name of the tune or the artist.
So I completely missed Fonzie jumping the shark – in his iconic leather jacket no less!
The Walking Dead debuted in 2010 and - apparently - had been a very popular graphic novel. I wasn’t an immediate fan when it first aired but when I discovered the lead actor was my favorite man-hunk from Love, Actually – Andrew Lincoln – I had to check it out. I like post-apocalyptic stories. I prefer werewolves over zombies – in The Walking Dead they are ONLY referred to as “walkers” (why the populace has mass amnesia over the term “zombie” is never explained, perhaps, trademark issues?) – but in a post-apocalyptic world it makes more sense, I suppose, to have zombies rather than werewolves.
The story was compelling. The acting was first-rate. The premise was plausible enough. The characters usually behaved within the realm of reason. The gore was. . . . manageable. Especially while watching with friends. Especially because it revolved around necessity and survival.
I believe the show became television’s most watched series there for a while. Pretty incredible that a series about zombies and people staving off attacks from zombies would achieve such a lofty position.
***SPOILER ALERT!***
Like HBO’s Game of Thrones, and faithful to the graphic novel, you never were quite sure if one of the lead characters would survive an episode. There were two season finales – in the first few years – that stood out in my mind for their audaciousness and for their superb acting. The one where Andrew Lincoln’s character, the ex-sheriff Rick Grimes, has to shoot his best friend to put him out of his misery, and the one where corralled walkers spill out of an old barn and Rick and his group see that a child of one of their members, who had gone missing, was one of them.
THAT was an emotionally charged scene.
But let’s get to the shark-jumping.
Frankly, I thought the whole story line with Rick’s wife being pregnant was a jump the shark moment. These people are running for their lives through the kudzu of the Georgian countryside dodging zombies and fearful of other mean-minded and resource-deprived survivors, never knowing where their next refuge or meal is going to come from, and they decide to go through with having a child! It seemed irrational, irresponsible and idiotic to me, but, in the end, I guess it would certainly be a scenario that would play out in a real zombie apocalypse. I let it slide, though I remember marveling or wondering almost every episode thereafter – but what about the kid?!?
I thought Rick’s son, Carl, was a shark-jumping entity unto himself. A tween in the beginning, maybe younger, he was an enormous liability. I didn’t expect Rick to ditch him or anything, I just couldn’t believe a sentient being as clueless as he was could have survived more than an episode or two.
But the real shark-jumping moment for me and my fellow loyal watcher, Nicole, came on a season opening scene where our “heroes” are nearly mass-executed by a baseball bat wielding megalomaniac and leader of another tribe of survivors, Negan. Negan, a charismatic figure in the graphic novel, is played by a charismatic, good-looking actor named Jeffrey Dean Morgan. One of the things that made the scene so horrific was Negan’s nonchalance and perverse gleefulness as he mentally abused his captives before, eventually, executing a couple of them.
I remember pausing the show as Nicole and I looked at one another in disbelief. I said I had to check online to see where this scene was going before I continued because, if he was going to bludgeon all of our “heroes” to death en masse, which was entirely possible given the nature of the show, well I wasn’t sure I could watch. No matter how ‘tasteful’ they might have made it. And, these days, horror is rarely presented in a Hitchcockian fashion. In fact, the more appalling, the better. Or so it seems.
Nicole and I watched a season or two after that, but the Negan character never went away and the Rick Grimes character, suffering post traumatic stress disorder, was never his heroic self again. A shame for those of us who like the grittiness of reality but we also want to believe - ultimately - good triumphs over evil.
As popular as the show was, the strange thing was hard core fans appeared to embrace the invidious Negan. Or, at least, the show did not seem to lose much of its popularity due to his presence. Having foils and conflicts make for a good story, but The Walking Dead felt like it became Negan’s story, not Rick’s story, after that brutal season opening episode.
It makes me wonder about our humanity.
It makes me wonder if the showrunners of TWD tapped into something. Like the precursor insanity that would lead to QAnon and the real estate mogul without a shred of empathy getting elected to the highest office in the land.
It makes me wonder if the lines between good and evil are becoming increasingly blurred.
It makes me wonder if the lines between reality and make-believe are becoming more and more difficult to determine for some people.
The signs are trending positive – the CDC says vaccinated people can travel, deaths due to COVID are in decline, well intentioned ideas are percolating in Congress, more and more people are able to get vaccinated, Capitol Hill insurrectionists are being arrested, stimulus checks have been received or are on the way, an infrastructure bill is in the works, I’ve learned how to use an em dash (very exciting!) – but let’s just hope we haven’t jumped the shark on democracy.
Did you know militias are unlawful in all 50 states? Now you do!
Go here to download PDFs with specific info for each state: Fact Sheets on Unlawful Militias by Georgetown Law
Also, with the trial of the police officer who was responsible for the death of George Floyd ongoing, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is doing their part to rectify this sort of gross misconduct. Their article is a concise explanation of Qualified Immunity – what it is, where it came from, what we might be able to do about it.
You might also check out the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity organization’s website here. Even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a supporter.
Will wonders never cease?