Why Watching Walking Dead is Like Turning into a Zombie

Zombies have no idea what's going on. They're all like, "Wait, is this a door? Or did I just impale myself on a pitchfork?" Kind of like Walking Dead fans, right around the end of season two when they were all like, "Wait, did you we just waste half a fucking season searching for a character who's already dead? What is going on here?"

Zombies are as dumb as it gets. In fact, since they run purely on instinct, technically you could say they have no intelligence whatsoever. Same thing happens when you watch Walking Dead. First you stop using logic to question the idiotic decisions the characters make, then you stop getting frustrated when one episode ends on a cliffhanger and the next one just blows right past the part where they explain how it was resolved, then eventually you just come to accept that every storyline is going to be drawn out as long as possible and never reach a satisfying conclusion. Show hurt brain so now just watch, no more think.

Zombies don't know why they love eating brains so much, they just know that they do. It's a feeling Walking Dead fans know all too well, as even though the show continues to disappoint season after season and the reality that it's never going to reach its massive potential becomes increasingly clear, they still just HAVE to see what happens next. New episode. Must watch. Still sucks. Don't care. MUST. WATCH.

Also like a zombie chasing brains, those cravings Walking Dead induces are ones you'll do ANYTHING to satisfy once you've been sucked in, even if the show does piss you off week after week. At that point, the content doesn't even matter anymore, it's just about getting that fix. Could be a full-on gang war with tanks and rocket launchers, could be 45 minutes of Carl crying in the corner because he ripped his cowboy hat. Makes no difference. You WILL watch it, and no force in this world is strong enough to stop you. But that's just the side other people see. On the INSIDE, meanwhile...

You think one zombie gives a shit when another one gets his head blown off? Of course not And when you watch Walking Dead long enough, the same thing happens to you too. Characters you love die. Characters you hate die. Characters you have no feeling towards whatsoever die, and eventually you start to just casually brush off each individual death without even thinking about it: "Who died this time? Got it. NEXT!"

There are two ways to watch Walking Dead: back-to-back in five-hour increments or, once you're caught up, late on a Sunday at the end of a long weekend. Either way, if you don't end up sprawled out on your couch in your pajamas with your hair a mess and unintelligible groans periodically emanating from your larynx, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.