By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
I fell in love with the Walking Dead from the very first episode and it wasn’t long before I realised nobody is guaranteed to get to the following episode. One case in point is the death of Amy played by Emma Bell. What caught me from the start of this show was that I felt sorry for the zombies especially the one Rick met in the opening episode which has been somehow cut in half. (That zombie’s origin was shown in a mini episode to compliment the new season). This was once a woman living her life and now crawled the world as this abomination.
This was different; this was new and there was no better example of this in the death of Amy. She was the sister of Andrea (Laurie Holden) and seemed destined to be a series regular. However in episode four the camp was attacked by a zombie horde and Amy was bitten. What really made this work for me was the reactions of young actor Chandler Riggs who played Rick’s son, Carl. As a young kid, his terrified screams chilled me to the bone as the dead attacked as he clung to his mother.
Amy dies in Andrea’s arms and it is the first time we see a corpse reanimating. But it is how the director shot it that made the horror even more heartbreaking. When Amy begins to reanimate it is as if she is waking from a sleep. Andrea speaks to her and Amy looks to her sister. Slowly she lifts a hand and touches her hair. It is as if Amy recognises Andrea and is reaching out to comfort her. For a moment you swear Amy is going to speak. Her hand is almost stroking Andrea’s hair as her mouth moves. Amy struggles to sit up, her mannerism not yet that of an aggressive zombie. She seems almost confused until her grip tightens on Andrea’s hair and it is clear she is trying to bite her. Yet you cannot help but get the feeling that it is a younger sibling trying to find comfort and reassurance from her big sister in all this horror. Even up to the famous guttural snarls that end with a bullet through the head, Amy seems to be struggling to talk to her sister one last time. It makes things even more tragic when Andrea has to kill her sister.
This is where the Walking Dead differed from every other show. The tragedy of becoming one of the undead is looked at and played out to heighten the suffering of the main cast as they lose loved ones. Amy’s death remains part of the reason the show resonated with viewers and set them on the path as a phenomenon.
Photo and video copyright AMC
The Time Warriors and Beyond 