I feel as though I am forever defending the ladies of the
Walking Dead tv series. People first hated on Lori, later Carol, and now Andrea
is suffering the full wrath of irate fandom.
To be fair, there were complaints about her from the very
beginning, first about her age, later her anger towards Dale, her relationship
with Shane, and her willingness to let Doodlebug shuffle her ass off this
mortal coil. However, since coming to Woodbury in season three, the complaints
have escalated greatly, probably because Lori was retired as Fan Target Prime.
I won’t say that the complaints are without justification –
the writers have frequently employed stalling tactics to pad out this seasons
16 episode run, and Andrea has been their tool of choice. I also see no reason
to address the hostility aimed at Lauire Holden. Any idiot who would attack an
actress, especially who loves her job and is doing her level best to serve her
character, for decisions made in the writers’ room should not be allowed to
further their lineage.
The complaints seem to break down into two separate (albeit related)
categories.
First, there are those who whine about who Andrea is not,
namely that she is not the same as the character from the comics. To be fair,
this is true. Comic Andrea is one of the
few characters to have (to date) survived the 100+ issue journey with Rick
Grimes, and has endeared herself to fans for being “kick ass.” Actually I would
challenge that notion. Andrea is not “kick ass” – Michonne is, but Andrea is
not. She is a crack shot, far and away the best marksman in the group,
but take the gun out of her hands and her combat skills seem more on par with
Maggie’s. Good thing the ammo factories
are running full bore during the zombie apocalypse, or Andrea would be spending
a lot more time doing the wash.
While the show has hinted at Andrea’s skills
with a gun, she hasn’t had much chance to show them off, and they would serve
her better by letting her do so. However, this is still a tv show, not a comic,
and I’m not sure the change in medium facilitates the level of awesomeness that
is Andrea Dead-Eye. Comic readers are used to Superman, Spider-Man and Batman.
We come to expect characters to pull off superhuman feats on a regular basis. I’m
not sure the average tv viewer would give the same degree of latitude.
The real problem here is that there is not much else to Comic
Andrea (at least not up to issue #96, the last I’ve read to date). Basically,
she loved her sister until she died, loved Dale until he died, and then shot
stuff. She didn’t really have much to do when she wasn’t shooting at things. TV
Andrea has probably had a lot more “screen time” in two and a half seasons than
Comic Andrea has had in 8 years. Like most of the other characters – Rick,
Shane, the Governor, Carl, Carol, Hershel - TV Andrea has been forced to develop a depth
that her black and white counterpart never had to. This is not to say you have
to like what they’ve done with her, but there simply was no way she was ever
going to be exactly what was in the book.
The second, and most frequent, type of complaint is about
what Andrea is on the show, regardless of her comic book incarnation.
Namely fans complain that she is irrational, stupid and disloyal. I’m not going to bother defending what she
did in past seasons – those doors have long closed, and the writers responsible
have almost all moved on- but let’s look at what has happened in season three.
Andrea begins the season having spent some 6-8 months with Michonne
(based on the progress of Lori’s pregnancy). They are “rescued” by the Woodbury
crew, and allowed into a last bastion of civilization sporting food, running
water, electricity, medicine and what appears to be a normal, stable community.
Michonne choses to leave, but Andrea decides to stay behind and bed the
Governor. When tensions arise between Woodbury and Rick’s crew, she finds her
loyalty tested.
This is what seems to drive people nuts. How can she remain
loyal to the man with the zombie head fish tank, and turn her back on the
people she spent two seasons with?
While I won’t defend every one of her actions, the problem
in broad strokes is that viewers are failing to recognize that there is a
difference between their experiences and Andrea’s. Andrea was with the Atlanta group for an unknown amount of
time before Rick showed up. That was a group led by Shane, that included her
sister, Dale, Lori, Jim, Merle, Darryl, Glen, Carol and Carl. There was, at
most, two months that passed between the time Rick found (and took over) the
group, and the end of season two. Most of those that she knew from that
original group had died. Those that remained included Rick – the man who killed
her lover Shane- and members of Herschel’s family, who weren’t exactly on the
best of terms with our characters for most of season 2. By the time she makes
her way to the prison in “I Ain’t a Judas”, the composition (and character) of
the group had changed dramatically, and she had been separated from them far
longer than she had been with them. In fact it seems she’s been in Woodbury
almost as long as she was with Rick. There really was no reason to think she
would automatically chose one side over the other.
What about Michonne? Easily they have spent a great deal of
time together. Didn’t she betray Michonne?
I don’t see how. Michonne was the one who chose to leave her, without
once bothering to explain why. When Michonne returns it is part of a violent,
and in her case, vicious assault.
What of the Governor? He’s clearly a bastard and she
couldn’t peel herself from her bed. But again this is from the view of the
omniscient viewer. We saw Phillip kill the soldiers and behead the pilot and
feel up Maggie (which, really, was creepy and pervy, but I think is being
overstated in its level of depravity). Andrea didn’t see any of that. The Governor
told Andrea it was Merle who took Maggie and Glen, which set off the conflict.
Knowing what she did of Merle, why wouldn’t she believe that? In her mind then,
the conflict was under false pretenses, and Rick & Co unfairly blaming (and
attacking) Woodbury for Merle’s actions. It makes sense that she would try to
bring about an accord.
Shouldn’t she have known better when she saw Penny and the
Fish Heads? Maybe. Maybe not. It was a busy night. A lot happened, including
Michonne gouging out Phillip’s eye. She didn’t get a chance to see what was
going on before, only the aftermath. Besides, Rick’s right hand man is the guy
who wore an ear necklace, and his chief advisor kept his zombie family locked
in a barn. In the zombie apocalypse, “normal” is an elusive concept.
It really isn’t until after the summit in “Arrow on the
Doorpost” and the revelations in “Prey” that the Governor is making a torture
chair and planning on killing everyone regardless that she finally understands
just how far gone the Governor is. Before that it was easy to dismiss what
little she saw of his actions, because, again, she didn’t see it. At best she
had untrustworthy reports about a man she may have loved, or at least one she
respected and admired and, let us remember, had saved her life. The behavior of
her “friends” was at least as irrational from her point of view.
As I post this, Andrea is tied down in Phillip’s torture chair. Having read the comic, I have an idea just how far the Governor could go. We are minutes away from the third season’s penultimate episode. I am hoping Laurie Holden survives for at least one more season. I understand fan frustrations with Andrea, but think they have unfairly been turned into a deep hatred. The last thing I want is for people to be cheering when Andrea leaves.
