Arts: The Walking Dead, Season 3

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Tv Club The Walking Dead, Season 3 Stop it with the redshirts! By Chris Kirk Posted Wednesday, Feb 20, 2013, at 07:14 PM ET When the Governor put a bullet in Axel's head, I could almost hear Bones say it: "He's dead, Jim." Axel did what he had always seemed destined to do—die—and in so doing, he joined a pantheon of mostly forgotten The Walking Dead characters whose sole purpose seemed to be to remind viewers that the good guys are vulnerable. Axel was prime redshirt material. He first appeared in the first episode of this season, but after nine episodes we only knew him a little better than ill-fated Oscar. His backstory-revealing flirtation with Carol in in "Home" was a mislead, and an effective one at that; it misled us into thinking the show would actually give a new character some substance and purpose before killing him off. My buddy in this week's chat, Forbes' Erik Kain, described this as the "Lost Syndrome," after the second season of Lost, which added a swath of new characters to the show only to promptly kill almost all of them. I get it: The Walking Dead wants to convince us that the protagonists aren't indestructible. Superman has kryptonite because suspense isn't suspense unless the good guys can get hurt. But The Walking Dead doesn't have to make this point every other episode by killing off a recently added character. It's lazy and unnecessary, and, more grievously, it wastes the time viewers have invested observing and evaluating that character. A high school English teacher once told me that ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Ex-Senator Admits To Fathering Love Child With Daughter of GOP Colleague Harlem Residents Respond to the "Harlem Shake" Meme Watch Emily Bazelon Make Stephen Colbert Cry	Advertisement
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