The relationship angle made me pretty angry. Poor Carol. Good issue

It’s easy to write this issue off as a bit too much of a post-Apocalyptic soap opera. However, in the midst of all the relationship drama, a potent illustration of depression and despair begins to form. The prison with its protective fences and (generally) friendly human interactions is a sort of haven, a bright point in a sea of despair always trying to come crashing in. The zombies congregating at the prison’s outer perimeter are a constant reminder of just how close that despair truly is. The people living inside the prison walls must find reasons to keep living despite the constant reminders that—as Axel so grimly puts it—it’s only a matter of time before they all join the hordes of the undead. But what happens when those reasons to live begin to fizzle out?

Allen seems to be in a position where he is losing the will to live. As he lays clinging to life after his bite and amputation, we are reminded that he lost a lot of blood. Infection (even minus the bite) could still be an issue. However, when one is in as compromised a state as Allen is, the will to live is everything, and Allen has been losing that all-essential spark more and more each day ever since Donna’s demise. Despite having two boys who need him, Allen just cannot seem to gather the strength to keep going once Donna had been taken from him.

And now an unstable, co-dependent, and emotionally erratic Carol succumbs to her own version of despair after losing her romantic relationship with Tyreese. Carol was pushing back her own demons of despair by her rather passionate dalliance with Tyreese. The sex was a welcome distraction, but having a warm body to lay next to in an increasingly cold apocalypse was even more alluring. When Carol lost that warm body, she spiraled into suicidal despair. Like Allen, not even the presence of her traumatized child could push back the hopelessness creeping in to devour her. It’s easy to judge Carol and Allen for giving up a when their children are still very much in need of them. However, to do so would be rather unfair. The mental illness rates during the zombie apocalypse must be through the roof, and yet the avenues by which such mental illness can be treated are irreparably in disrepair. Try as one might, despair will sadly all too often find its way in.

As for Rick’s somewhat understandable yet somewhat disproportionate response to Tyreese’s infidelity, it’s easy to see what is going on with him. His mind is going right back to what he knows Shane and Lori did in the early days of the outbreak. Rick was the Carol, and Lori and Shane were the Tyreese and Michonne. Rick was betrayed, Rick was hurt, and he can relate on some level to what Carol is experiencing despite being too much of a natural leader to just opt out. The Shane and Lori thing is always looming above Rick’s awareness to varying degrees, as his blowout with Tyreese fully reveals. more