Life
After my mastectomy, I wondered: Is life too short to watch The Walking Dead?
Despite a golden opportunity to bond with her son, Karen Skinazi weighs up whether watching the 130-hour series is really worth it
November 21, 2025 17:11
Despite a golden opportunity to bond with her son, Karen Skinazi weighs up whether watching the 130-hour series is really worth it
November 21, 2025 17:11In the wake of my breast cancer and that very clichéd realisation that life is short, I gave myself permission to quit boring books and endless television series that gave me no joy.
Then, after my mastectomy, my eldest son asked me to watch The Walking Dead. After all, I was just lying around recovering. I hesitated. Apart from the fact that the series seemed repetitive – zombies attack, people get killed and others fight and run away – he was asking for a serious time commitment. And it’s not like he wanted to watch the series with me – he was away at university.
Still, I was tempted. He never asks me to watch or read or do anything much. We have few shared activities. He likes video games; I like books. He likes to be holed up in his room in the dark; I like to be out and about.
What if committing to the 130 or so hours of the show gave us something to talk about?
So, I sat down to watch. It took me a long time to get through a season. As I expected, the series was very repetitive, though it quickly veered away from the terror of zombies. Although zombies always lurked in the background, like other diseases we have to fight off but threaten to return (you know, like cancer), the biggest danger, it turned out, was other people. Sounds about right.
After returning to work, my watching slowed; soon, a year had passed. At some point, I got too bored and texted my son that I had given it a try but was done. I pulled out my “life is short” cancer line. He insisted: “Just get to season 9, episode 5, that’s all I ask!”
“Watch that much and quit before the end? That’s silly!” The whole series is 11 seasons.
“Trust me,” he said, “You’ll see why.”
I would like to say the world of zombies was a distraction from the world of humankind. But I started watching in September 2023, and by the time I finished the first season, I was shifting between scenes of brutal violence that were made up and brutal violence that was real.
I tried not to make comparisons between Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, the IRCG, and the Governor, the Wolves, the Saviours…
Like many shows, the series features a bigger and badder nemesis in each season. Spoiler – the Saviours, unlike their predecessors, don’t disappear after a single season. They, and their charismatic leader, Negan, with his evil bat Lucille, keep pursuing our hero, Rick Grimes, and his troupe of survivors.
After one particularly graphic murder scene, Rick tells Negan: “I’m gonna kill you… Not today. Not tomorrow. But I’m gonna kill you.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my son quote this line. I texted him excitedly to tell him where I was at in the series.
Fast-forward to the near-present: here’s Negan, still grinning that devilish grin of his, and here’s Lucille, swinging away, blood flying everywhere, and here’s Rick again saying “I told you already. I’m gonna KILL you… Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...” Did AI write this? It wasn’t even made during the writers’ strike. “I’m quitting,” I text my son.
“Wait! Please, please! Wait until season 9, episode 5.”
So, I wait. I wait as time after time there are opportunities to kill Negan, but, as in any good James Bond movie, the heroes talk so much they miss their chance. What could happen in season 9, episode 5 that makes it worth sticking around for? So, Rick finally kills Negan, right?
I’m on season 8, episode 13 when the Gaza ceasefire is announced, and suddenly I wonder: Will Rick kill Negan? Or will peace be declared between great enemies? Is the big deal of season 9, episode 5 that the show chooses a happy resolution? I’m speculating, of course, but the thought irritates me. The next day, my son asks if I was going to watch that night. “No,” I say, though whether I’ll actually quit at this point or not is up for debate. “Let’s play Settlers of Catan instead?”
And so, we do. After all, life is short.
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