‘The Walking Dead’ could learn a thing or two from Netflix’s best new show

Post updated 11/25/25. See updates below.

There are many things about AMC The walking dead and its litany of spinoffs that bothers me, but one thing that bothers me like no other is the fact that so many of the characters on these shows seem so clean and put together.

Just look at Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in the photo above. She is wearing a nice clean denim jacket. Her hair is perfectly styled. If you saw that picture without knowing it was the walking dead you would have no idea she was in a zombie apocalypse.

Here’s Carol (Melissa McBride) from recently Daryl Dixon: The Book Of Carol:

Again, nice hair, brand new leather jacket. Some jewelry. This doesn’t look like a woman in a zombie apocalypse who just ran into a guy, locked him in her truck, and then drove away on a motorcycle. A normal person going about their day doesn’t look this put together.

Watch Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) on Those who live currently on the run from powerful CRM:

They sure look clean and well-groomed with those stylish outdoor clothes and perfect hair! And Rick’s beard is certainly nice and trimmed. I swear, Rick/Lincoln looks years younger in the spinoff than in season 5!

What all this does—along with the ease with which the characters happen upon electricity, fuel, and working vehicles and all the myriad conveniences of modern life—is to immerse viewers in repose. Yes, all the actors look good with their wavy hair, trimmed beards and designer clothes, but the audience is robbed of the one thing they did The walking dead so good at first: Realism.

I’m dirtier and more battered nursing after a few days of camping than these hardened survivors of a deadly world where civilization has completely collapsed and ravaged undead lurk around every corner. Absence matters in doomsday stories. Lack of water, food, security, supplies, gasoline. Living near a fire means you are covered in smoke. Living without running water makes it harder to wash as often. Living with the constant threat of death means that your priorities shift away from things like nice hairstyles and nice clothes.

Even Daryl (Norman Reedus) who is arguably the most dirty, ragged and tough of the bunch, always manages to make it look purposeful.

We’ll call this one “The Wanderer stylishAnd it’s probably Daryl at his worst in years. Normally he is more agile:

Of course, in the spinoffs there are many of the same or slightly different problems from the latter days The walking dead. IN dead city there are bars with neon signs. There is no shortage of energy there. IN Those who live our heroes stumble upon a fully powered and secure apartment, completely by accident, still untouched by the end of the world a decade plus into the apocalypse. IN Daryl Dixon, all the French dress as in pre-war Europe, and all their fashionable, home-trimmed clothes are clean and pressed.

It wasn’t always like that. In previous seasons of the show, the characters were often dirty, covered in dirt and blood, with torn clothes. IN Fear of the walking dead, Frank Dillane’s character Nick often looked something like this:

By the end of that show, even at her lowest point, Nick’s sister Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) looked like a total smoke show, a little worse for wear on death’s door:

American primary

I recently reviewed the new Netflix Western limited series US Prime Minister and one of the things that blew me away in that show was how dirty everyone and everything was, from the costumes to the skin. A character (pictured above) who survives a scalping constantly has blood all over his dirty face. No one can escape dirt. All are wounded and ragged. The American frontier was a brutal place, but no more brutal than a zombie apocalypse. But just imagine if The walking dead paid so much attention to detail! Imagine if that translated into not just sets, costumes and makeup, but writing and story.

Makeup head in American primary told the Salt Lake Tribune some of the requests made by the show’s director, Peter Berg:

Howard Berger, head of makeup on “American Primeval,” a Netflix limited series, thought he had reached the optimal level of makeup. He prepared a make-up test – mud-smeared neck, blackened fingernails, dirt smeared inside an actor’s ears – and showed it to Peter Berg, the series’ director.

Berg was unhappy. “‘More! More!’” Berger recalled saying. “‘Come on, man. Cover it in dirt like it hasn’t been washed in a year.’

Berger did. “We went ahead,” Berger said, “and kept making it tougher and tougher.”

Berg himself noted the importance of realism in creating a powerful story. “It’s important that we represent the world as it really was – the good, the bad, the indifferent, the ugly,” he said. “The moment you cheat on him, it’s not the same.”

The six-episode show built an exact replica of Fort Bridger. 1,300 garments were made along with hundreds of pairs of moccasins. Artisans cracked and painted the costumes over and over, relentlessly pursuing authenticity in all things. Over 3,500 indigenous items—including teepees—were built by Native Americans for the show. The effect is powerful. American primary it’s far from perfect, but what it does right it does amazingly well.

The residents of Fort Bridger are all covered in dirt and grime. Black spots spoil any look. From clothing to nails, everything is soot and mud, ashes and blood. What a welcome sight! If only The walking dead would pay so much attention to this level of gritty realism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if AMC paid half as much attention to its writing and characters as it does to creating cool-looking zombies, it would be a masterpiece instead of sinking into mediocrity infinite.

PS I should point out that not everyone on The Walking Dead has to be dirty all the time. They don’t need to look like bread. But the costumes should look worn, alive, like they’ve seen action, not like they came out of a department store. It’s these details that make a fictional world feel real.

Update: The Importance of Verisimilitude

I wanted to expand a bit with this post because I often get feedback from fans of various shows-The walking dead Chief among them – when I argue that realism and believability matter. This brings us to a very useful, hard-to-pronounce word: Verisimilitude.

This is, simply put, the appearance of being true or real. You create this sense, even in shows about slaying undead or massive dragons, by establishing some rules within the universe that allow the audience to accept the fiction. For example, we all agree that zombies are A) not part of the real world, but B) a believable aspect of shows like The walking dead.

This, however, does not give the writers of The walking dead reign free to do whatever they want. For example, if in a future season of one of the spinoffs, people started using superpowers like flight and superhuman strength, or used futuristic laser weapons, the audience would rightly be confused and thrown for a loop. Sci-fi superpowers and arsenals are not created in this universe. In another fictional setting—one in which the zombie apocalypse was accompanied by the discovery of superheroes—it might work well.

Often, the thing that breaks authenticity, though, isn’t something as radical as flying Jon Snow in his plane to fight the White Walkers. It’s either lazy, convenient writing or fundamentally unbelievable scripts. Sometimes these are controversial: The inclusion of a black, female viking jar Vikings: Valhalla, for example, it is an ahistorical detail that can break authenticity. Less controversial, the events of the fifth season of Fear of the walking dead, that saw our heroes fly a plane to rescue aliens despite not knowing how to fly a plane, then crash the plane – survive – and spend the rest of the season trying to fix it despite being in a landlocked, they can just be driven in or out of (and don’t get me started on the beer bottle balloon).

Authenticity helps the audience accept these elements by creating an internal logic that feels consistent and believable within the story world. In a zombie apocalypse, if the outbreak has realistic social consequences, like a lack of resources or political collapse—or dirty fingernails and worn-out clothes—it makes the concept of a zombie apocalypse more believable.

Hard realism reinforces the coherence of any given fictional world, be it Westeros or the United States after an immortal uprising, ensuring that audiences understand how it works. Even in magical worlds, the fantasy only lasts if the magic itself has some clear rules (or is so low that the magic is rare and mysterious). If you start using magic to solve every problem, you kill tension and credibility.

This, in turn, helps the audience connect more with the characters and the story. The “reality” of this fictional world allows the audience to immerse themselves in the story and the stakes of that story. If a character reacts to danger, loss, or triumph in a way that matches how people might act in those circumstances, viewers are more likely to care about their journey.

After all, especially when it comes to genre fiction that deals with wild or paranormal concepts, verisimilitude puts the fantastic in the relative. The best zombie stories are about survival. The best fantasy is stories that would work just as well without any magic or dragons. Remove the fantasy Game of Thrones and you still have a good medieval political drama, for example.

Truth does not mean adhering to the logic of the real world. It simply requires maintaining internal consistency and authenticity within the framework of the story. I was told by a reader on X/Twitter that no one should care about dirty skin or worn clothes. My belief is that many people do not, but they can tell when something is wrong. We don’t necessarily notice these details, true, but when they aren’t there we absolutely miss them. The devil is in the details, as they say.

You can read my review for American primary right here. If you are a Netflix subscriber, The Walking Dead: The Living hits the streaming service next Monday, January 13th.