{This Is} {How It Ends}: The Walking Dead and Keeping Up with the Kardashians as a {Mirror} of our Collective Consciousness

I once read an article about how zombie motifs gain popularity in times of economic hardship. Like the article about how food allergies such as peanut butter, olive oil, and so on, are region-specific, I cannot, in spite of my best Googling, find it again. This has not discouraged me from citing either, relentlessly and with conviction. Let’s agree then, for the purposes of the article you are reading, that indeed, zombies slow-walk their rotting selves into society’s collective consciousness during recessionary times.

A mirror of the collective mood, if you will.

The premise is that, because individuals are processing the depressed economic conditions, they “go through the motions” in their daily lives. Wake. Dress. Work. Bland bagged lunch. Work some more. Smoke a cigarette/pour a coffee/eat a bag of carrot sticks—pick your afternoon slump-buster. And so on. Zombified.

It was under these conditions that The Walking Dead debuted and—can you say “thrived” when a critical mass of the population is decaying flesh and the survivors subsist on institutional-sized cans of pudding?

The 2010 premiere of The Walking Dead was gripping. I watched it thrice—once on my own terms; two more times in hopes of infecting friends with zombie fever.

I remember it well*. During a routine day of patrol, Rick, an honest enough seeming cop and husband, confided in his partner about some troubles in his marriage. The two had stopped for your standard Hollywood-designed cop lunch. There was a sense of ease as they manhandled fries and actor Andrew Lincoln swaggered across the screen in the way only a bowlegged man who was a cowboy in a previous life could.

A call came in over scanner, dispatching Rick and Shane to a remote highway that cut through a cornfield.

Right about now is when I started thinking, “I thought this was supposed to be a show about zombies?” My thoughts drifted so far that I nearly missed the extreme shift in mood; a sense of danger rolled in faster than a thunderstorm and swept away any traces of Rick’s relaxed lunch.

A car pierced the landscape, hurling aggressively towards Rick and Shane’s parked cruiser. The partners crouched down, Rick not fast enough to escape shots fired by the delinquent. Catching a bullet in his shoulder, his body corked and fell backwards. The intense scene faded to a commercial break.

Act Two began, as different from Act One as the Harvey Dent half of The Dark Knight.

We found our hero Rick Grimes waking up in an eerie hospital. The flowers bedside were parched and crispy, becoming dust with Rick’s quizzical touch. How long had he been there?

Rick ripped the now-useless tubes from his veins and touched down two feet to the floor. His swagger was now a stagger, but at least it would carry him out of this sinister hospital. The corridors were dark, illuminated occasionally by erratic fluo bulbs; hastily spray painted letters warned of danger behind closed doors. Viewers were finally witnessing the signs of a zombie apocalypse.

It didn’t take Rick long to figure it out, either. A paraplegic corpse reached out a desperate arm to ensnare Rick’s ankle, and with that, he GOT THE F*CK OUT OF THERE.

*At least, I think I remember it well. This account is entirely from memory. Discrepancies may exist.

A few channels apart, in a galaxy far far away—Calabasas—the Kardashian sisters were up to their usual hijinks:

Kim receives another round of Botox injections after Kris says she has lines around her eyes. Khloé goes along for moral support, and Kim suffers the side effects of Botox: the skin around her eyes start turning purple. After this incident, Kim swears that she will never get another injection. Meanwhile, Kris is discovered smoking and Kourtney, Kendall, and Kylie try to get her to quit; Kourtney plots to make Kris think that Kendall is smoking because of her example. Kourtney buys nicotine-free cigarettes (honey and marshmallow) and Kris decides to stop smoking.

From List of Keeping Up with the Kardashians episodes on Wikipedia.

These two award-winning programs—if you consider two Teen Choice Awards in league with wins from the AFI, IGN, and a Golden Globe nomination—dominated cable television as we teetered on the verge of economic depression. And while no one can predict just what the honest f*ck may happen in 2017, I propose The Walking Dead and Keeping Up with the Kardashians cease and desist, like, ASAP.

That goes for all their cousins and spinoffs, too. No rising from the dead with Kendall and Kylie Take Kansas, inspired by Paris and Nicole’s The Simple Life (which, ugh, is basically ripe for a revival, as I recently saw von Dutch hats popping up again in Urban Outfitters). Chris Hardwick will run out of things to say on The Talking Dead, and Fear the Walking Dead can pretend it never existed. Fin.

After a robbery at gunpoint, the prize pig of the Kardashian franchise, Kim, has steered clear of social media, the very medium that helped her build her deeply personal, global brand (oxymoron?). I thought this might be the beginning of the end of the Kardashian empire, but last week she briefly returned to Instagram, just to follow aforementioned Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s sister Sofia. Is this a sign of the imminent relinquishing of the famous-for-nothing crown to its original owner?

My hopes were also kar-dashed (sorry) when The Walking Dead was renewed for an eighth season, in spite of all the articles I find to support my belief that the show has jumped the rotting shark.

Robert Kirkman, Scott M. Gimple, Greg Nicotero, Kris Jenner: have I got an idea for you.

Now, before you say no, consider:

• This is an opportunity to pioneer a brand new concept—you’ll be visionaries
• You can practically double your viewership, even with how mature your respective programs are
• Finally! A chance to prove that the notion you need complete and utter creative control/kreative kontrol simply is not true

Are you ready?

A Keeping Up with the Kardashians/The Walking Dead finale season crossover.

Think about it! At last, Rick & Co. leave the East Coast and stake out somewhere truly safe—a totally insular, I mean insulated bubble known as LA-LA-Land. Of course!

But in a post-apocalyptic world, is anywhere ever really safe? This is where Episode 1 leaves off.

Episodes 2 through 4 do a lot of the slow table-setting that has been characteristic of TWD. The Kardashians are never the wiser, carrying on with their kontouring, salad-eating, and general shenanigans.

Episode 5, the one most in tune with nature, Kourtney’s spidey senses start to tingle.

“Khlo,” she calls out to the fiercely loyal one. “Do you ever feel like we’re being watched?”

Khloé jogs in from a kettlebell workout, toweling off her brow. “Uh, yeah, Kourt, this house is hardwired with 42 cameras and twice that many microphones.”

Kylie shrieks from the other side of the cavernous, all-white palace. “Mom? Kendall? Kome kwick!”

Kourtney and Khloé race to find Kylie’s voice (which is not so easy with the reverb echoing over all the Italian marble). They almost crash into each other, Scooby-Doo style.

Panting. “I-I think I saw someone in our Manzanita shrubs! Should I call Miguel?!”

Kourtney elbows Khloé. See? she intimates, with a pointed glare.

Khloé shades her eyes and squints towards the thick foliage at the fringe of the Kardashians’ property, three-quarters of a mile away. “I see her… him… her? too!”

It’s Carol, looking ragged but fierce.

“Should we give it a makeover?”

Obviously episode five stretches out for ninety minutes (because why should a show conform to standards; the needs of its audience?) and still manages to be a cliffhanger. Kliffhanger. Whatever.

In the remaining episodes, Rick and the gang settle into their mansions (maybe with a guest appearance from January Jones, a cheeky nod to The Last Man on Earth? I’m just spitballing here…) and try to shed the emotional baggage from the horrors they experienced back east. Everyone definitely has PTSD.

Moon goddess Kourtney prepares a ceremony using smudge sticks and ritualistic chanting. Michonne suffers a violent flashback, but remains composed for the sake of young Judith, dozing in her lap.

Kim and Khloé beg Morgan to teach them aikido. Always seeking attention from older women, Carl tries to impress them with firearm lessons. He is oblivious to the more suitable, age-appropriate mate, Kendall, who considers herself a tomboy.

Kylie has taken a shine to Carol, who now goes by Karol. In spite of Kylie’s expert lip injection administration, Karol still can’t make Daryl see her as more than a comrade. His unrequited love kept Carol human for all these years, even during the blackheart times. But now, as Karol, she’s on the brink of a different kind of zombie fever—she’s becoming a Kardashian klone.

Two episodes before the series finale, a vapor of doom settles in. Cushy Calabasas is cruisin’ for a walker invasion. Lucky for all, Khloé’s always been a doomsday prepper.

I’m gonna leave it there. Kirkman, Kris, kall me.