The Walking Dead: 10 Giant Plot-Holes You Probably Missed

In an era of online streaming and Netflix, The Walking Dead remains one of the most watched shows ever on television. Audiences seem to absolutely love the blood-chilling blend of zombie hordes, the deaths of all your favourite characters, and all the human drama that comes with the downfall of civilisation.

But the thing is, the show has some problems. Major problems that even a constant stream of blood and guts can’t plug.

For all its consistency as an entertaining TV show for the last few years, The Walking Dead has been remarkably inconsistent in its storytelling and character development. For every awesome zombie killing sequence the show loves to showcase, there’s an inexplicable plot hole or flawed logic that threatens to ruin a viewer’s suspension of belief. At its worst, there may not be a more polarising show at eliciting shock, excitement, horror, and absolute fury than the Walking Dead.

Here are ten major plot holes and lapses in logic that makes The Walking Dead a show that’s entertainingly bad at times.

10. How Did Herschel And His Family Not Know About Sophia In The Barn?

If you ask any Walking Dead fan about Season 2, you’ll find that the general consensus is that there is very little to love and an enormous amount to hate. One big and frustrating question (out of many) that came out of watching Season 2 unfold was why didn’t Herschel know about Sophia in his barn?

Season 2 defenders will be quick to claim that Herschel didn’t know as it was Otis and the others who did all the dirty work. Okay, so why didn’t any of his family members who feed the zombies everyday say anything about the girl zombie in their barn? It has been established that Herschel is fiercely loyal to his family and nothing goes on on his farm without his consent and knowledge, so someone must’ve surely mentioned to him that they have a young girl zombie who might possibly be the one that Rick’s group has been searching for.

It all just makes no sense since withholding crucial information about Sophia meant that Rick’s group stayed on Herschel’s farm longer than what was needed. Had Herschel said anything, Rick’s group would’ve tied up that storyline quicker and Herschel would’ve finally been able to rid himself of the freeloaders on his land.

9. Characters Somehow Always Get Ambushed By Massive Hordes Of Slow-Moving Zombies

The body count tallied up by the Walking Dead due to zombie attacks is staggering and enough to make Game of Thrones envious. But realistically, how are so many people getting ambushed by zombies in the first place?

The Walking Dead likes to lean on the sudden zombie ambush trope quite a bit, but it shouldn’t realistically happen at all. Zombie behaviour in the show has been inconsistent from season to season, but they seem to always be noisy and slow to move. So really, every character who has any amount of spatial awareness and hearing capacity should be able to at least outrun a bunch of oncoming zombies. It actually manages to get worse as there are scenes where a character is on the lookout and they somehow manage to completely look past an enormous zombie horde until they’re about 100 metres away (looking at you Dale).

A few fans have tried to wave some of this incompetence off by assuming that every major character is essentially deaf due to the amount of gun use in the show. That’s not a bad theory, but it doesn’t really work as if every character were truly deaf, then each character should not be able to communicate with each other and there would literally be no conversations in the show. Based on some of the corny dialogue, this might not be such a bad idea actually.

8. Guns Shouldn’t Be That Difficult To Find, Especially In America

One of the show’s favourite tropes is conveniently running out of ammunition just as a big zombie horde descends on the main characters. It makes some sense; the world has gone to hell, resources are low, and bullets are getting rarer everyday so it’s best to save them. Running out of ammo is plausible in a post-apocalyptic world, but not for quite some time. In fact, guns and ammo shouldn’t be that difficult to find, especially in America where the show is set.

According to recent statistics, America has the highest gun ownership per capita in the world with over 110 guns per 100 residents. That’s right, American literally has more guns than it has people. So realistically, if the world was suddenly gripped by a zombie apocalypse, everyone in America should be more than ready to fight back. In fact, seeing as how zombies can’t exactly use guns, there will be even more guns available for the survivors, so there really is no reason to risk getting bitten by going head-to-head against zombies with your fists.

But then again, there is something thrilling about seeing a zombie’s head getting bludgeoned when compared to a simple bullet to the head.

7. What Happened To All The Animals?

it has been established that the zombie virus has already infected all of humanity and that everyone will turn into a brain-gobbling zombie when they eventually kick the bucket. But there has been no mention whatsoever on the virus’ effect on animals or whether they’re affected at all. In fact, the show is suspiciously devoid of almost any animal, except for that one deer that caused Carl to be shot and kickstarted that awful second season.

Zombies don’t seem to be picky over eating human or animal flesh, so it is understandable that some of the more defenseless animals will be eaten first. But what about the Earth’s natural predators?

The lack of sheep and cows is plausible, but the lack of human-eating bears, tigers, wolves, cougars, and coyotes is a bit baffling as these predators would surely stand a better chance at mauling a slow-moving zombie than a healthy human being who can fight back. And then there are the many creepy crawlies that love to dwell in human flesh. For as show that loves showcasing dead bodies, there has been a suspicious lack of flesh-dwelling bugs like maggots. Surely flies and bugs couldn’t have all been wiped out by the zombie virus?

These questions about animals will probably never be answered, but admittedly, wouldn’t the existence of zombified bears and wolves be an awesome addition to the show?

6. The Start Of The Governor’s Vendetta Against Rick Makes No Sense

The Governor was one of the most iconic and sadistic villains in the comic book universe. Not only is he an insane leader who enjoys torture and rape, he went to extreme lengths in order to win the prison from Rick’s group. As for the TV-show Governor? Nowhere near as good.

The problem stems right from the beginning of the show’s Woodbury arc. The comic books depicted Woodbury as unsafe whilst the prison is a safe haven, hence why the Governor wants it so badly for him and his people. In the show however, the prison is shown to be less than safe at best whilst Woodbury seems like a utopia by comparison. This kind of renders the Governor’s vendetta against Rick’s group kind of pointless as there is no real reason to go after the prison and Woodbury was clearly the better place to be (until it got burned down). Yes, he is still quite insane with his office of zombie heads and all, but everything could’ve worked better had the producers given the Governor a better reason to go after the prison in the first place.

The show did try to justify the Governor’s motivations later on by having Michonne murder his zombified daughter, but that doesn’t quite erase the early mistakes of the Rick-Governor conflict.

5. Why Is Food Such A Rare Resource?

One of the things that the show likes to focus on other than killing zombies is the ‘human drama’ of it all. By this they mean the constant hunt for food, constantly arguing over petty little things, and fighting off the occasional cannibal group. But just like the earlier gun argument, there really shouldn’t been too much difficulty in finding enough food.

Zombies tend to feast on fresh human or animal flesh and will skip over most of the food items in a supermarket every time. With most of the population being zombified and swapping over to a flesh-only diet, shouldn’t there be more than enough food left over for the survivors without having to resort to cannibalism? Admittedly, the food choices available in a post-apocalyptic zombie world will probably be limited to canned-foods and vegetarian meals, but there should be no reason for anyone to starve in America.

The show should just do what it does best and focus on the zombies rather than spending time on less interesting stuff like foraging for canned soup.

4. Some Overrun Places Should’ve Been Easily Defendable

The scene when Rick first rides into an abandoned Atlanta next to the crowded highway was some of the best visuals seen on the show. As great and atmospheric as it was to see a massive metropolis abandoned in the wake of the apocalypse, there really shouldn’t be a reason why urbanised areas should be so easily overrun. Rather than flee the city like literally everyone else and get caught up in horrendous traffic, it is actually easier to defend a city than you might think.

Seeing as how The Walking Dead’s zombies are slow, noisy, and can’t fly, the limited entrances in tall buildings help provide a bottleneck as to where zombies could come in. Not only can you limit the damage of a zombie invasion by cutting off access to higher levels in a building, but it also means that zombies can be easily picked off as their only way up is through the limited flights of stairs. There’s also the advantage of knowing the twists and turns of a familiar urban setting as opposed to blindly running through the woods and potentially getting ambushed from all sides. So what Rick and his group have been doing for the last few years has been completely wrong and they probably should’ve just holed up in a skyscraper somewhere.

Detractors may say that fortifying yourself in a skyscraper is a good short term plan, but zombies hordes are enormous and won’t stop until they eat your brains. Well actually, zombie hordes may not be as big as you might think…

3. A Zombie Outbreak Wouldn’t Spread So Readily

Everyone in The Walking Dead universe is already infected by the zombie virus and the initial zombie outbreak was shown to be so quick and deadly that even the military couldn’t contain it in time. Thing is, health organisations and the military are prepared for disease outbreak scenarios like this to occur all the time.

The World Health Organisation and the Center of Disease Control in America are pretty damned good at what they do. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, the disease originated in China and had actually spread to North America. Almost immediately, flights were grounded, travel borders were tightened, and only 43 people died in America. And that’s dealing with a disease that spreads invisibly from person to person, making it much more difficult to track. As for the zombie virus? Well, since everyone already has the zombie virus and those already turned are pretty easy to spot out, containing and quarantining the zombies is already going to be much easier than containing those who have hard-to-diagnose viruses like AIDS.

So really, there is no reason as to why the military and the WHO were so utterly incompetent at containing a virus that only takes hold when you’re, well, dead.

2. There Can’t Possibly Still Be These Massive Hordes Of Zombies Still Wandering Around

The opening of season six featured numerous shots of an absolutely enormous zombie horde descending onto Rick and his group. But having been a few years since the outbreak of the apocalypse on the show, there is no realistic way that there are still that many zombies still wandering around in America.

Using America’s estimated population of 320 million and assuming that 99% of everyone is infected, that leaves 3.2 million survivors and 316.8 million zombies. Assuming that the survivors are scattered into little groups and each group is around 20 people, that means that there are around 160,000 groups. Now based on the attack rate of the zombies seen on the show, assume that each survivor will kill around 10 zombies on average per month. This works out to be 200 zombies killed per month per group, which works out to be around 2,400 dead zombies a year per group. With 160,000 groups and 2,400 dead zombies a year, that means that there should be about 384 million dead zombies in America after a year. Huh, so despite running around and still getting ambushed by zombies everywhere, the maths says that there shouldn’t be any zombies left at all.

Of course this is just some simple math based on some simple assumptions, but if the math hasn’t convinced you why the Walking Dead should actually be over by now, then maybe the next entry will…

1. Scientifically Speaking, A Zombie Apocalypse Should Only Last A Few Months At Most

The zombies in the show are essentially characterised as reanimated dead bodies who like to eat humans. For those that aren’t up to speed on how fast dead bodies decay, the answer is very fast. The show has alluded to this fact by gradually making the zombies more grotesque over time, but scientifically speaking, every zombie in the world should be nothing more than a pile of dust after just a few months.

Firstly, there’s the issue of heat. Dead bodies don’t do well in heat and the bacteria inside will cause the bodies to bloat over the course of a few weeks before exploding all over the place like a gush waterfall off blood and guts. That mains that any survivor who lives in a tropical or subtropical part of the world will probably be fine, provided they don’t do anything stupid. Secondly, there’s the issue of the cold. Human bodies are almost entirely made out of water and when water freezes, it’s going to make movement of any kind impossible, even for zombies. For survivors in cold places, the frozen zombies will basically be frozen, suffer nasty freezer burn, and basically be destroyed before you even step out of the house. Lastly, dead human bodies can’t heal from day to day damage. So as a zombie stumbles and bumps into every wall in search of human flesh, it will eventually grind itself down into a weakened husk, so much so that a gust of wind could take it out.

So really, by the time Rick wakes up in the hospital, the zombie apocalypse should’ve been over and the only thing he would’ve had to deal with was Shane screwing his wife behind his back.

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