The Walking Dead: Made To Suffer

     I'll start by saying this was a great season.  The building of tension and the development of character was stronger then we've seen on the show previous.  We knew there was something dangerous about the Governor when we first met him, but what we've seen him go through has set up a man on the edge of insanity and what looks like one of TV's greatest villains.  It's even more impressive when you compare it to a similar trip that Rick took, but seems to have had a different response.  It was an amazing half season journey that leaves a ton of hope for how awesome the second half can be.
     But that's not what I want to talk about.  There's another issue that the season finale brought up that I couldn't help but dwell on.  I'm not normally one to address issues of race, it usually feels petty to me whenever people complain about minority representation in media, but I'm finding it hard to ignore this year.  With New Girl unable to find anything to do with Winston and The Walking Dead's seeming quota on how many black guy characters they have, I can't help but mention how horrible minority characters are being handled.  Twice this season The Walking Dead writers introduced a new black male character, but only after killing off a black male character in the same episode.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but you would like to see, in this day and age, a show this popular find something better to do with minority characters then use them as zombie fodder.  Those of us who have read the comics know that Tyreese is a major comic in the books and those of us who watched The Wire know that Chad Coleman is a major actor, so the chances that he stays around and plays a bigger role then T-Dog and Oscar are pretty big, but that still doesn't change how black males have been handled so far.
     It's easy to play off as a corny joke or a stupid cliche, but why shouldn't we start holding writers to a higher standard.  There is no reason that minority characters can't play as strong a role as the white ones.  If this show wants to reach the next level, to be progressive as well as popular, it needs to find a purpose for the black males it writes into the story, it needs to not be scared to have more then one token for each race.  Give them a little depth and meaning and stop making their main purpose to feed the zombies.