Tales of the Walking Dead – Amy/Dr. Everett

By: Kelly Kearney

When a naturalist studying the behaviors and migration patterns of the dead encounters a spunky lost traveler in need of help, science takes a backseat to humanity and a mutual respect is formed. A love of nature is what unites this unlikely union but they differ on humans’ roles in this apocalyptic world. Where the scientist would like nature to do a reset, his new companion and her community are looking for their own reboot: to develop his research land and turn it into a thriving settlement. “Amy/Dr. Everette” studies the dead but learns more about the living than either of them knew before the Fall. 

Dr. Everett’s Wild Apocalypse

We begin with wildlife video footage with narration highlighting the current apex predator– a hunter so efficient it has led to what Dr. Everette (Anthony Edwards), the narrator, refers to it as the “Dead Sector.” A piece of land, demolished by these adapting creatures who can both hunt in packs and alone and never take a moment’s rest. “It has reduced the Homosapien to prey,” the doctor says and elevated these Homo Mortus (walkers) predators to the top of the food chain. He has spent most of this time tracking and studying these specimens and their migration patterns in hopes of better understanding them. He gives them names like Sunflower, Gamma and Subject 21, and rates their auditory responses to nearby prey as well as their ability to withstand attacks by both humans and animals. The doctor compounds his studies with the Homo Mortus’s appetite as, “there is no right or wrong, there is just the excruciating process of life.” From a safe distance we see Dr. Everett is recording his videos with cameras and drones when he notices a group of these predators laid out on the ground and missing their heads. While talking into his camera he lets the viewers know the only real threat to the Homo Mortus is human skull collectors. Somehow he has managed to hide his fear of the dead to remain an impartial observer, but after seeing the skulless pack, he leaves his perch to go investigate. He refers to these human head collectors as depraved, something this new world has a large supply of. He flies his drone out of the field of the dead and into the woods to see if he can get an idea of where these skull snatchers are and that’s when he sees a young woman (Poppy Liu) running from a herd and screaming for help. She spots the drone and in her excitement over what she must assume is a rescue, she slips and falls down an embankment and lands in the middle of a group of walkers. Once again from the spectator’s seats, the doctor watches as the young woman draws her knife and rolls back her sleeve to reveal a prosthetic weapon where her arm once was. She fights off the mini-herd–impaling a few on her DIY arm spear but has a few touch and go moments that seem to entertain Everette. At first he doesn’t lift a finger to help her but after he watches her get knocked down again, he runs in to help. Through his research he has learned that human scent and sound is what elicits the Homo Mortus’ feeding response; if you cover yourself in their gore you can easily walk past them undetected. He shoves the woman under his bloody trenchcoat and the two walk right past the herd to safety. 

Amy the Settler

“Thank you; I’m Amy,” the woman says but the Doctor doesn’t respond other than to say he doesn’t deal with humans. Amy isnt letting him walk away so fast, she starts rattling off who she is and how she wound up fighting off his “study group.” She was separated from her settlement group and has been wandering the woods for the last three days, sick to her stomach and lost. She’s holding her side and that gets the Doctor’s attention but she assures him it’s not from a bite. He keeps walking away–doing his best to ignore her which turns out to be tough to do because she follows him to every pit-stop and roped off filming locations. Her injuries might slow her down but she catches up to him eventually and is always met with the same silent treatment. Eventually she tracks him down to a ranger’s station built atop  a tree stand and reinforced at the bottom by sheet metal walls. The aerial viewpoint is ideal for watching anyone or anything approach. He watches the dead make their way towards the sounds of Amy’s banging. She needs his help, with what we aren’t sure, and she won’t stop until she gets it. With no response she takes matters into her own hands by driving her knife into the shanty wall and using it to step up and grab a rope ladder. She manages to climb to safety as the dead nip at her heels but once she is outside his front door, he still won’t let her in. Finally, she guilts him enough with stories of leaving her to die on his doorstep, that he finally opens up and she falls inside. Her stomach is the issue; she is nauseated and vomiting and Everette says that tends to happen when you slowly poison yourself by eating nightshade berries. He makes her a drink of herbs and frankincense oil to help counteract the poison and then leaves her to sleep because, “the next 24 hours are going to be pretty unpleasant for the both of us…but mostly you.” And he was right, Amy does have a rough night of vomiting and fever dreams but when morning breaks she feels a lot better. We find out she was with a group trying to develop the Dead Sector and the skull hunters are a necessary evil to help clear the land of the “chompers.” Dr. Everett isn’t impressed and starts rambling off his detest for mankind’s need to destroy. Even after nature AKA the apocalypse, does a reset they swoop in to take over once again. In his eyes, Amy’s group is no different than loggers decimatting a forest. It’s easy to remove oneself from the human pack and see the “chompers’ ‘ as nature’s revenge for ravaging the land but Amy is a living being, chatty, inquisitive, and hard to ignore. She questions his work, especially his fixation on one Chomper he named Subject 21. There are photos all around his home leading her to the assumption he must’ve known him before the turn. Everette ignores her and insists this is all research to study their patterns. He offers up an example of why Subject 21 intrigues him; he kills dogs to feed his pack. What zombie expresses generosity? It’s just one of the questions his analytical mind needs answers too but unfortunately, Amy broke 21’s transmitter and now Dr. Eerette needs to find him and return him to the herd. Amy realizes how important this is to him and wonders if he saved her because she was in danger or was he saving 21 from her? They go their separate ways, with Amy heading towards the Chattahoochee River to find her group and the moody doctor on a mission to find Subject 21. He leaves her with a warning to leave the Dead Sector alone; it can never be taken back from the dead. 

What is Science Without Life?

Later, as Amy wanders the woods hoping to find her way, she spots Subject 21 meandering ahead of her and carves a mark in a tree to track him down. That night after dragging home a Chomper’s severed limb for research, Dr, Everette finds Amy at his house with news about 21. “I spent the day with your friend,” she tells him and he shelves his anger over her return for the location of his beloved specimen. She agrees to tell him where she left the special chomper if he agrees to help her find her group. Maybe he’s been on his own too long but her people are kind and decent and just want the security a new home can offer. He presses that the Dead Sector isn’t safe for humans, but no place is. Whether he realizes Amy is a genuinely good person or his only concern is tracking down 21, he agrees to help and says they will leave at first light. 

In the morning they follow her markings and talk about his research, which includes tracking the thriving community of local zoo escapees. Without humans, nature is not only healing, it is growing at a remarkable rate. He goes on to say he was a part of a research group studying the area after “the shift” but disagreements between the members forced him and they went their separate ways, “We gave up our lives for this study.” On their journey Amy, who is infectiously enthusiastic and full of questions and a decent amount of knowledge of bird biology, manges to draw Dr, Everette out of his analytical shell long enough to exhibit some human emotions–something he probably forget he had in the 7-years he’s been in the woods following his subjects. They even talk about poetry and Dr, Everette offers to let her borrow a few books from his collection. After kicking her out the day before, he seems to be evolving into a person who cares about Amy. When he watches her get excited over spotting a rare bird, he realizes they have more in common than he thought and offers her a job as his research assistant. They might not agree about developing the Dead Sector but he can respect her love of nature and could use the help. He won’t live forever and when he dies she can take over and finish his work. She asks him why he can ‘t come live at her settlement instead. They could learn from him and build a new kind of environmentally conscious community.. He shuts down at that idea because he gave up humans a long time ago and she can’t convince him to abandon his work. After his research team split up he wandered the woods for two years starving and searching for that Ranger’s Station. When he finally found it his friend and colleague Dr. Mosley was thriving, until cancer took him out. Before he died he made Everette promise not to kill him but instead, study him. Mosely is Subject 21. 

When they finally make their way to Amy’s camp it’s been overrun by walkers and her friends are dead. Many fled but there is one survivor who they see fighting off a chomper. Amy tries to save her but Dr. Everett holds her back and tells her to let nature take its course; treating her friend as if she is just a meal on the Apex Predator’s food chain. She breaks free from his hold and kills the chomper but it’s too late for her friend, she’s dead and everyone else is gone. In the chaos, Subject 21 falls down an embankment and into the river where he floats away on some tree debris. Dr. Everette also falls and hurts his leg but forces himself upright to capture 21 before he loses him again. Amy watches as the doctor lassos the chomper and tries to pull him to shore but he doesn’t get far when an alligator swoops in and drags 21 down into the water. Dr. Everette, who just referred to Amy’s friends as a part of the food chain, can’t accept the loss of his friend and subject and almost follows the chomper into the alligator’s mouth. Amy can’t believe the lengths he would go to for the dead. She is livid and calls him a hypocrite and says she’s leaving to find her friends. That’s when he admits to her that her friends are walking into a horde migration pattern and they won’t survive it. He tried to tell her that the land wasn’t safe but he never expressed how and why. To warn them now would be suicide so he begs her to stay with him and help with his work. She would rather die helping her friends than turn into someone like him, so she takes off and winds up getting pinned by a few walkers in the woods. She somehow manages to wiggle free and when we next see her she is staggering into her settlement where everyone appears safe. Everette follows her the entire way with his drone camera and later makes the trek to join her, knowing she was right and he needed human contact. Unfortunately, when he arrives all of her people have been turned, including Amy, who more than likely arrived with a bite from that tussle in the woods. Ready to collar her for research, Dr,Everette can’t do it. He struggles with separating his science from his emotions and breaks down and cries while he holds a hungry Amy back. If the end of her life held some meaning, it was in reminding the doctor that science is meaningless without humans; a lesson he learned a bit too late.