When Strolling Lifeless showrunner Angela Kang and her colleagues began writing the Commonwealth arc again in 2019 — “That’s how lengthy it’s been brewing,” she tells TVLine — they didn’t got down to mirror modern-day disparities between the haves and the have nots. And but, based mostly on Sunday’s episode (recapped in full right here), they type of did simply that.
“In an effort to inform this story a few society that’s stratified by class, we had been plenty of historic moments and speaking about issues that wound up being very related to our present second in time,” she says. “We had been speaking about totally different societies which have caste techniques and sophistication points in the USA in addition to in different societies.
“We talked concerning the civil rights motion, we talked concerning the yr 1968 and the aftermath of the Spanish flu,” she continues. On the identical time, “the pandemic began and the George Floyd protests had been occurring. So we’ve been very steeped in plenty of historic actions round the best way that society works and the way American authorities works and the best way that folks really feel caught and what that may do.”
Ultimately, Kang & Co. couldn’t assist however be affected by real-world occasions. “We don’t write in a vacuum,” she says. “In fact we’re being influenced by our personal feelings, ideas and experiences as we’re dwelling our day-to-day lives and seeing the issues that occur round us. However there’s additionally such a wealth of issues that we’re drawing from that aren’t tied to this precise second.
“I feel as a result of [Robert] Kirkman was scripting this part of the comics very not too long ago in comparison with when the present began and when the primary subject was written, he was choosing up on plenty of issues that had been brewing in society,” she provides. “So there are in all probability plenty of issues which can be going to really feel nearer to what has been occurring [in the episodes to come], however it’s not all the time essentially as a result of we’re doing [material that’s] ripped from the headlines.”
