'The Walking Dead' Season 10 Episode 14: Here is why now is the perfect time to introduce Princess on the show
Spoilers for 'The Walking Dead' Season 10, Episode 14 'Look at the Flowers'
It's been a pretty rough season for the survivors of 'The Walking Dead' — a rough decade, even, as they're well into their tenth season. Licking their wounds after their crushing defeat at the hands of the Whisperers, the survivors are at their lowest point, in many ways.
After dealing with the Whisperers, there's no one better to counteract all that malicious quietness than someone loud and proud — Princess (Paola Lazaro).
Loud describes Princess pretty accurately. From her voice to her clothing and her entire personality, Princess fills up any room she's in — or an entire city, if need be, being the only one (as far as she knows) still alive in Pittsburgh.
She's got a vivid, quirky and awkward personality, in a way that is very much not the style of 'The Walking Dead' — but heavens know that the survivors can use a laugh. In fact, her setup of the zombies in various decorated poses brings Ezekiel (Khary Payton) on of the series' biggest, most genuine laughs, despite how macarbe it all is.
There's been little room on the show for genuine joy and enthusiasm but as the survivors attempt to build their way to a new future, that is exactly the sort of thing they need to aspire to. A world where people CAN be proud, strange and happy again instead of endless days trading one kind of gruffness for another.
That doesn't mean that 'The Walking Dead' is about to become a zombie sitcom, but a character like Princess is a counterpoint to the grimdark that is sorely needed to keep things fresh.
Princess has her own dark backstory — she was regularly abused by her stepfather and stepbrother who would tie her up and beat her, but she doesn't let that dampen her spirits. It fuels the awkwardness of her humor and her strangeness.
It's a fresh perspective on the kind of trauma seen on 'The Walking Dead' and the character herself breathes new life into a series that was in danger of growing stale.
Princess was a fun character to have been introduced into the comics, but as far as the show goes, there is a lot more potential for her character to be a new breakout star.
She doesn't fit in with the tone of the show at all, but that's what makes her special — she takes the grim and makes it all her own. She may be a little jarring at first, but she grows on you.
The next episode of 'The Walking Dead' airs on April 5 on AMC.
