‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘La Doña’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season one finale of ‘Tales of the Walking Dead’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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One particular aspect of zombie themed fiction that isn’t discussed all that often, is that the sub-genre’s true roots are grounded deeply in mysticism and magic. For back in the day, stories about witch doctors in Haiti, that revolved around them being able to resurrect the dead using various powders and rituals, sparked curiosity and eventually stories that featured, the first on screen zombies. Poor souls locked into a spell from which they could never escape and well… they were impactful and fascinating enough, that they dominated the silver screen for years on end. That is until… 1968 came along and a young and dynamic director named George A. Romero, dropped a new kind of zombie into the mix. A reanimated corpse that hungered for human flesh and spread like wildfire since death had evolved into a nightmare.
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That particular iteration of this creature was so impactful and so powerful, that it quickly overtook the OGZ and dominated the landscape, to this day in fact. Since The Walking Dead Universe continues the proud tradition of scaring the living daylights out of us with walking corpses that need to feed on human flesh simply because they hunger. But what’s truly fascinating about the zombie sub-genre of storytelling in the Post-Romero era… is how the mysticism evolved and eventually disappeared. For Romero never offered a solid explanation as to why his dead walked the Earth, outside of a grand hint that it was biblical in nature and of course, it’s all science based in the TWDU since we know unequivocally that a man-made virus created this plague, and it has infected every single human on the planet. 

But after keeping hard mysticism and magic away from this type of story for decades on end, the next episode of Tales of the Walking Dead, opted to bring it back into the zombie fold. For ‘La Doña’ is a story that brings such matters front and center in a supremely unique and deceiving manner. For early on in this tale, our main characters in this journey; Idalia and Eric are just looking for a safe space to stay. Which they find in an old house in the middle of the woods, but their host is anything but friendly to them. For La Doña Alma, the owner of the place, wants them out of the house as quickly as possible once her charity toward them has run its course, for the end of the world has afforded her that freedom. But alas, Eric’s sheer desperation to find someplace safe to live, prompts a fight and an unfortunate accident. Wherein Alma chokes on her meal and dies after hitting her head on the dinner table.

Which in turn prompts Eric to just… claim the home as his own, something that Idalia is fine going along with since they haven’t had a warm place to say since the end began. And that of course, leads to happier times. For they do indeed have food, water, warmth, and a soft bed to sleep in, and they are indeed isolated away from the living dead and their massive herds. But it doesn’t take long for life in this house to become uncomfortable for Idalia. Since she begins to see and hear things around the place, the kind that indicate that Alma might be haunting this homestead because of her ties to magic as a Bruja before the world came to its end. But that is of course, silly in Eric’s mind. For in his mind, such thoughts could be unresolved guilt over how Alma died or potentially survivor’s remorse. Prompting Idalia to try and write such matters off in her mind.

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But of course, things get worse, and the visions and moments become all the more uncomfortable, and even Eric begins to experience some strange horrors in his spare time. Making it clear that a curse from beyond the grave hangs heavy over this house, one set up by the Bruja and that in turn motivates the two to just forge ahead, for truly a curse cannot hurt them, right? But soon the activity becomes more violent in nature, and it even casts a mental spell over Eric long enough to put his life at risk when a walker they thought they left behind, arrives near the gates and appears to be outright human to him, and without Idalia’s help, death would have found him. But that act and the continuing intensity of the haunting finally pushes this couple to make a hard decision. In that, they can either flee and live a life of danger or face the horrors of this nightmare shack and potentially lose their lives to the ancient power hiding within its walls... all in the name of a hot meal and safety.
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As to whether or not they do, we won’t discuss here. Simply because that ending is one you need to experience firsthand. But in the meantime, we can definitely applaud the fact that this episode brings mysticism and magic back into the fold. Granted, it doesn’t ret-con ‘TS-19’ and the finale of World Beyond by making the dead something of a mystical curse here. But it actually uses magic and mysticism in a horrifying manner to torture this flawed couple and it uses the terror of the beyond to make the audience uncomfortable as well, and it is mission accomplished when it comes to that. Because this is indeed a good old-fashioned ghost story, one that is both creepy and unsettling and goes the extra mile when the Bruja unleashes her power and her ethereal anger, all of which helps to remind us to never poke around and mess with people that supposedly have ties with things we do not understand.

But what matters more, is that after decades of being in the shadows, mysticism finally returned to the land of the dead and as an added bonus, this particular tale also managed to explore Mexican and Hispanic culture and its ties to mysticism and Catholicism. Since Mexican and Hispanic culture feature a bevy of stories about angry spirits in its folklore and it was quite fascinating and welcoming to see that be given life in a show, and a franchise this popular, and it was equally as amazing to also see an examination on the battle between the old guard and the new guard regarding such stories and beliefs and their place in modern culture. Since that is a universal battle currently being fought in our modern world, giving this story the relevance and power that we often find in TWDU stories. But above all, it was just amazing to see a ghost story pop up in a zombie story and that really was the perfect way to bring this season to a close.

For such a story is experimental and bold in nature and those two words sum up this series nicely. Since that’s precisely what this series has done since its inception, and hopefully, this isn’t the end of the line for Tales of the Walking Dead. For going the anthology route and taking the time to really try new things within this particular world, was quite refreshing to say the least. Plus, it really did allow for this franchise to go places that the zombie sub-genre has never gone before and it deserves a round of applause for doing so in a manner that was fun and compelling and well, that’s all there is to say about this series for the moment. For we have reached the end of season one and now all we can do is patiently wait for that season two announcement and perhaps rewatch this unique series a few more times, to properly soak up its genius and its bravery. Until next time.     

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