One thing The Walking Dead What should be applauded over its 11 seasons is how it has improved its treatment of female characters. During the first two seasons, The Walking Dead relied heavily on traditional gender roles to structure the core group of survivors. The men were the hunters and fighters who protected the camp, while the women washed the clothes, cooked the food and looked after the children. Any woman who opposed this notion was punished by being labeled mentally unstable and hostile. By season 3, these gender roles were broken.

There is, however, an exception to The Walking Dead‘s new and improved perspectives on women in the apocalypse. Alexandra Breckenridge’s character, Jessie Anderson, was a female character from Season 1 stuck in Seasons 5 and 6. Rick Grimes immediately fell head over heels for Jessie upon his arrival in Alexandria, but she was in an abusive relationship with her husband, Pete. The bad writing that Jessie received was not attributed to the fact that she was a mother and wife who barely knew how to fight. Jessie was severely underdeveloped because she was nothing more than a plot device bringing out Rick’s complicated colors.

Jessie’s arc revolved solely around Rick and his family

Rick first meets Jessie in Season 5, Episode 12, “Remember”, when the group of survivors is asked to stay in Alexandria. The majority of survivors are happy to have a home, but remain wary since the last time they were promised shelter, it turned out to be a group of cannibals. Rick is the most suspicious of all, but takes a liking to Jessie when she offers him a haircut. It’s not hard to see what attracted Rick to Jessie. She was a kind, beautiful, loving mother who always clung to the goodness of the old world.

Jessie only lasted 11 episodes, from “Remember” to season 6, episode 9, “No Way Out.” At that time, she was a prize that Pete and Rick competed for. The unraveling of his marriage brought out a strange side to Rick that honestly doesn’t reflect who he really is. When Rick promised Jessie that he would take care of her and her sons after he “took care” of Pete, she asked him if she would do that for anyone else. Anyone who has seen the last five seasons of The Walking Dead would logically say: “Of course he would!” But for some reason, Rick says he wouldn’t do it.

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The interaction between Rick and Jessie is strangely unlike Rick. But it subtly reveals Rick’s true feelings for Jessie, in the sense that he may not have had any to begin with. Rick’s growing obsession with Jessie was fueled by two things: his understanding of the old world through any means possible and his desire to appear powerful to the Alexandrians. He wanted to be the righteous hero who does no harm and has the answers to all his problems. Jessie presents the perfect opportunity to prove that he is the only suitable leader for the community; he can save Jessie while their current leader, Deanna, cannot.

Ultimately, Rick unintentionally confused his slight God complex in Season 5 with real feelings for Jessie. This, of course, doesn’t give Jessie much room to grow outside of Rick and his terrible home life. Once Rick becomes attached to her and she to him, she is locked in a box that she is only allowed to leave when Rick is not there, which is almost never. Even then, most of his conversations revolve around everything Rick taught him to survive. Her relationship with her eldest son, Ron, falls apart due to the simple fact that he doesn’t trust Rick and she does.

Rick cut ties with the Old World after Jessie

Jessie’s gruesome death by walkers in “No Way Out” was a symbolic end to Rick’s attachment to the old world. When he cuts off the arm that holds his son, Carl, he cuts himself off from the pre-apocalyptic world. He can no longer cling to the old ideas of normalcy that Jessie represented. To protect his son, he must fully invest himself in the world’s new philosophy: “kill or be killed.”

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One might assume that because Jessie was the first woman Rick had a relationship with after the death of his wife, Lori, in Season 3, The Walking Dead it would take time for him to let his death sink in. But The Walking Dead quickly moved past the end of Jessie and her family, confirming how unimportant she was in the grand scheme of the story. After her death, the series skipped two months in the next episode, where Jessie is no longer spoken about.

Jessie’s death was so glossed over that it diluted the moment when Rick and Michonne finally acted on their feelings in Season 6, Episode 10, “The Next World.” Rick and Michonne’s relationship blossomed beautifully from a close friendship to an intimate relationship, but a shadow loomed over them. Jessie had just died the previous episode. Rick may have reasonably evolved in the two months between the two episodes, but his death was still fresh in the audience’s mind. It was a jarring jump from one woman to another, unfairly reducing Jessie and Michonne to Rick’s only love interests at that point.

Jessie was a female character from the previous season pushed into a later season

Michonne has always been the right woman for Rick, but The Walking Dead‘s approach to sailing the Rick/Michonne ship was to get rid of another female character like she meant nothing. Jessie was a rebound, a way for Rick to confirm with himself that he could leave Lori to be with Michonne. The Walking Dead ends up reinforcing the same gender stereotypes from the first two seasons.

The Walking Dead Could have avoided making Jessie the refrigerator damsel in distress if she had been given more work outside of Rick. There’s a fantastic scene in season 6 where an Alexandrian commits suicide and Jessie faces it, instead of hiding like she would have done before. In a speech to fellow Alexandrians, she doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that this is life they must face now. The scene shows a lot of growth in her character and that she had the potential to evolve without Rick as the backbone of her arc. But The Walking Dead I never acted on this potential.

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Women don’t have to be stoic, skilled fighters who are above romance to be well-written characters. Michonne is a great example of this. But the problem with Jessie is that she could barely exist without Rick’s existence. Her sole purpose was to be a pitying woman who motivated Rick to do good things in terrible ways, displaying his own complex behavior that he developed during the apocalypse. Once The Walking Dead knew Rick needed a fresh start, Jessie was on her way out.

The Walking Dead is available to stream on Netflix.

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Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes wakes from a coma to learn that the world is in ruins and must lead a group of survivors to stay alive.

Release date

October 31, 2010

Cast

Steven Yeun, Andrew Lincoln, Chandler Riggs, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Sarah Wayne Callies, Melissa McBride, Norman Reedus, Jon Bernthal, Iron E. Singleton

Rating

Seasons

11

Story by

Tony Moore, Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard

Streaming service(s)

Netflix, AMC+

Directors

Greg Nicotero

Showrunner

Frank Darabont, Angela Kang, Scott M. Gimple, Glen Mazzara

Develop