The Walking Dead: 7 Scenes That Were Too Extreme For TV
4. Andrea & Dale Hook Up (Vol. #2: Miles Behind Us)
Okay, I think we need a bit of a reprieve from the macabre, dont you?
One of the funniest, most compelling pairings in the hook-up filled landscape of the Walking Dead was the relationship between Andrea and Dale. Despite an overwhelming age gap, somewhere in the neighborhood of forty years, the two remained intensely loyal in the face of their volatile cohort.
Members of the group speculated about the relationship as early as the first arc, though it wasnt confirmed until the second arc, Miles Behind Us, when Donna accidentally walked in on them mid-act.
Conflicting reports from the writers room down to the set have presented themselves about the use (or misuse) of Dale's character. Whether planned or forced by unknown circumstances, the show built something of an antagonistic relationship around Andrea and Dale, with Dale taking the role of a cautioning father figure to Andreas rebellious, independent daughter.
For me, this take was especially confusing because: A) Dale already played that role for Glenn, Rick, and several other characters, and B) the age difference between Andrea and Dale had been cut in half for the television series. Wouldn't it have made more sense to play that pseudo-paternalistic tension with the greater age difference?
I imagine it would have been quite a bit more difficult to pull off the depiction of an intimate relationship between a sixty-something-year-old man and a twenty-something-year-old woman without appearing creepy and somewhat exploitative, particularly when you cast age appropriate actors to actualize the script. While it would be less of a concern in the comic world, the potential alienation of viewership with Dale, the heart and soul of the series early run, could have been disastrous.