Andrea Harrison

In this week episode Walk with Me, all the highlights in The Waling Dead are pointed on Andrea, portrayed by Laurie Holden, and her new friends, who we will talk of in the next days. Andrea has been a member of the regular cast since Season 1 (and that’s a rarity, since just a few people survived two seasons…), and has always been portrayed as a tough, sometimes harsh woman, very independent and mannish. In the comics, she’s not exactly the same…

Despite being a central character also in the comics series, we don’t know much about Andrea’s past, not even her surname. All we know of her life before the zombie apocalypse is that  she graduated in law, and was hired as a clerk in a law firm in Atlanta. She was very close to her younger sister, Amy, who grew up with her and shared with her the most precious moments of their lives. Despite there was two years between her and Amy, the two of them looked so alike they were often mistaken for twins. Differently from Amy, Andrea was quite ashamed of her freckles, and hid them behind make-up (something that she would have abandoned the moment she realized the world had changed and there was something more important than her look). The two sisters had some sort of ritual to strengthen their bond: every year, Andrea would have accompanied Amy to the college by car, in some sort of road trip during which the two had the occasion of becoming even more friends than before. Actually, it seemed it worked, judging from their kind of relation.

One year, when Andrea and Amy were having their usual road trip to the college, their car broke down, and the two were forced to push it to the road’s side. As you can imagine, that was exactly the worst year to be by foot: the walkers had already started to appear all over the country, and the girls risked a lot being by themselves unaware of the situation. Luckily for them, a few minutes later a RV stopped near them, and a man hurried them to come up: he was Dale Horvath, a good old man who would have become their protector and fatherly figure. Dale saved the two girls from the street and informed them of what was happening: the trio moved to Atlanta, following the radio’s instructions and sure to find in there some help. Unfortunately, the city was already overrun by zombies, and so they all decided to set a camp outside of it. The camp became some sort of beacon for many survivors in the zone, and the group became quite large, counting Allen and his family, Glenn, Jim, Carol and her daughter Sophia, the police officer Shane alongside Lori and Carl, wife and son of his (believed) dead partner. Andrea, along with Amy, cared for the group’s children, and, since everyone had a role, things went on pretty well. Growing attached to Dale, the two girls lived in his RV, thus making Donna, Allen’s wife, very upset about it, since she thought it was inappropriate and indecent to have an old man living with two young girls. Clearly, nobody cared something about Donna’s opinions. In the group, Andrea was always the shy and closed off one, opposite to Amy. Everything was fine (as it could be in a zombie-infested world) until the moment Rick Grimes, who was presumed dead, joined the group and, some time after, a group of roamers attacked them. During the following fight, Amy was killed, and this event proved to be quite a trauma for Andrea, who became even more closed off, isolating herself from the rest of the group and the entire world for some time. The only one who stayed near her was Dale, who helped her cope with her loss. This episode strengthened their relationship, which would have become true love soon after, despite age difference.

After her depression period, Andrea became a valuable member of Rick’s group, finding in herself a strength that she didn’t imagine she could have. Thanks to her skills with guns, she also became one of the best shooters of the group, having a Anshütz .22 LR as her weapon of choice. Still a little bit closed, Andrea reacts to her grief by showing an often aggressive attitude, which is proved to be just a way not to show anyone her inner pain.