The Walker Reboot’s [SPOILER] Story Is A Huge Mistake (& How To Fix It)

Warning! Spoilers ahead for The CW’s Walker. 

The Walker reboot’s dead wife story is a huge mistake, but there is a way to fix it in future episodes. The series is a reimagination of the 1990s series Walker, Texas Ranger starring Chuck Norris. The rebooted CW show kicks off with Jared Padalecki’s version of Cordell Walker, cowboy hat and all. While Walker opens with a cute scene between the titular character and his wife Emily Walker (played by Genevieve Padalecki, the actor’s real-life wife), it isn’t long before she’s slain by an unknown assailant while on the phone with her husband. 

Her death happens a few minutes into Walker and it’s immediately jarring because the audience is barely given a chance to know her before she’s unceremoniously removed from the narrative. Ten months after her death, Walker has returned to his family — which consists of his mother, father, brother, and his two teenage children — after working an undercover case. He’s still torn up about Emily’s death and carries around the poker chip that was left on her body following her murder. 

Emily’s early demise drives a lot of the narrative, be it the friction between Walker and his daughter Stella or the Texas Ranger being convinced that the person responsible for her death is still out there somewhere despite someone having confessed already. However, Emily’s death is a misstep on the show’s part. Setting it up so that her death will fuel the story and give the titular hero a purpose (and unnecessary pain) does nothing but turn Emily into a symbol rather than a full-fledged human being. Her memory is now a sign of happier times and her death will likely become an excuse for Walker to exact vengeance while continuing to be broody. 

What’s more, killing off the mother is a plot contrivance that is tired and treats women characters as disposable. It’s also been overused in the media — Supernatural, Finding Nemo, Guardians of the Galaxy, Charmed and The Flash are among the many guilty of employing this trope. In Walker, Emily has very few lines and later appears to her husband as a mirage, a figment of his imagination and a reminder of his loss and grief. 

But, there’s still hope that Walker’s mistake can be resolved. While the damage is already done and the series will likely not resurrect Emily (this isn’t a superhero show, after all), Walker can work in flashbacks to bring her to life. By revisiting the past, viewers can get to know who Emily was as a person before her untimely and tragic death, what her relationship was truly like with Walker and her children, and what the details of her backstory entail. There is an opportunity here to factor in her presence beyond the guilt that Walker feels about her death and to organically develop her into someone the audience cares about. 

In short, flashback scenes can develop Emily in a way that could enrich her character and give her the agency she was so quickly robbed of. Perhaps Walker can showcase what she was like as a friend, why she was doing the work that ultimately got her killed, and what her ambitions were. In doing so, Emily will transform from a one-dimensional figure who just so happened to die to a woman who was real and had a life. It’s the least Walker can do.