"Too Far Gone" (TWD S4E8 Rewatch)

[00:00:00] Hmm? Ah! Hmm. Podcastica!

[00:00:53] Hey Zed Heads, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Veronica. And this is the Cast of Us, episode 626. And this episode we're covering The Walking Dead, season 4, episode 8, Too Far Gone. I just realized, you and I have podcasted about Squid Game and I was just like, yeah, it's Veronica, I didn't even register. Oh, you're not usually on here. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks. It's fun to be here talking about all of our favorite show.

[00:01:22] This episode I think is cursed because Lucy was supposed to be on and so was Jim. He had asked a while back to come on and they both got sick. Oh no. And I'm a little sick too. Oh no. Well, I am well right now. No. That's good. I was sick. Like at the end of January I had to go in the hospital because I was so sick. I'm not getting sick again. So. Yeah. Don't curse me episode. Okay. Yeah.

[00:01:47] So you, you were pretty ready to jump on though. You, you like this one, huh? Yeah. Um, I do. And I just love these early seasons in general and I keep trying to do the rewatch with you guys and then going way past. Every, a lot of people do that. Yeah.

[00:02:04] I then I'll like reset and get back to where you're at again. And I actually had just done that. So I had just watched the previous episodes. I think I got through to the, um, where everyone's sick and they saved them, but then didn't watch the governor episodes, but I did listen to you guys covering it.

[00:02:24] So, so yeah. And this is just, I mean, I was trying to think back. I didn't get to go back and listen to your coverage of it, but thinking how exciting this episode was at the time. Um, and yeah, like trying to look at it and watch it as if it was the first time was kind of fun.

[00:02:42] Hmm. Yeah. I, I remember feeling like, and I think I'm thinking this now too, that, oh, this is what I, this is what we thought the season three finale would be like when the governor attacked the prison. And, but this is more like the comic where he's on the tank and everything. And I wondered if they had always planned this. It seems like they must have because the governor survived season three. And so what would have been the plan for him?

[00:03:11] But I, I wonder if there's any element of Scott Gimple is now the showrunner and he's going to go back and have a redo at this and do it right. You know, cause people weren't that happy with the first, when the governor first attacked the prison. Like I could see it going either way, but it's hard for me to believe they would have had that ending of the governor be so anticlimactic if they weren't going to do something big after that.

[00:03:39] Cause I think they knew they were disappointing fans without it at the end of season three, but I felt, I think maybe they were okay with it. Cause they knew we're going to surprise them. I mean, honestly, I just think they should have just done this episode then, you know, I mean, then we would have missed this whole sickness thing or they could have just done that in some other way though. But I don't know.

[00:04:00] I don't know. Maybe they couldn't, that was pretty good, but still it feels like they drew the story out in a way where maybe they should have just had him attack the first time. I don't remember them perfectly, but I did read the governor books a long time ago. And I think the payoff of the last two episodes before this one was, I think much bigger for people that had read those books because of the sort of subtle references and things that happened there.

[00:04:29] Um, and so I think that's kind of cool. And there's little hidden Easter eggs almost that I think Nathan did a really good job of pointing several of those out in the podcast. Um, and so I, I don't know if maybe that is part of why they felt it was going to be worth it. But I think for most people, I think it was like two somewhat disappointing episodes and a payoff, like you said, that probably should have happened last season.

[00:04:58] Yeah. Um, and I, I liked them. And I also remember liking season seven when Karen was getting really exasperated with it. So it'd be interesting. But then I remember getting kind of exasperated by the time season eight rolled around too.

[00:05:14] See, I didn't get that way as a lot of people did. So I also think it's so just interesting how, you know, like listening to listening to you guys cover the last two episodes, I think as always made me like them a little bit more. Um, but it's cool to hear just people who feel differently about it and some of their passion sometimes bleeds over and I'm like, Oh, it's not so bad.

[00:05:35] Yeah. And I mean, it is all subjective, but there are tendencies. Like I think those two episodes are considered by the wider walking dead fandom to be a disappointment, you know, even though some people like me think differently. Anyway, let's get into this one. Uh, walking dead scene four, episode eight, too far gone. Do you want to read the plot summary?

[00:05:54] Uh, sure. So the governor captures Michonne and Herschel and challenges Rick and the others to abandon the prison. Though Rick offers coexistence, the governor refuses, decapitates Herschel and gunfire breaks out. In the midst of battle, Lily rushes up to the governor with the body of Megan, who was bitten by a walker while playing. The governor shoots Megan to prevent her from reanimating and then orders a full out assault of the prison.

[00:06:19] Kill them all. Yeah. God tearing through its fences and allowing a horde of walkers in the survivors in the prison are forced to scatter when they no longer can hold their defenses. At the same time, Rick and the governor engage in a one-on-one brawl in which the latter gains the upper hand only to be mortally stabbed by Michonne just before he can kill Rick. Rick escapes with Carl while the near death governor is approached and executed by Lily.

[00:06:45] Hmm. Okay. Well, um, what did you think coming back to this one? I mean, still good, still good, still just, and everything from the music that's overlaid with all the governor and the way it builds. And then just the biggest freaking battle we've seen yet on the walking dead, like just a lot of action and excitement, but still quiet, emotional moments that you expect with the show too. And I loved it.

[00:07:15] Still the battle was really well staged in particular. I think Ernest Dickerson directed this when he was a director on a lot of the action heavy ones, including when the zombie stored the farm that I was in in season two. And, um, he, I think it's always a good battle when it feels like it has a shape and you go to little different parts of it and interesting things are happening, you know, but it still feels chaotic. I mean, it was very, very well done. I watching it. I felt bummed out.

[00:07:44] And I think, of course, you know, that's the way walking dead is. It can be bleak. You lose characters. We lost Herschel. Um, but I felt, I think more bummed out this time just because I'm watching two groups of people who have almost all good people and they're being forced into killing each other by these leaders.

[00:08:07] And I definitely blame the governor way, way more than Rick, but I, I don't know if Rick handled it as well as he could have either. And it's just, um, but more just the governor, you know, guys like that going in and convincing people to dehumanize another group and fight against them and kill them. I, I, there's a part of me that's like, I don't want to see this right now.

[00:08:36] Particularly bleak. Yeah. This time. Yeah, for sure. Like just the whole Ukraine thing, you know, and all that felt and, but, uh, but I'm not going to dwell too much on parallels because that'll just be too depressing. So I said, I had to say about that done with that part. As far as it being a great episode, um, it also felt so much more weighty than anything or just about anything we're seeing in the Daryl show right now.

[00:09:03] Not to slag on the Daryl show too much, but that became just sort of popcorn action movie. A lot of times this season where, or like John wick, you just kill a bunch of people and it doesn't matter here. It felt like every death, even the people we didn't know, it just felt like tragic, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, let's get into our points. You want to go first? Yeah. Um, I'll just start. Uh, my first point was just that the governor is back on his bullshit. Um,

[00:09:34] he's lying to this whole group to get them to attack. It's very reminiscent of the way he manipulated Woodbury. Um, he's calling the people at the prison killers and that's not completely inaccurate, but he's leaving out a lot of details. He's saying they killed his daughter, which like, okay, final death. Sure. But your daughter was already dead. Yeah. That's a important distinction. Like he's lying or like grossly twisting the truth. Yeah. Um,

[00:10:04] yeah. If he'd said, if somebody was like, if he'd said, Oh, I meant zombie daughter, then they'd be like, Oh, wait a minute. Um, and he's doing very like black and white. Like we're the good people. They're bad people. They're killers. And, um, he does take a moment. He's like, there's a few good people there. And that leads Lily to like directly question him, be like, you know, you said there's good people there. And he's like, but they're there

[00:10:31] with the bad people. And she's like, am I with bad people? Like, I thought that was, that was so good. I don't really like Lily's character in general. Like she frustrates me a lot. Um, but that was at least a good moment of her. I feel like asserting herself and actually like stepping back to question things. I think this whole episode, she is cause we don't really see her before he's giving that speech,

[00:10:57] but I think as she's listening to it, she's realizing that he's not a good man. Yeah. And, and, and she's, uh, or at least she's very, very skeptical now to the point where he would have to win her back. And I don't think that changes through the whole episode. In fact, when, whenever he goes over and like hugs her, kisses her, she just looks disturbed and it feels like a violation to me. It's icky, you know?

[00:11:23] Yeah. Yeah. She's scared. She's scared. You know, I think even if you weren't in the zombie apocalypse and she didn't need him for protection, it's also just scary to realize this person that you've been, she's been very intimate with that she's left her daughter with is actually a psychopath. And like, I think even, I think she probably knows it. I think she is not even like bargaining in her mind. She knows it, but she can't quite admit it to herself yet because of all that fear. Um, but I,

[00:11:53] I, I don't know. I think she knows cause she doesn't seem that surprised when she comes across him later in, in the fighting, having just like hacked at Herschel's neck, like is almost like, I don't know, maybe she was in shock, but I, I think she sees through it at the beginning of the episode when he's giving that speech, but she's trying to figure out how do I stay safe and not have

[00:12:18] this person. She doesn't really have any other options, which kind of leads me. And I mean, you've touched about this in the last couple of episodes about what a narcissist he is. And I was trying this episode, like so much of it is focused on that he wants to protect his people, but like, does he really care about Lily and Megan? And I think like, I think no, like, I think it has more to do

[00:12:47] with his narcissistic self-fulfillment to be an effective protector and overcoming his previous failure to protect his family and his whole town than it is that he inherently cares for them as individual humans. Like I think he cares about Lily because he cared about his daughter that he failed. Um, Megan and yeah, sorry, Megan. Um, because I was getting,

[00:13:17] so frustrated with just like how incompetent Lily was. And I was like, this doesn't make sense. Like he would have taught Lily and Megan, like a few basics to just be able to like handle a zombie. Like she shouldn't be this crazy ineffective if he is so competent. Like if you loved someone, you would want them to be able to survive in this world. And then I was like, no, no, no, no,

[00:13:41] like actually that's not the governor's approach. Like he either wants incredibly weak people who have to depend on him because he's so strong because they can't survive without them. So he either wants super weak people that see him as like an invaluable protector, or if he has someone who's strong,

[00:14:06] they need to be sheep, they need to basically just be like dumb idiots who are muscle. Um, but they're not. Yeah. So it's the burles for people like the governor. Loyalty is the top number one thing. Yeah. It's all they care about. Um, and so like, I mean, he did the same thing to the other people at Woodbury that were not his goons. He had them live in this sort of like false sense of

[00:14:31] security within the town. He tried to make things like almost like, um, I don't know, just like 1950s suite walking down main street. He had the like fake zombie fights that he put on for them. Like he wanted those people to be weak. So they would have to depend on him. And that's what he's done with Lily and Megan too, is like continued to keep them weak. I realized they didn't have the same amount of time to like get strong, but I feel like he wanted them to be ineffective

[00:15:01] and have to depend on him so he could fulfill that like hero role with them. Maybe. Yeah. I do think with, especially Megan, he wants, it is more about him wanting an adoring daughter, you know, but I think part of this probably is that whole thing with the walking dead where you have to somehow stage a believable threat from stupid zombies. So people seem ineffective

[00:15:28] all the time. So I don't know how much I personally would read into Lily putting her daughter in a situation where she would get hurt like that. Um, I think, I mean, the governor wanted to arm all his people at the end there, but yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I think mostly he chooses a certain group of people who he knows are on the same wavelength and are, um, skilled fighters and he makes them as mercenaries and then everyone else he wants just to be dependent on them. So yeah,

[00:15:57] I guess I do think you're right about that as I'm talking it out. Yeah. But Andrea wasn't weak. She was pretty skilled. As long as she was loyal to him, she would have been okay with her too, you know? And he liked her. Like he wanted to get her in a bed. Like, you know, I think he could make an exception for a strong woman. Yeah. Oh yeah. But she was already strong. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean,

[00:16:20] I think as far as like, I like, like Lily's on top of this, uh, RV and she's kind of in a position where she has to be in a good place to look out for zombies. And I did like her reaction to this zombie coming across the river and then it kind of, um, floats on downstream. I just thought that was like a little art film or something. It was really cool the way they shot it. Yeah. Um,

[00:16:47] but I think, yeah, she just should have had Megan up there right next to her. Right. Yeah. And you're at, it's in a new location like that. It's only been a couple of days since Megan like got grabbed by a zombie and almost died like through the clothesline. Right. Like, I just think she'd be in a more like Uber protective mode. And again, that doesn't really, like you said, it doesn't set the stage for exciting zombie attacks. And as far as a zombie show, but yeah, that's the thing.

[00:17:14] And they have it where they're in a place where she can clearly see Megan and, and I think pretty much see far off in any direction. So if any zombies came, she would have had time. And so they had no way of knowing there was going to be one right there in the mud. I think that's why they did it that way. But I still felt critical of Lily. I'm like, just have your daughter up right by your side. If you're going to be up on top of something like that. I think like, just, I was thinking back in this show has done this in general with the majority of the mothers in the show. Like,

[00:17:44] I just think that's not how every woman who has a child reacts. Like many of them would be much more like focused on being strong protectors of their children, not just these like damsels in distress. Like we saw it. Um, you know, Carol didn't get strong until after her daughter died. And, um, Oh my God, Lori, like, I just feel like people were so frustrated with her because

[00:18:12] of the way she acted. And I just don't think like, why is it every woman with a small child now here we see again with Lily just like is, um, yeah, it's damsel in distress, like very helpless, very incapable of, of being able to protect their children on their own. Like it just, it's too many times that they've done it, that it's starting to get into like, I'm not like that could be some women, like lots of people react differently. But I mean, in this case, it,

[00:18:41] it's kind of like I was saying when we were talking about the governor's story, it was like the perfect thing for him to find to bring him out of the suicidal stupor. Cause it was just a perfect fit for him to play the same role that he played before. So he kind of, I would say if there was a situation where you needed someone like that, maybe this was it, you know, a damsel in distress kind of thing. No, for sure. And I think it was just more

[00:19:06] the repetition of it. I was like, okay, we've seen it. The only other thing I had just talking about the governor, because I won't talk more about those things. Cause I think we'll get to them when we actually talk about like the actual war part of things, but he does seem to be attempting to handle this differently than he would in the past. Like he does seem like he at least wants to

[00:19:29] try to give the people in the prison the option to potentially live by leaving the prison without just like bulldozing through everyone. Now, I don't know if that's because he knows that will protect his people or if that really means that he has turned over a more generous, like slightly more peaceful negotiating approach. But at the end of the day, like, even if it is a change in him and he

[00:19:54] doesn't want to kill people, do we ever think he really would have let Michonne go? Even if, even if Rick had agreed to leave, like I could see him releasing Herschel to them. But even if he gotten over what Michonne did to his eye and to his daughter, wouldn't he just assume that she was always going to be trying to kill him? Like,

[00:20:19] I just don't think he ever would have really let her go. I was curious if you think that any of the hostage situation was, was real as far as him letting them go. I think it's complicated. I think he, what he's telling, uh, Herschel and Michonne, you know, Hey Michonne, I know my daughter was dead now. You know, he's trying to say, I'm not, I don't have this

[00:20:48] vendetta against you anymore. And he's telling them, you know, we could do this without losing any lives and all that. I think he's half saying that because he's trying to get them to do what he wants. So he's trying to calm them down. So it's manipulative. Right. But also when, like when Herschel says governor or whatever, and he goes, don't call me that. So I think that he is also kind of struggling with what kind of a person he wants to be, you know, and maybe he can be better.

[00:21:17] Um, but I, you know, I, with the governor, I've realized during this rewatch that just the phrase you kill or you die really is at the core of him, you know? And he's trying like, there's times when he's like, uh, maybe I can get over that. So that's why when he's killing Martinez, he's like, I don't want this, you know, cause he's trying to get away from it. But then, you know, it always

[00:21:44] ends up where he feels like I have to kill or I'm going to die. And so that's why when Rick says, you know, we can all do this together, we can be together. He says liar because he's realized, or at least this would be in his head. He's like, you can't, you have to kill or you die and then he kills. So I think it's kind of both, I think. Um, but I, I do think, um, probably on the more cynical strategic side, he's just trying to keep them calm and he still wants his people

[00:22:12] if possible to see him as a good person and a protector. So he would go into the prison if possible, take it without, um, losing any lives. And then I do think he would still, if he could get more people like Mitch behind him, send them out to kill Michonne if they could find him no matter what. I don't think, I don't think he really, even if he decides he wants to be a good guy, I don't think he would leave someone like that out there who is clearly a threat to him,

[00:22:40] you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, true. And I think as much as he struggles with it, he just can't get past it. He's too narcissistic. He's too fucked up. Yeah. You know, I agree. He just, he's too bad. So my first point is evaluating his argument, convincing his group to take the prison. As you said, what'd you say? He's, he's back in his shit again or something. Back on his bullshit.

[00:23:07] Bullshit. He says if they stay where they are in this unprotected, unfortified camp that eventually walkers or people will kill them. I think that's probably true. It's, you know, they, they should, if they want to be safe, they shouldn't be out in the open like that. He says the prison would be a better place. Uh, I don't know about that. I mean, it is fortified, but it's really conspicuous, which makes it attractive to others. And therefore it might actually be a target that

[00:23:37] you'd have to be able to defend and, and the fence also, isn't that great? So I think it's debatable, but then again, um, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's better, you know, it's better than where they are now. Um, he also says any place that's safe, really safe, someone's already there. And I was like, Oh, I've been saying how, you know, that most people are dead. So there should be a lot of places, but maybe the kind of place that he really wants that he thinks of as fortified. Maybe there aren't as many of that. Maybe those would be the places

[00:24:06] that would get filled up the fastest. Did that, did Woodbury, did it get fully destroyed? Did he go back and destroy it? I think that's the idea. Yeah. They showed him burning it. It just feels like you could rebuild that. It feels like, but yeah, I guess. I think the reason why they show that shot of him burning it is because they wanted to have the idea that it's not an option, you know? Yeah, I guess so. But it just feels like, I don't know. The prison isn't that great. I agree with you. It feels like they should be able to

[00:24:36] find something else equally as good. I think so. Maybe they have to do some fortification, but you're going to have to keep doing that at the prison anyways, because the fences keep falling down. But that wouldn't be as interesting as, you know, this battle. Of course not. So he says there's bad people at the prison, calls them the people who destroyed my camp, but he destroyed his camp. As we just said, he burned it down. He says most of them are thieves

[00:25:03] and murderers. That's not true. He said they mutilated him, which is true, but Michonne did that kind of in retaliation for him having tried to have her killed. They said he killed his daughter, but she was a zombie. So that's all bullshit. Like all this stuff about them being bad people is bullshit. And I just went back and looked at the story just as a reminder. So he took in Michonne and Andrea. And then when Michonne wanted to leave, he led her, but sent people to kill her

[00:25:31] for no good reason. It's just that philosophy. Again, you kill her, you die. And, and by doing that, he, he just confirmed her suspicions about him and made an enemy. Um, and then he kidnapped Glenn and Maggie and Tigger interrogated them, sexually assaulted Maggie, assaulted Glenn just because they wouldn't give him information on their group. He, he also told Merle to execute them. So, uh, I mean,

[00:25:58] when you're just trying to like weigh out in the walking dead, a lot of times, um, you know, it's not, the answers aren't so easy. It could be this, it could be that like with Carol, should they have banish her? You can have arguments on both sides. Maybe with this, I just think the governor is fucked, man. He, he shot himself in the foot. He made enemies where he didn't have to. Yeah. So I was saying maybe Michonne shouldn't have killed his zombie daughter. Maybe that was like

[00:26:27] kind of the one thing on the other side that they did, but that's because it was just because it would be stirring up a hornet's nest for no good reason. But she didn't know. What was going on? Like when she first found his daughter, she thought it was a living girl he had tied up. And then she saw it was a zombie and killed it. Yeah. Maybe she didn't even know what she was doing. Yeah. She didn't know it was his daughter. And still I could imagine, I don't know.

[00:26:54] But he said, don't hurt her. And then she did it. Yeah, I guess. So I think she kind of knew, but I mean, still that is nothing compared to him sending Merle and his guys out to kill her, to murder her, a living person, you know, that's nothing. I think her failure was more, if, if you agree, there was one, which some might not, but it was more of a strategic failure, but his was a moral failure. Yeah. So it's way, way different anyway. So, um, yeah, I think,

[00:27:22] you know, he's right basically that they should look for a better place, but he's totally misleading them when he says these are bad people, which I mean, that's clearly obvious, but I thought it'd be fun to kind of go through and parse it out a little bit. Yeah. So what else? Oh, wait, actually, let me do my other point about what's where the governor's head at, since you already kind of talked about that too. Um, he tells his group that he tried to die because he didn't want to accept

[00:27:51] that you couldn't live in this world without getting blood on your hands. There's so many negatives in that. It's hard to parse out, but I think he's saying he would rather die than have to kill. And so if he's believes you kill or you die, then he had decided I'm going to die. I'm just going to die for a while there. He, he, he was suicidal. He, I think it was also just because he, he lost everything, but now, now he has something again to protect. I do think that he

[00:28:20] does know his daughter was dead as he told Michonne because I think that's why he shot Megan after Lily brought him up, brought her up dead. He's like, I'm not going through that whole zombie daughter thing again, you know? Yeah. And then when he, when, um, Herschel said, you know, he's arguing to the governor, we can find a way to live together. And the governor says no.

[00:28:45] And, um, he goes, I found a way I'm trying hard. There's all kinds of ways I could do this. So he is trying to say, you know what? We could just go in and guns blazing. So I'm trying. And I do believe there is an element of that. And, but he says this way you get to live and I get to be, and then he doesn't say anything. What do you think it was going to say? A father or something? A better person? Yeah. Yeah. And then when, uh, but then when Herschel says, yeah, probably. Yeah.

[00:29:15] Yeah. That's true. That's probably right on. Yeah. But Herschel says, you say you want to take this prison as peacefully as possible. That means you'd be willing to hurt people to get it. My daughters would be there. If you understand what it's like to have a daughter, then how can you threaten to kill someone else's? And he goes, because they aren't mine, which is a great line, but it just shows that's, there's no empathy there. That's, that's a narcissist answer. I mean, he's honest at least, but, um, yeah, it's just not a good, not a good person to say something like that.

[00:29:44] Yeah. I had that in my notes too, but one thing I noted after it is like, it's super cold, but how far off is that from Rick's stance in many of the seasons going forward, where if you're under his wing, if you're part of his found family, like it doesn't, he'll do anything, even kill people in cold blood in their sleep to protect the, even the chance that his people could be at risk.

[00:30:12] Yeah. Um, and I don't think Rick is as far as the governor is like, I do think an innocent person, he would try to do what he thought he could to avoid hurting them. And he's tries to bring it and protect people. But the second he sees, you know, people as a risk, the people in Alexandria as a risk because they're weak, he immediately starts to put his group ahead of them. I don't think it's

[00:30:39] as far as the governor, but it was just interesting to sort of think about the progression of, of Rick along those same lines. I think the difference is that there's not much difference, which is one reason why I'm critical of Rick. I'm excited to get into that. Cause I, I still, even when he gets to where I think is darker, I know Renee doesn't agree, but I think is darker. Um, I still think he's a fascinating character, but yeah, man, I mean, just when he was shooting, he shot at somebody who ended up being

[00:31:09] a member of the kingdom and he didn't even have any reason. He just shot at somebody cause they were a stranger. And no remorse either. That's just as bad as the governor. He was like, what? Like it's fine. That's like worse. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally good point. I think. Okay. What's your next one? Um, I think also maybe just continuing on that, I had a point just sort of recognizing the wise council of Herschel and sort of the theme of you get to come back. Um, and so, you know,

[00:31:39] as you just talked about, he tried to have that sort of appeal to the governor, I think in the very Herschel way of trying to say like, you know, I see you've changed, like people can change and like, we can all live together. And it's the same themes and moral approach. I think he's been trying to instill in Rick the whole time. He's the one who told that to Rick in the first episode of this season. Yeah. Herschel.

[00:32:04] And we see then at the end of the episode when Rick and the governor, or I guess the middle of the episode when the Rick and the governor are sort of trying to negotiate with each other, the words that Herschel has said to Rick, the lessons he's tried to instill in Rick, literally almost verbatim, the things that he was, Herschel was saying himself to the governor in the RV, Rick is now saying, um, and I think one, that's like really beautiful. And then

[00:32:33] one of the last things Rick says before the fighting bright breaks out is declaring, we get to come back. And to me, like, I tried to focus in on what felt like such a bright moment in, in what was a pretty dark episode, which is Herschel's freaking gleaming face. He's just so proud of Rick

[00:32:58] in that moment because not only is he proud that Rick is, you know, trying to make these arguments, but I think when Rick declares, we get to come back, like Herschel sees, he's not just saying it, like he really believes it in that moment. And I think Rick has become like a son to Herschel. I feel like, does he even say that at some point to Rick? I know he says it to Glenn, but, um,

[00:33:21] I think even though the next second the governor starts hacking at Herschel's neck, I think it's just really nice that Herschel got this moment of like, I don't know, almost like blissful happiness and pride at seeing Rick and, and really seeing what becomes his legacy get passed on because, you know, it's a good thing. He's not there. Maybe he's there looking down when Rick's shooting at

[00:33:45] this, this, uh, kingdom guy later on. Yeah. I mean, as I was writing this and thinking about like how proud, like we know Rick doesn't necessarily stay in the same mindset fully, but I think he's always striving to get back to it. Right. Like he loses his way. I think by the end he's back there more than he had been in a long time. Yeah. So he definitely flip flops, but I think it's, he's always striving to,

[00:34:12] to come back and to be the person bringing people together. And I just thought that was a really beautiful moment. And then the last sort of wise counsel of Herschel that gets mentioned in the episode is we see the absolute devastation of Maggie and Beth as they literally see their father dying in front of them. But then Maggie does turn to Beth and like trying to encourage her to like stay focused in the madness that's all happening around them. She says, we've all got jobs to do.

[00:34:41] And I saw that was also like a really beautiful callback to one of Herschel's, um, you know, go to things that he would say to his daughters when, when he needed them to just focus in times of chaos. So it's a quick, efficient way to get Beth to do what she wanted. Right. Yeah. I think that's all I had there. I mean, I guess just acknowledging that I think

[00:35:06] losing Herschel is a big loss of sort of what has been the, a bit of the moral compass of, of the show for at least the last season and a half. Um, even at the farm, he, he was that he struggled trying to wrap his head around the zombies and things at first. And even when I think Herschel has stumbled and been wrong, he had good intentions, right? Like he was keeping the zombies because he

[00:35:33] thought that he could save them and he, you know, fell back into going to drink because he was so ashamed of the danger he'd put everyone in. And what am I doing? But I think he's been, was a pretty amazing character and saved Carl, you know, when he got shot by Otis. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you're giving a good eulogy here of Herschel. So that's good.

[00:35:57] He saved Carl from the gunshot, but then he also saved Carl by mentoring Rick because Carl was really going off the psycho killer kid path. And if Herschel hadn't come and talked to Rick, if Herschel hadn't convinced Rick to be a farmer for a little bit, I think Carl could have really gone down a different path and ended up a very different teenager than what he becomes. And I think Herschel

[00:36:24] is really who directed that. So again, like another way that I think Herschel's legacy lives on. I mean, obviously it lives on through his namesake in, in Maggie and Glenn's, uh, child, but I think ways that his legacy lives on in the whole walking dead family, like continue to trickle out.

[00:36:44] Mm hmm. Yeah. He feels like, and there's characters. Well, what was I going to say? I don't know. I was going to say maybe he's one that's remembered more than others, you know, like T dog. I feel like he doesn't get his due sometimes, but man, there's just so many characters, even Shane, like just, they still are big. You still think about them when you think about the walking dead. Herschel's one of the top ones though. Yeah, for sure.

[00:37:14] Mm hmm. All right. I'm going to talk about Rick telling Daryl about Carol. Yeah. And Daryl's so pissed at it. And I love Rick says she did it. She said it was for us. That's how it was in her head. She wasn't sorry. And Daryl says, man, that's her, but that ain't her. Yeah. What? What are you saying there? And it sounds like you're a little confused. Uh, like part of him knows she's kind

[00:37:43] of fucked, but he also knows her as, as a good friend. And I think that's the thing with Carol. If you're her friend, then she will literally kill for you or die for you, put herself in danger. But if not, or even if you are and you're in her way, your life could be in danger at some point. Right. And later on he, she, she almost killed, gets, uh, Daryl sort of girlfriend Connie killed in that cave, you know? And, um, and he's mad here at Rick, but I think he understands because

[00:38:12] if he didn't, he would be even more mad and he's like, you know, let's go tell Tyrese. So it's not like, uh, you know, well, I'm going to fight you or I'm going to go find Carol or, you know, he's just like mad, but seems to be going along with it, I guess. But, uh, if I was him, I'd be mad that Rick didn't talk with me about it first. That's, that's what I would be like. Why the fuck didn't you tell me you were going to do that? You know? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that was

[00:38:38] the misstep and all of it was not involving the council. And I get, it was a hard time to involve the council because everyone was ill and almost dying. Right. Like you could still have a meeting, but I think it, I think it would have been worthwhile to have that discussion and not just decide. Hell yeah. Especially with your best friend and supposed to be your right head guy. It's just funny. Cause that was basically just prior to this that he did that. And now this episode

[00:39:07] when the governor's calling him out to talk, he's like, Oh no, like we've got a council. I don't make this decision. I'm not the leader. And it's like, okay, bud. Like it's one or the other. It's kind of funny. It was weird because he's like, Rick, come down here and talk. And he's like, we have a council now. And then, and then he's like, is Herschel on the council? Is Michonne? And then he goes, I don't make any decisions anymore. And it's like, I, that feels

[00:39:32] like your problem. Like if, if you're not the one to talk, then you should be talking to your people, not screaming it to your enemy. It was almost funny. Yeah. I don't make decisions. And then he just ends up making all the decisions. Cause I was like, okay, who's on the council? It's, um, Herschel and Michonne are held hostage.

[00:39:58] Glenn's sick. He's not even out there. Um, Carol's just been banished. Right. So the only other one left is Daryl. And so I'm like, okay, then you should have Daryl do it. He's the only one left on the council. And then it cuts to Daryl right. As I was thinking that, and he says, all right, we should get, this isn't going to work. Uh, we're outgunned. We need to get on these buses and get out of here. And I'm like, okay, that's what the council says. Get out. And then, and then he says, but we need to wait until the last possible

[00:40:26] moment. And I'm like, that makes zero sense. If you already know that you're going to lose and you're going to have to get out, why don't you just say, okay, we're leaving. Don't say let's fight it out first and see who dies and then leave if you're already set on leaving. Yeah, no, that is really terrible. I didn't even think about it like that. I hadn't thought about until just this last time watching, but I mean, I mean, maybe this is jumping the gun a little bit, but, uh, I think, um, you know, what they ended up with

[00:40:56] is they lost the prison and they lost Herschel. And so just because of that, I mean, hindsight's 2020, but it feels to me like they probably should have handled it better. And since the governor's there with a tank and ready to fight that maybe they should have just left. I mean, that sounds like, is that the cowardly thing, but maybe it would have saved Herschel's life and they still wouldn't have had the prison, but they didn't have it anyway. You know what I mean?

[00:41:22] And the bus like eventually gets overtaken, like all the, most of the people who die. So like they could have maybe avoided that and like not had everyone scattered, maybe avoided sanctuary, like, I don't know, butterfly effect, I guess. But. Cause when the governor says, Hey, we're gonna, we're just gonna, you know, if you don't let us come in here, we're just going to blast our way in or whatever. And Rick said, we're not moving.

[00:41:49] We'll fight if we had to. That's where I felt like, Oh God, this is like, it's like what happens between countries, you know? And then people die, but. Well, it's like the King David thing, right? Like the, uh, the two women and the baby and he's like, we'll just cut the baby in half and everybody gets a half, but really everyone loses when you do that. You know, like, you know, I mean, if you, I said, I wasn't going to do this,

[00:42:16] but it does make me think of Russia and Ukraine, right? Russia invaded Ukraine. And if you follow my analogy, then it would just, you'd just be telling Ukraine, okay, just let them have it, which I don't agree with that. Right. But that's like this. I feel like this is a little bit different because it's different because you wouldn't be leaving the people behind to be claimed by the governor and lose their free will. He's letting you all like. And also it's a small group at a small place and they should be able to find another place. Although

[00:42:46] on the other hand, I'm contradicting myself here, but as a, who was it? Somebody, I think Rick said, there's children here. They're sick. They won't make it. So if that's true, I mean, they all die on the bus, but, but yeah, they die on the bus, but still if he, in, in Rick's mind, he's thinking if we leave here, children are going to die. And I think, I mean, you could argue who knows what, what Rick's plan really was in the 30 seconds he got to have to think about what a plan

[00:43:15] could be. But I mean, he could have been almost sort of bluffing at that point, trying to appeal to the people the governor was with, give himself some time to like show he isn't a bad person in hopes that, you know, maybe they would accept that and that there, it wouldn't actually truly come to fighting. Like maybe he was using it as a bargaining chip because saying like, like, I don't know,

[00:43:41] maybe he would have surrendered if the governor kept pushing and, and left, but he was using it sort of as well, no one gets to have it as a bargaining chip. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. All right. What's the next point? Um, I just wanted to like take a moment to talk about Rick and Carl, um, because this episode really

[00:44:07] reminded me of why the loss of Carl later on feels like the loss of the heart of the show to me in a lot of ways. I mean, not completely. I still loved the show even after Carl was gone, but if there was anything, I still begrudge the entire show. It is the loss of Carl. Yeah. And because it was the heart of the show and what I mean is it was the heart of Rick. Like it was everything he was doing was always striving to be better and to survive, to, to see Carl survive and with Carl.

[00:44:37] Yeah. And I just felt like the marks of that are sort of all over this episode. Um, you know, right before he goes out to the governor, he's standing side by side with Carl. He reassures Carl right before, um, he leaves, uh, to go down to talk to him when he has, you know, not even stood up after being shot and almost strangled to death by the governor. His very first question is,

[00:45:04] where's Carl. He goes to look for Carl. Um, and then we just see sort of the heartbreak of them together as they find like the, um, the bloody car seat and a lot of questions about the bloody car seat. I remember back when we first saw this, we thought, Oh shit, they actually killed the baby.

[00:45:28] Yeah. Um, and just sort of both of them once again, having to go through the heartbreak, but this time the differences is when Lori died, there was no comforting of Carl from Rick. There was only Rick's pain at the loss and him. So, I mean, he put his hand, I think on Carl, but it was because he was so deep in the pain. But in this one, I felt like their pain was shared together. And I mean,

[00:45:55] part of that is in this year, Carl has actually grown, like, it looks like three years almost like he's becoming a young man now. Um, Rick has his head together a little bit more too. He was pretty lost back then. Yeah. And I just thought like, I don't know, all of those together were beautiful moments and just made me so sad to think about, you know, Carl eventually dying and Rick having to go

[00:46:20] through that because this episode just showed so much as so many of the episodes do of how much Carl was the driving force behind everything Rick was trying to do. Um, I don't know, just sad. Yeah. I did also like as a side note after sort of going through that, have down trying to think back to seeing this episode air at the end of the episode, you've just seen Rick go through a whole bunch of

[00:46:50] losses. And I don't remember if I was questioning what his mental state would be when season three came back on the air, but I wonder if I was scared about it at all because season four or season three is it? This is the mid season finale, right? This is four. Yeah. Season four. Sorry. Four. Okay. Four. Okay. So when season four came back, I just like, I was trying, I don't remember what I felt at that time, but I think, you know,

[00:47:17] leaving that, leaving all that having just happened and not knowing like, is Rick going to devolve again the way he did after Lori died? Because now he's lost Judith, his found family is all scattered and his home is gone. Um, and like, obviously he does not, you know, at least he doesn't start envisioning baby Judith appearing everywhere. Like he doesn't devolve fully, but like, obviously

[00:47:47] it impacts him, but I don't know. I think that also was sort of left another, there were lots of cliffhangers in this episode, but also just wondering like, what Rick will we get when things come back? Will he be still the, you can come back person? Will he believe that? Or did the loss of all this, the loss of the person that taught him that, you know, being decapitated right in front of him, is that, you know, gonna, how's that going to impact his psyche? Yeah. I was wondering that too,

[00:48:17] because I think the way it's been up until now is just that he takes responsibility for everyone. And so that it hurts more when people die because he feels responsible for it. And so now he's, uh, Herschel's dad and, um, maybe Judith, he thinks probably right. And you would think having it be Rick that he'd be fretting over whether he handled it correctly. And I think it's debatable whether he did, but, um, maybe I don't remember exactly. I do remember you're right

[00:48:46] that he doesn't seem to have taken it quite as badly. So maybe they just thought that would be too repetitive or something, but it'll be interesting to watch a little more closely as we go through it. He's also so physically impacted. And I think Carl does a little bit more of the spiraling out and he does. Yeah. I remember next episode is like unconscious most of the time, right? Carl's eating pudding on a roof. Um, as far as yeah, the cliffhanger, we had to wait two months back

[00:49:15] then, but this time we're just going to keep going right through. So we'll talk about that one next week. So that'd be good. Um, you mentioned the only thing you really begrudge about the series is them having killed off Carl. And I think, yeah, even though I've had my criticisms, uh, that's really the only thing if I could change one thing, that would be it. Yeah. Even over Rick, I think, especially since we got the ones who live and got to see

[00:49:41] his story wrapped, I think, you know, I do appreciate that the topic of Carl and Carl as a centerpiece still to his driving, um, you know, force in life was honored in that series, but uh, I just would have liked to still have had Carl there when, yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then I, I was also reminded as you were talking about it, that when we were watching

[00:50:07] this, you know, as comic fans, uh, I won't spell it out in detail, but I'll say that this is when Judith dies in the comic. So that's a pretty big comic spoiler, I guess, but hopefully people are okay. It's been like 20 years ago now, but, um, read it. Um, but, uh, anyway, so I'm sure we were just like thinking, Oh my God, is Judith going to die if the governor attacks, you know? And now they sort of, I think that's Kirkman in there with this bloody car seat, just trying to make us

[00:50:36] feel bad. I think it happened. I mean, what were we, what, what reasonable explanation is there for the bloody car seat though is what I want to know. Like was Tyrese shot at all? Was he bleeding? Could he have bled over it while he picked up Judith? Did someone shoot a Zed, but it didn't completely die right there, but splattered blood all over it? Like what, what reasonable explanation is there for that?

[00:51:05] Maybe that was a different car seat with a different baby that was eaten. No, I don't know. That's more depressing. That makes it feel better, right? No. No. I don't know. Um, okay. I'm going to talk about tracking Tara. Ooh. Yeah. Because I, I always think about people who are in a group where the leader is a psycho and wonder,

[00:51:32] you know, how much they know, how loyal they are, what, what their circumstances are. Are they feeling trapped there? Um, so I think it was interesting to zero in on a person like that. Um, I think you might've been able to tell a similar story about any of the people at the savior outpost that Rick and his people killed in their sleep. I always think about that. Like, what if one of those was a Tara, you know, they, they wouldn't know it because they killed her in her sleep.

[00:52:02] Maybe, but I feel like Negan was so upfront with his, like he didn't carry shame or secrecy around his abuses of people that I think it's hard for me to believe that any of the saviors were completely naive to who they were living under. So you think when they finally did defeat Negan at the end there, that they should have just, instead of bringing the saviors that were left over and to live with them, they should have just executed them all. No, I don't. And I don't like, I'm not.

[00:52:33] Like Calum McAuliffe. Who's that guy? I feel like the guy that plays Calum or that Calum McAuliffe plays. Remember? Yeah. him. Aiden. I forgot. Yeah. Is that right? Is that right? He was a great guy. Yeah. No, I'm not. I think it is a super gray leaning bad decision that Rick made with the satellite outpost,

[00:53:01] but I don't think it's like as clear cut. But same idea though, in my opinion, you know, I just always felt like he's going in there killing these people and he doesn't know their situation at all. And some of them could be there really not wanting to be there. So. Yeah, no. Alden. Alden. Alden. It's close. All right. So Tara.

[00:53:29] So she, when the governor's trying to persuade everyone to take the prison, she's the first one to say, I'm in. And that probably influenced some other people to throw in too. But it makes sense because he's helped her and her family probably saved their saved Megan's life. She believes what he's saying that there's bad people at the prison and they're going to try to take it without hurting anyone.

[00:53:58] And if they don't, they'll all be in danger. So she's just based on what she knows, I think it makes sense for her to throw in. And I think we've all been in situations, maybe not as high stakes where we've thrown in with somebody and then realized, Oh, maybe not. Maybe that's not what I thought it was. Yeah. But then when they're there at the prison and Rick says, their children here, some of them are sick. They won't survive. Tara has a reaction to that. She looks like, Oh God, that doesn't sound good.

[00:54:28] And then the governor just says, I have a tank and I'm letting you walk away from here. And then when the governor puts Michonne's sword at Herschel's neck and Rick says, look, I fought him before and after we took in his old friends, they become leaders in what we have here. Now put down your weapons, walk through those gates. You're one of us. And Tara is looking up like, that sounds pretty good. Right. Or I mean, she's also like, wait, some of his people join these guys. Yeah. That's not, what about that?

[00:54:56] Well, and it's pretty clear, just the fact that Rick is having that pleading conversation with them should have made, I think, more than just Tara start to question, like, are we really doing this? Like with this dude? Like Tara had, as you said, more reason than any of them to trust the governor. And she was the first one to back out. Like the rest of these people were all like, no, we still trust this guy.

[00:55:22] Like that's actually, I feel like more of them legitimately probably would have backed down at least from the fight. Maybe. I mean, I imagine if I was there, I don't even know if I could listen. I might just be too amped up. Yeah, no, that's true for sure. Then the governor strikes Herschel's neck with the sword and the firefight breaks out and he, the governor made a point to go over and finish the job with Herschel.

[00:55:51] No expression on his face. He just seemed like a total psychopath there. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? You know, I forgot that he didn't like slice it off with one blow, which is probably more realistic. But man, it was so devastating to watch this again and see Herschel like crawling through the grass and the governor coming up behind him to finish it. Like, oh. And then Tara sees all that. And I think, you know, by this point she's done.

[00:56:21] And she said to Alicia, he chopped a guy's head off with the sword. And then the other thing I noticed is just when Daryl throws a grenade at a couple attackers and Tara's nearby, she just looks completely shell shocked. And I thought Lana Masterson did a really good job in all these scenes. Yeah. So good. So the next episode, she's with Glenn. Yeah. That'll be good to watch. Yeah. Okay. What else? Anything else?

[00:56:50] What else do I have? I think the only other thing I had was just like some appreciation for the big fight moments. So I just had like noted down a few of the things that I thought were particularly exciting. One you already mentioned, which is just the image of the governor standing on the tank, sort of towering over people. It was like a little cheesy, a little LOL, but also like pretty badass. And yeah, like right off the comic page.

[00:57:19] And then Rick and the governor having the hand-to-hand combat, I think, was just pretty awesome. And really the whole way that played out where all the people that felt most deeply wronged by the governor got sort of their chance to go at him. So Rick got to have this fight with him and albeit like he was losing by the end, but he got some- He lost that fight. Like blows in there. He lost though, man. The governor whooped his ass. And then Michonne coming just at the right moment.

[00:57:49] It's always exciting. They've done it a few times and like, you know, maybe it can lean a little cheesy, but I love it. Like it always makes me excited when something's about to happen and you see Michonne's sword come from the back through someone. Like at just the right moment to change the tides. And then, you know, standing over him and deciding not to finish him off, but to walk away while he's suffering, I think was just a pretty badass moment when Michonne.

[00:58:19] But I agree. I think the reason the writers did that is so that the other person he's wronged could also have a shot at him. Yeah. Yeah. So then of course, you know, Lily gets to do that. But, you know, then not only do we have what is the most epic large battle gunfight, I think so far in the show. But then of course, the zombies all come pouring in at the same time just to make everything like that much more horrific. We see.

[00:58:49] Can you imagine as the director, if you're like, what if we just didn't have any zombies in the scene? What? Be ridiculous. Mm-hmm. And then I think Daryl had some pretty badass moments with grenades. Like he uses a zombie as a human shield. There's walkers everywhere. People are shooting like bits of the walker he has held in front of him off.

[00:59:17] And he just throws a grenade over at the people shooting at him and blows them to bits. And then he again goes in with the grenade into the tank, which I think was pretty cool. I don't know if that's really like possible to do that, but I don't care because it was so cool. I don't see why not. I don't know. But I thought all that was cool. And like current day Daryl would have just been able to take out all these people just by himself. I know. Right? Right.

[00:59:45] And then what was the guy's name driving the tank? So like the main... Goon Mitch. I thought that was also pretty badass when Daryl just shoots in pretty short range with a bolt. There was like a pause like, what's it going to do here? And he shot him. He's like, yeah, that's probably the right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Carl with the shotgun when Rick's looking for him and the zombies are coming towards Rick. And Carl shoots him in the back with the shotgun. And then he suddenly appears. That was also pretty cool.

[01:00:16] You remember Carl was like telling Daryl, maybe I should take a shot at the governor right now. And he should have. Someone should have. Well, yeah. But Daryl's like from 50 feet and Carl's like, I'm a good shot. And then when the firefight broke out, you'd think if Carl would have been able to shoot him, then he would have done it then. So maybe it wouldn't have been a good idea. Because he didn't shoot him when he did eventually start firing, you know? Yeah. I mean, you would have had one shot. Yeah. And then the fight starts.

[01:00:45] So it was probably best that he didn't at that point. But I don't know. He could have shot him. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe that could have been it. That would have been a weird ending. What else? Anything else about the fight? Those were all the big. I mean, Bob got shot. I'd forgotten that. The fist fight was so brutal. Yeah. It really reminded me of like the later fight, the fist fight that Negan and Rick get into too.

[01:01:14] And it's sort of, I think it's fun on a show where so much of the fighting is gunfighting. That when we do get the hand-to-hand fights, I always find that exciting. We get that with Rick and Daryl too at one point later. This fight, we get Rick going around saying, Carl! Carl! And that is where I got my ringtone from this episode. Oh, that's awesome. Anytime I have my ringer on and somebody calls, that's what I hear.

[01:01:43] And Carl crying is pretty impactful. And I was thinking about who's together after this. Mm-hmm. I hope people don't mind me saying, but Rick and Carl and soon after Michonne, I think at the end of the next episode, Michonne joins them. What I was questioning is, what the fuck was Michonne doing? Like, why did she wander off in that moment?

[01:02:12] I know what she does at the beginning of the next episode that we see her. But, like, was she just on, like, a rage rampage for a minute? Like, I just think more important to her than that would have been to go with Rick to find Carl. And I'm just sort of surprised that she didn't do that in that moment. Yeah, I don't know.

[01:02:37] Daryl and Beth, Tyrese, Lizzie, Mika, and Judith, and soon after, Carol are together. Which was also very convenient that when they were going to tell Tyrese that the governor showed up just at the right moment for them not to spit out that it was Carol who killed Karen and David. Yeah, the blast off. Maggie, Sasha, and Bob.

[01:03:05] I remember liking watching them all together, getting to know Bob a little better. Glenn and Tara, and soon Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita come into it. Yes. And I think, you know, all the Woodbarians are dead unless you count Tyrese and Sasha who were just there briefly. But because Glenn goes off on that bus, right? But then is he on the bus? We leave it thinking that he's on the bus, but he's not.

[01:03:34] He got off to go look for Maggie. Oh, okay. Well, that's good because I thought it was kind of bullshit that he would just sit there. She's like, I got to go find Beth. And he's like, oh. But he stays on the bus. And then at the end of the battle, we see the zombie from the episode about whether you can come back from Dark Things. That woman, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was kind of cool. I was specifically looking for it because I don't remember who you had on that episode.

[01:04:02] Was it Karen? She? Yeah, Karen. Yeah, it was Karen. She had called out that we see the woman as a zombie in this episode, and I had forgotten that. And so I was looking for it, and it was cool to see the episode almost end with that. Mm-hmm. Okay, I have a point about Tyrese, Lizzie, Mika, and Judith.

[01:04:27] Because as you said, Rick and Daryl go to tell Tyrese what Carol did, but he wants to show them this rat carcass? Is that what it is? Mm-hmm. That's been splayed open and nailed to a board. And so are we to assume that Lizzie did that? Yes. That she just doesn't understand the difference between life and death or something? I think she was trying to bait a zombie because we see her do that with animals later.

[01:04:57] But I think she also has a weird fixation with killing animals, which is weird. Psychopath. Psychopath. Because she doesn't want to kill zombies, but she's okay killing animals. Yeah. I don't know if that really fits. Because I thought, yeah, she just left dead rats, but did they need to be splayed on a board? That just seems like psycho behavior. I think she's just sort of fascinated with blood because we saw her dipping her toe into the blood in the sick.

[01:05:27] Well, she's just sociopath. I think that's some sort of weird. And I mean, that's like, I think, I mean, I hate to say this because I feel like it is a common trope that serial killers abuse animals when they're kids. But I also think a lot of kids get, like, I was a scientist. So, like, I wasn't herding live animals, but like, I feel like we found like a dead frog on the road and we wanted to see what was inside kind of thing.

[01:05:52] I mean, we all, when I was a kid, we would all, like, dissect frogs in science classrooms and stuff. Yeah. So, I hate to, like, categorize that, like, everyone that did weird stuff with animals is a psychopath. But I think it is, like, a common thing that, you know, they, a lot of serial killers start out sort of, like, doing bad things to animals. And so, I think that sort of is what they're going for with Lizzie of just, like, she's down a psychopath, you know, trajectory.

[01:06:21] And so, that's going to, part of that is her, like, killing and cutting up animals because she continues to do that, the animal thing. She does it to some rabbits and I think another type of animal out on the road with Tyrese. And then he comments on having seen it. She'd been taking dead rats out to the fence to try to, like, attract slash feed zombies.

[01:06:48] So, I don't know how much of it is, like, her being a psychopath in terms of killing the animals and how much of it is her trying to, like, lure zombies closer with them. Yeah. I feel like it's probably more like that. So, they see that and Tyrese says, same person that killed Karen and David did this. We got a psychopath living with us. And Rick says, I'm not so sure it's the same person. And I thought it'd be funny if he's like, you know, it could be though.

[01:07:17] Yeah, we don't know Carol didn't do that. Like, lately I'm kind of questioning things. But then later and Mika and the other kids are taking baby Judith to the bus and they're really rattling her around. I feel like whoever that kid's mom was is probably kind of nervous. Yeah. I mean, that was like probably, I mean, that's pretty heavy to carry a baby of that size in a carrier. And then you have this pretty small girl doing it.

[01:07:45] But it probably was a bit of a real struggle. She's like, you can go bobbing around. And Lizzie says, you know, no, what are you doing? Carol told us to be strong, to protect ourselves. They have guns. We should have guns too. And my thought was, oh, Lizzie, Jesus Christ. But it turns out that in this case, Carol's training ended up saving Tyrese's life, Lizzie and Mika, and most importantly, Judith. Because everyone else of these dies eventually.

[01:08:13] But yeah, because then Alicia, Tara's girlfriend, and this other guy are bearing down on Tyrese with their automatic guns about to kill him. But then Lizzie shoots the guy and saves Tyrese, which is ironic because he was unknowingly calling her a psycho earlier in the episode. Yeah. I mean, I think the way that Carol went about teaching the kids these survival skills was wrong.

[01:08:40] She should have had consent from their parents to do it. But if my kid, if I was in the zombie apocalypse with my own child, I would absolutely be teaching them how to do these things. I would not just trust that I could always be there in the moment to protect them. It's not realistic. It never happens in this show. Same thing. Me too. But I think in this case, if it was about an army of people attacking and there was a getaway bus, you probably would tell the kids.

[01:09:09] You know, you wouldn't say grab a gun and fire. Oh, no. So go get on the bus. But that would have been the wrong thing in this case. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen. All right. Do you have any more big points? No, that got all of them. Let me see. I had one about Lily and Megan. I think we covered most of it. But I did just want to say that the muddy zombie was pretty damn cool with the worms and everything. It was. I really like that.

[01:09:37] And there's a sign that said morning flash flood zone. So you figure that's how he got there. And the whole way the scene, like you knew the bad thing was going to happen. It was very horror movie build up to me of like you knew danger was happening. Like they were trying to misdirect you by like building up the music with the zombie that you talked about getting sort of whisked away with the water as like a misdirection that the danger is going to come up from the water. And you're scared because you know something's going to happen, but you're not expecting it.

[01:10:07] Or at least I wasn't expecting it to be. Yeah. I think I was probably like, is something in there? And then it's like, oh, no, it's across the river. Okay. Oh, wait, it totally is in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Let's do notes. You go ahead. I mean, that actually like we ended up getting all my notes incorporated in with other things we were talking about.

[01:10:31] The one thing I did, I don't know if it really is fully this episode, but like how many times does the show fake us out on Glenn dying? Because this sets it up as him leaving on the bus. Right. And then we see the bus killed. We already had him almost die from the flu. And then like he almost dies. I mean, multiple more times in the coming seasons. They have him in just absolutely dire situations. It's like Kenny.

[01:10:56] I feel like it's why when he eventually did die, like we were fully spoiling, right? Yeah. Like when Negan did eventually kill him, I think I spent like a few weeks still bargaining. Like, is there a way we put his head back together? Right. Like I knew it wasn't rational, but like just because they had done it so many times with him, I think it was really hard to accept that this time it was really real. Like, no, it was a dream they all had. He wasn't really gone. Yeah.

[01:11:26] I spent a lot of time bargaining. Even when he's on the trough at Terminus with that bat behind him. Yes. God. But they're all in danger a lot. But yeah, it feels different. No, his is what I mean. The dumpster. Yeah. And then right after the dumpster, like he almost, he's at the gate and almost dies. But like Abraham and Sasha show up at the last moment to save him. Like it's just so many times. We need like a... Near death count. Near death count for Glenn.

[01:11:54] I had actually forgotten that the governor captured Herschel and Maggie when he was scouting the prison. Oh, yeah. So did he, he like knocked Michonne out before she could... Yeah. Before she noticed him or something. Mm-hmm. And then Herschel couldn't really do a lot with one leg, so... Yeah. And no gun. Popped away. Um, Sasha thanks Bob for getting the antibiotics and helping save her life. And he's, doesn't want to hear it.

[01:12:21] Is that just because he's ashamed because of how he handled himself during that? Yeah. Like I don't think he feels like he, you know, gets the glory of being the hero because of the way he kind of failed himself, I think, with the alcohol and failed the people he was with. Yeah. But he doesn't feel bad enough that he'll turn down, putting his arm around her to help her out to get in the sunshine. So we got to see that first glimpse of them, you know, developing a friendship.

[01:12:51] And I really like their relationship a lot. Yeah. I really like it. Me too. Uh, only on The Walking Dead. I mean, unfortunately, I think a lot of this stuff would happen in the real world. So pretty much everything here, except for the zombies. Do you have one? I said only on The Walking Dead, and this is so fucking bleak, but only on The Walking Dead does someone come to you holding their dead child and you take it from them and shoot them in the head.

[01:13:21] Like... That is true. Yeah. Yeah. And would the audience think, yeah, that's probably a good idea.

[01:13:29] Told numbers of citizens.

[01:14:16] The people he kills get up and kill. Are they slow moving, chief? Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up. All right. So HBO has now officially announced that The Last of Us Season 2 is premiering on Sunday, April 13th, which is kind of what we were thinking and hoping for. So pretty soon. Two months. That's very exciting. Yeah. Yeah. There's...

[01:14:43] They put out three really cool posters, one with Ellie, one with Joel, and one with a new character, Abby, and they all have the tagline, every path has a price. And when asked about an end game for The Last of Us, HBO executive Francesca Orsi recently told Deadline, we don't have a complete or final plan, but I think it's looking like four seasons. I wouldn't want to confirm that, but it's looking like this season and then two more seasons after this and we're done.

[01:15:12] Which, uh, that sounds good to me if they're only adapting the second game. And they said they're not going to create anything new past the games. But what I'm still holding out hope for is that they, by the time they get to the end of adapting The Last of Us Part 2 game, that Part 3 will come out and they will then be able to adapt that too. They haven't even officially announced a Part 3, but there's a lot of speculation that they're working on it.

[01:15:41] Yeah. I feel like it would be hard to imagine them not at least trying to come up with that, given the resurgence in popularity because of the show. Like, like so many people have picked those games back up or picked them up for the first time since the show's come out. I mean, Neil Druckmann, who's the main creative force behind The Last of Us games, has said he wouldn't want to do the game unless he has a good story for it.

[01:16:09] And he also said, I have a good story for a third game. So it seems like they're doing it. Nice. That's exciting. Yeah. Um, and then I only had one other thing, which is that I guess Walking Dead Dead City was supposed to have landed on Netflix already, but it got delayed. But now they've announced that it will arrive on March 10th. Nice. So for Dead City fans. All right, let's move on to Alyssa Mons, Grounds and Grunts.

[01:16:40] Um, go first. Yeah. Chandra Wright says, farewell, dear Herschel. I always miss you when we get to this point. I love the look of fatherly pride he has as Rick extends an olive branch offering to set aside their differences and live together. His speech almost works for a minute. The governor falters, then doubles down on evil. This is the last time the Green family was together in an episode. Oh, that's really sad.

[01:17:09] The day Maggie lost her dad is also technically the day she loses her sister and thinks she's lost her husband. No wonder she's such bad company on the road to Terminus. JK. This time around watching the episode, I appreciated how thoroughly the prison set was destroyed, leaving no possibility for us to wonder why they didn't just go back. LOL. When this group leaves a place, they burn that sucker down to the ground. That's true. That's true. That's, yeah. I love everything you said there, Chandra. Yeah.

[01:17:38] Good points. Yeah. I didn't think about that with Beth and Maggie. Yeah. The last thing she ever says to Beth is we've all got jobs to do. Yeah. Should have just let Beth go with her. Yeah. Alma Contreras says, I just watched today. This episode is one of my top three. Actually, this is the first episode I ever watched. Holy cow. And it hooked me right away. The only reason I tuned in was because a lot of my friends were talking about it on Facebook.

[01:18:07] And truth be told, I'd stayed away from the show because I don't like zombies. They scare the shit out of me. Anyway, this is such an intense, heartbreaking and brutal episode. RIP Herschel had one of the worst deaths in the whole series. After all my years of rewatching the series, this episode hits me real hard every time. And yes, I cry every single time. Such an amazing way to do a mid-season break. Well, I can't wait to hear you all talk through this one. I don't know. What would you consider a bad death?

[01:18:34] I wonder, you know, is it like cool? The coolest deaths, the most painful is the worst or. Or because I don't know. To me, I think the worst is when it doesn't like honor their character fully. And so for me, this was like a terrible way to go as far as like, I mean, just like to me, I can't get the picture of Herschel crawling in the grass, like bleeding out. Yeah. Like that's terrible. But like.

[01:19:04] Would have been better for him if it was just one clean suit. Yeah. But I would still rather Herschel's death than being eaten by zombies alive. Yeah. That feels. Like I think of Noah. Terrible. Yeah. Revolving door, you know, or any of those sick people. Like, I don't know. I was just, I just started watching Abbott Elementary and the same actor who plays Noah is a main character in that show. And so it was just like reflecting on poor Noah and his terrible death.

[01:19:35] He's a great guy. I would do panels with him. What's his name? Tyler or something. And the guy that played Nicholas. Oh, that's fun. Who's the reason he got fucked over in the revolving door. I'd put them together on the panel. That's really fun. That was really fun. All right. Oh, your turn. Okay. Beth Perry. When you first see Herschel and Michonne, there's a sign behind them in the RV that says weekend getaway. Okay.

[01:20:02] Then the very next scene, we see Maggie and Glenn and he says he needs a weekend vacation. Such a weird tie-in. I didn't notice that sign. I feel so bad for Lily and Tara in this episode because when they're clearly uncomfortable with his direction and choices, but don't feel like they have any other options. I love that Lily had the strength to do what Andrea couldn't and put an end to him. Unfortunately, she did it way too late.

[01:20:29] The last zombie shown up close at the end was the woman Rick met in the woods who wanted food for her husband from season four, episode one, 30 days without an accident. Host, what would you have done? Given up the prison or stayed to fight? I love that Rick was willing to share the space. I would have left. I don't know what I would have done, but I think leaving would have been the better thing to do. If he didn't have a tank. Yeah. Different story, but what are you going to do against the tank?

[01:20:59] Yeah, I think so. She said that Lily had the strength to do what Andrea couldn't do and put an end to the governor. Do you think if Andrea was in this situation where she saw the governor firing on the prison, she would have been able to do it? Yeah. I think so. If not, then fuck you, Andrea, but I would pretty much.

[01:21:24] I mean, doing that versus like killing him in his sleep when you have heard the bad things he's done, but you haven't seen them firsthand. I think that's very different. Yeah. Then right in the middle of it. Yeah. Because it's just like Lily not shooting him. I don't know if she even had a gun, but when she heard his speech to the people, it's like that's a whole different context. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Matt King says, just watch episode eight today after listening to the episode seven

[01:21:54] podcast. What a bummer to see Herschel get the chop. So avoidable too. If only they had sent a lesser character out with Michonne. Someone we don't really care about. That's just not what I was expecting. I know. The direction of this stuff. Avoidable if just sacrifice some other peon. If only Carol hadn't killed Karen and David, then you could send them out. But Herschel is one of the biggest losses so far as the moral compass of the show and

[01:22:23] the manner of his execution brings back memories of how Glenn would be brutally dispatched in season seven. Poor Maggie. Oh God. Yeah. That's a bad death. David Morrissey literally killing it here after the recent episodes focused on him. Superb performance by the biggest Walking Dead villain of all. And after all of his violence, his substitute daughter gets bitten by a walker anyway. What a waste. It was quite jarring to see the children with guns, although that possibly is normal in the U.S. nowadays.

[01:22:53] I don't know. Yeah, maybe. And saving Tyrese. At least this will force them to leave the prison and on to somewhere safer. Is it Terminus next? I've forgotten more than I remember. Yeah. The rest of this season is on the road to Terminus. Yeah. All right. Here's a call from Steve Brown. Steve. Steve. Hello, the cast of us. This is Steve. And this is going to be for The Walking Dead. Too far gone. Even the close captioning is calling him the governor now.

[01:23:19] Oh, and he's giving a speech that's going to send them to try to take over the prisoner, isn't it? Prison? Yeah. And he's going to convince them that Rick and his group are bad guys. Oh, he's already captured Herschel and Michonne. And no one's there to contradict him. And he's got the charisma to convince them that this is the right thing to do. Oh, unfortunately, Herschel, you're too late. He's already convinced them that the people of the prison are bad guys. So no matter what you try to say, he's not going to believe you and you're not going to believe him. Yeah. Lily's not convinced.

[01:23:48] She really doesn't want to do this. It doesn't want him to do this. Oh, it's so good to see our group again. Maggie and Glenn together. Oh. Oh, so Rick told Daryl and now they're going to tell Tyrese. See how this turns out. Oh, somebody dissected a rat and put it on a board. Oh, I remember now. Oh, and Rick and Daryl don't get a chance to tell Tyrese about Carol because the tank just attacked the prison. Oh, and Daryl going to Tyrese and Sasha explaining how they're going to evacuate in case things go bad.

[01:24:16] Okay, so Lily and Megan are back at the camp by the water. Who all is with them? Oh, maybe it's just the two of them there. Oh, and a walker coming up through the mud. He's got Megan. Okay, so some of the kids want to leave and go to the bus like they're supposed to. But I can't remember the crazy one's name. What's her name? She wants a gun. Lizzie. Oh, yeah. Rick trying to be reasonable and the governor just grabbed a sword. Yeah, he's not going to be reasonable. Oh, good. Good try, Rick. You're going to try to appeal to the rest of the people there. Oh, he said too far gone. Title of the episode, mic drop.

[01:24:46] This is a great speech Rick's giving here. Very much like the live together, die alone speech from Lost. Yep. Oh, he said liar and cuts off Herschel's head. Oh, the governor just finished off Herschel. Oh, now he sees Megan and Lily. Here, finally, the voice of reason. He chopped a guy's head off with a sword. So what did the governor think? He's mowing down the fences with this tank. Were they going to try to rebuild? I don't know. Doesn't make any sense. I mean, if they succeeded. I know they don't. He did mutter to himself at one point.

[01:25:16] I saw in the close captions, we'll fix the fences or something. Oh, and Beth's going to get on the bus and Maggie's going into the prison. And they're blowing holes in the prison with the tank and Rick and the governor are fighting. Wow. So now Beth's not on the bus. Oh, and the bus just left. And that's right. It's Lizzie and the kids are shooting at the people. Oh, and Michonne just saved Rick's life. Oh, and Daryl just threw a grenade down the tank's throat. Boom, goes the tank. That's right.

[01:25:45] And this is how our group gets separated and they spend the rest of the season trying to get back together. Oh, and Judith's carrier is empty, but there's blood. Oh, and Lily finishes off the governor with his own gun. Oh, and as the scene ends, the dead take over the prison. Is that the woman from the beginning of the season? The one that Rick spared in the woods? Just keep walking. Yep. That's Mike Ehrman Trout's daughter-in-law on Better Call Saul.

[01:26:12] Steve used to be in the military and he didn't say when he mentioned Daryl throwing the grenade down the tank thing. Oh, that wouldn't happen. So maybe that means it was legit. Well, if I'm ever in a war against a tank and have a grenade in my pocket, I know my approach. Josie Bowen Ectal says, Oh, this episode. I cried at this one and it may or may not be because I'm 33 weeks pregnant.

[01:26:41] But wow, it really hit me this time around when Rick and Carl reunite and then find the car seat. So many tears. On one hand, I get what Lizzie was trying to do and I'm glad she was able to get that guy. But the stress of not remembering where Judith is in these moments is horrifying. And even more so for Beth, Rick and Carl, obviously. Why would they even try to bother with a damn car seat? I hate that. The loss of Herschel is huge and I forgot Beth has to witness it.

[01:27:10] It was crushing seeing Herschel watch Rick through the negotiation attempt. He was so proud of his growth. I'm looking forward to Daryl and Beth having their episodes soon. I love that duo. This episode is so crushing just all around. It's a beautiful full circle episode, though, that leaves you on the edge of your seat. That sketchy lady walker Rick left in the woods, for example. I'm thankful Lily killed the governor so we no longer have to worry about him. Her grief and disappointment were hard to watch.

[01:27:40] Damn, this episode is just full of the emotions. Can't wait to hear the coverage and dive into the next few episodes of The Journey to Terminus. Bye. Bye. Bye. Josie, congratulations on being 33 weeks pregnant. Yeah, very exciting. You're right around, I think Rachel is somewhere right around there. She wrote in a little bit later here. You'll hear. So you guys are watching the rewatch fully pregnant.

[01:28:06] I don't know why that matters, but it's kind of cool. All right. Nathan Eshelman says, Tara was the first person to say I'm in when the governor shared his plans. That's got to add to the guilt she feels going into the second half of the season. Granted, he said he would try to scare the prison group away. But when things started to go south, she immediately realized she didn't want to be there. So she was the first person to drop her weapon. She's also the first person Rick tries to appeal to besides the governor. Yeah, he said you and the ponytails. He said you and the ponytails.

[01:28:37] I guess she had ponytails. I think she had two little ponytails, I think. This more looked like her hair was pointed. Was it just one? I don't know. But yeah, he was talking to her, right? Because the camera went to her. Yeah. We talked about how she hasn't really had to leave her apartment since the whole thing began. So I wonder if she would have been more willing to fight alongside Alicia if she'd been living in the woods this whole time and had been more acclimated to the violence. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

[01:29:00] I think that's because her and both her sister too seem like neophytes to the zombie apocalypse. Fun fact. Her shirt says Motor Mouth Mabel, which is a punk band of one of the crew members. It's free advertisement that worked on me because years ago I bought some of their music on Bandcamp. When do you think the show became self-aware about how cool Daryl is to the fans?

[01:29:25] This is the first season where he has second billing and it's around this time people started saying, if Daryl dies, we riot. I also remember feeling like it was around this time that the writer started to put him in danger, not just as a character, but also as a form of fan bait for the engagement the outrage would bring. And they clearly do this season because when he comes in and in the very first episode and all the Woodbury people are like, look, it's Daryl. Hey, Daryl. Yeah. You can tell there. I would say season three, right?

[01:29:54] Like, I feel like last, like, cause by the end of the farm, he was still a little grungy. He had his like ear necklace, but he was starting to like develop more as a character that we were getting to know and not just be this gruff redneck. But I feel like in season three, like seeing him become Rick's brother and sort of question his real older brother, Merle. I feel like that's when people started to really fall for Daryl. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:30:23] Well, I think the, his episodes in season two caused people to fall for him, the whole Cherokee Rose and everything. But I think the show, yeah, feels more self-aware of it starting in season three. Like when he's facing off with Martinez and stuff, you can tell that they know he's cool, but especially this season. So it's like kicks up a level each season. Maybe. Maybe.

[01:30:43] I did sort of laugh when Rick was telling Daryl about Carol, like we got that such characteristic, like Daryl when he's upset and he's just like pacing and doing these turns and like throwing his arms up. Like it was just the typical, like, I don't know. I, when I think of Daryl, that's what I think of is him doing that little like frustrated dance almost that he does. And he was doing it in this episode. It's like an animal that's upset. Yeah.

[01:31:13] Yeah. Sad thought. This is not only the last episode where we see Herschel alive, but it's also the last episode where Maggie sees Beth alive. It's tough episode to watch, but it's also one of my favorites. The heightened emotions make it really engaging. And this may be my favorite Rick monologue. I think we talked about that monologue a lot more the first time I podcasted about it. I remember liking it and comparing it to the live together, die alone speech from Lost.

[01:31:39] He offers the governor's people basically everything they want, a place to live, grow food and have security. But the governor's all or nothing mentality makes it impossible to come together. To be fair, he's right not to think that Michonne would leave him alone and vice versa. That's yeah, totally. Totally. I wonder if Megan's death would have been better place. I don't think they could have lived there together. No. No. I wonder if Megan's death would have been better placed near the start of the episode.

[01:32:05] It would have been a good catalyst for why the governor turned down Rick's offer. It could have been, but it was kind of more interesting that he didn't have such a solid reason and just to have him grapple with his own inner demons instead. That's what I think. Yeah. He says losing another daughter would have cemented his idea that nothing in his life changes. And Shonda Wright replied to him. I thought it was good. So I'm going to read it. I had a very similar thought about Tara. She was clearly very uneasy as the governor talked through his plan.

[01:32:34] And she was shocked when he casually mentioned taking two hostages, but her desire to prove her loyalty prevailed after all. He'd helped her father was kind to her niece and had turned into an unexpected romance for her sister. Still, she knew something was off with his plan, but pushed her better judgment aside. She could have been a voice of reason within their group, but instead in a moment, she allowed herself to become complicit. I felt compassion for her and also reminded of moments.

[01:32:59] I have been around someone who said or did something that ran counter to my beliefs, but chose not to speak up. Those are hard personal moments, but what's harder or maybe just more impactful is when a collective, a country, a nation ignores an ugly, dangerous truth. Tara felt like a national placeholder when I rewatched yesterday. Can't argue with that. Yeah. All right. Here's Carly Jackson. Hi, Jason and Lucy. This is Carly.

[01:33:28] And I just finished listening to your last episode and you had such amazing commentary. You pointed out things that, so many things that I did not notice about the governor. And it was just really an awesome discussion. So thanks for that. It was awesome. And so I just had a couple of points about this episode, Too Far Gone. And, you know, Herschel asked the governor if he knows what it's like to have a daughter. And if he did, like, how could he threaten someone else's daughter?

[01:33:57] And the governor says, because they aren't mine. And I think that just confirms how much of a narcissist the governor is. He doesn't see people. He sees them as possessions. And he will do anything to control and protect his possessions. And even Lily says to him that she didn't want to hurt people for safety. And he just dismisses her. Like, he doesn't care about what she cares about.

[01:34:23] He just cares about his own possessions. So I thought that was really chilling when he did that to her. And I don't know if she realized what was going on. She kind of had a reaction there. And then the other point I wanted to talk about was Rick gives his speech saying that people can come back from the terrible things they've done.

[01:34:47] And you see Herschel so proud of him in that moment that Rick has faith that people can be redeemed. And the governor doesn't. But I think it's true that the governor cannot be redeemed. He's definitely too far gone, like the episode title says. And, yeah, that was just a really heartbreaking moment to see Herschel so proud of Rick.

[01:35:15] And, you know, I don't think that Rick and the governor could have lived together in the prison. I mean, you guys were making the comparisons of the governor to Shane. I think they would have had the same ending that Rick and Shane had. But I wonder if Rick was appealing more to the other people in the group and hoping that they would rebel against the governor.

[01:35:42] Which it's just it's just really sad that they don't that no one steps up and is like, yeah, let's not do this. So anyway, have a great week. Don't get bit. Maybe he should have said that. He should have said, I fought this guy just as he did. You know, we brought people in their leaders in the group. This guy's an asshole. Why don't you leave him and come join me? We'll be fine here. You know, something like that.

[01:36:11] I mean, I think if he'd had like an hour to think. Yeah. You know, I think. But I was glad he was saying something along those lines, at least. Yeah. Yeah. I totally I don't even know why it ever occurred to me that the episode title too far gone is about the governor being too far gone to be redeemed or to come back from this. So thanks for pointing that out. All right. This is a long one. Rachel Teal Edwards writes season four midseason finale.

[01:36:41] Let's go. I tried last week to care enough about that episode to gather some thoughts for feedback and I just could not bring myself to do it. I have limited capacity these days and the governor did not make the cut fair. But here we find the one that's also super pregnant. Oh, nice. So legit reasons to cut out governor. But here we finally are at the end of his story and I am pumped.

[01:37:09] Jason, I enjoyed your breakdown of the governor's narcissism a couple weeks ago. It made me think back to the way he speaks about his wife, telling Rick that the day she died, she had called him and he hadn't got around to calling her back yet. In the past, I've thought about him potentially as a family man prior to the zombie apocalypse. But realistically, there's no way this man had a loving marriage. He may have cared deeply about his daughter and I feel like we tend to think of that as a given based on his delusional behavior with the zombie girl. Maybe even his one redeeming quality.

[01:37:39] The thing is, no one just becomes a narcissist like flipping a switch the day the world ends. I agree. Narcissists and psychopaths use and manipulate everyone in their life for their own gain, including their own family members. I know how men like him treat their families, their spouse and their children actually see and receive the worst of their behavior while they turn on their charming personality for the outside world.

[01:38:02] I'm sure he was just as charming to other people in his life before the zombie apocalypse as he was to the residents of Woodbury while being an absolute horror at home to his wife behind closed doors. His wife was probably desperate to leave and to take her daughter out of this man's home. But she was stuck because no one would believe that this delightful man who loves his daughter oh so much could be so full of shit and so cold, so dramatic and unstable at home.

[01:38:30] Narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder are both considered cluster B. So they're actually so similar that it's often hard to spot the difference. But antisocial or psychopath is heavier on the lying and the violence than narcissism is, without remorse and often because it brings joy and satisfaction. He may not have been physically violent towards his wife and daughter pre-ZA, but he was absolutely abusive in other ways.

[01:38:57] Now, as we watch his final episode, we see just how far gone he is into psychopathy, and I was absolutely horrified by him. The absolute lies and manipulation he spews to get these innocent people to do the violent thing he wants them to do under the false promise of safety. It was infuriating to watch. I think they wrote the governor's psychopathy really well, actually, because in all his lies and manipulation, I actually got so confused trying to keep his story straight through all of his contradictions, depending on who he was talking to.

[01:39:28] But it's because his actual main goal is destroying Rick, and of course he never actually says that part out loud. This is not in the least bit about providing safety for his fake daughter and girlfriend. It is 100% personal vendetta, and whether or not he acknowledges that Penny was already dead, he still deeply hates Michonne, Rick, and by extension the whole crew, and desperately wants his revenge. Megan was just the excuse he needed, even if he wasn't consciously aware of it.

[01:39:56] His bloodlust was reignited after being found by Martinez and reminded of everything he lost when he was defeated by Rick. He saw his opportunity for a second chance to get the ending he always wanted, death and destruction. I appreciate that Tara and Lily both seriously questioned his behavior. I loved this exchange between the governor and Lily. I love you. I don't know who you are. Yes, girl, go with your instincts. He and Lily go on. Think about Megan.

[01:40:26] First of all, how dare you? As if her actual mother isn't always thinking about her actual daughter's best interests. And she replies, I am. What's she going to be in this world? And he says, she's going to be alive. His attachment to this random little girl isn't cute or endearing in any way. It's fucking weird and creepy. Penny might symbolize his first or most obvious failure and embarrassment, which for a narcissist would be an unending source of anger and insecurity.

[01:40:53] And in his backwards brain, Megan provides him with an opportunity to prove that he's not a failure in this way. I agree with this part a lot. I feel bad for Lily because if someone is vulnerable, it's easy to fall for a narcissist. And she really suffered for it. But also as Megan's death is such a big fuck you to the governor, I'm actually glad he died knowing he failed again. Great poetic justice that Lily is actually the one to put the final bullet in him too.

[01:41:20] The governor is actually more honest with Herschel and Michonne when he talks to them in the RV, but he's still lying when he says he's going to take the prison as peacefully as possible. Possible. He rolls in with a freaking tank for God's sake and announces his presence by blowing up a guard tower. He's totally full of shit. Plus, he knows there's no way Rick is going to roll over and say, okay, here you go. So just saying his goal is peace, the governor can now feel justified in blaming Rick for the violence he actually creates.

[01:41:51] He tells Rick this isn't about the past. So Rick says, great, let's go. Let's let go of all of it. We can all live here together. And the governor responds with no, too much happened in the past. Rick says there are children here. Some of them are sick. They won't survive. The governor responds, I have a tank. Despite Rick's desperate attempts to reason with the man, it was always going to be futile. More props to the writers for Rick's monologue, though. God, it's so good and Andy Lincoln delivers all of it so perfectly.

[01:42:20] Compared to the governor's bullshit, it's emotional but so sincere, so rational. He begs for the same in return from the normal survivors turned soldiers. Is this what you want? Is this what any of you want? But alas, we're not too far gone. I know. We can all change. Liar. You know, I think you're right that Rick is sincere here.

[01:42:43] But it does make me think of when he made some kind of a speech to Morales, who comes back in season eight. And then it's just so they can get the drop on him. You know, it was bullshit, kind of. Or was it Daryl killed him? Daryl killed him and Rick was actually upset that he did it. Oh, yeah. For like two seconds. But he was. Crazy shit. Yeah. I guess you're right. I don't know. I felt like that was bullshit.

[01:43:12] But I do think this is sincere. Yeah. Hirst's death is obviously ineffably horrifying and tragic. And the battle that ensues is one of the most unforgettable in the whole series. Tara's line always stands out in my mind after she realizes she's on the wrong side. He chopped off a guy's head with a sword. She's so completely horrified in that moment. I'm glad she's here now. She's such a good character, wide ranging and fun to watch. Final note from the prison.

[01:43:42] It seems like they had some semblance of a plan that immediately fell apart. Daryl says we can't take them all on. We'll go through the admin building, through the woods like we planned. And then he and Tyrese talk about the bus as the main means of escape. But still no rendezvous point for everyone? It doesn't really make sense. I don't mind though. We're on the cusp of the best episodes of the series. Let's go. That was great.

[01:44:05] Yeah, you'd think after everything that happened with Sophia, they would set a rendezvous point for something like this. They would have, but that would have really ruined the next half of the season. Yeah. Thanks, Rachel. Rachel's, I guess, a psychologist, psychotherapist. And I asked her if she had any thoughts about what I'd said about narcissism. And there's a lot of really good stuff in here. So I appreciate you writing it about that. That was great. All right. One more call.

[01:44:33] Well, actually, we do have some messages about last week's episode. But here's a call on this one from Renee. Hi, guys. This is Renee calling. I hate the governor. And I'm going to call him the governor. I was like, this is the most depressed sounding I've heard her call start off ever. And the way that he hit Michonne in the face like that with a gun really pissed me off. This man is a clear psychopath. Rick tried to tell him what Rick did tell him.

[01:45:03] That we all can live together in peace and harmony. Eventually. Like he said, not right now. We can stay separated until we work the kinks out. But we can all live together. And that man still chose to kill Herschel. That man is awful. Just like Martinez told him that, you know, we could do this together. You know, you and I. But no, that's not what he wants. Because he's a narcissist.

[01:45:31] He wants to be the leader. And he does not want anyone else to lead. And then he had the audacity to call Rick a liar. Sir, you're the lying liar that lies. Not Rick. And people always say that Rick got his butt whipped by the governor. But the only reason that the governor was able to get the upper hand on my man is because Rick was shot in the leg. Otherwise, he would have beat the crap out of the governor.

[01:45:58] And that's why his wife came through there and put that sword right straight through the governor. Which is another indication that Rick and Michonne were going to be together. It's like these little Easter eggs we missed the first time. And rest in peace to Herschel. I love him. But the hardest part for me in this episode was seeing my man get pummeled like that by the governor.

[01:46:24] I wanted to go through my TV myself and beat the crap out of the governor. I cried like a baby. Actually, I didn't even really watch it. I just went past that real quick. Because that really just pissed me off. And the way Michonne just left him laying on the ground like that. She walked off like, yeah, B, I told you I was going to kill you. And Lily, it's like, girl, girl, why would you leave your son, your daughter, I'm sorry, in the mud, playing in the mud like that?

[01:46:53] And especially after you just saw the freaking walker in the water and you just sat back down on the RV. Your daughter should have been up there on the RV with you. Like Lily, she just, I don't know. But I will give her props. I feel like that she started suspecting something was not right about the governor. That's why she killed his ass at the end because she had already suspected that. And then when she saw all of that carnage and what happened, it was like, no, you're awful.

[01:47:22] And then Rick and Carl, man, I tell you, it broke my heart. The way that they cried when they saw that bloody car seat, man, I was crying. Even though I know that Judas survived, I still was boo-hoo crying. I mean, I love Carl just as much as I love his daddy. And just hearing that baby sob like that, that really did something to my spirit. I'm just glad this episode, the governor arc is over, is done, is a wrap. And now we can move on to, you know, what's going to happen next.

[01:47:52] Alrighty, I will talk to you. Peace and love. Bye. Bye. I actually didn't even notice Rick got shot in the leg. So that does change the way I see the fight with him and the governor. Yeah. I'm glad you pointed that out. All right. Randy wrote in last week, but we didn't, he wrote in a bit late, so we didn't get it in. So it's about season four, episode seven, Dead Weight. He says, hello, Jason, Lucy, and Rebecca.

[01:48:20] It's Randy from that one nightmare you keep having. How would you all have felt if they interweaved the governor's story into the prison sickness episodes as opposed to separate separating the stories? I've always wondered if that was the original plan, but they made a creative choice when editing the season. I'm curious if that would have altered the reception of the two storylines. The governor's appearance wouldn't have been as surprising, but not seeing the aftermath of his sudden appearance for two episode dulls that a bit anyway.

[01:48:47] On the flip side, weaving the stories together might've made the sickness story at the prison feel unintentionally dragged out. The one thing that really stands out to me when the stories are separated though, is you lose the implied passage of time. The governor's rise with this new group feels like it happens in two days, the way it's presented. If it had been spread out over an interweaved six to eight episodes, I think it feels like more time passes because you assume his story is still happening in the background while you're watching the A plot.

[01:49:17] They do a similar thing with Beth's story in season five. There are definite pros and cons to weaving and not weaving. Which would you have preferred? Loving the rewatch. See you tonight in your nightmare. Spoilers. It's the one where you can't find a classroom you're supposed to be in. Hmm. I think, I think timing is the problem because even though you said having the two governor episodes together like that makes it feel like it happens in two days.

[01:49:44] There's, there's some time jumps in there and it happens over the course of months, but the sickness does happen over just the course of two days. So if you interweaved a story that's happening over a course of months back and forth between a story that's happening just over a couple of days, then maybe it would be a little bit confusing and make it seem even more like the governor's story just happened over a couple of days. You know? I think maybe they could have done it with the second episode.

[01:50:11] Like the first one I think had to be a standalone because it was such a time jump episode, right? Like there were even jumps within the episode between like him leaving his Woodbury friends and growing a beard and stuff. But then would you have the first episode of the season be that one, you know, and then go to the sickness and intersperse the second episode among the sickness? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

[01:50:40] I mean, I honestly, um, I think they probably did it the best, the least bad way or the best they could. Maybe that's a better, nicer way to say it, but it would be interesting to see. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong and maybe it would have been good. All right. We have one more call, uh, from Archmaester Renny who also submitted after we had already recorded or maybe I just, uh, late enough that I didn't notice it or something. But anyway, this is about last week's episode too. So here's ready.

[01:51:11] Hey, Lucy and Jason. I wanted to point out some great visual storytelling in this episode. In the cold open, we see Brian doing laundry and playing chess with Megan. He's in a very domestic setting and he's engaging in caretaking. Then we get a long shot and we see that he's standing between a house trailer on one side, representing domesticity and family, his family self.

[01:51:43] Uh, then toward the end, we see him alone at the end of the dock by the lake. And we see his reflection in the water, again, visually representing his divided self, Philip and Brian, the governor and the loving dad. Then at the very end, the last shot, he's pointing a gun. The governor fully returned and taken over.

[01:52:14] So the whole episode is framed by a scene of Brian doing laundry, symbolically cleaning up his act and a scene of the governor, the Philip persona, um, looking down the barrel of a gun, fallen all the way back into brutality and the need to take control. So I just wanted to shout out the director, Jeremy Pideswa for all of that.

[01:52:40] He has also directed episodes of Handmaid's Tale and Game of Thrones, for which he was nominated for Game of Thrones for two Emmys. So good work, Jeremy. Love it. Love all that. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I hope, I hope, uh, we helped people appreciate those episodes a little bit more. We said, I think you said it did with you a little bit and just that call made me appreciate it even a little bit more. Ready?

[01:53:12] All right. That is our show. Episode six 26. Thank you for listening. Everybody. Thank you, Veronica. Yeah. It's been fun to be here. It's good. We're done. I don't know if you've heard, but my cat's trying to make her podcasting debut by purring into my mic because I think she's wanting me to go give her dinner. She's like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey.

[01:53:31] Um, I wanted to ask if anybody listening has a good idea how to get press for things, because maybe if we, if this rewatch was in, you know, some like geeky publications or something and more people would find out about it. So if you have a line on that, like how to make that happen, write to me at, uh, talk at podcast.com or Jason at podcast.com. That'd be great.

[01:53:58] Uh, next episode will be walking dead season four, episode nine. Jiggy jar jar do after. If you want to write in or leave us a voice message about it, you can find all of our contact information at podcast.com. And while you're there, you can check out our other podcasts. Uh, I don't know which one should people check out. Yellow jackets. WTF. I'm not, I'm not watching it. I'm about to this weekend.

[01:54:27] I'm going to get caught up on season three, but amazing show. And then, um, Greg and I are about next month to start up on wheel of time. So you should go listen to our coverage of season two. And season one was Greg and Wendy and Ben, I think get caught up. I did not know about this show until I started podcasting with Greg on it. And it is so fun and really cool. And also, even if you don't like the show, Greg has one of my favorite podcasting voices.

[01:54:56] So go listen to it anyways. Yeah. Deep. Uh, this episode has been possible by Patreon supporters like Dre Mann who pledged their support at patreon.com slash Jason Cabassi. So thank you, Dre, for that. Appreciate that. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. Don't get bit, Jessica Cruz. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.