542: "La Dame de Fer" (TWD: Daryl Dixon S1E4)

[00:00:00] You know where I grew up? There was this little boy down the street, his name was Jimmy. Jimmy was a runt. They always picked on Jimmy for being so little. And his dad, his dad was a drunk. I don't think I ever saw that guy sober.

[00:00:40] One Christmas, Jimmy got a piglet as a present. Used to follow him around like a little dog. Even waited for him after school. And then one Christmas, his dad says he wants him to kill the piglet. They need it for church dinner.

[00:01:07] Says if he doesn't do it, his brother's gonna get a beating. So he takes the piglet, ties it up to a tree in the backyard. He wants to make it quick and painless. Thing is, by Jimmy not trying to hurt the pig, he ends up hurting him worse.

[00:01:30] Stabbed it in the belly, in the back, in the legs, until it just bled out. And that pig screamed all night long. All the neighbors heard it. No one ever fucked with Jimmy anymore. Hey Zed Heads, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Lucy.

[00:02:17] This is The Cast of Us, episode 542. And this episode, we're covering The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon, season 1, episode 4, La Dame des Fers. Which is the Iron Lady.

[00:02:31] Before we get into it, I wanted to mention that possibly we or maybe just me missed Jodi Langridge's chokeholds legal reference in the feedback thing. Because Daryl said, Daryl was fighting with Kodrona and gave him a chokehold. And she was like, did Daryl forget that a chokehold's illegal?

[00:02:52] Which, that's what Daryl said to Shane in like his first appearance. He was all pissed off that Merle was chained to a pipe. They left Merle chained to that roof in Atlanta. And Shane put him in a chokehold and he goes, chokehold's illegal!

[00:03:11] And Shane said, you can file a complaint. I thought it was a wrestling reference. I was just like, yeah, cool. Yeah, me too. Jodi, you may now take over the podcast. Good job. Just wanted to bring that up.

[00:03:26] Alright, so Daryl Dixon, season 1, episode 4, La Dame des Fers. What did you think? I liked it. It was probably not my favorite of the season so far. I liked it a lot the first time I watched it.

[00:03:38] The second time I watched it, I was a bit like, okay. Like, it's fine. It was fine. Yeah, how about you? Yeah, pretty much the same. Probably my least favorite for sure. I thought it was fine. I thought the plot was a bit contrived and confusing too.

[00:03:58] I had to really try to figure out what the motivations were and what the plans were. And the fights were exciting, I guess. But I don't really care so much about fights. There were some interesting things in there, especially on second watch.

[00:04:15] So I just thought it was okay. I asked for it. Are they going to have a stinker? I don't think this was a stinker, but it was my least favorite. I don't think it was a stinker.

[00:04:24] I just think it was like, some bits were super predictable and other bits were like, holy, what the fuck? What is the reasoning here?

[00:04:33] I did read a review, I think it was Vulture's review this week, where they said that they knocked a whole star off for killing the pigeon guy. And I'm kind of with them on that. That just bummed me out. I don't like that the pigeon guy died.

[00:04:45] I was like, aww. I guess the point of that is we've repeatedly seen… Those were J'Nai's guys, right? I think so, yeah. The ones on the streets were definitely… We've repeatedly seen them be mean to people and brutal and violent and murderous.

[00:05:04] And so a lot of times that kind of… Well, in any organization, especially if you see things repeatedly from different members of the organization, that it comes from the top, the attitude of the organization. So apparently J'Nai is okay with brutalizing innocent people.

[00:05:22] And they seem to enjoy it. They kind of remind me of Negan a little bit. Like, I get to kill you. Yeah. I wanted to know what you thought of the way Daryl was with his monologue about Jimmy the Runt.

[00:05:38] I thought that was gratuitous and I didn't like it. Yeah, it didn't feel like Daryl. I mean, the stabbing. Yeah, he's like explaining something. See, okay, so… That was Negan. Yeah. I mean, Daryl… So when this guy is not cooperating, right? They want to know where Laurent is.

[00:06:08] And instead he's calling her names and spitting. I'm thinking right then, don't you know that Daryl… I'm thinking, you know, Daryl tortures people and then right away he smacks him in the face really hard, right? And so I kind of thought this guy's about to get tortured.

[00:06:31] Because we've seen Daryl. He tortured Randall in season two. He tortured this guy Frost recently. The train guy in the last few episodes in season nine. And he's killed… Karen Shee brought up in her chat when he was captured and imprisoned by the Saviors and he escaped.

[00:06:53] And one of the Saviors, this guy I think they called Fat Joey, saw him and he was like, Okay, I won't tell anyone. Just go ahead and leave. And Daryl brutally beat the guy with a pipe.

[00:07:05] And so when we were talking about our favorite things about Daryl a few episodes back in preparation for this series, I didn't bring up that he's been really brutal and torturous at times because that's one of my least favorite things about Daryl.

[00:07:20] I don't like it, but it does fit his character. Here's what I'll say about Daryl prior to this. It's the torturing… So Fat Joey and ring fencing, I'll come back to Fat Joey. The torturing always seemed to serve a purpose of like, we're going to get information.

[00:07:38] We're going to figure something out. He never seemed to take pleasure in it in the way that someone like Negan maybe at least pretended to if Dead City is anything to go by. But anyway, it was always more literal grunt work with Daryl.

[00:07:52] I don't remember him ever gleefully organizing to do it. In fact, I always got the sense that he kind of hated himself for it. But Fat Joey, I think was a trauma response because he'd just come out of that like fucking torture zone. Not excusing it, still shitty.

[00:08:09] With Randall, he's not like laughing about it, but he's aggressive, you know? He is aggressive. So I felt like that was similar energy to this. Yeah, this is the thing.

[00:08:22] I read, I don't know if it was a review or an article about Daryl Dixon where they're like, I really love this show. I love the ensemble. But the fact is Daryl's not really a leading man.

[00:08:32] And I think that the way he is with torture and intimidation kind of backs up because he is like a right hand man or a goon a lot of the time for like Rick or somebody. And obviously he's more than that. Yeah, I don't buy that argument.

[00:08:47] I think not all leaning men have to be the same. And Daryl's enough of an interesting character that I wouldn't want them to try to change him into more of a typical hero type or something.

[00:08:59] I worry that's what they're trying to do with a scene like this, though. Because I was just like, this doesn't feel right.

[00:09:04] It just feels icky, especially because like, and I'm not sticking up for the guy he was torturing, but like, you know if that guy spoke much English, like what the… Why is he telling this shit story about a pig or whatever and the guy's like, uh, je ne…

[00:09:17] Yeah, the guy doesn't even understand him. He doesn't know what you're saying to me. Oh great. I mean, so I think the point of that, I think the scene was over the top.

[00:09:28] And I think they're trying to top maybe what Daryl's done before, you know, so they had to go further with it. And it's gratuitous and it's meant to be thrilling. But to me, it's just disturbing in a way that makes me like Daryl less.

[00:09:42] So I don't like it. I think, OK, maybe something was warranted. Maybe they could have cut off one of his fingers. That wouldn't be great to watch either. But at least it makes sense when you're going to torture somebody for information.

[00:09:54] You start… you don't start with the most brutal, like multiple stabbings, you know, you lead up to it. And it was the showboating of it, the monologue storytelling. I just found that so out of character for Daryl.

[00:10:05] Like famously in season seven and eight, you know, he says like two words or something. And in this, I'm like, what is this story? Like, I don't get it anyway.

[00:10:13] I get it. He's titling the story of a little boy, Jimmy, the runt that everyone picked on for being little. His dad was a drunk. Can I just sidebar and say I understand what the story means. I just don't understand why he's telling it.

[00:10:27] But do explain because I do want to hear it again. Well, he's telling it for… Yeah, I think… well, I want to tell it just for the podcast sake. But he got a piglet on Christmas that used to follow him around like a dog, which is super cute.

[00:10:41] And his dad told him that he wanted him to kill the piglet so they could eat it for church dinner. And if he didn't do it, his brother would get a beating. So he tied it to a tree and tried to make it quick and painless.

[00:10:52] But by not trying to hurt the pig, he ended up making it worse. He stabbed it in the belly, the back and the legs, which he's saying as he's doing that to this guy, Armand. That's his name. Until it bled out.

[00:11:06] It screamed all night long. All the neighbors heard it. No one ever fucked with Jimmy anymore. I think they're having Darryl tell this story for two reasons. One, it shows another facet of his character, you know, telling… because it is him.

[00:11:18] Even though when Isabel asks him later, that was you, right? And Darryl said, no, I just made that shit up. I think he's telling the truth. It was him. I mean, he's lied to Isabel. It was him.

[00:11:28] So it's telling us something awful that Darryl went through and how it toughened him and scarred him, you know.

[00:11:33] But also I think the point of it really and why the writers came up with it is just to explain how Darryl knows how to stab someone repeatedly without killing them so that it'll take a day for them to die.

[00:11:47] Because it seemed very Department of Suspension of Disbelief that after being stabbed that many times, he'd be able to walk around with them for a while and not bleed out. But that was the point of the story.

[00:11:58] He's telling us, look, I did this with a pig when I was a little kid and it took all night to bleed out.

[00:12:04] I still think it's hard to believe, but I think that was the point of the story just to let us know, look, I know how to stab something many times and keep it alive.

[00:12:10] And I still am not saying that's in character for him to say something like that, but I think that was the point of the story to give us some characterization of something that he went through as a kid that was horrible and then also to make us understand why he knows how to do that.

[00:12:25] It mean, yeah, it obviously meant F*** all to the guy who was stabbing who probably just heard bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh. Yeah, that's true. But I wasn't getting out of it, um, I'm enjoying this. It was more

[00:12:42] like fuck you dude, fuck you. Like you don't fuck with us, you know, you're going to tell us what we want to know and I am in total control here so you don't have a leg to stand

[00:12:52] on. It's like that kind of energy, which is not a pleasant thing to watch. No, it just didn't feel like, and I'm not saying that because like, oh, Daryl's so sweet and kind, he would never do anything wrong. It just felt like not his style. I don't know.

[00:13:08] It made, in the context of the arc of the episode, what you're saying, it does make sense insofar as like giving a reason why this dude's not flipping, you know, bleeding out in the Parisian sewers, which he absolutely should be. But it just, it left a weird taste

[00:13:25] in my mouth. It was one of those things where I was just a bit like, is this really him? I don't know. It's weird for me to feel that possessive about a character who's not really

[00:13:36] one of my favorite characters, but yeah, it just put my teeth on edge a little bit. I just felt a little bit like this doesn't feel right. I don't know. I feel like fan fiction more than Daryl.

[00:13:48] To me, because of all the instances where Daryl has been very violent with people, this just felt like an extreme version of that. So I wouldn't go like if you saw Judith doing

[00:13:58] this, then it'd be like, no, I don't think so. That's not her. But with Daryl, I'm like, okay, it's extreme, but it's not completely out of the ballpark for him. You know, that's what I thought.

[00:14:11] I mean, the action of stabbing him definitely not. It was more the performance around it that I was a bit like, yeah, so much. But maybe he was just bored of not having anyone

[00:14:19] to talk to because everyone was talking French. Maybe he was just like, well, I'm going to talk now. Yeah, it's a bit of a speechifying thing for sure. Yeah, which is just I think it's just so unusual because Daryl, they've never done that with him.

[00:14:33] That's pretty funny. You're like, when he stabbed that guy, I didn't think it was really in character for him to talk so much. Just stab. Yeah, just stab man. We know you can do it. Like just fucking stab him. Don't fucking talk.

[00:14:48] Don't bother with story time. We don't care. No one wants story time. That beautiful fight with Quinn where they just fucking punched each other. Nobody gave a speech. It was great.

[00:14:56] I just found it very dark in a way where I think they wanted us to be like, oh my God, look at that. That's so dark and more for me. It was like, oh God.

[00:15:06] Yeah, I don't know. I always hate generally in media when there is like a, one time I knew this kid and I'm like, oh, these stories never add anything. It's always the person

[00:15:18] telling the story or like there's a twist or like, yeah, I just, I find it quite tiring. But anyway. Interesting. I mean, I guess I actually kind of dug the story, like thinking of poor little

[00:15:29] Daryl being bullied and being small, you know, we didn't know that before and that he had this cute little pig and then his dad was going to make him kill it and he tried to

[00:15:44] do something good, but it ended up torturing the poor thing. Like that's fucked up, man. Yeah, that's great character for me. To then take it out on a random French dude as well. Yeah. Maybe he needs therapy when he's back to America.

[00:15:56] He's been, now it makes me think, I wonder if he was thinking of that pig when he was torturing Randall too. Randall. Randall. That always bugged me a bit that they made, didn't make Daryl do that,

[00:16:09] but I felt like there was a status thing there of like Rick and Shane won't do it or like, you know, I don't know. It just always felt a bit like, oh, he'll do the dirty jobs. I

[00:16:17] think that melts away by like seasons three or four where everyone's kind of on a more even footing. But I didn't know season two, it still felt like there was a bit of a Daryl's

[00:16:25] a redneck and we were like classy police officers thing. Whereas by season four they're all redneck. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I remember feeling kind of like that too. Like why does Daryl

[00:16:36] have to do this? So that was my first point to just Daryl's brutality. So we'll be curious to know what listeners thought about that. If you are hearing me now and you want to write in, let us know. That'd be great.

[00:16:50] Yeah. Um, I'll talk about deaths in the episode. We're down four pigeons. No, the pigeons got free. Sorry. The pigeons did not die, but the old dude died. Um, Daryl backed Antoine.

[00:17:08] I liked him. It's not very sad that he had to die for his pigeons, but I guess he died doing what he loved. You know, it'd be funny if Antoine, instead of being like free the pigeons, he would be like, don't let them out. Whatever you do.

[00:17:21] Keep them caged forever. It took me a long time to catch these birds. I was amazed that Emil and Sylvie made it out of this episode. Absolutely astonished. Blow me down with a feather. That surprised me. I was like, these kids are gonna die. One

[00:17:41] of them is gonna die. But Emil just got shot in the butt. And that's it. I thought about you when he got shot, because I remember you said that. I was like, oh, here they go. But no, I was just surprised that not a lot of people really

[00:17:56] died in this episode. We were down two bad guys. So one at the Eiffel Tower, one that was the replacement pig and one pigeon guy. That's it. And I'm a bit like, oh, I thought

[00:18:08] we'd be thinning the herd at this point. I thought, I don't know, Sylvie or Emil, even Falou. I was worried about Falou at one point. Quinn, I felt like I was pretty sure they

[00:18:18] wouldn't kill because of where the story beats were at. But yeah, I feel a little uneasy going into episode five. I'm like, surely there's gonna be a bloodbath at some point. For some reason, I'm not really worried about it. Like, I'm not thinking more should or

[00:18:34] shouldn't. I don't know why. I'm just like, oh, let's see what happens. I'm just uneasy because I feel like the show is making me feel too secure that people are going to be alive. And you're afraid the characters that you like are going to die?

[00:18:45] Yeah, I'm a bit… Like who? Isabel? Yeah, I'm a bit confused about where everyone ended up this episode. Not confused, but more like, all right. I don't understand why Isabel went back. I understand what she said, but

[00:19:00] I don't understand why she did that. I don't know. Is it her punishment? She feels that she has to go back in order to make doubly sure that Laurent gets free? Like, I don't know. Her motivation was really strange to me.

[00:19:13] One of my points is about why the characters are doing what they're doing. Yeah. The last thing I'll say about killing and brutality is I actually enjoyed the Daryl and Quinn fight. It felt very Star Wars being up on the gangway, kind of kicking the shit

[00:19:28] out of each other. They seemed quite evenly matched physically and kind of intensity wise. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I was trying to remember the last time Daryl lost a fight. Was it Alpha? Or Beta rather? Gosh, it's all a blur to me.

[00:19:46] Nah, because thinking about in Fast and Furious, the franchise, I think Vin Diesel and The Rock both have things in their contracts that they can't lose fights, which really makes any fight they're in quite boring and predictable. And I was just like, I've just written in

[00:20:03] my notes, can Norman lose fights? Can Norman lose fights? Can Daryl lose fights? But I enjoyed that one. The fights are not usually what I'm in it for, but I thought that one

[00:20:13] was visually quite cool. I did call it Battle of the Haircuts because at one point it was just two mops of hair running at one another. But yeah, I thought it was cool. I'm trying to think now. Yeah, I hope Daryl doesn't have that in his contract. That's

[00:20:27] dumb. Yeah, it is right. We can never fight each other. We'll have to keep an eye on that. I remember the Daryl and Beta fight being really good, but he lost. Wouldn't he be dead?

[00:20:41] Well, that's the thing. Yeah, it depends on what you count as losing, doesn't it? Because yeah, he would be dead. But didn't Beta get distracted? Yes, we'll have to go back and watch.

[00:20:52] Daryl and Alpha waking up in that gas station and Lydia comes and helps Alpha, not Daryl. No, other way around. Helps Daryl, not Alpha. So it's kind of a draw. This is on The Walking Dead? Yeah. What show?

[00:21:07] We'll have to go back and watch. We're going to start a rewatch soon. Yes we are. We're going to remember things. I have... what do the bad guys want? Part 1, J'Nai. Well, one for J'Nai and one for Quinn. Which one should I do first?

[00:21:24] Let's go Quinn. Let's talk about Quinn. I was kind of confused about what Quinn wants or why or what exactly he was doing. But I think I figured it out. Okay, hit me.

[00:21:38] Armand, this guy who gets stabbed a lot, said he didn't know what Quinn wants with Laurent, but he seems to think he can use him to get what he wants. And Isabel said he's using

[00:21:48] Laurent to get to me. And later, at some point, Quinn tells Laurent, you know, the three of us are going to be together. And you can tell that Anna, the singer, is jealous of... she's

[00:22:03] trying to get Quinn's attention with pasta and truffles, and he just ignores her as he did last episode. And she's telling him, you know, she's staying away for a reason or whatever she said. And so she sees that he's infatuated or obsessed with Isabel. And I think that's

[00:22:25] what it is, is he just simply is in love with her. He's obsessed with her. He's infatuated with her. He wants her with him. Right? That's it. Simple as that. And I'm not sure that's great storytelling. For one thing, anyone with any kind of intelligence knows that's

[00:22:43] no way to get a girlfriend. Like she's going to resent being there if you manipulated everything and it's not going to be good for either one of them. And Isabel later tells Darryl,

[00:22:53] I'll figure a way out once I know Laurent is safe. Of course she will. So it makes me think less of A, the writing and B, just Quinn as an intelligent person. Right? Unless there's something I'm missing.

[00:23:08] Yeah, they have a really weird dynamic in that relationship. The bits they've given us on the screen, it reads like a controlling relationship back in the day. Like that ambiguity when you first meet him, it doesn't seem like a particularly loving or passionate relationship.

[00:23:25] It seems like I was confused as to whether he was like her dealer, her pimp or her partner. And he may have used drugs to keep her with him. And I think he views her very much as property. I can't decide. Part of me was like, surely

[00:23:43] he just wants his kid. Then I thought if I had to spend three hours with Laurent and I realized that was my child, I'd probably be like, you know what? It's fine. He can

[00:23:52] go. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. All Laurent fans listening. I'm sorry. I don't mean it. I thought it was about Laurent. But then it doesn't seem to be, does it? It really does seem to be about Isabel.

[00:24:06] Yeah, I think what I think after having watched it twice is that he actually does want the three of them there, but that Isabel is the more important one. Yes.

[00:24:18] I mean, even just the way that that guy Armand put it, he thinks he can use Laurent to get what he wants. I think he knows he that's why he doesn't tell Jenea that he has Laurent

[00:24:29] because he wants he knows he can use Laurent as leverage to get Isabel there. And what's his plan? What's Quinn's plan? Well, he knows there's a reward for Daryl and he knows that

[00:24:42] Daryl will come and try to save Laurent. He says, yeah, he's coming here. So he offers Jenea Daryl in exchange for some art, this Monet, the Japanese footbridge or whatever, but keeps Laurent a secret. I think it's hard to know whether he really wants to keep Laurent

[00:24:58] or not because we know he needs Laurent for leverage to get Isabel. And so I think what he thinks is that his men will capture Daryl and he can hand him over to Jenea and then

[00:25:09] get her out of his hair. And then I think the Laurent thing is separate. He's going to tell Isabel, if you want to be around Laurent, you'll have to stay here with both of us.

[00:25:21] I think that's his plan. But then Daryl messes it up because he forces this guy Armand to tell him a back way to get to the Demimonde and the rest of the Union de l'Espoir comes in, I think the front way as a diversion. So then while...

[00:25:35] Spooking diversion! Yeah. And while all Quinn's men are busy with that, Daryl grabs Laurent, Anna lets him have him because she's like, Quinn's trying to get another woman with this kid. Fuck them all,

[00:25:48] you know, let him go. So then Quinn is left to fight Daryl on his own. They have the fight on Catwalk. I think Daryl didn't kill Quinn because Laurent was watching. It's the only

[00:26:01] reason he didn't kill him. And then there was this nice fake out making us think Quinn was going to grab him as he walked by. I like that. I thought that was quite cute. I was like, because I watched it the first time

[00:26:10] and I was like, oh, oh, how did they do that? What conventions did they use to make me think that? And I was like, a little bit of the music, a little bit of the way it was shot, a little bit of the

[00:26:20] way he was lying. Yeah, I like that. That was neat. And Daryl standing way off in the distance like, come on, what's the problem? Come on, come here! I was like, oh no, this is so scary. I have an intense fear of being

[00:26:32] grabbed by the leg or ankle. So it's very much work. I don't like it. Don't like it. Never go swimming with me because I will kick you in the face. I will kick you in the fucking face. Yeah, I like that. That was nice.

[00:26:47] So in the end, Daryl did what he set out to do. He freed Laurent and then they met Isabelle at the Seine, the river that goes through Paris. But then Falou, the leader of

[00:26:57] the Union of Hope says, Janais is posting guards all around the city limits and soon there'll be no way out. And Isabelle says the guerrillas are taking over the city. I need someone with

[00:27:08] influence, someone who could make sure that they let him Laurent pass. And she says he'll do it. Quinn will do it for her if she stays with him. I'm not sure how he'll do that

[00:27:18] remotely, fire up a Fear the Walking Dead style radio or something. I don't know. Well, it seems like the kind of dude who'd have a pager. I'm just putting it out there. Yeah, exactly. He just seems like a pager douche.

[00:27:29] He's got some bicycle messengers. So he goes back. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That maybe that's why he wanted the pigeons. So he goes back. So she goes back to Quinn. She's like standing there. All right, I'm here. What do you want? And Daryl and Laurent head out

[00:27:46] heading for the nest. And I just think that whole plot feels it's fine, I guess, but it feels a bit contrived as just a way to get Daryl and Laurent alone together on their journey, you know, for a

[00:27:58] while. It's just that all of a sudden, Janaye's people are all around the city and they need and then Isabel needs to go back to Quinn so Quinn can somehow get them through this barricade.

[00:28:13] I don't know. That's what makes me think it's kind of her being like, resigned to like, her punishment of like, of course, I have to go back sort of thing, like feeling that she has to atone for stuff that she's previously done.

[00:28:25] But I think that has been generous to the writing. For my part. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it sounds better. So maybe we'll just believe that. I found Quinn quite interesting this episode. So I will piggyback on that. And it's classic

[00:28:43] relationship with Anna where she's just into it and he's just fucking not at all. Anna deserves better. She actually seems quite nice and seems to have given him, I mean, not that it was difficult, but given him the tip off that Laurent might be at the Eiffel Tower.

[00:28:59] Well, he was talking about it like constantly. He was talking about it. I gave him a medallion and he said his greatest wish ever was to go there one day. I didn't know he might be there. I like that she said women need a reason to come

[00:29:12] back and they need a damn good reason to stay. And Quinn just not taking that hint at all. He doesn't care. And that's so typical, like two people like this. I always think, you know,

[00:29:26] what you need for a good relationship is when both partners interest level is about the same and where relationships go bad is when one person starts losing interest and that often will make the other person more desperate to get the attention, you know, and you see people like

[00:29:44] who could go out and get pretty much anyone they wanted, but somehow they find themselves in that dynamic. And it's just like it's hard to get out of that mindset. Like what happened? Why don't you like me anymore? Come on, please like me. Absolutely. Dude, he's a douche.

[00:30:01] And I think you get a sense of his impression or his asphyxiation with Isabel from actually the bit before Armand gets tortured. He slutshames past Isa. He's like talking about her being like

[00:30:15] dirty and like sleeping with everyone and being a dirty thief. And then he looks like he's going to spit on her, but doesn't, which is somehow grosser. I really hate when people spit. So you

[00:30:25] can see that Quinn's kind of been obsessed with her over the years because he's spoken about her. And she knows right away who he's with. Yeah. He talks that way. Yeah, exactly. I really liked the scene in that it amused me of Quinn and Laurent because

[00:30:48] I just thought this idea of like, I don't know, you want to, you realise you've got a kid yesterday and you're suddenly like, I want to be a dad. And then the kid turns up and you're like,

[00:30:58] have some sweets. And the kids like these sweets are old. And then you're like an old sweets better than no sweets at all. I'm like, now's a bit late to start parenting though. I feel like these lessons

[00:31:07] are maybe not most appreciated here. I also enjoyed that Anna didn't really seem to dig being a step mum. I don't understand. I really don't understand Quinn's idea that Isabel knew that he was Laurent's

[00:31:23] father and would tell him about it. I tried to think about this as like, okay, so Quinn thinks Isabel and Lily went on the run. Lily was pregnant. He doesn't know that Lily died like

[00:31:37] three days later or whatever. So maybe he's thinking, well, she'll have had the baby and she was told Isabel who the father was. Isabel will know it was me. But once he found out that

[00:31:46] she clearly didn't have a clue and you could tell by the look on her face that she didn't have a clue, wouldn't you be like, all right, I mean, I guess I'm annoyed, but I'm not angry. It's nobody's

[00:31:55] fault. But anyway, he seems to be taking this very hard and I find it. For a guy who had the wherewithal to set up this awesome club, he seems pretty lame to me the way he handles things.

[00:32:09] Yeah, he's a petty man. With Isabel. Yeah. He's, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe it is just one of those. If I'm trying to make it into a believable dynamic, the guy that's more abusive is

[00:32:25] sometimes women like maybe Isabel, she didn't like herself. So she was more attracted to the guy that treated her like shit. You know, maybe that's what it was. Honestly, the time she left

[00:32:37] him at the gas station was the first time she'd ever stood up to him. And he's probably had 12 years to get really angry about that. Right. The fact that she like got one, she abandoned him with

[00:32:46] nothing in the middle of nowhere. Right. And clearly he managed okay. But I imagine having that build up in your head for 12 years must be quite something. So when that person walks in again, you're suddenly like, fuck you up. Yeah, I'm gonna do something to fuck you up.

[00:33:04] Yeah. Like I did a sort of deep dive on narcissism this year and learned that. Yeah, if you like, I don't know if he's a narcissist or not, but maybe and if someone leaves a narcissist,

[00:33:20] then they want to get them back so they can be the one to leave them. You know, they want control. Yes, I totally think that I do not think for a minute he wants her back because he loves her.

[00:33:31] I think he wants her back so that he can own her mentally torture her and leave her. Like, I think that's 100%. This conversation, I don't know if we're putting too much on to the writing

[00:33:44] that's not actually there, but it is making me like it more. Yeah, I think there's something going on with Quinn that I think we're not seeing, like the stuff about the paintings.

[00:33:53] I don't know. I was thinking actually in defense of Quinn as a villain, it's quite nice to have a villain in the show who is, I wrote notes on this. Hang on, I'm just going to find them.

[00:34:06] I wrote him down as being a thoughtful villain. Like we haven't seen him lose his shit yet. Like we've seen him fight Darryl, but there's something it feels like he's clearly smart and he's clearly savvy to have survived this long.

[00:34:26] And I quite like that as a difference from like, I don't know, it feels more like a Commonwealth style of villain than a savior style of villain. And I'm kind of into that. I'm like, yeah,

[00:34:39] that's more interesting, to be honest, to watch someone who's actively thinking about things rather than someone who's just sort of using violence. So I was like, you know what? I'll

[00:34:50] kind of go with it. I did enjoy his kind of complete lack of interest in being a dad after approximately five minutes of it and being like, nah, this isn't really for me. I'm going to go

[00:35:01] outside now and I'll look after you. Yeah, maybe he thought he would try it, but he's like, no. As far as like him being intelligent, I feel like with this reading that we're giving it,

[00:35:16] where he's just this sort of abusive character who draws in the kind of woman who actually is looking for that maybe subconsciously, you know, because they don't like themselves much or whatever. And he's... Then it makes me think he's a better character because otherwise,

[00:35:37] to me, just seems really dumb. Like I said, in most cases, if you blackmail somebody into coming and being your girlfriend, it's not going to go well. They're not going to want you or love you

[00:35:50] or anything. You know, it's just like he could have actually just been a really helpful, charming guy. And maybe she would have. Well, she's a nun, so maybe not. But anyway, but even smart people can make dumb decisions and have dumb reasoning when it comes to emotions or

[00:36:07] feeling humiliated or embarrassed or wanting revenge. Like, I don't know. I think I think I hope there's more to it. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels like they're building

[00:36:17] up to. I don't know, some kind of reckoning, but it's not clear yet. I think this episode felt a bit murky. It felt like things weren't super clear and that's maybe where it didn't catch me as much.

[00:36:30] I thought it was interesting to see Quinn schmoozing Janay. Clearly, they've got quite a cordial relationship. She offers him some calvados, which is apple spirits, I think. Calvados, isn't it? It's. Oh, I thought you said whiskey, but.

[00:36:46] No, it was calvados because it's French, I think. So I think she was like, I thought it was interesting that he wants some money. I thought maybe he and Strand would get on quite well. The only character from Fear the Walking Dead that I used to like.

[00:36:58] Yeah, at first I thought that was just some kind of a gambit, but I think he really just wanted the money. Yes, you kind of. I don't know. I'd be tempted if I had if he's clearly set up with

[00:37:12] like food and shelter. So like what else are you know? Yeah, I mean, and clearly he like he the most impressive thing to me about him is that he put together this awesome club and yeah, it's already got a Monet in it. I think the Lily thing.

[00:37:29] Water lilies. And then I think that's kind of it. The next time we see after him after it's a fucking diversion is getting beaten up by Daryl and then at the end silently looking grumpy and sore with Isabel

[00:37:44] turning up. So I hope they build on this. I hope they do more. I hope they make it as complex as we want it to be and not just as you say, kind of. Illogical writing, but I still enjoyed watching

[00:37:59] and I think quite a good antagonist so far and Anna I also enjoyed and I liked that she didn't shoot Daryl and Laurent and I like that she said, you know, I want you to go where you're happiest.

[00:38:14] I did sort of think from Laurent's POV he's suddenly in like a nightclub with booze and sweets and a dad who wants to make up 12 years of parenting to him. I wouldn't be so quick to leave. This could be nice for a while.

[00:38:25] How can I work this to my advantage here? Yeah, but he's just like no, I have to leave and I'm like, okay, fine. But yeah, that's kind of my overall thinking about Quinn's arc in this episode.

[00:38:37] Well, that conversation where he said, you know, old candy is better than no candy and then and then did your aunt tell you about me? And he said, oh yeah, she said you fought the zombies

[00:38:50] and you were a hero. And he's like, well, that was kind of an exaggeration, but I did save you at the Eiffel Tower and he's all, I didn't see you there. And I'm like burn.

[00:39:03] Points to Laurent. I also so I think we got it wrong. I think he's known all along that Isabel's because he mentions it in this episode with like not a blink and Laurent that is so they just don't

[00:39:17] call each other aunt. Cool. Well, she doesn't call her aunt. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, it also could be that Laurent has just been figuring things out lately because he also figured out that Quinn was his father,

[00:39:32] but maybe he knew the whole time. Yeah, I don't know. Laurent's had a lot going on. A lot to absorb. Amazing. Okay, let's do what do the bad guys want part two, J'Nai. Again, a little fuzzy on exactly where

[00:39:48] she's coming from. I think she's actually still supposed to be somewhat mysterious, but there's clues and I have some ideas. So J'Nai and Caudron show up at the Union's place, Union of Hope's place asking this rooftop place asking this woman, Sonia. Is that her name? The one that

[00:40:10] she the one that comforted? I think so. Yeah. Asking where's Darryl and Sonia says Darryl was there to deliver Laurent who has a greater purpose. J'Nai says I heard about this special

[00:40:22] boy from Lourdes, whoever that is. I don't know who that is. Lourdes is a place in France. It's where Catholic people go on pilgrimage. But it's also Madonna's daughter. That's who I was thinking

[00:40:34] of. His birth is deemed was deemed a miracle. I thought it was a rumor, a foolish tall tale. You all desperately want to believe. Sonia says the fools are the ones who put their faith in you.

[00:40:48] Laurent will save us all even you. J'Nai says the weak, the submissive, the credulous, which I had to look it up. That means showing to greater readiness to believe things. It's people like

[00:40:58] you who got us into this mess. And I'm like, Oh, this is really fascinating. Actually, this is probably my favorite part of the episode. Just trying to figure her out. Like, does she see

[00:41:07] herself as someone who's trying to fix the problems that were caused by the zombie apocalypse? And how would credulous people have caused that? Like, I think that's a question that needs answering still, you know, unless I'm missing something. No, I agree with that. I think it's

[00:41:27] about putting your faith in the wrong people or believing the wrong things, but I'm not quite sure how it plays out in her view of it. Yeah. In that whole exchange, like, I'm thinking I'm more on

[00:41:41] J'Nai's side. Like, I don't like it when people believe in things without solid evidence and then base their actions on that. And personally, I don't believe in things like Messiahs with some kind of supernatural specialness. But I have to admit, it's clear that groups of people who believe

[00:41:58] in things like that can accomplish a lot in the name of their beliefs. And they often accomplish good things. That whole thing about putting faith in a higher power can be really powerful. If you

[00:42:08] have no doubt, you feel righteous. You think you have the creator of the universe on your side, you know? But then the trouble for me is when they're doing things that go against others'

[00:42:19] beliefs or wishes, and there's often little room for debate when you feel like you have the creator of the universe on your side. So that's where I can have trouble with it. But one thing we know

[00:42:30] for sure is that for whatever reason J'Nai considers Isabel's people, Union de l'Espoir, as her enemies. Like when Daryl finds that pigeon guy, he says their enemy is the Union of Hope,

[00:42:44] is the enemy of Pouvoir de Vivant. And he also says Laurent is our hope. So there's all this stuff about false hope. She doesn't like false hope, and that's why she wants to get Laurent,

[00:42:57] because he is a symbol of their hope and he wants to destroy the hope of her enemy. These people are her enemy. She wants to. So that makes it pretty clear why she wants to get Laurent. She

[00:43:09] knows that it will really just crush the spirit of her enemy if she, I don't know if she's going to kill him or what. She doesn't want him to leave Paris because she wants to get him.

[00:43:21] Then, you know, she says he gives them false hope. It's a disease that must be rooted out. And so I'm not exactly sure. I feel like we still need, like why? Why does she care so much about

[00:43:37] this? What happened? You know, like what led her to this? And I think we're not supposed to fully get it yet, but it's got me intrigued to know more. What do you think? I think so. Again, she's quite an intriguing villain. I wish they hadn't costumed her

[00:43:56] so like one of the characters from World Beyond because it's very distracting. It's like, oh, you're literally wearing the same jacket outfit. But maybe that's just an ambiguous villain outfit for the ages. I think it might be because they have a similar vibe.

[00:44:16] Because one other thing is like when Quinn asks Janaye for the Monet painting, she's like, sure have it. She says impressionism is a degenerate art. And so I looked up degenerate having lost the physical, mental or moral qualities considered normal and desirable,

[00:44:36] showing evidence of decline, lacking some property order or distinctness of structure. So maybe she's just hardcore order structure hierarchy. And she believes, like I said before, in brutality and violence against innocence to get what she wants. So somehow, I mean,

[00:44:55] that seems a bit like CRM. You know, they're just very, they'll be aggressive about doing whatever needs to be done to fulfill this world order that they see as necessary. They see as, yeah. I find the baby tension interesting. The baby crying and she's clearly

[00:45:16] getting a bit pissed off with it. And then she kind of holds it but seems to not hate holding it because I was a bit like, of course, she's an evil woman. So she must hate babies. But then

[00:45:26] she seemed to quite like the baby when she picked up. So I was like, Oh, well, that's my expectations. She said what's to cry about all is going well. And that was interesting.

[00:45:36] She's an optimist, I think in her. She thinks she's got control of France and she's got some experiments going. So whatever she's doing at this point, she seems to feel like she's on the right track and it's working.

[00:45:50] It was an interesting scene. The tension was good. And I liked seeing Kedron rolling his eyes at their kind of Messiah chat. He's like, okay, but Tine kind of humors it a little bit, even though

[00:46:04] she's not believing it in the same way to the same extent. Yeah, I want to find out more. I want to know more. I really want to know why they're experimenting and what they're trying to do.

[00:46:15] Yeah. And some of the time I was like, I wonder if we knew more, would this be better? Because then we would understand her. But I'm also kind of digging the mystery and I'm intrigued to know

[00:46:29] more. And that's a pretty good place to be when you're two thirds of the way through a series season. Hopefully we'll know by the end. Yeah, I want to start getting pay off in the next episode. That would be nice.

[00:46:43] Yeah, we got two more. And one other question about her is why is she so fixated on getting Daryl? I think I saw somebody commented while she's really going out of her way and I'm like,

[00:46:55] well, I think he messed up these experiments on this boat. And I just the fact that she is so pissed off about that shows that it was very important to her and whatever her mission is. I think that was a core part of it.

[00:47:11] I think I guess definitely to do with the boat at this point, personal vendetta or larger scale vendetta because of the boat incident, which I would still like to see in a flashback. I know. Daryl's like Les Mis slash Pirates of the Caribbean mashup.

[00:47:28] Do you think because there's only two more episodes, there is a second season. Do you think we're going to sort of get an end to this story and then he'll have like adventures in Luxembourg or something or? I think like Russell's.

[00:47:43] Or do you think they'll still continue the whole thing with the Jeanne in season two? I think they will. I think Laurent's story might end this season, but Jeanne's story will continue. That's my theory. I feel like the Laurent story can have a clear beginning, middle and end,

[00:48:01] even if it's just dropping him off in this new community and being like, see what happens. I will be sad if this is the last we see of Clémence Pozy. I don't think it will be. I think we will have her for till the end.

[00:48:14] But I was a bit like, no, Isabelle, no, you're one of the best things about the show. Don't stay. Yeah, I don't want to lose her either on the show. So I'm interested to see how they spin it into a second season.

[00:48:28] I bet you he will go to another country. Do you think? Yeah, I think Norman Reedus probably wants to explore Europe on the show. General Tickson. Antarctica. Zombie penguins. I didn't think the virus would make it this far. All right, what do you got next?

[00:48:53] Oh, just again, Paris in this episode, man. At the weekend we went to see Haunting in Venice. It's just like the new Agatha Christie film. We were like, we've got cinema memberships. We're like, let's go and see it. And I was like, damn, Venice looks amazing.

[00:49:09] And then in this film, I was like, damn, Paris looks amazing too. I think I'm over to your European trip of some description. But I loved seeing our characters walking around Paris, just walking around the streets.

[00:49:24] I loved Darryl walking along because I was still after the cold open. I was like, what is real? What's not? What's a vision? What's not? What's a dream? What's not? So when he was walking along and he heard the cello music, which is Bach's cello suite,

[00:49:39] number one in G major, or as the Vulture Review put it, the only cello song that anyone ever plays in TV shows. And the old couple having coffee. Part of me was like, is this real? Is that actually happening? It seems a little chill.

[00:49:57] And I'm like, oh, yeah. I saw that and I was like, you're playing cello. Isn't that going to draw zombies around? And then you see the couple just sort of chatting and it's like, oh, they seem to be doing all right in Paris.

[00:50:11] But you'd think if they were that easygoing about everything, they would have gone around and tried to call all the zombies, but there are pockets of them everywhere. So whatever. It's a bit confusing as to why it is so easy to get around Paris.

[00:50:27] Like Laurent got all the way to the Eiffel Tower and that's quite a way to go if everything is where we think it is in the show. Like getting to the Eiffel Tower is not easy. It's like quite a long way on the metro.

[00:50:38] And he got there with no problem until he got to the Z behind the sandbag. But I enjoyed the aesthetic of walking around and, you know, the scenes with Darrell hiding. I'm so intrigued as to how they got permission to film in all these amazing locations and

[00:50:55] how you could empty them. And how you…yeah. Yeah. And dress them up that way. Would they use some CG to just take the people out because…or can they actually clear everyone out of a wide view of the scene, you know?

[00:51:08] There are some bits where I'm like, oh, they've definitely CGI'd this. And then there are other bits where I'm like, I wonder if they just filmed really early in the morning. Because I remember when reading about 28 days later that scene where they're driving

[00:51:23] on the motorway and it's just them. It's just the taxi that they're all in and it's completely empty and it's actually one of the busiest motorways in the UK. And I remember reading that I think Danny Boyle got permission to film at like half

[00:51:37] four or five in the morning on a summer's day and they were able to just adjust the light. CG wasn't as good then though. No, it wasn't as good. But I still think the CG in this show is not great.

[00:51:47] Like, I think you can tell when it's been blue screened or CGI'd most of the time. I mean they did knock the top off the Eiffel Tower for this so that's real. Absolutely they did. Yeah, it's great that AMC was able to pay for that. Yeah, it's fine.

[00:51:59] And I'm really looking forward to watching them rebuild it on the next series of Ride with Norm Reedus. So, coffee, cello, pigeons, Isabel's apartment. That was a bit of a pointless scene. They just turned up at Isabel's apartment. They're like, where do you think Laurent is?

[00:52:14] And Daryl's like, I might know. And then it finished. I was like, oh, okay, there's no point to this. I mean, I think the only point of that was at the end of last episode Daryl screamed out, meet me at your apartment. So they just wanted to…

[00:52:27] So we've learned that Daryl is punctual and very, very late. Sorry, anchorman joke. I did enjoy when Daryl said to Isabel, Paris kind of sucks. Yeah. When they're both stressed out about it. After we've all been going on about it for a month.

[00:52:43] And the Eiffel Tower was fun. I really enjoyed how dramatic and soundscape-y it was. The idea of the whole structure just creaking. I thought for one horrible minute Laurent was going to try and climb it, and that made me really stressed out.

[00:52:58] But I also enjoyed the idea that the walkers behind the sandbags were maybe tourists that had gotten stuck there or something. I don't know. I thought that was amazing. We go back to the Demimonde. And then the final point about Paris was… Well, two.

[00:53:12] We saw Père Lachaise again. Again, that's really awesome that they got to film there. I loved the riverside scene and the aesthetic of Daryl and Laurent both kind of being entranced by Paris as the boat leaves.

[00:53:27] Seeing little details like the bridges and looking over to the Eiffel Tower and both just sitting there watching it go by. I'm just like…it's probably mind-blowing to both of them for different reasons.

[00:53:41] Like, Laurent has never seen Paris until the last couple of days and Daryl, I assume, would think he would never see Paris, especially not after the apocalypse. So the way that they framed it with the two of them both sort of looking thoughtfully

[00:53:55] at the scenery as it passed by, I thought worked really nicely. And the colours and the shot of the boat leaving was just, I thought, very well shot. Very well done. I thought Daryl, he was looking up like, why is a Statue of Liberty here?

[00:54:09] Yeah, that's what Peter said. He was like, so we were friends. And I was like, we got one of those. They just took the canal boat all the way back to America. It was that easy. It was nice.

[00:54:25] Yeah, I liked that last scene of them just floating along. Well, my next point kind of deals with a lot of the things you mentioned. It's fights and Zeds. When the episode opened with Daryl in the tunnel with this flashlight and comes to this

[00:54:40] locked gate, and I was like, just wait, where were we before? I didn't remember he'd fallen through the roof. That was last we saw him. But Laurent is on the other side among the zombies. And I'm like, didn't Laurent run away? Okay, this must be a dream.

[00:54:56] I thought that pretty quickly. And then Laurent gets into this prayer mode or something, and the zombies don't get him, which I thought was pretty cool. I think there was still a part of me that's like, is this real? Like, okay, he's actually doing something Messiah-like. But then...

[00:55:14] He is the Messiah. He is. Bow down. But it was an interesting dream for Daryl because I think it shows that he's worried about Laurent, he cares about him, and just that whole specialness, Laurent's possible specialness has crept into Daryl's psyche. Yeah, it's his vision. Yeah.

[00:55:33] But then he's underwater and that scene looked great. Where... That was cool. It was super clear. They had light shining through and you see this underwater Zed and when he punctured his head and the blood kind of bloomed out into the water. That was pretty neat.

[00:55:49] Very real short. I never saw anything quite like that before. Um, at the Eiffel Tower, Laurent's looking up at it and just seeing it all broken and twisted was, uh, I don't know, kind of sad and beautiful at the same time, I guess. It was cool.

[00:56:10] And also a bummer. And I think then Laurent, like, I don't buy that there's all these sandbags and there's a bunch of zombies that have just like stood there for like 12 years or whatever. Maybe they've only been there for a little while.

[00:56:27] That he was the first thing that got them to break out of the sandbags seemed weird, but... Maybe for some weird reason somebody put them there recently. I don't know. But then it was also dumb of him to just stand there while they surround him.

[00:56:43] They come out and surround him. He's a bit useless, isn't he? You think they'd have taught him some self-defense. He's just like, oh. Well, it's just the curse of this show where you have to...

[00:56:54] The zombies are so slow and dumb that it's hard to stage believable danger with them, you know? And that's why we need the fast ones. Come on, where's the fast zombies? Yeah, where are these variants? Bring me the variants.

[00:57:09] But my favorite thing about the whole sequence was Daryl taking care of a bunch of them with his flail. That was fun. That was pretty cool. Very efficient. I hope he brings it back to the US and shows what he got from France.

[00:57:21] I was going to say that! I brought you something, Arnjie. I brought you a cool thing. No, he's got to use it. Why did you bring me? I hope he really does that. I got you this flail. All right, Arnjie! I brought you this awesome medieval thing. Awesome.

[00:57:38] And then there was a fight, since it's fights and zeds, in the tunnel between the Union de l'Espoir guys and the Quinns guys. And it was good, I guess. It was cool. I like the Molotov cocktails the best.

[00:57:53] Always a good little thing for creating a diversion and an attack. Sure. Pandy in a binge. I use it, yeah, quite often. And then Daryl dragging Armand, who he's stabbed 100 times, through these tunnels. And then I guess Armand just couldn't go on anymore or something.

[00:58:12] And he's like, don't leave me or whatever. And Daryl's like, where do I go? And he goes, well, you go up here, you take a left, you go down a few ways, take another left. Like, he's just giving all the directions.

[00:58:24] And I'm like, okay, well, he's about to die because he shouldn't be giving away all this information because Daryl's not going to need you anymore. Duh. That's exactly what happens. I think the verb for it is to shame someone. I think he got shamed.

[00:58:39] Well, and then he finally spoke French saying, bon appétit, which I guess he's saying to the zombies, which I thought was really funny. So that was all the action and excitement. Yeah, I love that.

[00:58:58] Speaking of Shane, I did like, I don't know if it was a deliberate callback or not, I liked when Laurent was under the corrugated iron outside the Eiffel Tower, that it kind of reminded me of Sophia under the car.

[00:59:12] He sees the Zed coming towards him, but Laurent doesn't get spooked like Sophia did and doesn't run away. But the way it was shot, I don't know, there was just something about it that reminded me of Sophia.

[00:59:23] And then, of course, he gets rescued by the wrong people, the two evil guys. Also, I did sort of laugh when he was in the car and literally I was like, Laurent, you could get yourself out of the car here. But he didn't. He just stays put.

[00:59:36] He just stays put, he does what he's told. He's no Karl. Karl would have been like, where the fuck is Karl? Get back in the house, Karl! Oh my goodness. I think we've almost covered most of my stuff. We've spoken a little about Isabel, I think.

[00:59:58] But yeah, I found her motivations in this episode the weirdest. But I think we've covered most of what that is. They did…I don't know, when the French Arman says to Daryl, she very bad girl, I was like, all right, judgment's about women here. I was confused.

[01:00:20] She says to Daryl, there's something I want to tell you. Does she ever tell him it? Because she says that in Pearl of Sheds. Yeah, then he said, tell me at the river.

[01:00:30] And I think, I don't know, but I think maybe she had already decided at that point, I think I'm going to have to stay here to get Quinn to help you guys get out. But I'm not sure.

[01:00:45] That is what I was thinking as well on the secondary watch. But I just wasn't sure because it seemed like it was going to be more… Yeah, like she's going to say, we're all infected. And he's like, I know that.

[01:00:57] Yeah, I have the cure for this zombie apocalypse. I'm not really French, like something like that. I don't know. Yeah, so I had some thoughts about Isabel, but we basically covered them. She's like, what were you going to tell me? We're all living in a simulation. What?

[01:01:16] Sometimes at night I eat my own eyelashes. What? Nothing. What? No, nothing. Okay, nevermind. Sorry I said that. It's okay. It's really normal. Bye. I'm actually a zombie. So I have a point on l'amour because…

[01:01:34] Well, when Daryl meets Elizabeth at her apartment and they hugged, and that did seem like a pretty tender moment, probably more than anything we've seen before. I felt like, oh, maybe there actually could be something there. Not necessarily. Daryl and Carol, I think would also hug like that.

[01:01:50] But I actually don't think it means that, although I did get the feeling like if they wanted to go that way, the scene like that could indicate it. I'm sort of rambling, but anyway, I think it just means that they're just becoming good friends, you know?

[01:02:08] They actually have a bond. I think there's something connecting them. I think she sees herself in him. I don't know. There's something there. I'm not mad at it. I like it. Yeah, no, me too. I enjoyed it.

[01:02:19] But then later, Sylvie asked Isabelle if she'd ever had romantic feelings for anyone since she took her vows and she just says no. And she goes, not even with Daryl, you know, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, no, that was just concern. And I believed her, you know?

[01:02:32] She didn't seem like she was in denial or something. No, she kind of laughed, but not in a way she was just like, nah. Or like, no, no, no. What? No. Daryl? How dare you? Slap. Yeah, slap him.

[01:02:45] But then, you know, she asks Sylvie if she likes Emil and she goes, I kissed him. And she said she might stay in Paris. And she's like, are you disappointed? And I'm thinking, yeah, you're a nun. You made a vow to God.

[01:02:58] And Isabelle's like, nah, it's not a problem. Like, I lived it up. So you should have your chance. I'm like, wait a minute. Does this mean nothing? I kind of liked it, though. I thought that was quite humane.

[01:03:11] I quite like that as a moment between two friends for being like, well, you never knew your life not with that. And I got to fuck around and find out, you know? So yeah, I know what you mean, though.

[01:03:22] I was a bit like, well, if you were a proper devout nun, you'd probably be a bit more like, don't do that. But also, Emil's real cute. So. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I feel both ways. Personally, I think, hell yeah. Go for the love. Don't…

[01:03:39] Like, that's my choice. I fully support what's-her-name Sylvie doing that. But I'm like, also like, well, wait, like if you believe in God and you believe and you made a vow, a promise, then there's a part of me that's like, shouldn't there at least

[01:03:58] be some concern about, oh, nah, just break it. It doesn't matter. But then again, the Abbey's destroyed and it's the zombie apocalypse. So whatever. And then I do have one more point. Should I do my last point? Go for it. Before we do notes.

[01:04:14] OK, it's La Dame de Fer and other sites. And I didn't know that the Eiffel Tower was nicknamed La Dame de Fer before this. So. Yeah, well, in the UK we associate the Iron Lady with Margaret Thatcher, born in the Eiffel Tower.

[01:04:29] So nice to know that it has a different root. Yeah, I think one of the I think it was Tfain maybe commented, does does the title mean this? And it showed the Eiffel Tower or this and it showed Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, I was like, oh, no.

[01:04:47] It might also be a play, like maybe they're saying something about like Isabelle's strength or even the singer Anna's. I don't know. Maybe that's a stretch. But I thought I'd just tell a little history of the Eiffel Tower. It was constructed as the centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair.

[01:05:06] It's 330 meters or one thousand eighty three feet tall, which is about like an 81 story building. And it's the tallest thing in Paris. It has three levels for visitors with restaurants on the first and second level. So it's maybe bigger than you might think.

[01:05:24] The top level's upper platform is two hundred and six, two hundred seventy six meters or nine hundred six feet above the ground. The highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union, which makes me wonder where the decks are that aren't accessible to the public.

[01:05:40] How do we get in there? Have you been up there, Jason? Have you ever been up there? Yeah, fairly recently. Last year. I recommend it. It's like being in a steampunk story. It's like when you get up close, you see the artistry of it.

[01:05:55] And it's all that brownie rusty color. And it's got there's like circles everywhere and there's like spherical pods in there. And it's really like to I just I've never every time I go to Paris, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's all these things. And I'm like, you know what?

[01:06:12] I should actually go and see before the top gets put back on, obviously. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to get up there in the open air. But last time we were there, I went and right we waited in line for an hour.

[01:06:25] And then right before we got to the ticket, they're like, oh, we're not going all the way to the top anymore because there's too many people up there. And I'm like, well, get them out.

[01:06:35] Like we waited an hour, but we only got to go like to the second or second level. But it's still amazing. Did you show? Do you show? I'm an American. I'm an American! Like that awesome Texan dude in episode two. I'm an American!

[01:06:50] I felt like that, but it was still awesome. And then so a couple more facts. There were 5,889,000 visitors in 2022. And it's the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world. Which is something.

[01:07:08] It's named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, I think is actually how you say it. I'm not sure about that. Whose company designed and built it from 1887 to 1889. And I didn't know this, but on the third level is a private apartment built for Gustave Eiffel's private use.

[01:07:26] He had friends like Thomas Edison over. Come to my place in the Eiffel Tower. Wow. And while we're talking monuments that like I said at the end, Darrell on the boat sees what looks like the Statue of Liberty and was like, hmm.

[01:07:42] But I think most people listening, but maybe not everyone knows that the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the US from France. It was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdy and his metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel.

[01:07:59] Same guy who did the Eiffel Tower. I didn't know that before today. It was made to commemorate 100 years of US independence, much like the Eiffel Tower was made in part to celebrate 100 years since the French Revolution. And Edouard René de Laboulaye or something. That's so beautiful, Jason.

[01:08:19] It's just wonderful. I'm just going to plow through. President of the French Anti-Slavery Society proposed the statue hoping that by calling attention to the recent achievements of the United States abolishing slavery and promoting

[01:08:32] freedom and democracy that the French people would be inspired to call for their own democracy in the face of a repressive monarchy. So it was sort of like a message to his own people, which is interesting.

[01:08:42] And the statue itself is a figure of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty and freedom, which I didn't realize either. And the designer, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdy made smaller replicas of the statue, some of which are displayed around France.

[01:09:00] So I had wondered if the Statue of Liberty was a copy of something that was already in France, but no, that was the first one. And then there are copies made that were that are also within. That's kind of fun. I didn't know that.

[01:09:14] Yeah, I didn't know a lot of that. So it's cool. And the last I just at one point he's on a bridge and we can see Notre Dame in the background and it's just such a beautiful Gothic medieval cathedral.

[01:09:25] If anyone ever has a chance to go in there, do that too. It's really beautiful and peaceful in there. There was a bad fire there in 2018. Yeah, very bad. But I think they're re-renovating it at the moment.

[01:09:41] It's beautiful and it's right opposite Shakespeare and Company, which is the English speaking English language bookshop in Paris. That's just amazing to go to. It's really cool. Lots of famous writers and poets have spent time there. And yeah, it's awesome.

[01:09:56] It's always queued out the bloody door, but it's always worth a visit, I think. I don't know how to follow all those amazing trivia things. I feel like I've learned a lot. I don't actually… I'm just scrolling through my notes at the moment.

[01:10:12] I just want to mention, I just looked it up that I read online that Notre Dame is closed to the public until further notice, but set to reopen in December of next year. So hopefully that will happen. That'll be six years. It was quite a fire.

[01:10:28] I remember it happening in real time because we'd just been in Paris a couple of weeks before and it was all over the news and it was so weird watching it on the news. It was really, really, really awful.

[01:10:40] It seemed like maybe it…the way they were talking about it, that it just might be destroyed completely, you know? Or mostly, but sounds like they're going to be able to bring it back to mostly its former glory. Yeah. It's lovely.

[01:10:55] It's a really, really nice church to visit. I did like when Darryl said, get on the fucking boat. I like that he's getting to use F-bombs. There was always something weirdly, weirdly sanitized in The Walking Dead that people weren't saying fuck. I'd be saying fuck.

[01:11:09] I mean, you've talked about that. Fuck, yeah, in the normal world. And I think there was a part of me that's like, that doesn't seem like Darryl, but it actually seems like how Darryl should be. And so I accept it. Yeah.

[01:11:23] Frustrated at this point because he's like, you're leaving me alone? Like what? This kid? Like, damn it. Isabelle obviously promises she'll get back to Laurent soon, but I do wonder if they're going to be reunited or not. But we'll see. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

[01:11:41] Yeah, that's me. That's I just didn't really have a lot of stuff this week. I feel very… That's okay. Good talk. Well, let me see five notes. Laurent reads this joke from the candy wrapper. What's the favorite dish of vampires? Le croque monsieur.

[01:11:58] And I love that they didn't explain that, but I'm going to. Yay! A croque monsieur is a hot ham and cheese sandwich, kind of like a, you know, it's all melty. It's pretty good. But croque means crunch and monsieur is mister.

[01:12:13] So I think the joke is basically it means like a crunchy guy. Yeah. Croque monsieur, very delicious. Not a health food, but very delicious. Yeah, it's like a grilled cheese plus much butter and egg and ham. And yeah, all sorts. Good artery clogger.

[01:12:37] And then I only had one more thing and that was a question. Did Daryl even get a lead on a boat or a ship out of this? He didn't, right? No, we have zero progress on mission. Country roads take me home. None. Long beach, nothing. Paris sucks. That's…

[01:12:54] Paris sucks, man. What a crap detour for Daryl. He's like, I saw some art, it was very good though. Yeah, like when he gets back home and they're like, what happened? And I went to Paris, it sucked. Yeah, went to Paris, it was shit.

[01:13:16] All right, that is our show for today. Episode 542. Thanks so much for listening everybody. I hope you weren't too bummed out that we didn't love this episode, but we thought it was all right. I still liked it. It was all right.

[01:13:30] Next episode, well, as of right now, there's not a lot of listener feedback yet, but I think I saw a couple more coming through. If we get enough, we'll do a feedback episode for The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon season one episode four, La Dame de Ferre.

[01:13:43] But if not, then we'll be back next week, one day later than usual actually, because I'm going to be up in Ashland watching Shakespeare this weekend. And we'll be covering Walking Dead Daryl Dixon season one episode five, Deux Amour, which means dizzy horse. Who loves?

[01:14:00] Which means dizzy pig. Dizzy pigs being stabbed. Dizzy Jimmy's pig being stabbed. I have theories about this title. I think it's interesting. What is it? Two Loves. Well, Two Loves is a big part of sort of medieval liturgy and writing about the two

[01:14:26] loves that you can have being cupidites or carites. And it's all about, I'm explaining this really poorly, but to be honest, if you're listening to Deadcast to get your info about hyper literary theory. Dr. Lucy. Fair enough. It's about the love of God versus the secular love.

[01:14:46] It's about what's the right love to have. The two loves that can divide a soul. And I'm just like, it probably won't be that. It'll probably be like a love triangle or something. It might be both. It's interesting.

[01:14:56] It's interesting because a lot of French literature of that period deals with it particularly about this idea of being torn between how to live a good secular life and how can you

[01:15:05] love anything that's not God in a decent way and not be a garbage human, which I find quite interesting as a sort of way of writing literature. I think you're right. I think that's going to be it. And if it's not, I'm not going to like it.

[01:15:20] Yeah, I'm going to write in and be like, excuse me. Um, so if you want to write in or leave us a voice message about that or anything else, you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com.

[01:15:32] And while you're there, don't check out any of our other shows. I don't bother. No, they're no good. There's none. There's nothing. Let me think of at least one to promote here. What have I not talked about?

[01:15:45] Oh, I know what I haven't talked about much is The Wheel of Time with Greg and Veronica, which I need to get caught up on, but I just want to mention it because I, the only reason

[01:15:56] why I'm not caught up is I'm super busy, but I, that show was really cool in the first season. And, um, Greg came back and brought in Veronica who you heard talk about silo if you listen to those.

[01:16:09] So I was so happy that she was a fan of that show and wanted to talk about it. So there's one, The Wheel of Time, if you're a fan of that show. Excellent. And this episode is made possible by Patreon supporters like Ken Walter, who pledged their

[01:16:22] support at patreon.com slash Jason Kabassi. Thank you to Ken. We did our Cards Against Humanity this weekend, our Colin show with Peter and Lucy. How'd you guys do? Terrible. We had no points. Lish, I'm blaming Peter. He took, he pulled the overall badness.

[01:16:41] And there were some great, great answers in there though. Oh my God. It was funny. It was fun. That game's always so much fun. I love it. Next time I will get my ass in gear and win some points. Yeah, yeah. No, it was fun.

[01:16:53] I'm glad you guys came. Alrighty, that's our show. Thanks for listening. Don't get bit. Parto Barkadari.