544: "Deux Amours" (TWD: Daryl Dixon S1E5)

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[00:05:58] Last of Us, Podcastica, The Last of Us, Podcastica, The Last of Us, Podcastica, The Last of Us, run with him. Run away. Eviene Yes, I was like…I mean really, Laurent…okay.

[00:06:07] I was giggling today thinking about it, everyone's like, it's so like The Last of Us and I'm like, I don't know, Ellie could at least handle herself a little bit. Dave But Daryl! Like Daryl should have ran with him.

[00:06:10] Why did Daryl have to stay there? He's like, I'll take care of these ten guys, don't worry about it. And then he fucked up on the very first one. So I didn't quite…I mean whatever. Eviene Maybe he wanted to get caught. Maybe he was

[00:06:14] like, I just can't cope with this guy. Dave Take you out of the picture. Eviene Yeah, I mean, I think that's what he was trying to do. Dave But no, I actually thought like you just said,

[00:06:44] what did you say over the top or something? And I'm like, yeah, I guess you're right about that. Well, it's pretty crazy. But I didn't think about that until just now. I actually thought it was pretty great. It was really thrilling. And I'm glad we got

[00:06:56] the flashback and everything. Eviene Oh, I was like the minute it's like the music went a certain way and they were zooming in a certain way and I was like, flashback, flashback, flashback! I was so happy. Dave Yeah, they should have done like a whole wavy

[00:07:09] line thing like they used to do. Eviene And they're like, doodly doo, doodly doo. Dave Well, let me tell you what happened. Eviene You bet you're wondering how I got here. Like, yeah. Dave You said last time you were hoping this week

[00:07:20] they would start connecting some dots or something, you know, and they really did. Like they showed us the whole story of how Darryl got to France. Eviene Yeah, it was pretty simple. Some of it was

[00:07:32] a bit like holy shit, like rather than just get sent to the woods, they get sent on a ship to France. But then I realized maybe the reason the rules are so strict is because they actually

[00:07:41] need those prisoners to feed the zeds or whatever. I don't know. I mean, do zombies need to eat to survive? Dave Yeah, I feel like because the thing is, so they're on the ship and there's we see a bunch of zeds in different rooms being either experimented

[00:07:58] on or just kept. So I think they were doing some experimentation on the boat on the ship because we saw one with like a zombie head in a jar. I just missed the opportunity to

[00:08:10] use the word zed head. That's such a shame anyway. And then one chain to a wall. But there were two cages that they called particular attention to and one says fast and the other

[00:08:21] one says feed, right? But in French under the feed one it said nourir which means to feed but under the fast one it said ne pas nourir or something like that, do not feed. So maybe that's part of the experimentation to see how feeding impacts them or something.

[00:08:39] I don't know. Angus It could be. Yeah, it could be to be honest. It was one of those things where I was just a bit like, oh, do zombies need to actually eat? Dave No, I don't think they do because there's no food. Angus Yeah.

[00:08:53] Dave And they keep going anyway, right? Angus Yeah. And it's yeah, the flashback I mean, it's one of my points so I may as well like, like, yeah, let's go into it. But yeah, we

[00:09:03] So what we saw in the flashback was I wrote out the story. It was fun going back through my notes and trying to do each story from beginning to end rather than jotting in and

[00:09:13] out. So our first kind of nod to what we know is when Darryl is…so Darryl's walking along a road in Georgia and it felt really weird to see like, well, it's Maine but it's being filmed in Georgia. Dave Last week I'd said it's felt so good to

[00:09:33] be away from the woods of Georgia. But I'm glad they waited five episodes in to do these flashbacks and to have Darryl talk about his friends and everything. But because it's welcome right now, like I wanted, I'm glad the show stood on its own two feet and established

[00:09:49] itself. But now the nostalgia felt good. Like I was glad to have part of this be set back in the United States, you know? It felt…it was nice because it made the transitions in and out of flashbacks a bit

[00:09:59] easier. They did…I always like with flashbacks, flashbacks and time jumps over shorter periods of time, how they give you like little visual nods of what's happening. So like Darryl picking up the sticks of wood that he's holding and like wearing a slightly different outfit, etc.

[00:10:13] If you're watching Breaking Bad, they always have a yellow tint if it's in Mexico. Is it not just like that? I just assumed… Maybe, yeah. I just assumed Mexico has a different tint. Come to think of it, yeah.

[00:10:25] So you see Darryl walking along this kind of desolate road, not dissimilar to roads we've seen him walk on before. His bike is out of gas. A guy pulls up behind him, asks if he's in trouble, can he help at all? And essentially offers Darryl work in exchange

[00:10:44] for some gas, which Darryl goes with him. He doesn't seem like the most threatening guy. And to be honest, this whole society, despite giving people away to be fed to zombies, is one of the more functional ones that we've seen. It's a gig economy, guys.

[00:10:58] It is. And we're kind of used to seeing France have a little bit more of that, but not back in the United States. So it was a little… But I mean, there is some though. There's the Commonwealth after all.

[00:11:14] So they take him back to this garage and we see in the background the little French scientist who we saw on some previous episodes, I think. And we hear some French on the radio. So knowing what happens to Darryl, our radars are kind of tingling like…

[00:11:32] So the guy who caught Darryl and the French scientist gather around in a circle and they read out the rules, which are essentially no fighting, no bad behavior. I'm a bit confused

[00:11:42] when they said no sexual deviant stuff and that seemed to get made into a bunch of homophobic jokes. I was kind of hoping they were just talking about sexual assault. But anyway… Well, they're not good guys. No, they're not.

[00:11:53] I think… Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the foreman guy meant we don't like no gays here or whatever or if or not, but that is what they were joking. Well, they were more… I

[00:12:06] guess they were joking about because I was thinking of that kid that… Is he old enough? Would it be considered pedophilia? But he's not a kid. He's an adult. He's in his teens. So they're being homophobic.

[00:12:17] Yeah. It's a bit of a bummer. I'm like, all right, OK. So it's a bit of a crappy… I'm totally OK with it because they're bad people. So I don't want… I don't like when shows avoid being homophobic because that's bad. Well, they're bad people.

[00:12:32] Yeah, they're bad people. These are bad people. I would say they're not evil people, but they're not the best that we've seen. They're kind of like Merle. That dude killed the kid. Well, yeah. So he could get a quart of gas.

[00:12:46] Well, so yeah, because the deal is you're going out to hunt Zed. Your catches shouldn't be children. They should be five foot four and above and they should be as fresh as you can be.

[00:12:57] And based on what you bring back, you'll be given gas and fuel. So this needy little kid who looks a bit like Laurent wants to team up and Daryl's like, no fuck off. Daryl's kind of top

[00:13:09] of the class. He's figured out a thing with some sticks to stop the zombies biting down. He leads like a row of about 10 or 15 back to camp and everyone's like, whoa, check him out.

[00:13:19] That's so funny. Of course he got the most. Pretty awesome to see how he did it too with his cable connected to his crossbow. Yeah. That's great. He's very skilled in this episode in a lot of different ways.

[00:13:33] It was very like, I don't know, amazing race or something. I don't know. He's very, yeah, very pulling a lot of stuff out of the hat here. He still doesn't want to gang up with the

[00:13:44] kid. The kid makes a deal with the horrible guys by agreeing to stoke the fire overnight while they rest and he'll be allowed to come out with them. Daryl takes a bit of pity on him and teaches him

[00:13:55] how to chop wood better so that he can fulfil that task. We find out that we're in Maine because that night after the wood chopping, Daryl goes inside and uses the radio to call Carol, which

[00:14:09] is interesting. I'm sure we'll come back to that. In my notes it just says we find out that the lame kid got killed. Daryl is raging and we see that classic sort of reactionary Daryl Dixon

[00:14:20] where he starts a fight with one of the bad guys who I've called Coach Beard because I thought he looked a bit like an older Coach Beard from Ted Lasso. I don't know what his real name is.

[00:14:30] I kept just writing the bearded guy in my notes, but his name's Juno. Juno? It's that man's name. Juno? Juno. I don't think it's anyone's name. It's a city. Like G-U-N-O? That's what it said in the subtitles. Yeah, Juno is the goddess.

[00:14:46] Oh, okay. It's a city in Alaska. There you go. And it's a Canadian music award. So Daryl and Juno get evicted and we next see them on a boat being held prisoner. We find out the

[00:14:59] prisoners get fed to zombies. They do a version of the get help shtick from Thor and get Daryl out of the cell where he then kicks the ass of everyone around him, frees Juno and the two of

[00:15:15] them make a break for it with a lifeboat, but they are thwarted by a variant. R.I.P. Juno, who is killed by the variant and Daryl jumps from the boat just as it explodes behind him,

[00:15:27] or parts of it explode because we know that it did make it to France. And that is how Daryl ended up in France. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, so I guess Janaye's… they need zombies from the United States for some

[00:15:45] reason. And I think one of the listeners had a theory about that and I can't remember exactly what it was, but maybe… Was it not uncontaminated blood? If everyone's infected, would the people in America not be infected with the variant? The variant? Yeah.

[00:16:05] Yeah, I mean, I don't know because they're… like at the end of this episode, they shot a dart into a Z to turn it into one of these variants, right? So I'm not exactly sure,

[00:16:19] but yeah, maybe the virus… yeah, it's just different in the U.S. and they want a different supply that has different properties or it evolved differently in different regions or something, right? Fresh meat.

[00:16:29] It's kind of the same thing you're saying. Yeah. And they all… it seems they also… yeah, they want live subjects and I didn't realize… yeah, it seems like it's just to feed the ones

[00:16:40] that they decide they want to feed. That's what the people are for, huh? That's it. Yeah, because it's just Daryl and Juno left. When we see the cell, that's the only two that are left there. So everyone else has been fed by that point.

[00:16:54] Well, I think when Daryl escaped, he went around opening doors and… were there no live people? No, he's all Zeds. Was he only letting zombies out? Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So the rules also said no children will be accepted and no elderly

[00:17:12] and none shorter than five foot four. And I presume he's talking about Zeds, not food, live people. So I think they just want the strong ones, I guess, to be super soldiers or whatever, I guess. I think so.

[00:17:29] And it's a pint of gas per Zed or a quart for the fresh ones. So maybe the fresh ones are stronger. It's a bit Mad Max by the way. Gas as currency. Yeah, I quite like that because I suppose it would be valuable at that point. But is

[00:17:43] it ethanol? Is it alcohol that they've used at this point? Have they… I don't know if there's any explanation that makes sense why there would still be cars. Unless you had this refinery ran by a bunch of children, maybe that would help.

[00:17:57] I think that sounds like a really good idea. I don't know. And then the way… So then I just am commenting on this whole flashback. So the way they wrangled the zombies, like all these guys and Daryl got the most,

[00:18:11] I feel like people would have been handling the Zeds this well way before 12 years in in any kind of zombie apocalypse situation where they're slow and dumb. You know, I just always think, I never would have gotten that far. And this sort of brings

[00:18:27] that point home. Like, look, you just put your mind to it. You can just go wrangle up a few. No problem. Yeah. It's like not that part of a job. Yeah. Talking to Carol, it was great to hear her voice. It's quiet, which she's… It's hard for

[00:18:41] her to get used to. But the thing that was most interesting is when he goes, she goes, Hey, Daryl, came back. Yeah. And you're like, who? Wait, who came back? So who do you think? I was thinking it was the rat that she was looking for.

[00:18:56] I was thinking it was Leah. Daryl, stay away, man. Stay away, man. Your girlfriend's back. Yeah. Maybe stay away for two weeks. No, she's dead. Maybe Jesus. I mean, No, I mean the actual Jesus. Yeah. Could be that. Could be… Who else could have come back? Resurrected.

[00:19:21] Heath? He came back. Yeah. So Heath was my first thought, actually. But then I'm sort of like, I don't think they would have Heath come back because I think at this point only us super fans even know who Heath is or that he's kind of disappeared.

[00:19:36] Even within the timeline, would Carol remember? I mean, probably. But it has been like 10 years. Right. I don't even know. That's a good point. She'd be like, Oh, I feel like… Do I know you? I feel like… Wasn't there a guy? There was a guy.

[00:19:47] Kind of a chill black guy. Yeah, he was nice. I mean, they're really wanting us to think it's Rick or Michonne or Anne Michonne. But wouldn't she open with that? You'd think so. But to me, those are the only two that I think would make any sense, except

[00:20:05] a few people online were saying maybe Jadis. And it almost sounded like she said that. I think that's a possibility. One review I read, I think it was Vulture, pointed out that she sounds a bit stilted in this. And

[00:20:20] it's like, is she being held up or something? Like, I don't know the way she… Like some of her dialogue, like, it's very stiff almost. Like, you never have to worry about me,

[00:20:30] Daryl or something. Or I don't know. I'm like, is there a code that we don't know? Is something that she said dropped a hint that something's not right at home? Like, I don't know.

[00:20:39] The only way they could get Melissa McBride to agree to do the voiceover is if she could do it from her car while she was running errands that day. So…

[00:20:47] And she wanted to do it dry. She didn't want to read the lines first. She wanted it to be the first time she read them. She just wanted to improv it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, then I explained everything.

[00:20:56] No, I actually… I saw other people were saying that, like, maybe she was being held at gunpoint or whatever or something, a situation like that. I didn't think so. I don't know. We'll see, I guess. I hope. I would like it to be Rick.

[00:21:10] I'd like it to be Rick. Yeah. And I wonder if she's maybe not telling him because she doesn't want him to hurry or she doesn't want to give it away over the… I don't know. But it would be nice. It would be…

[00:21:19] Yeah. Well, I mean, it's kind of like you get a call on the radio and I don't know, would you say, like, hey, how are you doing, Carol? And she'd be like, Rick came back. I guess you would. You would say that. I mean, yeah.

[00:21:33] So maybe it's not Rick. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I guess we'll see. Could be Michonne. And they're like, oh, that woman who like… Abandoned the children with us. Remember the one who left her children? But so did you. So… Yeah.

[00:21:47] Oh, I don't know. But yeah, I'm intrigued to… It was a good hook, I thought, to have that there. Yeah, it was. It really was. And maybe it'll be someone we didn't even think about and then we'll be like, oh, yeah, of course.

[00:22:01] Someone thought it might be Negan and Maggie. It's Laurie. I feel like it's Laurie. Yeah. Ghost Laurie came back. Yeah. Negan and Maggie. So I don't know. Yeah, no, you're just sort of like… It could be them though. They are the other ones that maybe… RJ came back.

[00:22:18] He ran away and then he came back. Aboard the ship, I really like the setting. The industrial feel of it, the grime, the Zeds growling from every corner, the lab and experimentation going on the cages.

[00:22:35] And then we see it actually headed across the ocean in one long shot, which is great. And then in the cell where they come in and beat a guy and take him and throw him to the Zeds and you could see it.

[00:22:48] That was brutal. I find that quite… This is Terminus level stuff here. It was pretty bleak. It was pretty great. And then how did Daryl fake peaking blood? I guess he bit the inside of his cheek or something like that.

[00:23:01] Yeah, I was trying to figure that out. I was like… And then he gets over there and all of a sudden he turns into Jason Bourne and shoots one in the head. It was pretty great though. Oh my god, it was great.

[00:23:13] Jenny walked in right at that part and she's like, oh, of course Daryl can handle them all. I mean, it did bring up… I don't want to be a party pooper with this question,

[00:23:22] but it is something that I am conscious of when I'm watching this show. I was watching all this and really enjoying it. And same for the final scene, which I'm sure we'll talk about in the

[00:23:31] current timeline. But part of me was like, obviously he's not going to die. I'm just like literally sitting there like, how's he going to get out of this one? And I don't want to be the

[00:23:41] person who's… Because I don't want Daryl to die and I don't think that's the point. Obviously, the show would be shit if it was just he's never in peril. But there was part of me that was like,

[00:23:50] god, imagine how tense this would be if you didn't know for a fact he was going to live. But the thing is, until recently, you always knew the main character was going to make it out of a

[00:23:59] show. It's only until Game of Thrones and even Sopranos or whatever, where they started killing people off. I guess that's 20 years of TV now. But before that, every show you always knew week to

[00:24:13] week that no matter how much peril they were in, they were going to make it through. I still don't know why. But I mean, I guess, yeah, maybe it would be different if I thought there was a chance

[00:24:22] of him dying. But I'm not thinking about that in the moment. When they're holding him over that cage and they're all looking up, I'm like, oh, this is pretty intense. Niamh I found the scene at the end,

[00:24:35] I was like, holy shit, this building it up for this battle royale is like, fucking hell. Travis I loved how they kept cutting back and forth between J'Nai giving her speech and them bringing Daryl out into this arena or whatever and then on

[00:24:49] the boat with this bearded guy, Juno. And I love how he can't read the instructions to lower the lifeboat. And then favorite line. Yeah, like this. We got like, I hope Steve Barr's happy

[00:25:00] because this was one of those variants that runs fast, just like I think we saw in World Beyond, right? And it was fantastic. It's all like gnarled claws and coming up the stairs,

[00:25:12] bopping along the sides with it. And then I love the way yeah, push the guy up against the button. That's all he had to do. He's trying to read the instructions. That was fucking hilarious. Push the button.

[00:25:22] And then he throws him down and rips his guts out and you can see the blood flying back. And then right after you did that horrible thing turns right around at basically us looking right into the camera with his mouth wide open.

[00:25:36] Oh, it was so good. It was so good. And I love the line. Do I look like a fast reader? There's some really snarky lines in this episode. And that was one that I really liked. I actually

[00:25:47] thought the guy that played Juno was quite good. He again, he was homophobic as fuck, but he had a kind of less bad Merle energy that I thought was interesting. And yeah, we had a disagreement watching it because Peter was like, Oh, I think Daryl's more comfortable

[00:26:07] working with bad people than Rick is. And I'm like, I think towards the end, Rick was pretty okay with working with whoever. But I think Daryl didn't used to be a cop. So maybe blends in better.

[00:26:20] I don't know. I feel like he was like, Okay, all I have to do is wrangle zeds and I get gas and he got a bunch and then he's like, Okay, I'll be back with more tomorrow or something. Yeah. And

[00:26:33] I'm like, Hey, you found your calling. Maybe you could hang out here for a while. And it did remind me of when he was with the claimers, you know, so there was even one guy who looked really like one of the claimers. I was like, Oh,

[00:26:43] yeah. So I see where Peter's coming from on that. I mean, Rick, I don't know if he works with bad people, but sometimes he is one. Yeah, that's the thing. I'm like, he sort of doesn't need other people because he kind of wrecks civilizations on his own. Exactly.

[00:26:59] So I wouldn't see if there's Oh, yeah, I wanted to a couple more just quick things on all this. So he smacks it with the fire extinguisher, whatever jumps overboard, and there's explosions in the background for some reason. Why? Why did that happen? Just for coolness.

[00:27:15] Why not? I guess the zombies somehow, I don't know. But then a couple things. So now we know that when Daryl saw this acid zed in the in the organic market in the first episode, he might have

[00:27:28] suspected that J'Nai and her people were responsible because now we know he's seen some shit. Oh, yeah. Right. And also, I wanted to check and see now that we know exactly what happened

[00:27:38] on the ship. What did the captain tell J'Nai that Daryl did at the end of episode one? So going back, we see he explains we were in the Gulf of Cadiz when the prisoner escaped.

[00:27:52] It was beyond our control. They say the prisoner, but as if there weren't a whole bunch of prisoners in the Gulf of Cadiz. So they were near France when this happened. That's off the coast of, if I remember right, Spain. Spain. That's right.

[00:28:08] So then J'Nai turns to the doctor and asks, or a guy in a lab coat or something, what the status is. And he says, our research is largely destroyed. Some of the test subjects may

[00:28:19] still be of use. Whoever did this made a real mess of things for us. So I guess that's where the explosion came in. So saying our research was destroyed is different than saying our test

[00:28:31] subjects were destroyed. So I guess that means there was research going on on the ship too. It wasn't just transporting them somewhere else. Yes. But we know they did do research in France too. We've seen that in a lab in France.

[00:28:48] There was definitely stuff going on with strobe lighting and electricity and things on that. Yeah. So I guess that whatever that explosion, but Darrell, unless I missed something, he didn't directly cause that, but I guess by letting the zombies out somehow.

[00:29:04] Well, I must've missed some listeners. Tell us why. He caused chaos. He let everything out. Like people, staff will have died. I mean, part of me was like, it's amazing anyone on this boat survived. That's true. Yeah. He just, he just fucked stuff up.

[00:29:19] Just fucked it up. He just fucked it right up. I loved it. I thought it was pretty awesome. He caused chaos. Yeah, it was pretty over the top, but I don't know. I was digging it. Okay. What's next?

[00:29:33] All right. For me, little sidebar, the story of Abraham, because I thought it was really interesting that this story was brought up twice in this episode and I thought, because, okay, so first of all, we hear Aslan talking about Abraham. So that's another name for Abraham.

[00:29:54] And he tells Darrell that Abraham became, so these are the lines he says in the Bible, Abraham becomes a pilgrim after the Lord tells him, go from your country and your kindred and

[00:30:03] your father's house to the land that I will show you. And Darrell responds, which I think is a great line. I'm guessing Abraham didn't end up in France. But Aslan and the conversation

[00:30:14] he's having with Darrell is about, I think it's sort of what the episode is about, two loves, because the song that is playing while they're coming down the river in this beautiful opening

[00:30:26] scene, Je Dois M'Aimer, is all about, I've got a link to the lyrics. I'm not going to sing the whole thing for you. I'm so sorry. But it is all about, I have two loves, my country and Paris,

[00:30:39] by them always my heart is radiant. My home is lovely, but the truth I can't deny, the one who holds my heart could only be Paris. One day I'll see her, it's my own special dream.

[00:30:49] I have two loves, this is my home and Paris. And what he and Darrell talk about, I think later, when they're setting up camp, is this idea of your promises being overwhelmed by your connections.

[00:31:03] So what Darrell's promised to do might be sidetracked by what he's doing now. And then Darrell kind of responds to that by saying, if someone dies in someone else's war, it's his

[00:31:13] kids that suffer. So Darrell's trying to keep eyes on the prize of getting home. So there's this idea of Darrell as a pilgrim like Abraham. I mean, when I hear that, Abraham,

[00:31:25] I think about the time I was at Walker Stalker Con and I introduced Seth Gilliam as Father Abraham. And Cindy was like, what did you say? And I was like, I didn't catch that. It's something biblical, right? Yeah. Something like that. So… The other…

[00:31:53] Yes, Quinn then mentions Abraham to Isabel when he is talking about Laurent being literally sent up the river. And he says that Abraham sacrificed his son and was redeemed. So the hint to Isabel

[00:32:11] very much being that he could be redeemed and she could forgive him, which does kind of work in the moment. So I just thought it was interesting because when Quinn first mentioned it, I was like,

[00:32:20] oh shit, Azlan's a bad guy. Oh my God, this is the clue. They're both talking about Abraham. They're both in like a cult or something. And then I was like, no, it's just writing. It's like, okay.

[00:32:31] I guess I don't use parables that much or biblical stories day to day, but I thought it was interesting that it came up twice. Abraham appears in many major religions. He's seen as kind of the common Hebrew patriarch in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So it made sense that

[00:32:49] Azlan and Quinn might both have references to him. And it was his son Isaac who he was going to sacrifice for God, but ended up, I think, sacrificing a sheep instead because he was

[00:33:06] pardoned or freed at the last minute from doing it. Any of our Bible-knowing listeners can correct me if I'm wrong about that because I just learned about this today on Wikipedia. But I thought it

[00:33:17] was interesting that his story came up twice in two different contexts. And I think there is something of kind of a pilgrim narrative to what Daryl is going through. And this idea of suddenly finding yourself caught between two places and two connections. And as someone who has lived

[00:33:37] in a few different places, I can sort of sympathize with that side of not quite feeling at home anywhere and being tied to more than one place. But yeah, I just thought that was cool

[00:33:49] that the writers did that and brought it up twice. I thought Father Abraham slash Gabriel would have approved. Yeah, right. Yeah. There's a lot of religion in the show. So he should come

[00:34:02] visit. He's still alive. Yeah, he is. He's like single dad now with what's her face? Coco. Like he's having a great time. Oh yeah. You just reminded me about Rosita. So sad. Okay, well, I'll talk about my point on Deux Amours then the title and thinking about

[00:34:24] who or what were the two loves it means two loves if you didn't remember that. And yeah, that Josephine Baker song she was American born French dancer and singer famous in the 20s and 30s.

[00:34:35] And the song was about her love for America and Paris where she became a star. And it was her most successful song. And she's also a woman of color. Yeah. And super talented on a literal level

[00:34:51] two loves could be Anna and Isabel for Quinn. But I think the phrase is about just the different things that your heart pulls you to. And, you know, it could be anything. I mean,

[00:35:07] it's specifically about places in the song. But why does a place call to you because of things in that place? So with the flashbacks of Darrell talking to Carol and also Darrell mentioning people, Judith, RJ, Connie, Ezekiel and Carol to Laurent, we're reminded of his

[00:35:27] chosen family back home. But Laurent says he can tell Darrell misses Isabel too. And we can even see I think that Darrell has a bond with Laurent. So he is but like Aslan, he's called he calls him

[00:35:44] a lone wolf who only wants to get back to his pack. That was kind of interesting. And but he's trying to sort of proselytize I feel like to get him No, you, you should have this purpose. Like

[00:35:55] see this watch. It gave me purpose after my family died. And I'm like, well, Darrell has purpose. Like he when Laurent asked him who he prays to, and he says no one and well, what do you believe

[00:36:08] in? And he said something like I believe in pulling my own weight. But pulling your own weight implies you want to do well by the people that you're around, you know, that's about being

[00:36:19] in a group. And that's what Darrell is about is being useful and helpful and protective towards the people that he cares about. And I never felt it's like Aslan, he kind of it kind of bothered

[00:36:33] me. He's like saying, you are aimless and you need a purpose. And I'm like, No, he doesn't need that. He has it already. Yeah, it's just not in this country. Yeah. And Darrell saying, you know,

[00:36:45] when a man dies in someone else's war, it's his kids that suffer. I was sort of wondering if he was sort of referencing Judith and RJ. I don't think he was. Yeah. And causes were never really

[00:36:55] my thing. And this episode is about causes. I feel like Aslan and the Union de l'Espoir have been pulling Darrell into their cause, you know, Isabel just really pressuring him to do this

[00:37:07] thing for them. And of course, Janae, which we'll talk about later has her own big cause that she's trying to bring people into. But just putting all of that aside, I think Darrell has just made an

[00:37:19] authentic bond with Isabel like I think Laurence Wright, he does miss her, he has a bond with her. And maybe he's also got kind of a bond going with Laurent too. But I still at this point,

[00:37:32] I don't know, I just think his heart is back in the Commonwealth, you know, Tasha It wouldn't be true to his character if it wasn't. I think if he was suddenly like, I fucking love friends. Like, I think he's, we're looking at him having these

[00:37:48] like decades long relationships with people, probably the first meaningful family, meaningful and healthy family relationships that Darrell's ever had with people back in the Commonwealth. Like you can't undo that. I think there can be a pull and it can be hard to leave,

[00:38:08] for sure. But… And maybe if he was there longer. Yeah. You know, that maybe or if he fell in love or I don't know, some, you know, the longer you're with people, you can become more bonded with them. But

[00:38:20] he's been there like a couple of months at most. Yeah, he's got kids. I mean, he seems to be the only out of the many parental figures that Judith and RJ have had. He's the only one who seems to feel a bit bad about not being around. So

[00:38:34] massive conjecture there on my part, they might feel bad. I don't know. We'll need to watch the spin off. But yeah, it would be disingenuous, I think to have him not want to go home.

[00:38:44] I think so. And it feels like the people in the show are keep trying to push him to, why do you want to go home so bad? What about everything that's going on here? And

[00:38:54] it kind of bugs me. And I don't know if the show is also trying to say that, but I don't know for sure. But I like that Darrell is sort of like, no, I still don't. I still don't like pray. I still

[00:39:07] I want to get back to my family. That's what I am. So they're not… He's staying firm on it, even though he is, you know, he's like I said, he has a bond with Isabelle and Laurent. And that

[00:39:21] seems real too, but it's not as strong. And that's okay. It doesn't mean anyone's a bad person. And it's just how they are. Yeah, of course. Yeah. It would be weird to me if suddenly he was like,

[00:39:32] oh, I don't care about Carol anymore. I like it here better. Yeah. So I don't know. But he's also the kind of guy that just can't sit at the Commonwealth. He has to go out and be a lone wolf

[00:39:44] for long periods of time, too. He's always been like that, too, on the fringes, as I've said before. I did wonder if there was a hint that he'd been out to California with the guy. He was

[00:39:56] talking about his girl and he's like, I'm going to get this fuel and rescue her and take her to California. And Darrell says something like, what makes you think it's any better there? And I was

[00:40:04] like, he was supposed to be pushing the frontiers. I wonder how far west he got as well as east. Yeah. And then he said something about Texas before. And I think it could just be that he's

[00:40:15] seen enough to think that it's probably no better anywhere else. Or it could be that he's just traveled the whole United States. Who knows? On Ride with Darrell Reedus. That's right. Ride with Darrell Dixon, that would be a different show. Oh yeah. All right. What's next?

[00:40:35] The Wasted Journey on the River, man. It was quite interesting. I quite liked Aslan as an addition. I thought he was interesting. I liked Darrell's concern about Laurent being raised a little soft.

[00:40:50] And I don't think Aslan did a great job of describing the nest by saying he will be nurtured and groomed to be the messiah. I was like, I don't have kids, but I wouldn't send my kids to

[00:40:59] a school where that was the thing. I feel like that's not a good advert. The dock at resting point for the night. And there's this kind of interesting conversation where Darrell is clearly

[00:41:14] trying to teach Laurent to not be a little bitch by showing him how to gut a fish. Because Darrell brings him this fish in a bucket and he's like, Darrell, I got the fish. And Darrell's like,

[00:41:28] great, we're going to eat it. And he's like, what? God says we should not eat our own fish. What do you mean we're going to eat it? I like Laurent much more than you, but this moment I was like, what did you think we were doing?

[00:41:39] What did you think was going to happen? I was just like, imagine Darrell Dixon, man, who's eating raw squirrel. And this kid is like, but we're not supposed to eat meat. And I'm like,

[00:41:52] but it's also the sign of indulgence, isn't it? That he's been…the idea of being a vegetarian in the zombie apocalypse is preposterous because you would eat what you had. Like when you're

[00:42:03] starving, you eat what's there. Like, well, they must have had a farm at the abbey. So he had plenty of food there. And clearly he's always had access to food and been able to have preferences about

[00:42:14] what to eat and not to eat. I was thinking about little Herschel and Judith and Herschel talking about eating bugs and when they're all like sitting down to eat horse or whatever. And I was just like, you little softie. He's like, these tomatoes aren't ripe.

[00:42:30] Yeah, my sandwich is off. And it's like, but then Darrell's like, he says, it's not fair. And then Darrell says a great line, life's not fair, ask the fish, which I thought was very good.

[00:42:44] It felt so weird to hear Darrell then say the names of all the OGs. So he names Judith, RJ, Connie, which is interesting. I know, Connie's high up on the list there. Connie's high up there. Third billing after the kids.

[00:42:57] Third, but a little higher than Ezekiel, a little higher than Carol too. So that's nice. Well, Carol's like when they have a TV show and they save one for…and also starring and

[00:43:08] then they have like one of the bigger stars. Like on Melrose Place. Oh crap, I can't remember the woman's name, but there was one that was like a bigger star and they always put her at the end. And Melissa McBride is Carol.

[00:43:23] But it's nice that Connie's alive. It was nice to have confirmation that those five characters are still going strong. I didn't have any big concerns about any of them, but it was just nice. I'm glad he mentioned her. That was really nice.

[00:43:33] Yeah, it was sweet. And then Laurent says something vaguely creepy while watching the fish that's about to die. He's like, they sound nice. One day we will all be together again. And I was like, does he think the fish is going to eat him?

[00:43:47] Yeah, when you're in heaven, you can tell that fish that you ate it. I was kind of with you on the watch story. I thought that was a bit…I was like, I don't really understand the point of this. It got given a bit of a pointless job.

[00:44:03] I don't know. The show, I don't think intended this, but it's like when someone is really wrapped up in their own experience, and they're not really getting where you're coming from at all. And you're just like, OK, you know, cool. That doesn't really apply to

[00:44:17] me, which you don't say out loud. We miss the attack in which Aslan slips and his back is pierced. It was a nice little death scene. I thought it was quite affecting because, you know, he was like, I'm at peace. And

[00:44:34] Daryl was clearly quite affected by it. Can't say that I found his like, little LOL God has a sense of humor thing very funny. I was like, oh, this is quite bleak.

[00:44:43] Also, I think God having a sense of humor is a big theological issue. It's the plot of one of my favorite books, The Name of the Rose, which everyone should read. It's great. It's all about whether or not God has a sense of humor. It's a big plot.

[00:44:55] I like it. Is that a novel? Yeah, it's Bound Bear to Echo. It was the late 80s, early 90s. It was a film as well with Sean Connery in it. I only watched about half of it. I think it was Christian Slater. It's very good.

[00:45:10] No, the movie wasn't good. The book's great. It's like an older monk takes a younger monk under his wings and sort of teaches him the ways of the monastery. And yeah, there's this big kind

[00:45:22] of theological thing about whether or not God can laugh, which I thought the book obviously explains it a lot better than me. But yeah, it's a really great read. I think either God has no sense of humor or a very dark sense of humor. Yeah.

[00:45:38] I was a bit like, oh, this telephone pole thing's really fucking bleak. But poor Aslan, he gets buried, which is nice. And then Laurent, it turns out, has set the boat free. And we see proper

[00:45:52] angry Daryl, which he has a great screaming, fuck, which is great. But I did find him shouting at Laurent, it's a stupid little ship, really hard to watch. I actually felt really sad for Laurent.

[00:46:04] Yeah, I thought it was really intense. And it was good. Good storytelling. You know, I think for a moment Daryl was embodying his father. He said, you're worthless. Exactly, exactly. And then when Laurent, he looked like he was going to burst out crying, but holding it in. Yeah.

[00:46:27] And I felt like, yeah, this feels real, like something that would really happen. And then he says, well, I just didn't want to lose you basically, right? I don't want to be alone.

[00:46:37] And as he was saying that, I thought, I wonder if Daryl's going to open up to this or if he's just going to stay hard. And he immediately was like, all right, I'm sorry, you're right. Come

[00:46:48] here and give him a hug. And I was like, oh, that really moved me a lot. It was so nice. If you listen to my podcast, you know, this kind of thing really moves me, but it was really well done and really got me.

[00:46:57] It was so nice. And it was so earned. And it just shows that Daryl is a better person than the men that have come before him in his life. And that he understands. And maybe better than he was when he started out on all of this, you know?

[00:47:13] And he understands what a wee kid needs in that moment. It's just like a hug. Although it was a really fucking stupid thing to do. It was. But after that, he's just like, didn't even mention it. Like, yeah, we're still going. It's fine. We'll get there.

[00:47:29] We'll figure it out. And yeah, and it was dumb. It was a really bad mistake, but it was a great scene. Yeah, it was. It was fantastic. They both played the hell out of it. And I really liked it.

[00:47:43] And I liked that it made me feel that discomfort and that sadness. And then that brought me back from it in this kind of satisfying like, oh. Right. But then like Daryl says to Laurent, Isabel is going to be going to the nest to

[00:48:00] look for you there. And Laurent's still like, but I want to stay with you. And I don't know if I believed that. I mean, maybe it's one of those like bird in the hand things. Like, I've got you

[00:48:11] now. I don't know if Isabel is actually going to show up. But you would think that he'd rather be with this woman he spent his whole life with, even if Daryl is super cool. I guess it's that attachment thing of like, Daryl's the one that's there.

[00:48:23] So Isabel's not there at that moment. So he can't like, yeah, I know what you mean, though. It is like, I mean, I would think if I was in his place and basically Isabel's like my mom

[00:48:32] or a mother figure, I'd be like, yeah, I want my mom. I want to be back with my mom. Can we make that happen? Yeah. Well, as it turns out, Laurent, yes, you can because you can send the boat away,

[00:48:44] get picked up by the guys who are looking after you and get driven back to Paris. So in some ways, Laurent actually got everything that he freaking wanted. He's the messiah. He's like the messiah. He's like, yes, this all went exactly according to plan.

[00:49:01] So yeah, they get caught up by the guerrier. Laurent has expressed that he's scared the people at the nest will be mean. He wants to go with Daryl. He drops his freaking Rubik's Cube.

[00:49:14] I hope he probably gets it back. There's a slightly tense scene with some blood spit and some threatened eyeball gouging, but then Laurent surrenders and we don't know what happens next

[00:49:26] until we see them later. And I do I just feel a little bit sad for Aslan. His sacrifice was insane. When Aslan died, I think I must have spaced out for a second because I was like,

[00:49:40] what happened? Did I miss some zombies or something? And then he had fought. Yeah, he'd fought some zombies. Yeah, they did it off screen and you see one outside Daryl's tent.

[00:49:52] So he stabs him through the tent, right? And then he goes out and there's a bunch of dead zombies that Aslan has killed. And I'm like, well, that's dumb because you'd have heard that commotion from your tent. They're right outside. And also we know Daryl puts like cans

[00:50:08] around his camp for an alarm. But even without that, you would have heard it. So whatever, you just have to let that go and consider it part of the Department of Suspension Disbelief. Yeah, I think probably they had it off screen just because

[00:50:22] these episodes pretty packed with stuff already. And they realize that would be we don't want to pad this out with something that we've seen a thousand times on The Walking Dead, just a bunch of zombies attacking. So, okay, fine. So he's there and I actually did kind of

[00:50:41] think it was good to have a little weight to the moment where he said all those years of training and I'm done in by a telephone pole. At least God has a sense of humor. My father worked for

[00:50:51] a phone company all his life. I kind of like that moment. Yeah, fair. And then he gives Daryl the watch and he talked about the watch as giving him purpose. So it is kind of a neat little

[00:51:06] thematic thing that now this is your purpose, Daryl. And it's got a picture of the place Daryl's going inside mostly Michelle, which is the nest. Yeah. And then I'm glad they didn't show Daryl knifing him in the head because I think Walking Dead is learning tasteful when

[00:51:22] to tastefully avoid showing violence. You know, when is it thrilling? And when is it just awful? Glenn and Abraham. Glenn and Gabriel. I mean, Abraham. I mean, which one?

[00:51:33] That's right. Aslan, I mean, it seems just to beat you across the head if you're a geek like us that that's the lion from the Narnia Chronicles, which is Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is a parallel of

[00:51:51] Jesus. And here we have Aslan stuck to a pole, but then again, he's Muslim. So maybe I'm just going over with this. I don't know. They know what they're doing. I think I don't know. Yeah,

[00:52:04] as I did the name of Aslan, I was like, Oh, yeah, what is up with that? So when Laurent tells, he doesn't want to clean the fish. And Daryl says, sometimes you got to do things you don't

[00:52:17] want to do. That just reminds me of now that my kids are of the age where they need to be doing homework. I say that all the time. Like you, I know you don't want to sorry. Sometimes you have

[00:52:33] to do things. It's an important lesson in life. We have to do shit we don't want to do all the time. So you got to get used to that. And so I and I think I mean, ultimately, you have to get to a

[00:52:47] point when you're old enough where you decide I don't want to do this, and I don't need to do this. But you're never going to get to a point where you never have to do anything you don't

[00:52:55] want to do. It was interesting that Jenae tells Laurent later, you'll do what I say, and then you don't have any choice. It's kind of the same thing that Daryl said. But anyway, so Daryl tells him,

[00:53:07] you're gonna have to clean this fish and eat it sucker. And he you know, I thought is he going to resent Daryl for this, but I think he appreciated him for it. You always hear kids

[00:53:18] need structure. And it's true because soon after that he's praying to let me be strong like Daryl. And he you know, cuts the boat free just so he can stay with Daryl. So I think Daryl making him

[00:53:30] do this actually made him feel more connected with Daryl, you know? I think so. And he's been he's been he Daryl's not wrong. He's been super soft, like, yes, super soft. And he knows Yeah, he said, Let me be strong like Joe. So he knows

[00:53:46] this is making him stronger. And I loved also you hear him praying, Dear Lord, I ask that you look over Judith and RJ in America as well as Carol, Connie and Ezekiel. I put them in my prayers

[00:53:57] because Daryl doesn't know how to pray. Really adorable. I mean, I thought a lot of the scenes with LeRoi were really good in this. Yeah, he's a good reactor. Yeah, I think he's he's a sweetie. Okay, he's not always the brightest. Despite what they say about

[00:54:19] him. He's read the Quran. He's read the whole I love that response to like, you're gonna get this fish. Have you read the Quran? Of course, Daryl's not read the freaking Quran. All right, I'm gonna do some interesting points. Sorry. Just Yeah.

[00:54:34] Yeah, that was great. Being his insufferable self. I'm gonna do a fresh point. Do it. Is where Janae is coming from? Yes. So she's holding this event. She's calling it de Gaulle day after French leader Charles de Gaulle.

[00:54:53] And Charles, so I looked up Charles de Gaulle. He was a French general and statesman. He played a key role in World War Two. He you know, when France was occupied by Nazis, he retreated, but then

[00:55:11] became the leader of the force, the movement to fight along the allies to free France. And so he was a hero. Then he retired from politics, but then they brought him back to become the like Prime Minister or President. And he's the president of the Fifth Republic,

[00:55:30] a new constitution, and he granted independence to French colonies like Algeria, widely regarded as one of the greatest French leaders of the 20th century, a symbol of national unity and sovereignty. So he was all about patriotism, about France being sovereign,

[00:55:50] not depending on others independent. And he was a strong charismatic leader that tried to embody the national will and rally the people around a common goal. And so that all is what Janae wants to be and how I don't know how she actually sees herself as that,

[00:56:12] or at least she wants other people to see her that way. But she what the whole point of de Gaulle Day is to unify the people of France under her power, like Charles de Gaulle did. And like Quinn

[00:56:25] says something about de Gaulle said, how do you unify a country where there's 237 varieties of cheese, but that's the task, right? It's all about people coming from different perspectives and

[00:56:36] trying to bring them together into the same causes that theme of causes again. And so she wants to use Laurent as a symbol that just a way to get Union de l'Espoir to be with her by forcing him to

[00:56:48] pretend to support her. And when she said, she said, you know, some people think the Union de l'Espoir is against me, we'll show them the truth that we're all one French people. And he would,

[00:56:58] he said, I don't want to do it or whatever she goes, you're making me angry. It's not a good idea, darling, to make me angry. And he goes, you're not angry, your heart is broken. And she

[00:57:06] stood up and threw her something down on the table all tense. And Nico who's watching with me goes now she's angry. Because Laurent pissed her off. But she said, that's when she said, you'll do what I

[00:57:17] ask you have no other no other choice. And I was thinking this is not a democracy. And then so if Laurent is this symbol of let's bring people from different tribes together, I was trying to figure

[00:57:32] out what's the point of having Darrell in there being in this arena at this event. But I think I get it. He's a symbol of all their enemies that they should unite against. Yeah, because she's

[00:57:45] giving a speech which I'm going to read. But that's a tactic that so many savvy leaders throughout history have used just find some enemy to unite against. And so her speech says, Welcome brave friends brave because you ventured out from St. Denis to the Rive Gauche

[00:58:06] Montmartre to La Chapelle. So that just shows she's really trying to get the whole country. Today we celebrate our rebirth and the rise of the sixth republic. So the fifth republic is the current system in France now that started with Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

[00:58:20] So now she's doing the next one. Today and ever after we will be free and strong and unafraid. We've all felt lost at times far from the life we knew deprived of the people we loved in a hopeless

[00:58:30] world, it would have been so easy to give up but we did not give up. In the name of all those we loved in the name we lost, as we must continue to do not for ourselves but for the future.

[00:58:39] Years from now you will tell your grandchildren that you were here now the day we ushered in a new France, a France free of the tyranny of the elite that welcomes in all friends with hope for

[00:58:50] a future. Because yes, this world is simple. Now there are friends and there are enemies. The enemies want to go back to the way things were when the few controlled the many they took

[00:58:59] everything bringing pain and suffering down on those who could least bear it profiting all the while. I think Quinn is the example of this right? He's got this beautiful place with fruit and pastries and warehouses full of stuff and she's saying, Jenea's saying,

[00:59:17] finally out of greed and hubris they unleash this plague on the world. I don't know if I think that's supposed to be sort of alluding to people like him. I've read a couple of interpretations of like, oh she's admitting that the French started the plague and I'm like,

[00:59:33] don't know who she is. And also she is, fuck all use to Darryl because he can't understand French. But yeah, she's saying out of greed and hubris they unleash this plague on the world and we've

[00:59:43] saw in World Beyond this guy accusing them or that Lab said the dead were born here. So I don't know if she's saying the same thing that they deliberately did this or we don't, it's so

[00:59:57] vague that and maybe it's even bullshit. You're just like I said, just trying to build up this enemy to fight against. But she's saying that whoever these people she's talking about are

[01:00:08] the ones that started this whole thing. And she says, they made us pay for being poor, vulnerable meek. But remember what the Bible says about the meek, the meek inherit the earth is what the Bible

[01:00:20] said. And Darryl's ushered out into this courtyard and everyone's looking down on and she goes, we're not meek anymore. This world is ours now. So today we'll make our enemies pay. We've all felt the anguish. We've all suffered loss, which made me think Laurent said her heart is

[01:00:37] broken. So whatever happened to her is fueling all of this loss, blinds us, loss gives us power. They gave us this disease, but I want you to see today the power our future holds because

[01:00:49] their disease can also be our cure power to the living. So just revving every and while they're all singing the French national anthem and then they sadly none of them can sing power, power.

[01:01:04] So it's weird because she's, she's a populist. She's appealing to the ordinary people who feel their concerns are disregarded by elites, but she's also full of shit. Like a lot of populists are because Charles de Gaulle was more or less about democracy and she's a dictator, a brutal

[01:01:28] dictator. And so, um, I don't know if she sees the irony in that and doesn't care or thinks it's necessary and necessary evil or what? It's interesting as well, cause she uses in kids books that warn against dictatorship and following. So the two I'm thinking of are

[01:01:46] Harry Potter and the Hunger Games in both of those books, the chosen one. So in Harry Potter, it's Harry and in the Hunger Games is Katniss. They are both put in positions by a controlling

[01:02:00] government where they want them to act as a spokesperson to act as though everything is okay when it's not. And I was like, Oh, that's quite interesting. That is quite a trope. I think

[01:02:09] of dictatorships that like, we need you to show face. We need you to do this and you should do that. Um, and I was like, Oh, that fits, that fits with this. Yeah. It's the wrong. And this person

[01:02:20] who's the chosen one, they will, they rise up and because they're, um, in a position where they're focused on by everyone as this dictator wants them to be so that they can smile and say, Oh yeah,

[01:02:33] this person's great. They can take that power that they were just given and turn it against the dictator. Yeah, exactly. That's a good story. So, so then they bring out this, um, zombie and the guy gives Darrell a pretty substantial looking acts and they shoot a

[01:02:55] dart into the zombie and it's shaking like it had a burst of adrenaline and his eyes turned black, which I think the Zed in the lab a couple episodes ago also had black eyes and they take

[01:03:05] the mask off and send him after Darrell all aggro. And I'm thinking Darrell could just chop this thing's head off, right? Why the fuck do they give them a weapon? It's classic James Bond thing of

[01:03:18] like, I'm going to kill you, but I'm just going to make you wait. And you're just like, what? I mean, maybe give him something. Cause an ax we Darrell's a badass. Like did this, whatever

[01:03:31] serum that was injected into the zombie, give it like steel hardened skin or something? That'd be interesting. He swings. I think it just goes clang. I think it's going to be anticlimactic.

[01:03:43] It's just going to run out and it's going to be headed and that's going to be it. It's just going to jump up with the ax. This is when I was a bit like, why are we even anyway?

[01:03:52] Sure. Let's, you know, let's pretend he wants that. He wasn't, she wants the zombie to win, right? Anyway, what are you thinking? So using this like souped up Zed against Darrell, I guess sort of rounds out what she's about. She's convincing all the people to have patriotism

[01:04:14] and she's the leader they need and want. And whoever she deems are their enemies, they should all also hate and then she'll sick her super Zed's on them. So it's like an exercise of her power, I guess, to show that she's powerful. Right? A display of strength.

[01:04:32] Just going to be cut. Oh, well, yeah, I mean, like you said, it's the Darrell show. So even in the preview, maybe I'll lose a toe or something like the preview that like immediately

[01:04:49] after the like fade to black of like, oh shit. It's like, here's a preview of next week's episode and you're like, all right. It's like what if in the preview Darrell wasn't in it and everyone was

[01:04:59] just really sad. Everyone's like, where is he? What? Yeah, just didn't feel like that was going to happen. You might have died. Do you think I missed or got anything wrong with all that?

[01:05:12] No, not at all. Not at all. Have I did I do my Maison Mer point? They really, really leaned into the 1940s aesthetic with the why in TV shows the only microphones available

[01:05:32] are the like oldie timey radio ones. I find that really funny. Like nobody ever finds like my podcast microphone and uses it. They're always like, oh, I just this oldie timey one from the

[01:05:41] 1930s. I'm like, sure, whatever. It's cinematic, I guess. I got excited when I spotted Sylvie and Emil in the queue. Did you see them? I did not. I read that and I was even going to look for it

[01:05:54] the second time and I still missed it. But yeah, it made me wonder because in the scene where they first get to the Demi Monde and I thought it felt like the cantina from Star Wars where they're

[01:06:08] hiring Han Solo and hearing that these Falou, Sylvie and who's the guy? The boyfriends Emil were there made me think about Jabba's palace with Princess Leia and Luke and Lando.

[01:06:27] I was really worried Falou was going to be the zombie or going to be like in prison. So I'm pleased that we did not see him there. I thought Quinn looked ridiculous in his hat. I thought it

[01:06:38] was a really shit look. I was like, shouldn't have worn that hat mate, you look stupid. I'm pretty sure. So I know we'll talk about this more, but just since you mentioned Emil and Sylvie, that the message that Isabel got in her scrambled eggs probably said,

[01:06:54] hey, try to go to this event because we're going to be there. What you up to tonight? Party? Are you coming? Are you busy? Maison Mare? I think it's either them or Anna. I'm not sure what Anna's deal is.

[01:07:10] I know she's mad as fuck at Quinn, which is fine, but I'm also like, is she going to maybe try and help because Laurent does say they're like, you're good or you're nice, but you don't like people to

[01:07:20] know that you're nice. And I'm like, hmm. I was quite surprised when I saw Daryl was in the prison because I was expecting Fulu or somebody, but to just see Daryl there. That was great to just see

[01:07:31] Daryl in the cell. Sorry. He looked so sad in there. He just looked so pathetic. His little suspenders and his little shirt on like, oh. I don't always win, but don't worry. It really

[01:07:46] made me laugh when he was lying on the bench and Quinn was going off on the thing like, I'm going to kill you, you're a piece of shit, sleep with one eye open. And it just like droned into the

[01:07:55] background. I was like, yeah, Daryl doesn't care. I mean, Daryl, I felt like he should say, hey, Laurent fucked it up, dude. It wasn't. Yeah. Your fucking son, by the way, who's not been fathered in any meaningful way. And he's like, yeah, my bad. Someone did point

[01:08:11] out, I think it was Eric Kane in his review that Quinn does not look like he just got the shit kicked out of him like two days ago. What does Eric Kane think of this show? This episode was worse than the Fear of the Walking Dead.

[01:08:25] Oh, wow. Okay. Which coming from Eric Kane is quite damning. Yeah, really? But he really liked Dead City. Okay. Which I thought was interesting because I was less jazzed about Dead City. Me too. Yeah, I don't agree with Eric Kane.

[01:08:39] Yeah, I know. We finally we've diverged in the road. But yeah, I did agree with his point that Quinn should have probably looked a bit more beat up given that he nearly got killed.

[01:08:48] He nearly got killed. Yeah, I thought that this was the bit where I think it started tipping into like, this is so OTT. It's kind of amazing, like with the French flags. And I was like, are we in Les Mis? Are we in like…

[01:08:59] But it gets crazy like that. It's great. For some reason, people think you should never bring up Adolf Hitler. I don't know why, but it's very much like Hitler, where it was just people built up into this fervor, you know?

[01:09:13] Just you can just… it's like one crowd, unified crowd following some insane person. And I had a very big Woodbury flashback when Daryl's standing there with all these people yelling at him and lights and he's about to have to like fight for his life. Me too.

[01:09:31] Which I like, especially with the guy whose name I've forgotten yelling, today you die, Dickson, you die for my brother. Today you die. Oh yeah, Codron. Codron, that's the one. You die, you die, Dickson. I'm like, oh shucks.

[01:09:45] He's like, I didn't do it, dude. Everybody's blaming you for shit. I'm like, oh, stop shouting at me for this crap. It was that chick, I forgot her name. Oh yeah, I wonder what she went up to. I expected to see her, but I was wrong.

[01:09:57] Yeah. Woodbury vibes. Oh, I thought… I did like when he's like getting taken out of the cell and he's like, lunchtime and like a show of sorts. I was like, all right, so they're going to get Darryl, get eaten. So that's good. But yeah, that was kind of

[01:10:17] everything I had about Maison Mea actually. I enjoyed it. I was slightly frustrated that they're back in Paris after like two days, but it's worth it for the story. I'm glad that they're back with Isabelle. I think that's cool.

[01:10:32] No, I didn't mind. I don't know why, but even like you said, the whole trip down the river, what's for nothing, like, yeah, sometimes… Sometimes it is. …it happens. In life. Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about Quinn and Isabelle. I feel like that's…

[01:10:46] Yeah, that's my last point too. …the part we haven't talked about much. You go ahead. Quinn's castle. He got his water lilies, so that's nice. Oh yeah, that's really nice. And I realized maybe he got them for Isabelle. Of course.

[01:10:59] Because you know how Anna was like, why would you want water lilies? I mean, we were trying to be like, could it really just be that simple that he's just a total obsessed sap for her? And yeah, that's all it is.

[01:11:11] Well, it was very Beauty and the Beast, wasn't it? She wakes up… I was slightly gutted that they weren't in like… Which one's the beast in this case? Just kidding. Uh, Marie. I actually fully… I want to be Marie. She was so cool. I was like,

[01:11:24] how is she so stylish? Her hair is amazing and she's wearing that hell out of that jumpsuit. I mean, that was kind of the point that Quinn gets to live back in, you know, 2012 again and

[01:11:35] have everything he wants and have it be all beautiful and nice and upscale. I'd kind of hoped for a minute that we might be in like Versailles or something, but I think it was just a fancy house in Paris. So Isabelle wakes up, she's been

[01:11:49] drugged to help her sleep allegedly to some lovely patisserie. Quinn kind of comes in to try and impress her with the clothes and the patisserie and accuses her of being contrary. He kind of digs about her American friend and she doesn't really give anything away.

[01:12:08] I did love Quinn's… Yeah, like he's a little jello. Like what's going on there? And Quinn has a very Northern English accent and I did like that he calls him the Poo-voi. Poo-voi. The Poo-voi. I spoke to a Poo-voi. I'm like, that's great. Love it. Amazing accent.

[01:12:26] Um, she is kind of hiding behind her vows but probably also is real when she says, you know, she's locked that part of herself way a long time ago. We see her making a shiv

[01:12:38] out of something fancy. Anna comes by, realizes they've shacked up and is not happy. Isabelle puts on a kind of brown pantsuit, drinks some champagne, attempts to kind of seduce Quinn, but he gets in her head with the chat about Abraham and redemption.

[01:12:56] Yeah, and I kind of wondered there because she reached back to grab the shard from the mirror. He knew, right? Frame. Well, I don't know if he knew exactly how much trouble he was in. He had his neck exposed,

[01:13:11] but he could feel at least feel the vibe and know that my work is not done here. I need to continue my manipulative tactics because that's what he is. He's a manipulative bastard. And so he started

[01:13:23] speaking in the language of religion, which and redemption and appealing to he knows how to get to women or maybe people. I don't know. And so he said exactly the right thing that he needed to say

[01:13:36] at least to save his life. I mean, he it's weird because I think that was simultaneously like a skillful in a really fucked up way. But also he's so dumb that he thinks he has a chance to

[01:13:53] get her to eventually come around. Yeah. And he clearly doesn't surprised at all. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next time we see Isabel, I thought this was amazing action from Clemens Posey when she was essentially suicidal. Yeah, in front of the mirror. I was really

[01:14:10] I found that really upsetting. Actually, it was very well done. I'm just like, dude, you told Darryl that as soon as you found a way out and you knew Laura was safe, you would find a way out. That's what I meant to say. And I'm like,

[01:14:25] was that the way you were talking about? Because why don't you wait and just escape? I honestly think I'm going to stick up for her a little bit here. I think the relationship she had with Quinn, I think he's an emotionally abusive boyfriend. And I think,

[01:14:38] I mean, go on, argue that like, yeah, no, he seems really balanced, actually. So why are you saying that? But no, I wonder if it may be triggered something for her major because he talks about

[01:14:47] being the one to find her when she originally attempted to take her own life. And I just wonder if it was maybe something very dark when he started manipulating her again. I don't know.

[01:14:58] I mean, I actually thought it was a bit extreme for her to just go right to I'm going to kill him. Yes. Like, he's not good guy. He's not a good guy. He's keeping her there against her will.

[01:15:11] And he's creepy as fuck and wants to get her to be his girlfriend. That's all very bad. He kidnapped Laura just to manipulate her. But he hasn't like physically hurt anyone, I don't think

[01:15:23] and I mean, I know some listeners will argue yes, he deserves to die. But I'm just like, I don't know if he deserves to be shanked for that. I think maybe she should just try to get out of

[01:15:34] there. But when you add in that, yeah, she just suffered probably all this toxic manipulation from him. And it's a very emotional thing for her. That's probably a big part of it, right?

[01:15:45] I think Yeah, I think she's drawn back to who she was 12 years ago. And that didn't seem to be a very happy person. And I think Yeah, it did seem like I agree that it didn't seem extreme to go

[01:15:57] straight to I thought she was doing it as like a self defense thing where she was going to like fight her way. I didn't think it was going to be as simple as like, I'm going to kill him.

[01:16:04] And he's, I mean, I'm not defending him, but he was surprisingly patient. He's like, so what's gonna take and oh, you're not ready right now. Okay, we'll just wait. You know, I mean, it's totally fucked up. But I expected him to be more like, pressuring and

[01:16:21] insistent versus just like, so how do we move forward here? Also, yeah, you still mad that I like fucked your sister? Because he probably is like, I believe in redemption. And I'm gonna totally turn

[01:16:35] under a new leaf. And I know I'm keeping you against your will here. And I'm asking you to break your vows as a nun and to sleep with me even though you hate me. But other than that, really nice. I like art. And patisserie.

[01:16:49] So he finally gives her some bling that and we find out a little bit about the pillaging that happened in Paris once the zombie plague had arrived. And just that he's been holding on to

[01:17:02] this for 12 years. He really had it bad for her. Had it bad. So she gets some bling and an invite to De Gaulle today. It says you can't look forward if you're looking back. And with that, they are

[01:17:14] off to headquarters together. And clearly, yeah, you're absolutely right. Whoever the friend is told her to be there. Yes, that was those were my notes on Quinn's castle. I'm interested to see

[01:17:30] he's still jailed at this point. I'm interested to see if his days are numbered or if he's going to turn sides or Darryl's gonna kill him. I guess we'll find out.

[01:17:39] Yeah, they didn't like we made a big deal last week of what exactly is Quinn going to do if anything to help Darryl and Lauren get out. And he did. He had one of his men bribe one of those guys

[01:17:50] with wine. So now we know and I guess they handled that pretty well by just sort of telling us what happened. And then I had a point like this, but I went a little further where we see them get to

[01:18:05] De Gaulle day. And I love how that played out. Janay well, he she appealed to his ego saying that she needed guys like him working with her that can get anything or whatever. So it made him

[01:18:17] feel like valuable and useful, I guess. When you get there, he's in this like, kind of dark, dank, looking, scary place like is this where why are we being here? And you hear somebody like being

[01:18:30] beaten severely. And she's like, Janay is like, Oh, hello. Hello, introduce me to your friend. And then you hear this guy die. Yeah. Oh, that guy. He he was supposed to be guarding the city,

[01:18:43] but accepted a bribe. And I love that. And the fact that she made him Isabel fill in the blank of like, oh, how do you say that? Isabel? What did he accept? It's like a bribe. Yeah.

[01:18:55] And it's just she just sort of slowly it was it was a really fun way to let Quinn know that he was fucked. It was a villain masterclass. Thought it was great. And then on as there and you know,

[01:19:09] that she after she went to his place and got rebuffed because Isabel was there. She's like, okay, fine. Fuck this and told Janay that about the bribe, I suppose. Yeah. And then he gets put

[01:19:23] in a cell right next to Gerald. So yeah, I very much Best friends forever. Any other points? Any other points? I've got I love the music and the desolate colors of the river at the start. I thought that was a really cool intro. And 200 kilometers is 124 miles.

[01:19:48] And that's, yeah, that's about what I thought. It's gonna be. I still can't really walk. I don't know. Maybe they could walk but it would take a while. How about you? Yeah, just some notes. Let's

[01:20:04] see. Aslan said, Janay controls the port in La Avra, which we kind of already knew. But he said, Union de les spars leader Losang will help you get a boat home. So we know they have a leader

[01:20:17] named Losang, which I presume will meet if not next week, then maybe next season. Right? I think so. And we don't know if that's a man or woman. There was one part point on the boat where I saw

[01:20:32] one of the guys like the jailers took Darrell's vest, right? And Darrell took it back before he jumped on the boat. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of wish if he hadn't taken it back, that would

[01:20:48] have been a big deal. Like, wow, we just saw the end of Darrell's iconic angel vest. Where is it now? Was it just in his backpack? Yeah, that's right. What do you do? I guess it's too cold

[01:21:00] in France for vests. Yeah. But he wears stuff underneath. I don't know. Yeah, where is it? And then anything else I got here? Oh, I just wanted to mention that I put up a poll in the

[01:21:14] Zed Head group, our private Patreon group about what do you like better, the Darrell show or The Last of Us. And I think everyone except for I think one person said, can you guess? The Last of Us. Yeah.

[01:21:33] And I agree, but maybe there's not a huge gap. I was trying to think I give The Last of Us like a nine out of 10 and Darrell like a seven and a half or eight, you know, pretty close.

[01:21:46] I'm not comparing them as much in my head as I thought it would be. I think it's because Laurent and Ellie are so difficult. It's different, but I'm just trying to think which show is better. I don't know. Maybe it's a juvenile exercise to say which one's

[01:21:59] better. No, I don't think it's juvenile at all. And I think people are talking about it a lot as well. So it's relevant, you know. But it's funny, I just noticed today that I was like,

[01:22:06] oh yeah, I'm not comparing them as much as I thought. I think it's because they're just different. Yeah, there's different cast of characters and different ways of structuring it. And yeah. And I think if we were professional filmmakers too, we would have more language

[01:22:22] to describe just how they make shows feel different because, I mean, they're both probably more similar to each other than they are to most other shows, just in that they're in the freaking zombie apocalypse. Right. But and they're grounded and there's a gruff guy

[01:22:43] with a young person, but there's just ways of presenting things, filming styles. And also HBO has a shit ton more money too. They can go to Edmonton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Infected News. Time for some news. So from an AMC press release, The Walking Dead,

[01:23:07] Donald Dixon has moved ahead of The Walking Dead, Dead City as the number one most viewed premiere of all time on AMC+. But I thought that sounded like a big deal. And then I'm like,

[01:23:17] how many premieres have there been on AMC+, is it? Yeah, it's like when stuff comes out in HBO Max and they're like this and you're like, oh. Yeah. But it's pacing to be the most viewed season

[01:23:28] of any show ever on AMC+. And Sunday's fourth episode of season one of The Dal Show delivered season high ratings on AMC and total viewers in both key demos. So that means it's been growing

[01:23:44] in viewership each week. So that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. And AMC is going to be bringing a special advanced screening of the season finale to New York Comic Con on Thursday, October 12th, where Reedus Zabel, the showrunner David Zabel, Scott Gimble, Greg Nicotero will be in attendance

[01:24:04] for a panel about the series, first and upcoming second seasons. So I'm pretty sure they usually have those panels on YouTube later. So we'll be able to watch that if we want to. We should watch that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be interesting. Next, Entertainment Weekly interviewed

[01:24:23] David Zabel, the showrunner. They said, we have this scene where Daryl's talking to Carol on the radio. What can you say about bringing Melissa McBride and this character into the picture? Although I guess not literally the picture, but into the story. She says she would only agree

[01:24:36] to do it if she could be in her car and on her phone. No, I'm just kidding. She said, we were always excited with any ways that we could kind of kiss up to the legacy show,

[01:24:48] to the franchise and to the history of the characters. And this was obviously a very exciting way because it was the first time in our show where he had actual real life literal contact

[01:24:56] with the world that he was stranded from, and with ostensibly character who's as close to him as anybody. So it was an exciting way to send out a life raft, so to speak, and connect him to what

[01:25:06] everybody knows about his past in the United States. I mean, I liked it. I'm glad it makes it feel more connected to what's come before. Yeah, I think so. It felt really strange,

[01:25:17] but nice to hear their names. That's true. They say Carol breaks up on the radio, but Daryl hears that someone came back. How important is that missing nugget of information? He says, well,

[01:25:30] it is important to what her ongoing story may be. And it is important in terms of what we were thinking is going on in Carol's world at that moment. It's also not what the audience expect

[01:25:40] or anticipates if they're anticipating something. So it means not Rick, I guess. Definitely not Rick Lennie. So ultimately proved to be surprising, but that's all based on the idea that we're going

[01:25:51] to play out that story. So I think Scott Gimple has given him a class on how to answer. How to flip and do interviews. Honestly, see when they start, I'm just like, for God's sake, just say yes or no.

[01:26:02] Yeah, I mean, you can't answer these questions either, but I guess you could just say I can't answer that. If you're playing out that story, does that mean there will be more Carol on the

[01:26:13] horizon? You'll have to watch and see, but we love that character and we want to keep her in the world of the show. So that means yes. So yes, then. At the end of the episode, Daryl is given a weapon

[01:26:24] and the zombie is shot with an injection that turns into a super zombie. What can you say about that injection and what does it do to the undead? Well, it's something we've been hinting at all

[01:26:33] along. There've been clues to it played out throughout the episode prior to this, and it's setting up to be a major obstacle for Daryl in the finale. So it's really setting that

[01:26:42] up, but it's also setting up a world in which it's a little bit of a kiss to world beyond. Because in world beyond, there was a little bit of a suggestion that there were different

[01:26:50] kinds of walkers in France. So we kind of dug into that a little bit in terms of how and why they're different and how they could be a good foil and a good new opponent for Daryl.

[01:26:59] So that's really what that's about. And it plays out fully in the finale. And one more question, they say, what else can you say about next week's season finale? He says, I'm so proud of the season finale. The season finale has it all. It has drama.

[01:27:13] It has tenderness. It has intense action. It has heroism. It has difficult moral choices. It excavates some of Daryl's past, some of which we're familiar with, but some of which is new

[01:27:23] information that we learn about him. That refers to a lot of the things that the fans of the show will remember about his relationship with his brother and his family. So it's a full payoff

[01:27:32] to the larger story of this epic journey through France, but it's also a full payoff to the intimate story of Daryl as this reluctant hero trying to just get back home. And it ends with

[01:27:42] a couple of moments that are pretty jaw dropping. So now that it's been hyped up, we'll be like, I hope not. Just like Daryl writing in his journal, like, sometimes my brother was mean to me. I guess France was okay.

[01:28:00] Maybe France was the people we met along the way. He finally finishes a Rubik's Cube. Yeah, that'll be in season eight. All right. That is our show. C'est tout, episode 544. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. Next episode, we'll do some listener feedback for this episode,

[01:28:32] Daryl Dixon, season one, episode five. Do us a mo'. If you want to write in or leave us a voice message about it, you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com.

[01:28:43] And while you're there, why not check out our other podcast? Have you guys had a chance to listen to the Ahsoka podcast? I know that show wrapped up, but if you didn't know we had a

[01:28:54] podcast, it's pretty brilliant and funny and great. And Jonathan puts tons of Star Wars sound effects in there that make it a lot of fun. So I'd highly recommend checking that out. This episode is made possible by Patreon supporters like Jason Padgett,

[01:29:08] who pledged their support at patreon.com slash Jason Kabassi. So thank you to Jason. Um, if you pledged at $5 or higher, you get a monthly Patreon exclusive podcast called the Zed Head Show. And this month, Randy is leading it and it's going to be something that we've never

[01:29:28] done before. It's going to be improv in the zombie apocalypse. And we're like, improving zombie. I mean, zombie apocalypse characters, and we're recording it tomorrow. Oh, damn it. I want to do that. Oh, you want to do it? I want to do that. What are you doing tomorrow?

[01:29:48] What am I doing tomorrow? I have an open mic tonight. But I mean, I don't know. It depends what time you're recording. I'm sure Randy sent me a message about this and I thought I had replied, but maybe I didn't. No, I did.

[01:29:58] Yeah, shoot. See, I thought you said no, because you're not on there. But if it goes well, Randy's going to do more of these. Amazing. So you should jump on. Excellent. So that's where we are. And that is our show. Thanks for listening. Don't get bit, Brad Sampson.

[01:30:22] You can always throw in an enculé as well in there, which is sometimes like some of the French words to me don't sound harsh enough. You know, like put down bordel, sometimes you just want to

[01:30:31] go. If you say enculé, people are like, whoa, what just happened there? I mean, it literally means to fuck in the ass, basically. So that's like the worst insult that you can have. But you can add that, put down bordel de merde enculé de sa race.

[01:30:49] What happened there?