591: "Say the Word" (TWD S3E5 Rewatch)

[00:00:00] Oh, more chicken for now. Constipated and almost as ugly as you. Holy shit! Yeah, he's a mean one, huh? Look at him. Yeah, now get him down now. Come on. Get him down. Get

[00:00:25] him down. Easy now. Open up, baby. Got him! Yeah! Oh, that way, bro. Come on. Don't give me no shit, boy.

[00:01:06] Hey, Zed Heads. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm not Lucy. I'm Jim. Jim! And this is the cast of us episode 591. And this episode we're covering The Walking Dead season three, episode five, Say the Word.

[00:01:22] And Lucy's out traveling for the next couple of weeks. So we'll have guests. Jim's here to fill in. He's agreed to do the whole episode in a Scottish accent. So here we go. All right. Just kidding. I couldn't do that. No way.

[00:01:41] Well, it would start off maybe a little Scottish and end up like a cross between like bad British and Australian. So that's... Somewhere in there. Nothing real. So we're gonna be talking about season three, episode

[00:01:57] five, Say the Word. Welcome, by the way, Jim. Glad to have you on. Thank you for coming on short notice. That's awesome. I'm excited. Yeah. So I will read the plot summary. It says, and this is... I'm reading this for

[00:02:11] the first time off Wikipedia. Woodbury throws a party to celebrate their success just as a town, culminating in a caged fight between Merle and Martinez. The governor locks his daughter Penny, a walker, inside his room. Michonne rebels, forcing the governor to exile

[00:02:28] her from Woodbury. That's not true. He didn't exile her. She chose to leave. She chose to leave. Lucy, Andrea decides to stay. At the prison, the survivors mourn their losses. Daryl and Maggie find powdered formula to feed Laurie's baby, also known as Judith. Well, I guess

[00:02:47] not yet. Rick grows unhinged and goes on a walker killing rampage. He hears a telephone ring and answers, saying the one word he said this whole episode, hello. Yeah. So what did you think?

[00:03:03] Overall, I... Oh man. So there's a lot that I liked about it, but I think overall I was left frustrated because the way that episode four left off with, of course, the death of

[00:03:21] Laurie, my expectations were we were going to spend a lot of time with that. And they sort of continued that parallel back and forth from the prison to Woodbury. And it left me wanting more because there's lots of really great little bits to this episode

[00:03:39] that I really liked, but was left with... And we'll get into it in a bit, but was just left wanting a little bit more from the episode. You want to be more with Rick after that happened kind of in this case?

[00:03:53] Right. Yeah. So it sort of felt like they were rushing through a lot of stuff that they really could have hit upon, that we didn't get enough of it. I mean, I felt like this episode was more of a Woodbury episode, but just touching base

[00:04:11] back at the prison a little bit as the B story. It felt like the A story was really in Woodbury. In fact, the very first scene was Rick just sitting there panting and not even able to

[00:04:25] hear everyone. He's so aggrieved right after what we saw. I don't know if that was the very first scene. No, no. The first episode because I remember when I first watched this episode, I thought it was, oh, we're going back in time. But it was at Woodbury.

[00:04:38] Oh, yeah, yeah. That's right. It was at Woodbury and... Festivities. Yeah. So when they did go back to that moment, though, I forgot that they actually had cut back to right after Rick came out and did the scene that became 1000 memes. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:54] But anyway, I guess I was looking at it more as a Woodbury episode and evaluating it that way. And with that in mind, I thought it was great. I really like this dynamic of Andrea

[00:05:08] and Michonne at odds over whether the governor's good guy and deciding myself what I would think if I was in their place, really trying to forget what I know about him, forget the things that he's hidden from everyone and just take him from what we've seen, actually

[00:05:25] seen, and then try to evaluate it that way. So I think it's interesting to do that. It's hard to do as a TV watcher, but it makes... I feel like with good writing, it makes what characters do make more sense.

[00:05:39] Well, yeah. No, that's absolutely... I think what made this episode good is the fact that there were so many good acting moments in this. I think David Morrissey, we'll get to the points, but I think David Morrissey is such a... I mean, throughout his performances,

[00:05:56] I really enjoyed, but I think he's such a scene stealer early on. I'm sad that I know where we're going because he's doing such a phenomenal job right now of sort of... We

[00:06:09] know he's off. I mean, obviously we know he's off because of his fish tank TV screens, but he's still playing this 1960s sitcom character dad to a T really well. And you start to feel

[00:06:26] that tension a little bit in this episode, which I really like, where you're sort of waiting for him to go off on somebody, but he hasn't done that yet. So I very much... Yeah. Yeah. Because the scenes with Michonne in this are pretty great.

[00:06:43] Like even with what we know of the governor, that he killed all those soldiers, I think that's by far the worst thing we've seen him do. And it's bad enough that that makes him a bad person, right? There's no question about that. Yeah, sure.

[00:07:00] We know that. We've seen it. But just as far as the character study, we saw him do that. We've seen Penny as a zombie, his daughter. We've seen the heads in the tanks. For me

[00:07:12] anyway, up to this point, and especially if I hadn't read the comic, which I had, but I have to try to forget that too. I would be just going, yeah, this is a bad guy, but

[00:07:21] I'm curious, what makes him tick? How much is he actually invested in this town? And just trying to understand his psychology, because as I've said to Lucy, he's so enigmatic. He keeps everything close to the vest and he wears this mask that... Sometimes he seems

[00:07:41] passionate, but you wonder, he seems like the kind of guy that could totally fool everyone. So you're not sure what you can trust about him. I think the question that, as I've listened to your podcast over the years, I think the

[00:07:54] constant question of Rick and what you would do in a situation like this. Yes, he killed those soldiers, but you can... And that's bad. But I constantly am playing, okay, I'm

[00:08:08] sitting in my house, I'm a teacher, I've lived this normal life. What would I do if I were in a leadership position and I knew that there were soldiers near this town that I've

[00:08:20] helped create? I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but there are things that we would do, Rick, that we... And I think at this stage, when I... Because I was in... I didn't start...

[00:08:32] I listened to the podcast, but I hadn't started watching the show yet when I first... I binged through these episodes. And I remember I hadn't read the comic yet either. So I knew he was

[00:08:43] the bad guy, but I was super curious at how it was going to turn out. I had no idea how it was going to go. And I still am left with this fantastic impression of David Morrissey

[00:08:54] and how he plays his character. So I think he was just so good in this. He's a standout villain. Yeah, for people who didn't remember when Jim was on before, he started listening to the podcast because he was looking for a podcast on the movie

[00:09:09] Misery, which we covered in I think our second or third episode. The Mist. The Mist. Oh, The Mist. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, The Mist. Yeah, yeah. The Mist. Third episode, The Mist. Frank Darabont directed. And then you listened to some of the podcasts

[00:09:22] even though you weren't watching the show. I listened through midway through season four without ever having watched an episode. Wow. That's incredible. No one else has your story. And then I wouldn't watch it weekly until I binged up to it.

[00:09:38] And I can't remember somewhere. The first episode I watched was, we're allowed to spoil a little bit, right? Yeah, anything. The first episode I watched in real time was the last Herschel episode.

[00:09:52] And then I was week to week. But up until that point, I had just listened to your podcast and then spent like a month kind of binging through the first three.

[00:10:00] So this is only the second time I've seen season one, season two, season three, which is I forgotten. Last week as I watched it, because I was supposed to be on last week. And when I watched that episode, there was the only thing I remembered was the end.

[00:10:17] I'd forgotten that T-Dog died. I'd forgotten that Andrew came. When Andrew came back, I was like, holy shit. So it's been a lot of fun rewatching the series just because this part of it isn't so ingrained as we get into kind of midway through season four.

[00:10:35] Yeah, and I feel like getting into four, five, especially six, and then seven and eight, there's going to be so much that I've forgotten completely. Can't wait. But let's get in. Let's stay on track here. And what's your first point for this episode?

[00:10:52] So my first point, I think the thing that I loved about this episode is it was an episode written by, gosh, why am I forgetting? I'm totally going stone blank. Angela Kang wrote it. Angela Kang wrote it and Greg Nicotero directed it.

[00:11:14] And it was this great run that they were on where they did five or six episodes together, and then they kind of stopped doing that. But what I loved about this is it really deals a lot with emotional toll.

[00:11:28] Obviously, Rick is the primary one that's in my mind, but the governor, his emotional toll, we get to see glimpses of it, especially when he's combing his daughter's hair. And then I'm always curious about cultish behavior.

[00:11:50] So the whole idea of the Woodbury arena with fighting at the end of it, and there's this kind of marked scene where we're watching Andrea and the governor, and then this guy puts his kids on his shoulder as they're watching Merle and Martinez get into that fight.

[00:12:15] And I'm just sitting there, and just watching this script kind of go through those emotional turns was really fantastic. Sometimes I get a little down on Andrew Lincoln just because sometimes he can overdo it.

[00:12:32] And I think him overdoing it in this episode is kind of what was called for and watching him deal with that, of course, ending with the famous phone call. It was intense, I felt, on edge watching him. Yeah, every second of that.

[00:12:49] The scene where Glenn comes walking in, and you just see the axe, and it pans up to Rick's face. Bloody. Oh, gosh.

[00:12:58] And then kind of the dichotomy of that is we get to see the governor on the other side of things with his zombie daughter, and he's brushing her hair and trying to play the music, and ends up putting a bag over her head.

[00:13:15] And then we end with the town on the one side of things, and then we end with Rick on the other side of things. And it just kind of – the emotional toll that this episode shows us post the death of two main characters, really.

[00:13:34] And just my side note, my one point from last week's episode I had been on is how pissed I am that T-Dog had to die in that same episode as Laurie. Pisses me off. Yeah, it's almost like he got screwed over right up to the end.

[00:13:48] Yeah, it is. I mean, I think in one sense it can be good – good is maybe the wrong word, but to have two big characters die in one episode just to keep it unpredictable, kind of like Glenn and Abraham.

[00:14:04] But then you do feel like Abraham and T-Dog got short shrifted in the same way. For sure, for sure. And then the other piece to that too, and I think an understated kind of emotional piece to this was Glenn digging the grave. Glenn –

[00:14:21] Yeah. Wishing he'd killed – they'd killed the prisoners on sight. Yes. And the emotional moment between Glenn and Herschel – it's Herschel's one moment in this episode where they're standing opposite sides of a gate, and Glenn says that he would do anything to save the people that he loves.

[00:14:48] And then Herschel puts his hand on the gate on his hand, on Glenn's hand. And that moment just was so touching to me, especially considering where the relationship started to where it is right now.

[00:15:01] So it's – you can tell that Angela Kang has the pulse of the people in this show.

[00:15:10] I know. Yeah, because one of the things I loved about when she took over as showrunner is you felt the characters come through more and more of the emotion of the characters. And this episode has that flavor too. Yes, for sure.

[00:15:24] But yeah, just Glenn saying he wished that all the prisoners – they'd killed them. And then Herschel says, well, Axel and Oscar seem like good guys. And I can understand where Glenn's coming from, but I so admire that Herschel came in with that given what's happened.

[00:15:41] Yeah, yeah. He's fantastic. Scott Wilson in this show was just so amazing. He was. He had that energy at the conventions too. He came up to me after a panel and just like, good job, guy. They're like, oh, thanks, grandpa.

[00:16:03] All right. So you were talking about the arena fight at the end and the cult-like cultishness. And my next point is sort of going to lead up to that. It's called So Far I Still Don't Blame Andrea.

[00:16:22] Because from Andrea's perspective, I think Woodbury seems great and I don't blame her for not going back out into the freaking zombie apocalypse with Michonne. But I keep watching for red flags from her point of view.

[00:16:37] Start off with Milton at this barbecue with coolers and it's like right out of 50s Americana, cold drinks, sunshade umbrellas. They even had unopened champagne, which I guess they must have scavenged from somewhere or repackaged it or something.

[00:16:52] A big party, who wouldn't love that? And then you see Michonne standing there scowling. Honestly, if I can get rid of everything I know about what the governor is really up to.

[00:17:09] I was annoyed with Michonne this episode. It turns out she's right. It must be said. But I think a lot of people were kind of annoyed with the character because we didn't know anything about her yet, except that she just seems pissed off all the time.

[00:17:27] And in hindsight, it's warranted. But in the moment, it's sort of like, God, you don't even know for sure if you're right. And you're just like bumping into people at the party and not apologizing.

[00:17:39] I had an interview with Tanai Gurira after the midseason finale, season three, episode eight. Same weekend I was in Georgia filming the finale. The finale, yeah.

[00:17:50] I remember she was really curious to know how fans were reacting to Michonne. And I told her that we talked a little bit about this issue that some people just saw her as a one-note character, basically.

[00:18:04] But I'm sure once she starts talking more and getting more story that there's going to be more opening up with her. And she agreed. And it was a great interview. And I think if you are curious, you should go listen.

[00:18:14] I didn't get the episode number, but I'll put the link in the show notes. But then after the call, she really wanted to grill me about what are they saying exactly and stuff like that. It was interesting. I wanted to publish that part, but they said I couldn't.

[00:18:27] But anyway, so then we have the governor giving a speech to the Woodbarians that this is a celebration of what they've achieved and also a remembrance of those lost. And I'm like, yeah, that seems like such a good thing for a leader to do to keep inspiring people, but to show respect for what they've had to go through.

[00:18:49] If I was Andrea, I would think that was great. Then Michonne goes and grabs her sword, kills these research Zeds. And the governor, instead of killing her right there, he goes and tells Andrea, hey, this is what Michonne did. She's making people feel uncomfortable. They want her to leave.

[00:19:11] And he doesn't want to force her out, but his back is against the wall. I think that's a pretty reasonable reaction to someone who did what Michonne did. Even if, say, the governor was on the up and up and Michonne was wrong, then this would be the same thing. He would have the same reaction. Go to her friend, try to have her go talk to her.

[00:19:34] And also, I forgot to mention, she put her sword right up against his throat and threatened to kill him. It's pretty bad. Yeah, I mean, and I remember thinking, oh, this is when we're going to see him flip. Yeah. He's pretty reasonable.

[00:19:52] She backs out, she backs out, and Merle comes walking in and Merle's like... Yeah. Is that a problem? No, it's not a problem. Yeah.

[00:20:00] Who knows if he was being totally on the up and up there. So I'm asking myself, why didn't Michonne just leave already? But I'm sure it's because she doesn't want to leave Andrea alone. She wants to get Andrea out too.

[00:20:12] So then Michonne later is talking with Andrea. You know, Andrea goes to talk to her about this because the governor asked her to. Michonne says, no one can leave here. And I'm like, well, maybe that's true. But how do you know that? You haven't seen anyone try to leave.

[00:20:26] And she says, you need to trust me. And then Andrea says, you need to give me more to go on. And I'm like, that is a good... Like, why doesn't Andrea say there were bullet holes in the vehicles of the soldiers that the governor went to get? Isn't it suspicious that he said they got killed by zombies, all of them? Or that one soldier they did bring back that was hurt supposedly died, but they didn't have a funeral for him.

[00:20:48] All these things that she's been cataloging, she doesn't say to Andrea. And I think that's for storytelling purposes, because we want it to be believable that Andrea still believes in the governor. But in story, it's like, yeah, you should be telling her all this stuff. She doesn't know. So Andrea says, I want to give this place a real shot. And Michonne says, I tried. And Andrew says, breaking into houses, that's not trying, that's sabotaging. And I'm like, yeah, that's totally true. But Michonne says that this place is not what they say it is.

[00:21:16] So then you see them at the gate. And it looks like they're, Andrea and Michonne, have decided to leave. And Merle stops them. And he says, it's almost curfew, I'd have to arrange an escort. And now Andrea is getting suspicious. And Michonne's like, see, I love this scene. Because I'm like, yeah, this is a red flag. And then Merle's like, okay, you can go.

[00:21:34] And Merle opens the door. Yeah.

[00:21:58] And I'm like, I don't want to fend for my life outside. And, and then Michonne says, Are you coming or not? And Andrea says, Don't do this. Don't give me an ultimatum. Not after everything. And I thought about Dale at the CDC, you know, Andrea doesn't like ultimatums. And, and yeah, so then I wouldn't go out with Michonne either at this point. And Michonne says, You just slowed me down anyway. And I'm like, damn.

[00:22:22] Well, and the hardest part for me about situations like this is, like, she brings up the best point when she says this is what we were looking for, which is 110% true. Like, if Michonne is who she is, and she showcases who she is, you know, in this episode, you know, with when she gets her sword, hang out for a bit. Maybe she is wrong. And I mean, I get what they're doing. And they've got to drive forward. And of course, they end up at the prison for two seasons.

[00:22:52] But they got to drive forward. So they get her out of there. But I was totally left frustrated by that as well. It always frustrates me when you're there this long. And you are looking for that.

[00:23:03] And yeah, Michonne. Yeah, I feel like it would be more sympathetic to her if she was more like, I'm not sure I trust this guy. Versus I don't trust this guy. Let me find reasons why I'm right. You know what I mean? Versus let me investigate. There's a subtle difference there. But she's already convinced that he's bad. And she just wants to find reasons for it versus just but either way, she's right. So it's kind of hard to argue too hard against her.

[00:23:33] You know what I mean? She's totally right. That should be that should totally be said. So then the governor's flirting with Andrea offers her a drink and some company to console her because her friend left and their arm in arm. And that's another reason it makes sense to me at this point for Andrea to stay. She she looks up to him. She likes him. She likes what he's doing here. The biggest red flag against him is that Michonne had such bad feelings.

[00:24:03] And I think Andrea still is going to keep her eyes open for things. But it's not enough to convince her to let go without any even like I said, Michonne didn't give her any like anything to go on. So then there's this fighting arena, which if I remember right was bigger in the comic, I think was like a whole football field. But zombies chained up Merle and Martinez come into fight kind of remind me of the Darryl show too with Quinn and Darryl at the end there.

[00:24:31] Yep. Yeah. But now Andrea doesn't approve. What the hell is this? Governor's like what? It's a way to blow off steam. You go you go for a jog to blow off steam. This is sick. Well look around. Everyone's having a great time. And that's a good point. Like I mean, that's kind of a broad thing to say. But you see all these it's not something that is hidden in secret. It's all these people who've been enjoying everything else about Woodbury.

[00:25:01] Enjoying this. And Andrea says it's barbaric. I agree. It's barbaric. But also just to be devil's advocate. I'm sure this whole thing was inspired by like ancient Roman gladiators fighting in arenas with fighting lions or fighting each other. Those guys I read up on it a little bit. Some of the fighters were volunteers, but most were enslaved people or criminals. But there's a historical precedent for it anyway of this brutality in the name of entertainment. I don't think it's great. But when you think about it, is it any more barbaric than

[00:25:31] MMA fighting? I don't know. Not really. What am I? What am I? What are my favorite Stephen King books? Novellas is the running man. And I you know, when MMA came out, I was like, Oh God, we're heading there. Yeah. But that's what I remember when I watched this the first time. That's immediately what I thought of. But the caveat though, is that we watch Merle take the teeth out, start to take the teeth out. Yeah. So so I'd say this is much closer to MMA fighting than it

[00:26:01] is to running man because of that. Right. Yeah. Not legal for sure. For sure. And it's very clear the way and I really paid attention to that. I watched it when I was watching it the second time. It's very clear that they're fighting, but they're friendly.

[00:26:16] Yeah. Yeah. It's a good point.

[00:26:43] But the way he's portraying it, and I can't remember what episode you were talking about this in the podcast, but Merle's taken a turn. And we'll ride through the roller coaster of that over the next few episodes as we start to merge these two groups together.

[00:27:02] Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Some big things.

[00:27:25] But no, I mean, I think he's found purpose and a place to belong and feel some pride. And the governor knows how to work Merle. He's putting him in these situations that like Merle clearly enjoys going out and corralling zombies and getting to fuck with Milton and just putting him in situations where he can be his asshole self, but be useful and feel useful.

[00:27:55] So last thing is, I would just say this is the big red flag for Andrea. And I think, yes, it is a red flag as much as I've tried to sort of explain it, but I think it also could be explained. And you know, everyone's enjoying it. The governor has a point that it's not like he's hiding something here. But I feel like probably I can't remember because it's been so long as I see the scene these, but this is probably the point where Andrea starts ignoring red flags.

[00:28:25] That she shouldn't. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. Because we're about to yeah. We're about to head down some paths where she's she very pointedly is just let me let me let me give it some more time.

[00:28:39] Yeah. And a lot of times that's what happens like in cults, like you said. Sure.

[00:28:43] They start off with little things that seem weird, but it's like, oh, you're gonna be open minded. Right. And try out our way of thinking. And then you get used to that. And then they get a little more off until you're doing you're going off trying to kill a celebrity or something.

[00:29:01] Yeah. But I love I love I love the layers, though, of all of this.

[00:29:11] You know, back before we knew where it was going or if we'd read the comics. But I love the layers of you know, you can say what you want about Michonne and she was kind of at this point an annoying character. But there's there's so many different layers to Woodbury right now that.

[00:29:26] And I want to acknowledge that not everyone would agree with that. I'm sure some listeners like she's not annoying. Screw you. So well, I mean, she's a badass.

[00:29:34] Yeah. No, I mean, I you know, her being in the her coming onto the show is kind of like, oh, yeah, I'm not going to do this.

[00:29:40] It's kind of a big deal. And yeah, and she is. She does showcase her being a badass in this episode, which which is always awesome. But yeah, she just is so busy. Yeah. So go on. I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

[00:29:52] Oh, no, no. I just I I'm always fascinated in movies like this, this dystopian society stuff where you're always going to deal with cultish behavior and especially when you can parallel it, you know, with with real life.

[00:30:05] And, you know, not to this is not a political rant by any stretch, but it's it's interesting to see. It maybe becomes more understandable as you see it may be portrayed in real life as we are.

[00:30:18] But some people believe we are right now. You know, it makes it a little easier to understand where these people are coming from when they see something like that, that arena or maybe some other things that they have seen that maybe they go.

[00:30:33] I don't think that. Oh, apples. You know, it's just it's just how behavior that we used to think was crazy gets normalized kind of thing.

[00:30:44] Yeah. You know, we we we put these things in dystopian societies or we put these things in science fiction or we put these things because they're hard to they're hard to contemplate.

[00:30:56] Like this is how real life is. And then you turn on the news and you realize, oh, OK, that guy's got a mannequin of that guy sitting in the car seat next to him. That's strange.

[00:31:06] Yeah. Yeah. Like when I used to this is sort of related to what you're saying. But when I was in a writing program, that was my grad school.

[00:31:14] And so we'd write a bunch of short stories and stuff. And a lot of people sometimes would write things and you'd be like, oh, that's not believable. And they'd be like, well, that really happened.

[00:31:23] And so sometimes the thing that really happens, you just don't buy it in fiction. The crazy things can happen. Yeah. All right. What's your next point?

[00:31:32] All right. So we might as well talk about Darryl in this episode because. Right. Daddy Darryl. Daddy Darryl. Yeah. And I'm not an anti Darryl guy. I never have been. But this episode was strange to me. He immediately goes into Daddy Darryl mode. Rick goes off with his axe and Darryl goes off to find formula. And again, they had opposite reactions to trauma.

[00:32:02] Rick was enraged. Yeah. And Darryl became like, Beth, can you make sure Carl's emotionally okay?

[00:32:10] Yeah. And keep an eye on him. Dad's not doing great. And so we see that initial reaction. He and Maggie. And I do like seeing characters that haven't necessarily been together up to this point together for long periods of time.

[00:32:30] They go to the daycare. And again, a non suspenseful moment full of suspense as they crawl into this daycare and everybody's expecting little baby zombies. Yeah. And we don't get that. But there are a couple amazing little moments that as Darryl's looking over this wall or maybe it was Maggie. I can't remember off the top of my head.

[00:32:54] But they're looking at the wall of names and they stop on Sophie, not Sophia. But they stop on the Sophie name. And then as they creep. Yeah. There are just these. And again, the undercurrent of this episode too that is they think Carol's dead.

[00:33:12] So anyway, we're kind of watching Darryl go through all of this with Carol being potentially dead. And then they find the formula. He shoots. Then he goes back to Darryl mode. He shoots the possum and says dinner.

[00:33:27] And like you said, we don't used to see these two together. But what if Maggie was like, I'll have sex with you, Darryl. Oh, that's her MO. I'm glad that didn't happen. That would have changed everything.

[00:33:45] That would have changed. Yeah. Maybe we would have been rooting for Glenda and I in that episode. It would have changed the whole... But having now moved far ahead into the series, and obviously Darryl has his own spinoff. What I liked about it is that we did get to see him as an actor kind of play a completely different role than he had been playing up to this point.

[00:34:12] There's a little bit of speaking for him in this episode and he does play a main part in that side of things. But it was just such an interesting contrast to what we've been getting from Darryl. And while he's been transforming into more of a member of this team and this family, I again, I didn't remember this, but I wasn't expecting daddy Darryl. I knew daddy Darryl. I knew it was coming, but I didn't realize it was to this. It was such a contrast watching Rick go off with the axe and him go right into what's this kid gonna...

[00:34:39] He literally, I think his first words are, what's this kid gonna eat? And I was like, oh, okay. That's not the person I was expecting to say that with all of these moms. And I guess there weren't any moms. Nevermind, there weren't any moms. Yeah. They're gone. Yeah.

[00:34:54] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed it. I liked... Yeah, he says, because the baby's crying and Herschel says, let me see the baby. And Darryl says, we got to feed it. You got anything the baby can eat? Yeah.

[00:35:09] But I particularly liked this because I like that Judith's first full episode really, is one where Darryl is supremely concerned about her. Yes.

[00:35:24] And I love how that carries to the end of the series where in the final season, he's her primary caretaker at the Commonwealth. It's just, I don't know, there's something about that.

[00:35:33] I'm sure they were probably thinking about this episode when they wrote that for him later on. But he's so nurturing, and he's just determined to get formula. He's like, we ain't losing nobody else. I'm going on a run right now. Let's go. We're losing light. And take with a little second to take care of Carl.

[00:35:53] I kind of also like that he's been Rick's second in command, kind of lately more and more. And now that Rick's out of commission, Darryl just rises right into the leader position. He's telling people orders for how to handle the zombies or something. And I thought that was pretty cool.

[00:36:12] And they're all fine with it. They're all absolutely fine with it. Yeah, nobody's... Yeah, yeah. He's a natural.

[00:36:19] Including Herschel. And see, I put such a weight on Herschel as like the granddad of it all. And he doesn't blink an eye. Whereas with Shane, it was a slightly different story. If somebody came in and tried to direct things, you mean? Yeah.

[00:36:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would like that. He wants to be dominant. So they get the formula. And I asked Chat GPT just out of curiosity, what if they couldn't find the formula?

[00:36:49] What would they do? And I knew Chat GPT would be a little cagey on this, because Chat GPT tries to be really careful not to give bad advice that could cause harm.

[00:36:58] And I'm like, I swear, I'm just doing a podcast on The Walking Dead and I want to know what Darryl could have done. I'm not trying to ask you how to feed my own baby something besides formula.

[00:37:08] And so it finally gave me... Because it said the best thing to do first is to get another woman who's lactating to give her milk as a donor. But that's not an option here.

[00:37:22] And then it said, do formula. But then it said, in a pinch, animal milk, goat or cow milk diluted and with essential nutrients added.

[00:37:31] And I'm like, well, how do you get those nutrients? Could you crush up vitamins? And it said yes, and maybe add some vegetable oil. But of course, don't try any of this at home. You wouldn't know how many vitamins to crush up.

[00:37:41] I'm just saying if they couldn't find formula, they could have at least tried that as a last resort. They kept that possum, maybe milked that possum a little bit.

[00:37:48] Yeah, they cooked the possum. Crush up some vitamins and some possum milk. But they would have had to try cow milk, vitamins or something. But yeah, you shouldn't do that if you're listening to me right now, obviously.

[00:38:01] But then when they get back, the baby's crying and crying really loud. And that totally reminded me of when my son Nico was born. And a lot of times anybody who's had a baby probably knows this.

[00:38:13] The babies have trouble latching onto mom's breast at first. They try, but they just can't get it. And Nico couldn't get it. And the doctor says, you need to not feed him formula, because then he'll just want that. Let him keep trying.

[00:38:29] And for a day, I don't know how long it was. It seemed like forever. He wouldn't latch on and he was just crying and hungry. And it was so hard not to give him the formula. But we eventually finally got it, obviously, because he's still around.

[00:38:44] But Daryl's the first person to ever feed Judith. It was really cute to see him feeding her with the bottle with his big muscles. And then the classic scene of giving her the famous name, Little Ass Kicker. That Little Ass Kicker, yeah.

[00:38:58] That's the most iconic moment, turns out, in this episode. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the part of the episode I knew was coming. Again, just a lot of little... I just didn't realize how full on board he was with becoming the second, becoming a dad, becoming...

[00:39:19] That scene with him holding her there, it was just pretty iconic. And then connected to that, watching, again, kind of paralleling to what the governor was talking about, where he was talking about, we do this to honor the people who died.

[00:39:33] We get that moment where they talk about naming the baby. And we watch Carl run through... The name of every woman who's died on the series. Yeah, yeah. Which was weird, but gave me kind of a pause for each one. Yeah, to think about.

[00:39:50] Yeah. Well, and I mean, of course, as we move on to episode six with the phone calls, some of those names come into play again. I thought it was... It's just sad. It was kind of morbid. And nobody really replied.

[00:40:05] But they're all thinking, I don't think so, Carl. Yeah. But it was... I felt bad for him. Yeah, yeah. Well, I... Yeah. And then he watched his dad go tearing off into the... Poor kid. Yeah, gosh. Yeah. Okay, my next one is the zombies, the Zeds.

[00:40:28] I thought about it a little bit. One interesting thing about this episode, because I always feel like in this series, the zombies come to seem like fodder almost, like pests. And I feel like this is really a milestone for that, because the Wood Barians

[00:40:48] have such a good handle on them. When you see they have this solar powered sound machine to draw them into a pit, which is smart. And then when they do the fighting in the arena, the governor's justifying it by saying, we're reducing them, we're controlling them,

[00:41:04] we're shining a light on the monster under the bed. So he's trying to make people feel better about the situation. That's one of his things as the governor is to try to keep his

[00:41:17] people calm and in good spirits, which I don't think is necessarily nefarious. I think a good leader would try to do that. But anyway... And do it in a way that is real. You don't shy away from it, you're putting the evil in front

[00:41:34] and showing that you can do things to control the evil, I think is a good thing. And Andrea says that makes people think that they're not as dangerous as they are. And I'm like,

[00:41:46] I don't think so. Because if I see a zombie... I mean a zombie. If I see a zombie in the zoo, I don't think the zombie is less dangerous. No, like a lion or something. But anyway,

[00:41:56] but the thing is on a meta level, it's working too. He's making his people not be so freaked out by the zombies, but also us, the Walking Dead audience. And it takes the bite out,

[00:42:08] not pun intended, a little bit. It makes sense on a long running zombie show that the survivors would get better at handling them, but then they would feel like less of a threat. And

[00:42:21] therefore less thrilling and less scary because of it. That's the downside of it. So I think they still find ways to make scary zombie episodes for sure. I feel like when Angela Kang came back,

[00:42:35] she especially paid attention to that. But I feel like this is sort of the start. And this and also how in season three here our characters have gotten so much better at handling them where

[00:42:46] they can go into the prison and clear them all out. Then they start to feel more like pests. Well, and Rick can do it by himself now too. So that's cool. That was a badass scene though. The way it was filmed, just slashing through all their heads.

[00:42:58] Gosh. Well, there were a couple of... It's kind of interesting because I think the two best murder zombie kill scenes were Rick and Michonne. Of course, again, kind of fast forward. A pair made in heaven. Yeah. The Zeds, I think in particular were interesting. There's one that I'm

[00:43:24] assuming we're going to talk about soon. Greg Nicotero directed this. And I think what I liked the most about this is you have kind of the generic character of zombies in the background of every episode. And I think finding different ways to utilize them as a

[00:43:47] character is good when you're doing it in a way that makes sense, which is weird to say in an apocalyptic show like this. But we get to see the arena where they're using them like they would use

[00:44:00] lions in a gladiator arena. And then we see probably the zombie that everybody remembers the most when we finally get to see sort of what Rick is doing at the tail end. And we see the

[00:44:13] zombie that has... Maybe you can help me out with this. Did the zombie drag Laurie somewhere and then eat her? I'm very confused. I don't know, but I don't like it. I think the zombie ate Laurie. And maybe then the

[00:44:30] zombie stumbled out in the hallway. But I was trying to figure out why don't... I never liked that scene and why don't I like it? I think maybe it's because we don't see... If this is what

[00:44:44] zombies do, then you'd think you'd see a lot of zombies with big bellies. But we never see it again. I don't think we ever see it again. So it just feels like this weird one-off thing. Why didn't they just... I mean, it would have

[00:44:55] been gross, but have Rick find her mangled corpse. This is The Walking Dead. They show stuff like that. That's what I was expecting. That's what I was expecting. So when he didn't find her there,

[00:45:08] but we see the weird drag marks around the corner. And then we see the zombie with what I can only imagine is her hair sticking out of his mouth. Yeah. And Rick cut into her so he could confirm that it was Laurie, I presume, right?

[00:45:22] Maybe he was trying to get her ring. I don't know. It was just a really strange way to end that episode. There's a bell in the back of my head saying that maybe there was an alternate

[00:45:36] take on what they were going to do. Did I hear an interview where she said they filmed a zombie? Maybe, yeah, there was something. I can't remember. But I... To go back and listen to our original episode and see if we talked about that.

[00:45:50] And I've been trying hard not to. I want to come into these with a different perspective. Mm-hmm. Me too. It was a weird way to go. It was a weird way. It was sort of farcical, as weird as it is to say,

[00:46:03] to have her being eaten whole by a zombie. I don't think they got the reaction that they were going for from the audience. But maybe listeners have a different take on it. If you do, let us know. So what's the next point? What do you got next?

[00:46:21] So my next point, and I want to come back to David Morrissey because I think he, as I mentioned before, I think he does an amazing job of showcasing goodness while being a pretty insane guy. And I found this interview where he talked a little bit about portraying

[00:46:39] the governor. And he was real big on listening to music to kind of get into the role. But he also would use images to kind of get him into the role. And he said in this interview

[00:46:52] that to get into the governor, he liked to use very mournful pictures. And ironically enough in the interview, he says he liked to look at – and I don't know how this connected to mournful – but he liked to look at good middle America things, things I saw in Georgia.

[00:47:11] He liked to look at pictures of happy married people in Georgia. And then he would combine that in a scrapbook with a British war photographer named Dave McCullin. It made me think of the Civil

[00:47:23] War podcast that we did. To get into the role, he looked at these images, these iconic images from Vietnam and Iraq. And he said many of the most famous images of heartbreak from those wars

[00:47:39] were from this photographer. And he used these images to kind of get into the role of this kind of apocalypse. And as you're watching him portray this character, especially as he's trying to

[00:47:56] temper what he wants to do to Michonne, as he's trying to temper what he's got hiding in his apartment with portraying this kind governor, I find it fascinating that the actor was utilizing these real apocalyptic photographs combined with these happy things that he was seeing

[00:48:19] in the countryside there in Georgia. But it comes out that he's dealing with this. Obviously, we learn more about the governor as we go, about why he is the way that he is. But I think

[00:48:32] we can surmise from the pictures that he started at a certain place and he ended at a certain place, and there was things that happened in between to get him to where he currently is.

[00:48:41] But as he's kind of going through this episode, and I think my expectations were that he was going to end maybe a little harsher initially than he ends up. Again, he does a really nice job of

[00:48:54] starting in one place and ending in one place and still leaving us with questions about what's going to cause him to show a little more of those red flags or just turn into

[00:49:06] the all out kind of insane governor that we see, especially in season four, but later in the season. Yeah, because even if you never read the comic and this is your first time watching the

[00:49:17] show, well, we saw him mow down all those soldiers. And I maintain that that's enough. He didn't need to do anything else in my eyes. I can't see any justification for that. Even with what you're

[00:49:28] saying about you want to protect your city, it's like he didn't know anything about them. I don't know. I just can't come to a place where I can see that being a good strategy.

[00:49:41] It's the same kind of take with Negan down the road. Negan's obviously a lot more harsh, but perspectively, I'm trying to put myself in... Sure. But he's insane though. I mean, I just think that's the clear sign that,

[00:50:00] all right, everything else we're seeing from him, there's something else going on. And I'm kind of going along with what you're saying. When is that going to come out again? I guess is what I'm

[00:50:10] saying. What he did there with those soldiers, when is that behavior going to come out again? How he did the soldiers too. I mean, this wasn't a military... He pulled up in a car, acted like he was... They acted friendly back and then they sniped them all.

[00:50:25] Right. And he had his mercenary guys there with him, so he's convinced them that this is what needs to happen. He's convinced Merle. Was Merle there? Yeah. I can't remember for sure. Martinez was there. I don't know if Merle was there. I don't think Merle was there actually.

[00:50:43] Yeah. Okay. My turn? Yep. So Michonne trying to get the full picture of the governor. So I looked at what Andrea thinks based on what she knows. Michonne's getting little bits and pieces of things. I

[00:50:57] don't think she fully has a full picture because I don't even think I have a full picture, honestly. So how could she? But what she has is this thing about how he went to pick up these soldiers,

[00:51:09] came back, said they were attacked by zombies. She thinks it's unlikely that at least one of them wouldn't have driven away. She sees the bullet holes in the vehicles. In this episode,

[00:51:18] she goes in to get her sword and looks through his notebook. And I looked at it closely to see if there's any incriminating evidence. It's a lot of things about running the town, what supplies

[00:51:28] to get. It says make notes on what to tell the town. They need to stay calm. You could read that as being dishonest, but you could also just read like I was saying before as just trying to frame

[00:51:40] things in a way so that people handle it the best they can. He says, today made me wonder if being the governor or being the main man in charge makes the people feel like they actually

[00:51:53] have someone to look up to slash feel like they're being taken care of. I doubt that. And then he scribbled something out. He says, I believe I'm a good leader. Sometimes I just need to relax.

[00:52:03] I love talking about my town and supporting it, but sometimes I just need to find a way to relax like a bottle of scotch and some classics and natra. So that says he struggles with relaxing.

[00:52:13] He goes overboard with things. We know that he really struggles. He really goes over, but, but, but in this context, looking for clue, Michonne looking for clues, he seems self-aware about it.

[00:52:26] I don't think it's, I think it seems harmless that he would feel like he needs to relax sometimes. Um, he says plan for tomorrow. I grew up always being told to be one step ahead of myself,

[00:52:39] to never stumble, which says he's a perfectionist maybe, which can be good to some extent, but can be a flaw if it's too extreme, but it's still not a huge red flag to me.

[00:52:50] The last or the next page is stuff about roles for running the town, sanitation, judiciary, guards. He says crime has increased 20%. I want my town to be completely crime free update police enforcement, enforce more public security, which sounds nice. It's also a

[00:53:07] perfectionist thing. Uh, food rationing, blah, blah, blah. Uh, next page, he has a list of names, Brian, Bobby, Nick, Alice, Susan, and then at the bottom in bold underlined penny. And then the next several pages are just thousands and thousands of slash marks all neatly lined up.

[00:53:24] This is where it turns into Jack Torrance from the shining, you know, like, uh, this is a red flag. It's just so weird. And you can tell that this is probably a list of

[00:53:35] names of people that died. And after that last one, he, I mean, maybe I know that because I know it, but maybe Michonne figured it out too. The chronology of the notebook too, is interesting, you know? Yeah. Cause he was already setting up the city before she died.

[00:53:50] Is that what you were going to say? Yeah. Yeah. And you can see like, you know, he writes penny there's exclamation points after it, I think, and maybe scribbles underneath it. And then the tally marks, um, that, that come after that,

[00:54:02] which showcase, uh, Jack Torrance is a great, is a great comparison because, uh, I, you know, I've, I remember when I first saw the notebook again, I hadn't read the comics yet. And I was like,

[00:54:15] what are the, I was just tally marks of how many people he's killed. Like what am I looking? What? And then I'm like, oh wait, this is just a guy that is just making marks in a notebook.

[00:54:26] Or maybe it is like, I just thought of this now, but it seems like there's too many marks for this to be true. Cause it's several pages. But what if after Penny died, he didn't think of people

[00:54:38] as human beings anymore? So he just thought of that mark, you know, for every, yeah. I've no names. Yeah. I don't know. Either way. It's crazy. It's a red flag. And so I don't blame Michonne for being suspicious here, but he, she should have said to, um, Andrea,

[00:54:59] he has a list of names and then it's all just three pages of hash marks. And Andrea would be like, so he doodles who cares? Uh, then Michonne finds a bunch of, uh, Zeds caged up and opens it

[00:55:13] and kills them. I'm like, what the hell? You don't know what they're doing here. Why'd you do that? And then, and then, uh, I mean, they're doing research. Come on. I was asking myself at this

[00:55:26] point. So the governor in my view has this zombie daughter that he hopes he can bring back and he wants her to have this idyllic place to live in. And that's his whole thing. Right? So what if he

[00:55:44] was, what if that was it? What if he didn't kill those soldiers? And what if he didn't have this other thing that I feel like I want to explore more cause I don't totally understand it yet,

[00:55:54] but he wants ultimate control. I think just so he can make sure that the place is as perfect as it can be. And in service of that, he'll kill anyone that may or may not be a threat.

[00:56:02] That's the real issue is just having the zombie daughter an issue. It's, it's like Herschel with his family in the barn, right? It's the same exact the same. Yeah. And it's, it's arguable like, yeah, you probably, that's not going to do any good, but it doesn't make

[00:56:19] him an evil person. So the evil part is this, whatever it is that motivates him to kill innocent people, all the other stuff, even the zombie heads in the aquarium, that's not inherently

[00:56:30] evil. The penny thing is not inherently evil. The evil part is killing of innocence and all this other stuff. He could have that without having the killing of innocence. He doesn't, but I was just

[00:56:40] a great parallel to Herschel. It's a great parallel to Herschel though, because Herschel has Herschel's turn sends them to the bar, which is a normal reaction, which is, you know, okay,

[00:56:50] I'm going to go have, I'm going to have, you know, a few shots, maybe a few bottles of liquor. Gosh, I'd never made that parallel before, but it's, it's exactly scenario wise and exactly the same sort of scenario where you're keeping your family, um, thinking that maybe

[00:57:06] they could be cured at some point or another. Now, again, how they go about doing that is a whole different story as we'll find out with Milton down the road. But, but, um, if the

[00:57:16] combing of the hair of your zombie daughter, I can't, I mean, we're both dads. I just, I don't know how I would handle what would happen if something happened to my kids. I could see myself

[00:57:31] going crazy. I just, I just don't ever see me sitting. I don't ever see myself sitting. I don't, I don't know. I, what, what I just remember the first time I watched this episode and I saw that

[00:57:41] scene, I was like, yeah, holy shit. See, I, Bodhi is seven and just the thought of him getting bitten and turning into a zombie makes me feel sad right now. Like, well, and, and, and I could see myself

[00:57:59] wanting to hug him, you know, I don't know if I, I never brush his hair anyway, so I don't know to that, but, but, but so let me go on here. So from governor, from, um, Michonne's protective.

[00:58:11] So then governor's calls her in after she killed all the zombies, have a talk. And here, I think he's still acting like a reasonable leader. He's like, she mentions Penny and he's like, you know

[00:58:23] about Penny, then, you know, I love her. So that was a great true response. Uh, he, she doesn't, Did you get the impression there that he was testing her to see what he knew about Penny?

[00:58:35] I don't know. I felt like he was just trying to, um, he, he, cause he could have kept probing, but he just went on to the next thing and she doesn't know much. Maybe, I mean, I forgot to

[00:58:45] mention, but she heard a noise while she was in there. She knows maybe she figured out that zombie Penny's in there. I don't see how you could, you have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out,

[00:58:53] but anyway, I don't know. So then he says, you know, people follow the rules and whether or not it's true, they believe it's, that's what keeps them alive and you've turned that upside down.

[00:59:03] So he believes in rules and I do think if I remember right, that's where his flaw is just that extreme need for extreme control. But it's such on a spectrum in a society for a society to

[00:59:16] function, you need order and peace and that's why we have laws and if you break the law, there are consequences. And the governor says, you've broken the rules. If I don't do anything, I invite

[00:59:25] anarchy. Totally reasonable thing to say, but where it can go wrong is when rules are extreme or if these laws and rules of society aren't actually to serve the needs of the society, but they're for some other purpose, which is the case here, you know, ulterior motives.

[00:59:42] Then the governor invites Michonne to join his research team. He's doing great leadership skills trying to transmute her aggression into something useful for him that would also be meaningful to her, but she doesn't buy it. Sticks her sword right in his throat and I think she's lucky to

[01:00:02] be alive after something like that. Yeah. She threatened to kill the leader of a society. He could have just told the people and I'm sure they would have reacted a certain way and he

[01:00:13] didn't tell anybody, not even his second. So it could have gone in a whole different direction. And I guess the idea is just Michonne is a really sharp judge of character. She has strong

[01:00:25] instincts about him and what little evidence she has seen lines up with that and she happens to be right. And I know we already talked about it, but she doesn't have any solid evidence, I would say. No, no, no, nothing like she'll get to. She'll get it. Yeah.

[01:00:43] Yeah. So anything else? No, I've got my last point, I guess was, you kind of threw me for a loop at the beginning when you said you looked at this as a wood, I came flying out as episode four really expecting episode five to be.

[01:01:03] They've been kind of going back and forth, I feel like. Yeah. Well, and then they did it in episode four where they were going back and forth. But I mean, one episode will be more focused on Woodbury.

[01:01:12] Yes. Well, and I guess, well, I don't know. It would have been interesting. Anyways, my point is the briefness that we get with the Rick story and how frustrating it was for me. He's great in this

[01:01:25] episode. We just get a taste of it. And obviously it carries on. I mean, we get more of Rick turning into the Rick that we see through from now until really until the new series. We see this Rick

[01:01:48] who is turning into somebody who kind of loses his mind a bit at times. And the only thing... The series is about just putting this man through ultimate hell over and over again. Yeah. Well... And how he just changes from it.

[01:02:08] Well, and when you were looking at it with perspective now, when you see what he loses through his whole life, especially when you look at the new series and I don't want to spoil anything.

[01:02:25] We're going to start being a little more open about spoilers for that series, by the way, just to let listeners know since it's now available overseas. So if you haven't watched it, I recommend you watch it because we might talk about it more.

[01:02:36] Yeah. Well, and just without really giving anything away, he is reacting in a certain way in that series that makes sense sort of. I think as you watch him kind of go from someone who's more idealistic... What he's been through.

[01:02:53] Yeah. Well, and as we're talking about... You guys were talking about his relationship with Lori. I think someone touched upon it. I don't know if it was Lucy, if it was you,

[01:03:03] if it was a caller, I can't remember now, but someone was talking about maybe Rick was just being dutiful at this point and she died giving birth to his daughter, Shane's daughter. What

[01:03:18] kind of reaction are we seeing now? Are we seeing someone who's sad that his wife died? Are we seeing somebody who has that obligation to take care of her and he didn't? And now this is what we get after that.

[01:03:31] Yeah, because I think, and it's become more clear to me during this rewatch, Rick's primary characteristic is just feeling responsibility to take care of everyone, and especially his immediate family. And he really probably feels like a total failure here

[01:03:48] for Lori and T-Dog and Carol, as far as he knows. So it's just driving him crazy that the thing that he's tasked himself to... As his identity, he failed at it. That's what I think.

[01:04:01] Yeah. Yeah. So I do like that we get that... I don't know. There are so many weird things about the episode that they maybe tried to push everything along a little too quickly. The

[01:04:14] phone call is one of them. His wife being completely eaten by a zombie is another one. And it does make me wonder if they just would have played this as a Woodbury episode, maybe not even

[01:04:25] gone back to the prison, let us wait another week and then give us a full episode in the prison to follow that. But they're trying to get a lot in. And it left me wanting a little bit more here,

[01:04:40] especially with regards to Rick, although Andrew Lincoln does a great job in this episode. Yeah. He's so... Yeah, it really is foreshadowing to how dark he'll get because he doesn't stay like this forever in the prison. But this is a low point for sure. He can't even

[01:05:01] hear the people around him right as we pick up right after he just found out what happened. And then he charges in. Glenn finds him all bloody and intense and creepy. And he shoves Glenn. He's

[01:05:12] like feral almost. You think he might hurt Glenn. And then, yeah, he finds that stupid zombie. I only have one more, which is Penny. So Penny, Governor's daughter. And we see him brushing her

[01:05:33] hair. And I think I knew who this was because I'd read the comics. But if you hadn't, you might for a split second be like, what? I thought she was dead. I don't know. Or maybe most people was like,

[01:05:45] that's a zombie right away. I'm not sure. Do you remember? What you thought? I immediately thought it was the zombie. Yeah. The minute he was sitting there brushing, I just remember thinking, oh no. Oh no.

[01:06:02] Oh no. But then some hair comes out and she's like, grabbing at it. It was like, oh. But and then he puts a pillowcase, I think, over her head and holds her and tries to calm her down.

[01:06:13] Hey, it's all right. I'm here. Daddy loves you. And I think probably the first time I saw this, it just was like, oh, that's perverse and twisted. And I was thinking about the governor from the

[01:06:25] comics who's just way more extreme and less developed. But now I'm trying to appreciate it from the viewpoint of a father whose little girl got sick and he doesn't want to believe she's gone forever and won't accept it. Like Herschel, you know, it's sad, it's tragic, it's relatable.

[01:06:43] And it's where all the governor's motivation comes from for everything he does. And it makes him have something in common with Herschel and with Maggie and Beth and really everyone. Like Rick's crazy with grief because he lost Lori. And Daryl's on a mission because he doesn't

[01:07:02] want to lose anyone else. And that's what the governor is doing. It's all about loss of a loved one or not wanting to accept the loss of a loved one. So just thinking about that, this is going

[01:07:15] to be kind of corny, but it just reminds me of something that all of us could be connected by these kinds of things, you know, except we build walls and think of other people as different.

[01:07:30] And if the governor was just more vulnerable and open about what he was going through, then they could all work through it together. But instead he hides it away, locks it up deep inside

[01:07:40] and, you know, tries to manipulate and control everyone and kill the people who are threats. And that's everyone's downfall to the point where he's chopping Herschel's head off. Okay. Well, yeah. The trauma of having to watch your loved ones die without really digging too

[01:08:03] much into the weeds of why the governor is the way that he is. But if you put yourself in that situation, I don't know that I would be able to be in charge of anything ever again in a situation

[01:08:18] like that. I think that you look at Herschel in the comparison, Herschel's family a lot more isolated than the governor's family was, a lot bigger in a sense of it seemed like Herschel was

[01:08:36] more community-driven. So there were lots of people that felt connected to him and he felt connected to... I don't know. It's an interesting parallel and it's an interesting fork in the road to see the differences. And you can kind of throw Carol into that too, because

[01:08:57] she watched Carol's daughter. Well, there was that whole trauma with Carol and her daughter as well. How you handle things when you see loved ones die is... Obviously, you can take different paths.

[01:09:11] Now we're watching Rick. What tethers Rick to the ground is they send Glenn in, and Glenn... Where we go from here is he comes back out. And as you mentioned, this isn't the Rick that we

[01:09:27] get for the whole rest of the prison. And there's reasons why he's more tethered, Herschel being one of those reasons, of course, and Carl, and then ultimately Judith. But that whole relationship with them... And Michonne.

[01:09:39] Yeah, I mean... And Michonne, yeah, yeah. But going back to the governor and that scene specifically, we get an interesting timeline with the governor and why he is who he is, and is extravagant and as hyperbolic as it is. I certainly think that if you are a parent,

[01:10:05] and I don't want to put myself in any politician's shoes, even if you're not, and you have some empathy, you can understand a little bit about why his mind might not be

[01:10:16] where it should be. Now, where it actually is, is probably not great. But there is a threat of understanding. Yeah. And I just felt more tenderly towards him in this moment, forgetting

[01:10:29] everything else I know about him. It's twisted, but also just having him cradle her in his arms, pull her close to him, say, speak in a gentle voice, I'm here. And she did calm down a little,

[01:10:45] which I could see giving him false hope, you know? And also that's another thing that adds to making the zombies less scary. But it just... I don't think I ever felt like that before watching

[01:10:59] this scene where I felt bad for him. And I felt tenderly towards him in a way. And I think that's good, because it helps to understand his character to know that this relationship is central to

[01:11:11] everything that he's doing. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, just fast forward to some of the things, other things that are about to happen. But yeah. Okay, yeah. I don't have any more points.

[01:11:24] Yeah, I don't either. Oh, just the only other thing about this is right after that, he looks out the window and sees Michonne staring up at him. And I think, I don't know why, but I

[01:11:33] think the point of that was she's a threat to everything that he's trying to do here, you know, build a good life for his daughter in this horrible world and bring her back to life. Michonne's the threat to that. Yeah. All right. Do you have any notes?

[01:11:50] The only note, everything we've already talked about, the only note that I wanted to mention was, and I completely lost it. At the beginning, Glenn is digging the grave, and then he tells the prisoners to dig two more. And what's interesting about that... Why? There's not two bodies.

[01:12:12] Well, at the end of it, at the end of the episode, there's three graves with mounds, as though there are bodies in it. And the only... T-Dog would have been the only one they would have buried, right? And did they find T-Dog? Because wasn't he...

[01:12:27] I don't know for sure. But we know they didn't find Carol because she's still alive. Yeah. We know they didn't find Lori. No. Well, she's still down there and maybe they buried the Zed, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't come out yet. So... Yeah.

[01:12:39] Yeah. It was just an interesting little weird piece to that too. I just listened to your podcast from last week. Is it true that Carol was initially supposed to die in this episode?

[01:12:50] Yeah. That's what I read, that it was going to be Carol and a few different people lobbied for her to stay alive. So T-Dog got the axe. Yeah. Come on, man! And I mean...

[01:13:03] I mean, that's... It's just harsh. It's... Yeah. We don't want Carol to be gone at this point. She's the best, but it's just sad to think about. Anything else? Anything else? That was it. Oh, well, the phone call. The phone call was the other thing. Yeah.

[01:13:23] The phone call, which I've seen some memes of the phone call too. We get to watch him go through some of the people that he felt obligated to save. Some people like Jackie, who I hadn't thought about in a bit, end up as part of...

[01:13:36] But no, he only says hello at this point. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We don't hear any of the voices. Yeah. Yeah. We don't hear a voice yet. So we're not really sure what's going on. It's on with that next time.

[01:13:43] Yeah. I mean, it's okay to spoil things, but it didn't happen in this episode. So Daryl... Let's see. Daryl places a Cherokee rose on Carol's grave. Oh, yeah. I really thought Carol was dead at this point watching the show. Me too.

[01:13:58] Especially because of that moment. So then when she came back, it felt a little cheap, honestly. But I'm glad she came back. Glenn's story of early in the apocalypse when the evacuation started, T-Dog drove his church van around to seniors' homes and offered rides. That's another moment I

[01:14:15] remembered. I didn't know it was in this episode, but I just think that's... At least they gave T-Dog that. But what happened to those seniors? Did he drive them somewhere? Or where are they? Maybe they're still in the van somewhere. And Glenn says... T-Dog, where are you?

[01:14:32] He forgot about him. Glenn says T-Dog saved his ass a thousand times. It sounds like Glenn and T-Dog were friends pre-apocalypse. I don't know for sure, but I like to think that and imagine that they had this big friendship. But who knows?

[01:14:46] And it would have been fun to see that play out on screen a little bit. Yes. Yeah, totally. I was just bummed that they brought Merle back and they didn't take that opportunity to have a confrontation between him and T-Dog after everything that happened

[01:15:00] between them. Speaking of Merle, random Merle points, he really seemed to enjoy going out and corralling those Zeds. And when he pulls out the teeth, that was gross. And he's like, don't give me no shit, boy. And I wonder if that was an ad lib by Rooker.

[01:15:19] Let's see. When he called, they were at the gates and they didn't seem like they were going to let Andrea and Michonne go. And then he goes and has a chat with Martinez. And I'm like, what did they say? What did he say? And I imagine he said,

[01:15:36] hey, I think Andrea just wants to know that we'll let them go. So open up the gate. But if they do leave, then just hunt them down and kill them. Okay. All right. But I don't know.

[01:15:49] No, I was very confused by that. I hadn't really thought about it much. But yeah, I can't imagine that the governor wants her to go and to be out there where she could cause trouble. Yeah, I think they do. Don't they go after her? I don't remember.

[01:16:04] They do. They do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They do. The fight in the arena was fun to watch Merle versus Martinez. Merle does one-armed push-ups on his stump arm. And of course he wins. And that was great.

[01:16:19] Did you realize, even though he pulled that tooth out, did you realize that they were all safe, the zombies, the Zeds? Uh, I don't think I did the first time. But I remembered this time.

[01:16:36] Yeah. Yeah. I know the first time I didn't. I actually felt like, oh my God, they're going to kill this other guy. Yeah. Like I thought, oh, Merle, why are you letting yourself be in such a dangerous situation?

[01:16:48] But now we know it's not as dangerous. Although he was beating up Martinez pretty good. Yeah. I had a couple of trivia from the wiki that I thought were good. The Governor's list that Michonne stumbles upon contains the names of several key characters from the novel,

[01:17:03] The Walking Dead, Rise of the Governor. The first three show the names of Brian, Bobby and Nick, as well as the last name on the list, Penny. This suggests the TV series is at least partially

[01:17:12] following the canon history of the governor established in the novel series. This is further backed up by Morsey stating that he read The Rise of the Governor whilst preparing for the role. So if it really does follow the novels, there's something in those novels that's really

[01:17:25] interesting that I always hesitate to spoil because it's kind of a big twist. But if you're curious, it really illuminates something about the governor that you wouldn't realize otherwise. Do you ever read those? I have not. No. Now I'm gonna.

[01:17:40] Next thing, Michonne spots a bag of guns that belonged to Rick while trying to pry open a door in the governor's house as Andrea was in possession of the bag and her weapons were taken

[01:17:48] away by the governor. I just thought that was cool because that bag of guns we followed it around in the first season a lot. For the arena fight Merle donned the same outfit he was first seen

[01:17:59] in when he was introduced in the season one episode, Guts. I did not know that. I didn't know that. They hope they have good laundry service in Missouri. I'm thinking they do. Seems like they do. Yeah. And this episode marks the last time Glenn wears his baseball hat,

[01:18:18] which he wore frequently throughout seasons one and season two. That's what it said in the wiki anyway. But I think his son Herschel has it later, doesn't he? He does. Yeah. So, but at least they saved it. We have something left.

[01:18:34] And only on The Walking Dead is a scene with a father brushing his daughter's hair, a horrific tragedy. Well, follow up with that. Only on The Walking Dead does brushing your daughter's hair end with you putting a bag on your daughter's head. We hope.

[01:18:53] I don't, you could talk to my daughter. I'm pretty sure I haven't done that yet. Try it out. Let us know how it goes. Infected News. All right. Time for some news. Just a couple things.

[01:19:50] Walking Dead proper has been on Netflix for years. I don't know how long, long time. But now AMC is bringing some of the spinoffs and a bunch of other AMC shows to Netflix. First on August

[01:20:05] 19th coming up here, the first season of The Daryl Show and all eight seasons of Fear the Walking Dead. Yay! Will be on Netflix. Thank God. Along with Interview with the Vampire, The Terror, and a bunch more AMC shows. And then on January 13th of next year,

[01:20:22] Dead City and The Ones Who Live are going to be on there. So that'd be cool to have all the shows on there. It's always weird not to have them all. Yeah, it's weird that it's taken this long.

[01:20:33] And then second, San Diego Comic-Con just ended. The Walking Dead had some Comic-Con panels. Norman Reedus was there, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and the two showrunners Eli Journet of Dead City, David Zabel of The Daryl Show, Greg Nicotero was there. I think some of

[01:20:51] the other actors were there. I don't think there was a lot of interesting news. There were some trailers that indicated how things might go, but I don't like to spoil that kind of stuff. So I

[01:21:04] would say just go watch the trailers if you're interested. But the one piece of news that I announced was that it's official that The Daryl Show will be renewed for season three. And hope you don't mind me spoiling this, but it's going to be in Spain.

[01:21:17] So that's cool. I guess he really wants to tour Europe, doesn't he? I know. It's a bit crazy. But I don't know. Will he be with Carol in season three? We don't know. Rick's brother. Right. That comes up a lot now that he's in Europe.

[01:21:36] Yeah. But that's it for the... Oh, we probably have... Karen, she was at Comic-Con and I think she went to all the Walking Dead panels or at least some. So I might do a segment with her next

[01:21:50] time just talking about what it was like to be there. She's great. Yeah, she's great. All right, let's get on to Lister Mones Growns and Grunts. Click, click. I'm a zombie guy. All right. Beth Poleri. I felt bad due to Andrea and Michonne. Both have valid points,

[01:22:12] especially since Michonne didn't have solid evidence of anything. Finding Rick in the hallway was disturbing. It's so hard to see someone unravel like that. Oh, Daryl loves kids. Little ass kicker. That was just a quick summary of the podcast we just did.

[01:22:31] Randy Stevenson says, just a thought came up from a previous episode. You were asking why Andrea and Michonne were let into Woodbury and not the soldiers. I think it's implied at some point that Andrea looks like Penny's mother, which I think might have played a role in the

[01:22:44] governor letting them in. Secondly, I remember back in the day, Jason was disappointed that the arena wasn't bigger. Do you still feel that way? In retrospect, I'd like that everything in The Walking Dead slowly grows, including group sizes, the environments and the consequences.

[01:22:59] Yeah, that's a good point, Randy. I thought of it this time, but I don't think I felt disappointed. I just noted the difference, but you're right. I feel like it's cool that Woodbury is only 75 people and we eventually work our way up to the Commonwealth with 50,000.

[01:23:15] Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. We got a few calls. Here's Steve Brown. Hello, the cast of us. This is Steve, and this is for The Walking Dead, season three, episode five. Say the word. We begin in Woodbury, not telling us what's happening at the prison after

[01:23:36] the birth of Judith and the death of Lori, and we're seeing the governor brushing some little kids' hair. Oh, is this our first glimpse of the governor's zombie daughter? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Darryl, somebody finally... Somebody needs to look after Carl, okay? And you need to

[01:23:56] go on a run. Oh, so Darryl and Maggie go on a run, and Rick looks like he's on a mission. Oh, and this episode is written by Angela Kang and directed by Greg Nicotero. And while the

[01:24:06] Woodburians celebrate, Michonne is in the governor's house. They're going to have a power... a party... party... I can't talk. And Michonne just found the caged up zombies. Well, it's good to know that Michonne has kept up her fighting skills. Ooh, governor. Michonne is fast. Now she's got

[01:24:24] her sword to your throat. She's all personality, that one. Oh, so Andrea wants to stay. Michonne wants to leave. I don't know. I mean, I have to agree with Jason. With what we've seen overtly

[01:24:38] so far, there... yeah, there's some underlying stuff, but Andrea... I can see why she'd want to stay. Oh, Glenn trying to talk reason into Rick when he's holding that axe. Right? He's got the axe,

[01:24:49] not the hatchet yet. Yep. Oh, so this is the... we see Myrtle pulling the tooth out of the one we're going to see later what that's about. These walkers they caught in the pit. Oh, so Maggie and

[01:24:58] Daryl find this house and one of the handprints on the wall looks like Sophie. Does Daryl have some kind of stuffed animal in his hands there as he's looking through the door and they're searching

[01:25:07] the house? Oh, but they find powdered formula. Okay, so Michonne leaves and Andrea stays. Oh, and Daryl's the first one to feed the baby. Yeah. So meanwhile, back to Rick. Is this supposed to be

[01:25:18] the walker who ate Laurie's old fat and stuff? Yeah. Oh, gross. He's gonna cut it open? Meanwhile, back at Woodbury, they're enjoying some glitter skittered as they watch the arena. Gladiatorial games just like Rome. And so Myrtle wins, but... Daryl putting a flower on Carol's grave, but they

[01:25:35] didn't have a body, right? Oh, and this is the first time we have Rick answering the phone. I forgot about this. And that's where the episode ends. On to next week. I remember loving that story in the comics. Rick talking about ghosts on the phone. Yeah.

[01:25:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you eventually went and read them? I did. Yeah. Yeah. I binged them just like I did the first three seasons. Yeah. Loved a lot of the comics. Yeah, they're really good.

[01:26:02] Yeah. I really like them. Kirkman was only 28 when he started writing those. Crazy. Crazy. All right, here's Teej. So hi, this is Teej. Wisconsin feedback for season three, episode five. And the part of the episode that just stuck with me the most was at the very beginning,

[01:26:24] when the governor was brushing Penny's hair and ripped off a bit of her scalp, which was uncomfortable. But I'd be mad too. The moments after that where he was like, holding her and trying to comfort her. I really felt like as a parent,

[01:26:42] I just felt so sympathetic for the governor in that situation. I came I did read the novels, but I can't remember if he feels responsible for Penny being bit probably right? I think

[01:26:56] as parents we all would. And I don't know if that had happened to Logan when he was what, eight, nine years old. If I wouldn't have done anything different, like just get used to the idea

[01:27:08] of a zombie corpse, just hanging out in his room. I mean, it's not actually that different than when he turned a teenager and got a video game set just zoning out in his room all the time. Oh, man,

[01:27:21] that brushing the hair I just really felt for the governor and I don't think I'm supposed to feel sympathetic for him. No, I think yeah, I think that's good. I felt the same way. Yeah. As you

[01:27:33] heard. Yeah, that's great teach. I think you'd be the same but you probably wouldn't kill 15 soldiers. And here's a final call from Carissa. Hey, Jason and Lucy, this is Carissa from PDX. This is my these are my thoughts for the Walking Dead. Season three, episodes four and five.

[01:27:59] Hope that you get this in time for your recording. If not, it's cool. Yeah, episode four was rough with Laurie. It was rougher than I remember. And I'm like, basically in tears. And it reminds me

[01:28:14] that Carl's fate should not have occurred. But whatever. You know, I'm going to continue to clown Laurie good nature Lee and compare her to Michonne. But I mean, for real, she was a really good person.

[01:28:28] And I think she was, you know, a good mom and just not the greatest partner. Rick was willing to move past the thing with Shane willing to move past the fact that the baby was not his. And then

[01:28:43] when she kind of rejected him, when he did what he had to do with Shane, you know, her reaction was just out of pocket. And I don't know if their relationship would have survived. But maybe it

[01:28:54] would have I don't know. He definitely loved her. It's just sad all around. So so for episode five, I feel like Andrea had enough information to be suspect. But Michonne had already left.

[01:29:11] And maybe she felt like she just I think she was just like she said she was tired. And she wanted to stay. So anything after that, she's just going to make excuses to keep staying.

[01:29:22] And yeah, and, and Michonne is just like, a ball of suspicion and intuition. And like, almost like an open wound, ironically, because she seems very closed and hard. But I mean, you know, we find out eventually her backstory. But yeah, I mean, it was definitely too good to

[01:29:48] be true. And Michonne saw it, but just how she came off this was still like, very aggressive and hard. And, and just, I can totally understand why Andrea decided to stay. But after that,

[01:30:06] the whole Walker thing with Merle and Martinez was just weird. And she said it was weird. And she knew it was weird. But you know, she shrugged it off. Anyway, I'm glad I was able to leave a

[01:30:18] message. I hope it's in time for your recording. And I will leave my thoughts for Episode Six. Cool, Chris, I'm glad you called. Good to hear from you. Right. Chantelle Schmale, or Schmale? I apologize. Hey guys, I've never written in before.

[01:30:38] Yay. But I've been a listener for years. This sounds familiar. I found you guys after the cliffhanger in Season Six and I've listened to every episode since. While I'm not participating

[01:30:47] in the rewatch with you, I am listening to your coverage of it right now. Loving it. And I just wanted to point out that I think Laurie does say something too about Rick and her death scene.

[01:30:57] After she gives her speech to Carl, she looks up at the ceiling and whispers something like, good night love or good night my love. I think that's meant for Rick. I couldn't stand that

[01:31:05] character, love the actress though. But in her final moment, she broke my heart instead of utterly pissing me off. When her voice cracked when telling Carl she loved him, my goodness, I cried

[01:31:15] every time. Gosh, that... I gotta check that out. I don't remember that, but you got me curious. Yeah. Let's go watch. My issue with Laurie stems from her wishy-washy behavior. The fact that she quote, cheated on Rick is kind of great because she honestly thought he was dead.

[01:31:33] However, she constantly sent mixed messages to both Rick and Shane. For example, when Rick wanted to retrieve Merle from the roof, Laurie was completely against it. Then when Daryl said he'd do it alone, Laurie said something along the lines of Rick will show you where. That's true.

[01:31:47] Then she went back to being mad about it. A Shane example, she initially told him to stay away from her and her family when they were at the quarry. Then Shane assaults her at the CDC

[01:31:57] and later told her he was going to leave and she argued with him about it. Please stay. Very true. Later, they have the conversation about her pregnancy and she tells him that their relationship was a mistake and that she didn't have feelings for him, that essentially

[01:32:11] she was with him because she thought Rick was dead. Then shortly before he dies, she goes out of her way to tell Shane something along the lines of her possibly having had feelings for him when

[01:32:20] they were together and that the things got confused. She went on to say they'd figure things out about the baby. This was a scene when he was building the platform on the windmill at the farm.

[01:32:32] That conversation set Shane off again and solidified his decision to try and kill Rick. And don't even get me started with the Lady Macbeth of it all. She was a mess. Also, I agree with Tej from Wisconsin. I hate the bottle episodes that just deal

[01:32:46] with Woodbury and the Governor. I skipped them when I did my rewatch, lol. Anyway, thanks for the great podcast and for doing a rewatch of my all-time favorite show. Take care. I like the bottle episodes, just throwing it out there.

[01:33:01] Yeah, those Governor ones. I remember liking them more than most people. I don't think I love them, but I will be curious to know how I respond to them this time. And I think

[01:33:14] we're, Lucy and I are thinking about starting to cover more than one episode at a time. That would be a good candidate, just do those two together. But I want to know what you guys

[01:33:25] think in general if you want us to start covering two or maybe three or four at a time, or if you like it better when we just do singles. So I think I'm going to put a poll up on our Facebook group,

[01:33:37] Podcastica Facebook group at some point soon. So if you want to weigh in on that, check that out. There's a link in the show notes to the group. And also, Chantel, thanks for writing in that

[01:33:48] you've been listening for a long time, finally wrote in. Awesome. Good to hear from you. What do you think, Jim? Should we do more than one at once or just keep going with one at a time?

[01:33:59] So I don't know that now would be the time to do it. Personally, I think that you know, episode by episode while the show is hot, while the show was great, is kind of the way to go. And maybe when we hit that downturn, pre-Angela Kang, maybe yes?

[01:34:18] Season seven and eight. Yeah. But I don't know. Maybe I will say this. There are definitely some episodes that you could probably blend together for sure. Yeah. Those two. Yeah. Like the Governor ones.

[01:34:30] Yeah. I prefer one at a time, but whenever you guys would see fit to maybe blend a couple together that fit together, I think that would be good. I think I do too, but I do want to know what you guys think listening.

[01:34:44] There's something great though about you going episode by episode again. I think down the road when you can bookend your first with your second, I think it'll be an interesting... For people that want to listen to both, I think that will be an interesting kind of...

[01:34:59] And it's harder to do when you start blending things together. Yeah, that's true. And we're all very much looking forward to your episode by episode Fear the Walking Dead rewatch. No! I did cover every single episode of that in one form or another towards the end.

[01:35:18] Just pure rants, which was the most fun. The rants were great. I got to be part of a couple of those. Those were fun. Okay. One more message. Gia from Brooklyn says, Hey Jason and Lucy loving this podcast and the rewatch. Thank you. For some weird reason,

[01:35:32] The Walking Dead is a comfort show for me that I can rewatch over and over and over again, either a focused watching or to just have on in the background when I'm doing mundane tasks like folding laundry. I've heard that from a lot of people about the show.

[01:35:46] My other two comfort shows are British Bake Off. Oh yeah. There was some comedian who said Bake Off has been the thing that's kept them from killing themselves over the last 10 years or something like that. And she says, call me, call the midwife. Go figure. That's another show.

[01:36:05] Anyways, I just wanted to share a little tea dog related anecdote since I've been dreading this episode when we lose him in what feels like such a stupid way. Everyone seems to be floundering

[01:36:14] and making dumb mistakes in this episode, but I guess it's early on and they hadn't quite gotten their shit together yet. Anyway, during early COVID when everyone was on lockdown, I felt especially bad for my oldest child who was just finishing up eighth grade and getting ready to

[01:36:29] start a new high school. We live in New York city where most public kids go to a new high school, not necessarily with your friends from middle school. It's like that in San Francisco too.

[01:36:38] It's a crappy system for a lot of reasons. Anyway, making new friends is hard enough in that situation, but even worse when you're attempting to do it from your bedroom on Zoom.

[01:36:46] My son had been asking me if he could watch the walking dead. So as little consolation and bonding experience during summer 2020, we binged the whole walking dead series up to that point.

[01:36:57] While he was still on the show, my son's favorite character by far was T-dog. And he was devastated when T-dog met his end. Cut to my son's 15th birthday in December of that year, 2020, when it

[01:37:10] still wasn't safe to gather with groups of people and have normal parties. So while we were celebrating at home with just our immediate family, for one of his gifts, I got him a cameo video from

[01:37:20] Irony Singleton. It was the best. He was so funny and gracious and acknowledged how hard it must be to be a teenager during the pandemic. It really made my son's day. What a sweet guy. Not just a

[01:37:31] badass zombie killer with great facial expressions. Anyway, sorry for the random personal story, but I thought it relevant to this week's episode on the rewatch. Take care. That's such a cool story. You've probably heard me talk about Irony Singleton at the conventions. Every time we did

[01:37:47] a panel together, we would cry. Got really emotional. He was just so giving and cool and inspirational. And yeah, I think if you guys ever get a chance, if he still do, I think he does

[01:38:02] conventions every once in a while. If you get a chance to meet him in person, I highly recommend it. Well, I love her story too. My similar story is when I ended up

[01:38:13] taking a job out of state from where my family lives. My son was 13 at the time, and he asked me if he could watch The Walking Dead. And my wife and him would watch the show, and then I would

[01:38:25] watch the show, and then we would spend some time on the phone talking about it. So it's strange to say, but the family aspect of this show, as silly as it is to say, is certainly something that I

[01:38:35] totally get. That's a great story. Yeah, there's a lot of families. It's funny, people who don't know about who aren't into it. If I tell somebody I'm a podcaster, I talk about zombies, some people will look at me like, that's gross, because they don't know.

[01:38:52] And you think of people who are into that are weirdos, they're dark or whatever. But when you're into it, and you go to a convention, or you have your friends, and they're all just cool people. We're not cannibals. Most of us. Oh, God. Which one?

[01:39:08] Yeah, you have to figure out who. All right, that is it. That is our show, episode 591. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you, Jim. That was really fun. I'm glad you came on. Come and do another one sometime. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

[01:39:27] Season or something, that'd be great. Next episode, we'll have The Walking Dead season three, episode six, Hounded. If you want to write in or leave us a voice message about it, you can find all of our contact information at podcastica.com.

[01:39:43] And while you're there, please check out our other podcasts. One I want to mention is one that just started up again recently. Richard Rima and I are back covering Cobra Kai on Cobra Kai Cast. We're having a blast. It's the final season, and I love it.

[01:39:59] Oh, gosh, yeah. You and I come from the same generation where Karate Kid is like, one of those things that are just part of our life. Although you made me watch Karate Kid 4. I could not even call it about it because

[01:40:17] there was nothing kind. You were way more kind than I was. I can respect that. Miyagi was great. Yeah, let's set him up. So, yeah, that movie, Karate Kid, it was my favorite movie for a long time. But for a while,

[01:40:37] I was sort of shy about mentioning it because it's like an 80s kid movie. But now I'm just like, no, the more I think about it and dive into it, I'm like, it's a great movie. And they did so... Listen to the podcast because

[01:40:52] I went back and watched the movies with my kids, and then watched the series and both of my kids have watched it in and out. Maybe not so much as I do, but definitely listen to the podcast. It

[01:41:02] certainly enhances it. There's lots of other podcasts that you really need to go back and listen to or just continue listening to here. We covered all of the movies in separate podcasts on Cobra Kai Cast. So if you are curious, yeah, you could go back and listen.

[01:41:19] I've actually covered that movie several times on different podcasts. But the actor who played Daniel LaRusso, Ralph Macchio, he hesitated on doing that movie. He came from The Outsiders, which was a star-studded cast. Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze.

[01:41:45] Patrick Swayze. It was a launching point for C. Thomas Sowell. Yeah. And I think he thought, I don't want to jeopardize my career, but he loved the script. And it was the director of Rocky. The reason he hesitated was because of the title,

[01:42:04] because it sounds like such a dumb title. And we've gotten used to it now, but he's right. It is a dumb title, The Karate Kid. And I think that's one thing that a lot of people,

[01:42:15] it really shapes their perspective on that movie is just the goofy title. But it's such a beautiful story and it's really grounded. Cobra Kai is done. And if you listen to... Ralph Macchio got away from it after he was

[01:42:31] done doing it. If you ever listened to Elizabeth Shue talk about it, there's a lot of people that tried to distance themselves from it. And then these guys came out with this amazing idea. We talk about perspective a lot as a teacher. There's this wonderful book called,

[01:42:51] I can't remember the name of it, but it looks at the three little pigs from the perspective of the wolf. And when this came out and I started to watch the first episode and you see Johnny's

[01:43:01] perspective, whether it's right or not, it was just such an interesting look at the series and the show. And it not only brought the movies back into play, but it's made talking about The Karate

[01:43:17] Kid, it's made being part of The Karate Kid so much easier for all of the actors. And almost all of them have come back as we sit here with bated breath after I think you've just finished

[01:43:26] the second episode of the series, if I'm correct. We've had through these three, there's blocks of five as we kind of go through wondering who could be next to join the fray as we kind of wrap up

[01:43:40] this part of the story. So plus the movie coming out, which I don't think is connected. I don't really get it. I don't know. We'll see. But I just like, I love that movie personally. But when I went back and

[01:43:50] podcasted about it like three times, I really appreciated it more how it held up. And it's just a special movie in my opinion. And yeah, the show is something else completely, but they really

[01:44:04] show such reverence for it, but made the show that it's its own thing. And yeah, it's recontextualized and there's a lot of role reversal. It's so clever. And it has such a

[01:44:14] good understanding of human psychology and it's funny and goofy. And it's just so much fun. I love it. And we get to see all the bad characters in the same place at the same time. Yeah. It's like the Legion of Doom or something.

[01:44:28] Yeah. All is French, which is kind of weird. Yeah. No, it's great. I love it. So that's a lot of Cobra Kai talk, but this episode is made possible by Patreon supporters like Max Kowalczuk who pledged their support at patreon.com

[01:44:42] slash Jason Kabasi. So thank you so much to Max and everybody else who does that. I really appreciate it. We have a occasional Patreon exclusive podcast called The Zed Head Show. I just recorded one a couple of days ago with Dina and Doty, our top five character crushes.

[01:45:01] And it was really fun. It was kind of vulnerable, but we were very open about it. And that'll be out as soon as I get a chance to edit it. Could Jason's number one be Elizabeth Shue? Just guessing. Don't say anything.

[01:45:14] There is a Karate Kid one in there, but it's not her. Oh, all right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. Don't get bit, Beth Piary.