595: "The Suicide King" (TWD S3E9 Rewatch)

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_07]: The Last of Us, Podcastica

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_08]: The Last of Us

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: A podcast dedicated to the show.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey Zed Heads, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm Lucy.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is The Cast of Us, episode 595.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And this episode we're covering The Walking Dead, season 3, episode 9, The Suicide King.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_02]: We're coming up on number 600 and I think for a special occasion we should cover an episode of The Walking Dead.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_02]: That would be cool, right?

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that would be a really unique thing to do.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we should try to think of something, I haven't thought of it yet.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see, we'll see.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But let's just get right into it. It's The Suicide King.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll read the plot summary and then we'll see what we thought.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Rick and Maggie rescue Daryl and Merle, but I mean I don't know if they would say they rescued Merle.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess it was by accident.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Merle is there by default.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, by accident.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay you're right. Yeah, this doesn't seem like it's going to work out. That's fine.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see ourselves out.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_02]: That was so funny. I thought about you there because we always make fun of Rick when he first was in Alexandria and Michonne had to knock him out.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It reminded me of that. Waving his gun around.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Get out! Who are you?

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Get out of here! What are you doing? You don't belong here!

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh god.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: That's fine.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And Hershel and everyone are just like, hey.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh he's not usually this bad.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, he's usually fine.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean sometimes it gets a little intense but yeah this is really a bad day.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So what did you think watching this one again?

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I always think this has the coolest name of any Walking Dead episode.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_05]: The Suicide King.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I actually looked up why it's called that because I've never understood it.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I've always assumed it's a reference to something that I don't know.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Do you know what a Suicide King is?

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think we might have talked about it on the first time we podcasted about it.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, you've already done it then.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I was going to talk about it again this time too but go ahead.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so I looked up. I figured it was something to do with cards and I love a bit of card symbolism.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a big fan of reading tarot and looking at kind of older ways of interpreting card meanings.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, the Suicide King refers to the King of Hearts.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_05]: And the reason it's called the Suicide King is because it looks on the card like the king is stabbing himself in the head with his own dagger.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_05]: But what he's actually doing is holding the sword ready to strike.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And with that reading in mind, I've just had like a quite a long conversation with Peter about who the Suicide King is in this episode and why this episode is called that.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And I just think it's cool.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I like when the titles are kind of opaque like this.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is it because I was just thinking of it a little less deeply more like all right, who is kind of shooting themselves in the foot here?

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Because you know if you if you're a Suicide King, you're probably going to kill yourself.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you're a king, you're commanding some kind of power and you could.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So looking at it that way, my first thought was the governor was the clear Suicide King.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just sort of ready to go to war.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't even seem to care about his own life.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about. But then I thought Glenn's kind of shooting himself in the foot with Maggie and Rick's shooting himself in the foot by not taking on Tyrese because he could use all the help he can get.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So that that was what I was going to say.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe there's three Suicide Kings in this episode.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I think you're you've got a really good point.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that Rick and the governor, the line between the two is is thinner at points in this season than you'd think.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Just in terms of Rick is not always at his best this season.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_05]: He's he's struggling to find himself and he's not always making good decisions.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And very occasionally like if I was Tyrese and Sasha and I left the prison where this guy's like screaming at the ceiling and got Woodbury,

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_05]: where admittedly things are a bit weird but not that weird.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'd probably pick Woodbury as well.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's yeah, I think there is an element of shooting himself in the foot there.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we just wrapped the first part of the three part Cobra Kai season and the final season.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And right now there's no villains in the story.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're sowing a lot of conflict by having the characters that we like and care about go against each other for various reasons.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think when it when a show does that or when it happens in real life,

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of times it's because of your own inner demons or things where you shoot yourself in the foot.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think where if you just got over yourself or you healed or, you know,

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: worked it out with yourself and got clarity that you would handle things in a much better way and there would be a lot less conflict.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't make for a very good TV. But, you know, that's that's what it's about.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's some of that going on here to a lot of the things that happen on The Walking Dead that are bad or just because of people's inner demons, which I think is pretty realistic.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like we always say people rarely think of themselves as villains.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: They think of themselves as righteous for whatever flawed reason that they're driven by their own wounds and everything.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm hmm. No, I agree with that completely.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, I loved it as an episode.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Really liked coming back to it and not having the massive break between the end of the season, mid-season finale and the start of the second part of the season.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. So I'm excited to talk about it.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_05]: The other thing that I did this weekend was I reread some of the J Bannon Singha Governor series.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Because I made the mistake of watching any listeners in the UK.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a really cute sitcom that's just aired on the BBC called Daddy Issues and it features David Morrissey as like this bumbling, comedic, terrible father and his like 25 year old daughter who ends up having a baby.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_05]: And he's so cute in it. It's this like adorable older dad figure.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, I need to get back in the Governor mindset because this is too much.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_05]: It's too weird watching the two different ones.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_05]: So I went back and read some of the J Bannon Singha stuff.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_05]: So there were a couple of little nods to Canon in this episode that I enjoyed picking up on and watching it again.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, J Bannon Singha wrote those books and he was such a great friend to me throughout.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Walker Stalker just such a good guy.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Had him on at least once with Melissa Hutchison.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe we should ask him what would you think?

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Would you want to have him come on while we're talking about the Governor?

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I would love to.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: See if he wants to. I don't know if he will.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Like right now, there's a movie coming out based on a book of his.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's called The Killer's Game.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It stars Dave Bautista and Pom Klementiev, Ben Kingsley.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think he's probably maybe he would want to come on and talk about that a little bit too.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. No promises.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'll ask because he's totally delightful.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We can ask him questions about how he thought, you know,

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: what it was like for him to see the Governor realized on screen and know that David Morse,

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_02]: he used his books and all that kind of thing.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I would love that. I think that'd be brilliant.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_05]: He's a very evocative writer and yeah, it was very good.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_05]: It was cool to go back into those books.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. We'll see. That would be cool.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: With you said it was great to jump right into this and not have to wait,

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, after the midseason finale and everything.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And it made me remember I feel like I didn't like the second half as well as the first half of season three.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But I can't remember if that started with this episode or not, because I like this episode this time.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it had a lot of variation, you know, some warm moments and crazy, some tense, some thrilling.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was a really good episode.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I don't know if I've just changed my mind or if the episodes that aren't so great come after this.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember?

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't. I actually don't. Yeah.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so we're doing our new thing where only one of us does like full prep and that was me this time.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to go into my thing.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: First one, Governor at war. And, you know, just the Governor.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what's going on in his head? I think it's pretty simple in his mind.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Michonne just killed his whole reason for being and now he just wants revenge.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He says we're at war now at some point.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, why did he get Merle and Darrell to fight?

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's mostly it's kind of an instinctual thing probably, but it's mostly about rallying his people like, look, here's some terrorists.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_02]: One of them was had infiltrated our group and he's a traitor.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And so let's direct our anger at them, set them against each other and get us all riled up so we can then end up going fight them.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, something I forgot is that he's pissed because Merle lied about Michonne being dead.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's why he's upset at Merle.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's because as soon as Michonne showed up or no, Michonne showed up.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They had the fight, the Governor Michonne. But as soon as the Governor saw Merle after that, he was like, you fucking lied to me.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: That was on his face. Yeah.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wonder because he said the governor said if, you know, whoever wins will set them free.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, does he really mean that? I mean, if he did, it would be like a Michonne thing.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Set him free and then go after him and kill him. Yeah.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But what if Merle, I wondered what if Merle just went, all right, I'm sorry, I'm loyal.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And he chopped Darrell's head off. Would the governor take him back then?

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter. I doubt it.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Probably not. Yeah. And then Merle, you know, they tried to make us think that he was going to fight Darrell.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But then he says, follow my lead. And then I don't know what he was going to do.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: The Zeds came in. So that made it actually easier for them to get up to some shenanigans because they didn't have to pretend to fight each other anymore.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: They could at least just fend off the Zeds.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But then our group came in, you know, with the smoke bombs and shooting the zombies and everything.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So whatever Merle was about to do, he didn't really need to do. He could just like escape in the smoke. Yeah.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Saved by the cavalry. You probably don't know what a cavalry is. It's an American thing.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Cavalry? What? I know what cavalry is. Oh, sorry, sorry.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_04]: It's soldiers, right? I don't know. I don't know.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It's people that come in and save you at the last minute. That's all I know.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_05]: We invented that shit. I don't know if we invented that shit. I have no idea.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that the governor, there was chaos all around him and he was just walking calmly.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that was such a great choice rather than him just screaming, get them or something like that.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Because A is just comes off more creepy and sinister. But B, it fits with his personality.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_02]: We know he responds to all the trauma in his life by just burying that emotion deep inside and becoming focused on his actions.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: As you know. So yeah, that's it.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I just love David Morrissey in this role so much.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the things watching him in such a comedic role when I binge watched that little sitcom last weekend, I was like, God damn it.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_05]: This guy has range. And although they don't go to the full extent of the madness of the governor in the comics,

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I think what they do with him is just perfectly pitched for where the show was at.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_05]: At this point, I feel like the show hasn't gone full comic book.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember when later in season four when Abraham, Rosita and Eugene show up, that felt like the moment where it went full.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_05]: It was like a panel of the comic book had just walked in.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think at this point, if they'd come in with the governor as he is in the comic, it would have been too much.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think what they did with David Morrissey and those character choices like having him just calmly walk through the chaos are just perfect.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I think they work so well.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, there are comic booky moments like the show and her first scene, you know.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But you're right. I think I agree with you.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like if they just suddenly brought forward Alpha and Beta, it would be so out of left field, you know, characters like that at this point.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of fits in the story of the apocalypse because at least this is my head can in that, you know, as time passes in this world, people go crazier and crazier.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely. It makes complete sense.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So I mean, the way that he's the suicide king in my mind is he doesn't he's being calm here, but he could very well just get shot, you know, and he's just out there right in the open.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And he it's like he doesn't really care all that much.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't know he's safe, but he's just like.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to fucking do everything I can to kill these people and whoever suffers in the process, including myself.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, that's my purpose now, and that's what I'm doing.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So now let's talk about Andrea.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Andrea.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And our whole my whole thing with her has been trying to be fair to her and see if I can get into her head and understand why she was with this total psycho.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And if I felt as judgmental about her when I thought about it more deeply, and I have felt, I think less judgmental about her this time.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of with her on a lot of it this episode.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: She definitely got to the point where I was like, no, you know, OK, now this is it.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_02]: You're dumb now. And I mean, until the last episode, what she saw was a charming guy with this well-run community.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And when she said she wanted to leave, they opened the gates.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Her friend was not happy about it.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a point against him, but everything else was in his favor as far as I can see.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Now he's got two of her friends.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you could argue whether she would call Merle a friend, but they've been friendly, you know, when they talked before in this arena.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And even she was more friendly with Merle than most people at least this season.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, people she knows.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: One of them is definitely a friend in an arena death match against their will.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And when she says, stop this, he's my friend and he goes, it's not up to me anymore.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: The people have spoken. I'm like, no, that's it.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_05]: It is kind of up to you though, isn't it? Yeah, you could do.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wait. Oh, no, no, no. OK, what?

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's utter bullshit.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So really right there, she should be against him and she's not.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's the point.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's an even worse point for me.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, after this happened and then fighting broke out, and I'm pretty sure she didn't see any of her friends through all that except for Darryl.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the first time she's aware is when she sees Darryl in that arena.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And so she's decided now in the aftermath of chaos to try to help the people of Woodbury.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're all at the gate wanting to leave and there's like a riot kind of energy with the guys up on the wall with their guns, holding them there.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And they want to get out because they were attacked and they just don't feel safe.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And we get the first appearance of Karen. Yes.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Karen says, this place is crazy. Please, you have to let us go.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Andrea says, Karen, you don't want to go out there. It's too dangerous. Carol's out there.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Carol's out there. She's like, they shot Richard. I'm like, oh, girl, such worse stuff is coming your way.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm safer here. Trust me. Way better over here.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: That's Melissa Ponziot. Very cool at the cons. Super chill.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But to her credit, Andrea is trying to help. She's trying to calm everyone down.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She sees this walker attacking guy, springs into action shooting the walkers.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: She's being heroic in her instinct as she's trying to figure out what's going on is just to try to help the people of Woodbury.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: But then when that guy got like he's there all bloody screaming and she's like, somebody do something.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Then I'm like, God, you can be in the middle of being a hero and then all of a sudden just do something really annoying.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like what do you want them to do? He's probably going to turn into a zombie.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing to do is what the governor did. Right. Shoot him in the head.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. I felt critical over there. Yeah.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_05]: I love that moment of the governor just walking out and like casually being like and then walking back in.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: What power move? Now, so then she's upset about that.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you just went out and shot the guy and walked off.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You got to talk to the people. And then I'm like, OK, it's annoying that you think there's still something to work with there after he just set two of your friends against each other in this fighting arena.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he tells her that, you know, she's like, why was he here?

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And why was Darrell here? Tells her that he came after Glenn and Maggie, which they were holding to find out where Darrell was.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And she goes, my friends are still alive and we're shooting at each other. You tried to execute them.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, well, they killed six good people and names them.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, well, now she knows that they were there to save Glenn and Maggie.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But maybe just give her a little benefit of the doubt.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe she thought Rick's group should have tried some diplomacy instead of just charging in.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But then when she says, you know, you kept it from me that my friends, you know, Glenn and Maggie were there even while we were.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And she means together, sleeping together or whatever.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he goes, you're just a visitor here just passing through.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So why should I tell you? And my thought was, OK, that's got to be the final straw for her. Right.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And then she goes, don't do that. Don't drive me out.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And when she said that, I can fix him. Yes.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the that's exactly what I was thinking.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, no, like, I think sometimes people when they have these sort of unhealthy codependent relationships,

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: then if a guy like or the other person begs for you to come back, it'll drive you away.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But if they give you the cold shoulder, then it will draw you in.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's how she is. You know, and it's so toxic and unhealthy.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's clearly a bad person.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I could understand that if she decided, oh, God, the only way I can help these people is if I pretend to be with him

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and then figure out how to help them and get rid of him.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But if she's which it seems she is trying to like, oh, no, no, no, don't shut me out.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I still want you. Then it's like, no, you're too far gone here.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_05]: That's it. She is too far gone.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I think this is this is definitely the real tight change with Andrea is this whole nonsense.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just yeah, it's not good.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_05]: It's the dynamic is as you describe it there.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just there's so many red flags.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not it's like a red tent. It's like the sky is red.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Like it's not even so much a flag is like a bloody hot air balloon.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, it's really bad.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And when you when you're looking for red flags and you get some pink flags, you know, or whatever, some like babies,

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and then you get the big giant red flag that will smash you in the face.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you got to look back at all those other ones ago.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, reassess now.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Now I see. Yeah, reassess.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe we should do a relationship advice podcast.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: First episode, does your boyfriend or girlfriend have a room with tanks full of human heads?

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_05]: If the answer is yes.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Next question.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, back when a long time ago when Karen and I were doing the podcast

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_02]: and I thought maybe we should have it like a section where we give advice to people.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I started thinking about it and like, no, I don't think that'd be a good idea.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be responsible for that.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_05]: That's hilarious.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Don't try this at home.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, that's all I had about that.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Did you have any more before I move on?

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think honestly, you've hit all the nails on the head with Andrea in this episode.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Just it's starting to really cross the line into just she's turned a blind eye.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would say.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it'll be like if if in the next episode she has decided,

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, he's a bad person, but I need to pretend then I'll feel more forgiving.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, OK, you came to it. It took you a bit long.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But but if she's still like holding out hope that she can work with him and they can still be together,

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_02]: then it's like, no, no, no, it's just not.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just not happening, girl. It's just not.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_05]: She mentions when she comes out to shoot, well, not to shoot when she is comes out to talk to Milton about how the governor is.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_05]: At a certain point, she mentions Stevens and Doc Stevens, Dr.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Stevens is the Woodbury doctor in the comics and in the novels, and he's very governor critical in both.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think in the comics actually tries to escape with Rick and the gang.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So I was kind of sad that we didn't really get a Doc Stevens.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Also, interesting fact that I'd forgotten Woodbury is where we technically should meet Bob Stuckey.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_05]: But Bob is introduced in a completely different way in the show and is in many ways a completely different character.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_05]: But it was nice to have that shout out to Stevens there.

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, if we did meet him, he probably would last long because of The Walking Dead.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Just someone to break our heart.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Doctors, yeah.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_02]: All right. Next, Darryl leaves the group.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Darryl. No, talk about toxic relationships.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. I mean, I thought this was a really interesting scene.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So they go in, they get Maggie and Glenn out.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They have to go back in and get Darryl.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what happened, right? Then they get out and then outside town, it's Rick, Merle, Darryl, Michonne, Glenn and Maggie.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They're all arguing with each other.

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Rick's pointing his gun at Michonne and I'm like, God, he's so mad that she left to go kill the governor.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_02]: He even later glans like she did bring you guys to us and he goes and then ditched us.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, your butt hurt, man.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_05]: He is because he loves her. It's not probably not because he loves her, but it might be because he loves her.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it doesn't seem like it warrants that big of a response.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I am a little bit perplexed at that, honestly.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Rick's just in a bad mood this episode.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I know. And then I love it was so funny that Merle, he gets off that everyone's mad at each other and he's just sitting there agitating it, making it worse and giggling the whole time.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_05]: He's like, oh my God, he's the worst.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_05]: He loves it. He thrives on the chaos.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Talking about the governor. He's like, oh yeah, man, he's a charmer.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I got to tell you that. Been putting the wood to your girlfriend, Andrea, big time, baby.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Sticks his tongue out.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Such a fucking horrible teenager.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And then this whole thing where he's like making out that Andrea and Michonne were maybe like lesbians with one another.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, how old are you?

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I know. He's such a dipwad.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, my newbie and queen there had two pet walkers, no arms, cut off the jaws, kept them in chains.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of ironic now that I think about it, which shows that the writers were aware of what Karen Shee brought up a couple episodes ago, that the image of two black men in chains is like enslaved people in America's past.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the but I thought that was a good way to point out that the writers were aware of it by having the racist guy mentioned it in a mocking way.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It just makes you want to punch him in the face.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I think the other bit that made me kind of laugh about the scene is that everyone's so pissed at Michonne for knowing Andrea, but like Andrea doesn't know that Michonne doesn't know that Andrea knows these people.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_05]: They're all like, you know, Andrea, you know, Andrea.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And Michonne's like, what? I mean, yes.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And then she's like, oh, Andrea is no wonder she likes the governor. She's into assholes for friends.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she's got terrible friends.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm just kidding.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So then Rick knocked Merle out and I loved Darryl's reaction.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It was sort of like he was struggling with it.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of see why you did that.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not happy with it, but I get it.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_05]: We've all wanted to kill Merle.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we come back to them a little later. They're arguing.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's Rick, Glenn, Maggie and Darryl have taken a sidebar arguing about whether to take Merle and or Michonne back with them.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Rick says no to both.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Darryl says yes to Merle, but no to Michonne.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Merle's blood.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And Maggie says no to Merle, yes to Michonne and Glenn says no to Merle, yes to Michonne.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So everyone's a no to Merle except for Darryl.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, but there's three out of four that are a yes to Michonne.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So I guess it is a democracy because it took Michonne back.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyways, I thought it was interesting that it's a tough situation for Darryl making him choose between his brother and his friends.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of don't totally blame him for choosing Merle here.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They're brothers.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, 100 percent.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_05]: In the apocalypse at this stage anyway, that shit matters.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Like if you meet someone who is family, that's going to count for something.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, all the time we've known Darryl, he's cared about his brother.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He was pissed that they left him in Atlanta who wanted to go back for him.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so it makes sense.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He's disappointed.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I love to.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_02]: He's disappointed that they're making him choose.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But he seems to also he's not like enraged like he was back in season one.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_02]: He he understands he knows what kind of a guy Merle is.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_02]: He's telling Rick take care of little ass kicker and Carl.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I think on some level he understands even though he's not happy about it, which I like.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It says a lot for him.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like Rick's thinking, God damn it, there goes the free childcare.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Will you come back at weekends?

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Are you leaving?

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Rick went after like tried.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: No, wait, wait, wait.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Can't we work this out somehow?

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's like, eh, it's his brother, man.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we never saw Darryl again.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That was his last scene.

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_05]: That was the last scene we ever saw.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I actually don't remember the mechanics of how they end up.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm excited to see that play out.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it makes sense.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad they didn't just say, all right, we'll take Merle back who just beat up Glenn and, you know, has been a total asshole to us all the time.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But one little thing in here, Glenn said, you know, when Darryl was saying he was leaving, Glenn says, what do you want us to tell?

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Tell Carol.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, well, isn't she dead as far as you know?

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But maybe they told him off screen that she was still alive.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they must have.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_05]: That's a good catch.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they must have mentioned it.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess or else it's a flaw in the writing.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But they had scenes.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that'd be funny if Darryl's like, what do you mean?

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_02]: She's dead.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I forgot.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sorry.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Nah, just kidding.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_02]: She's alive.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Rick said to Michelle, we patch you up and then you are gone.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So didn't really turn out that way.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, how wrong he is.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's all I had about that part.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, there was a yeah, it's a really interesting scene.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Bad Lip reading has kind of ruined a lot of this episode for me.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like no.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't it where Maggie's like talking about different guys she slept with or says the wrong name for good?

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's too good.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_05]: It's interesting as soon as they get into this kind of clearing, Maggie turns her gun on Merle as well.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_05]: There's this kind of shoot out.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, not sure about all the guns are pointing at everyone.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Everyone's pissed off that people know Andrea or don't know Andrea.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_05]: The thing that strikes me about this scene is when Darryl's talking about.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Merle and taking him back to the prison and Glenn says you'd feel safe with Beth.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think he mentions Carol as well under the roof with him and Darryl's like, he ain't a rapist.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And Glenn says, well, his buddy is.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And Maggie's like, are you serious?

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Like she doesn't say anything.

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_05]: But I'm quite annoyed at Glenn in that moment as well because I'm like, well, now Maggie's got to live either live with people assuming that something has happened to her.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_05]: That hasn't or she has to go constantly mind her own trauma to explain that that's not exactly what happened and blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And this is the cause of a bit of tension in this episode as well, which I'm sure you'll talk about in a bit.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's quite an interesting exchange.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's my next point.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking at it more from the point of view of Glenn, but Maggie too.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But I feel like Glenn's really, like I said at the top, fighting his inner demons here and he's not he's to say the least, not his best self.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I was annoyed with him this episode for sure.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_02]: He's for first off.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You can see how much anger he has because he's overzealous Lee stomping that head that was in the truck.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And it made me wonder how many scenes there are like that in this series because we saw recently Rick hacked his way through the prison tombs.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like there's you could do a montage with like 10 of them, you know, to get out their frustrations.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, then also he's pissed at Rick for not killing the governor.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We're not used to seeing Glenn as bloodthirsty like that.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's another thing that shows his state of mind.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, if Rick had done that, then Herschel might still be around.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So Glenn might have a point there.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But Glenn is pissed about a lot of things.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He's pissed that Rick he's pissed at Rick that Darryl went off with Merle after they risked themselves to save Darryl.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, how could you just let him go off or whatever?

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, dude, you all he went off with Merle because none of you would take more back, including you.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's not exactly being logical, though.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just upset and sort of taking it out.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_05]: He doesn't want Darryl to go either.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, yeah, that too.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_02]: When he's so then he said.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you just mentioned that he clearly thinks that the governor raped Maggie and that last week when you and Kristen were talking about all this.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I didn't quite get what you're saying when I was editing.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I figured it out.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I was confused because actually, and tell me if I'm wrong, but you and Kristen weren't exactly talking about the same thing, which confused me.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I think during editing, I thought it was clear that your point was that what the governor did to Maggie was a traumatic thing in and of itself.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe Glenn focusing on whether she was raped might have almost minimized that or something.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think so.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's what I meant.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think what Kristen was getting at was how women can compartmentalize or bury things like that sexual assaults just to get through it while to a man like Glenn who hasn't had those experiences.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The idea of it is harder to handle and it just throws him off balance.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know?

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, he's not listening to Maggie about what happened.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's more about him than her and failing to help her and feeling ashamed rather than just feeling bad about what she went through and being there to help her.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know?

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even if he's right that she was raped and she said no just because she didn't want him to feel bad about it or whatever, then he should just be over by her side comforting her.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, not being all pissed off.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_05]: No, and he shouldn't be using it in that kind of way with Daryl about.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just not the right way to express that frustration.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But he's human, right?

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to come down too hard on him.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And this whatever he's feeling, his vibe is pushing Maggie away.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not lifting each other up here.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And then back at the prison, I think she feels that awkwardness and she's mad that he doesn't trust her.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And so she doesn't even want to be near him even though she's concerned about whether he's OK.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like not right now because of the energy he's putting it out.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's his own worst enemy here.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I think he's a bit of a suicide king himself.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think also it really ties into his character.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Like he always felt like he wasn't good enough for her.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, back at the farm, he couldn't even believe that she wanted him and was talking to Rick about why would she want me?

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And now he feels like he failed her.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And his worst fears about himself are right that he he's not good enough.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And so he's just not handling it well.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_02]: He has this story that I'm not good enough.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And now this thing happened where she needs him there for her and he's just doing it his own.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, you pre-occupied.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: He's not being good enough for her right now.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's why the stories we tell ourselves can end up becoming true unless we can overcome them, which Glenn eventually does.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_05]: He does.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is good to know.

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Seeing this and knowing what a standup guy he ends up being.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's easier to take maybe.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'd forgotten in the comics, they put Glenn in the cell next to Michonne to hear all the things that the governor does to her.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember that either.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_05]: So this is kind of a I think a nod to that, but not quite the same thing, obviously.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, that was something I'd completely forgotten about when I revisited that.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I forgot that Judith's little makeshift bassinet had Little Ass Kicker written on it.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I bet you can buy one of those on Etsy.

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You should be able to.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was like one of those things that you throw mail in.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Also, like I'm not body shaming a baby, but Little Ass Kicker is a chonky baby.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_05]: For like having been born quite premature and being quite malnourished.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, it's quite a chonky baby.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I would say that's a three month old, but you know.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like go easy on that formula.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Very adorable, very cute little baby.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But it is funny when you I didn't realize for the longest time how much TV lies to us about what babies look like at a certain age.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_05]: So I was sort of looking at that like, bloody hell.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, next point dealing with Tyrese and Sasha and Alan and Ben.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And their dickhead friends.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So they cut.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a great cut.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_02]: They had Rick and everybody yelling at each other.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they cut to the prison and you see Herschel just tending to Alan's wounds and just seen full of compassion.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's some good artistry when you can cut between like emotional extremes like that.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody yelling at each other than everyone being nice to each other.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like this is a lot about Herschel.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Like this episode is the Herschel fully how we remember him.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I feel like we're watching these characters get close to being self actualized on the show and then we remember them at their best.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So like Carol is just starting to turn into the Carol that we know, which I think is great.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_02]: We're in season three and it feels like this character who's one of the top standout characters of the show is just getting started.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Her story is, you know, she really is.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But with Herschel, he's in the middle.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like almost at his peak right now.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a good thing because he doesn't have much further left to go.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Like him so much more in this season than I do in season two.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Just lovely.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So and like when he tries to cheer at Maggie about Glenn and he says, hey, don't disappear on me.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just so wise and caring.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a master class in how to talk to someone who's just been through a traumatic event.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_05]: He he leaves the space for her to talk about it if she wants, but he doesn't push her and he just he he lets her know he's there that he doesn't want her to disappear.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_05]: But he also recognizes her strength and that she can take care of herself.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's lovely.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, beautiful.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And so here he's treating Alan and Tyrese and Sasha are there and you know, Beth is there with the baby.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, did Herschel just let them all out when Rick was gone?

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, yeah, I'm going to be compassionate.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was a little bit of a fake out because it seemed like that was going on.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, Tyrese is saying it's just getting worse out there.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He calls him the dead, which I like, you know, rather than some goofy name and says there's they haven't met any other decent people.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They've only met bad people and their camp was overrun.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, they've really been through it and had to deal with a lot.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Even Axel's coming across as kind Tyrese says I must be the first brother in history to break into prison.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He's handing him a bowl of food saying makes me the first white boy that didn't want to break out.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But then it was like all misdirection because Herschel slams the door shut on them and I wouldn't get too comfortable here.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Ka-chunk.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That was an interesting thing because you think they've let them in, but they haven't really.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's solely clearly that Herschel just wants to defer to Rick so he can't make them any promises, right?

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think Herschel does like this group.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I think he's holding back because he's like, I think he can kind of see the writing on the wall of how this might go.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he feels like somber about it.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_05]: I love that Sasha assumed the baby was Beth.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, oh.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's not mine.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Beth's like, is she not mine?

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I've always wanted a baby.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Now there's a familiar theme with Tyrese, Sasha, Alan and Michonne and Merle.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about who you trust to bring into your circle or your chosen family.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That's like a theme throughout, especially the early part of The Walking Dead, like it was with Randall, ultimately with Shane, with the prisoners, Axel and Oscar.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And the more shit they go through, the less inclined they are to trust clearly good people.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But then Alan and his son Ben both want to jump Carol and Carl and take their guns.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Which is just so nice, you know?

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And Tyrese says, no, these are good people.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, like my first reaction to that was fuck you asshole, Alan.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But well, this isn't actually an argument in his favor, but he reminded me of Shane.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Shane considered forcefully taking over Herschel's farm.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Very much.

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But also a point in his favor is he's looking out for his son.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_02]: He says, this is survival of the fittest, plain and simple.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_02]: In here we live, out there we die.

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So he sees that they are about to kick him and his son out.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He thinks that is probably a death sentence and he's trying to figure out a way to keep them alive.

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, Tyrese is doing the same thing though, but he's just holding out hope that they can talk them into letting them stay by just being nice people.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And then they get shown up by Axel and Beth turning up being lovely.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Like here's some tools.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and Alan was advancing on them, but Tyrese kind of stepped in Tyrese and Sasha.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I prefer, like everyone knows by now, but I prefer Tyrese's way.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Diplomacy, connection, vulnerability.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know, sometimes the other way probably works better.

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Which brings us nicely into register to vote.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Vote.org everyone.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Do what Tyrese would do. Vote.org.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So anything else about that before I move on to Rick?

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_05]: No, that's pretty much it.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I've just written that Tyrese's friends are basically being the worst at this point.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Later on when they're appealing to Rick to stay, Sasha mentions it's like 10 little Indians out there.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And I couldn't quite remember that reference, but it's to an Agatha Christie book, which I think is also called

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And then there were none and has had various TV and movie interpretations.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's basically people getting picked off one by one.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I have this great children's book, 10 Little Zombies.

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It goes through 10 people who I think turn into zombies and get offed one by one.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's got little kids book illustrations and I've read it to Nico and Bodhi.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh my goodness. I'm going to buy that for every child I know.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, Rick fighting off his inner demons.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh Lord.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So Rick, when he first when Beth handed him the baby, when he got back and he seemed like he was having an episode

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and you know, just everything was echoing like he was going to faint or something.

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought at first that felt a bit forced to lead into the Lori thing.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But once I watched the whole episode, it made sense.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So Herschel and everyone are trying to convince him to take in Tyrese and Sasha and Alan and Ben.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_02]: He says, no. And then he says with Tomas, Andrew, look what happened.

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Carl says, Axel and Oscar weren't like them.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Rick said, and where's Oscar now?

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, well, he died helping you like he was a good guy.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, this is not a good argument.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But the point is, I think that Rick, like I've said, his thing is he he's a protector.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_02]: He feels responsible for people.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And now and at first when he was a cop, he felt responsible for everyone, at least in his county.

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when the zombie apocalypse first started, he still had a wide circle of like to the point where he'd go back and try to save Merle, the racist dick.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But as more people either betray him or he fails at saving them, then he's gun shy about taking on more responsibility because he's afraid of risking losing them.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's why Oscar like, look, I let him in and I failed him.

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And the baby like he's holding this little baby and he's like, what if I can't protect this baby?

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why. And so then when, you know, Herschel's trying, he goes, I'm telling you, you're wrong on this.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_02]: You got to start giving people a chance. And it looked like he was going to say yes, I'll let Tyrese stay.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he saw Ghost Laurie.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason why I think he saw Ghost Laurie is because she's the symbol of his greatest failure.

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_02]: What he might feel is his greatest failure to protect someone.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, no, I don't want to take you don't belong here.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's all it's not just about who he can trust to bring in.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It's also about on taking more responsibility to protect more people and risking failing.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And so then he responds to that whole psychosis by losing compassion for people because compassion can lead to pain.

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I loved where the ones who live with it, because that's in part whether Michonne can get him to decide to open up and love again and risk that pain of loss.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's the end of Rick's story. Yeah.

[00:47:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And right now he's he's another suicide king maybe because he needs Tyrese and Sasha and he shoes them off.

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_05]: And they're so close to greatness there.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_05]: They're so close to getting there with him.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd misremembered the scene.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought he I remembered that he yelled, get out you don't belong here.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought he was the way that the vision went.

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_05]: It looked as though he was yelling at Tyrese and Sasha, but nope, he's literally yelling at a corner of the room.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, he's he's not doing so well.

[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think they still think he's talking to them, but just in some weird way that they don't even need to bother to try to make sense of it.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a gun.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_02]: He's waving it around.

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh God, it's so awkward.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And Maggie's holding Carl like, oh, geez.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wonder.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see what happened right after they left and it's just, you know, everybody in the room with Rick.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Waving his gun around screaming you don't belong here.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_05]: I like to think everyone just went off and did their you know, just left him to it.

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_05]: They're like, I'm just going to go over here.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Carl, you want to come?

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Wash my clothes.

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, let's go over here.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Carl's got a great story about like the, I don't know.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, Carl, you were saying.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I had an appointment or something.

[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So Carl, unless you want to say anything else about Rick.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_05]: No, no, I think you covered it really well there.

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I think you're right.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that Judith is a massive trigger for him because Judith's the symbol of everything that kind of went wrong with him and Laurie.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And it triggers and her birth is what killed Laurie.

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, you're right.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_05]: It just all piles up as the symbol of his biggest failure.

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And he does. He's afraid he'll fail, I think too.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, terrified.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But he doesn't.

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe the best thing ever did was got taken away in the helicopter.

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Things just improved.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_05]: What can I say?

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Carl, you know, I was thinking about what Kristen said that he's lost all humanity.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And we kind of talked that through to the point where I think we both agreed that he's sort of repressing his emotions, but he hasn't lost it.

[00:49:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's showing humanity in this episode when he's talking to Carol, who I loved when she said it's easy to forget how loud the world used to be.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I love those little kind of details.

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And it made me think, oh, that would be one great thing about the zombie apocalypse.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You have to listen to all this noise.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But he says they wish they could all be on a plane together.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_02]: That's just a cute little kid thing to say, you know?

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_05]: It really is.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And the kids that grow up after Carl aren't even going to know what planes are like.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a scene, I think, where Negan is chatting with an apocalypse kid and talking about planes.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_05]: And the kid just can't conceive of a plane at all.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Is that Brandon?

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_02]: The towel snapping kid?

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, the kid that Brandon, yeah, the kid that Brandon mini Ted Bundy gets rid of.

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Then Carl's feeling guilty about having been mean to his mom, which is a very human response.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he's so thrilled to see his dad back alive.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And he asks about Oscar, you know?

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_05]: He's the only one.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_05]: He's like, remember Oscar?

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But then he's very creepily staring at Tyrese and them at the end, which seems very psycho.

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think in his mind, he's just keeping watch to make sure they don't do anything bad because he sees himself as a protector.

[00:51:02] [SPEAKER_05]: He is a scary little kid though.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_05]: He can be.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Reminds me of a horror movie for sure sometimes.

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Right?

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just like, oh, hi Carl.

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_05]: You just stare in there.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, cool.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And then last, Carol, who's so upset when Rick tells her Darryl left with Merle.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Like he left?

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He's gone?

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Like gone?

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And I still think at this point, I mean, I have no doubt that she loves him.

[00:51:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if she's figured out that it's going to be a platonic love maybe.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it really matters, but she loves him.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_05]: They've got a connection.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And that connection comes up right when he's talking to Beth.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_02]: He says men like Merle get into your head and make you feel like you deserve the abuse.

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So we've talked about that before that Carol and Darryl share this history of abuse

[00:51:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and that probably has them feeling really connected on a deep level.

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And the great thing about them, because she's saying here if Ed walked in

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_02]: and I feel like I would tell him to go to hell, but I'm not sure, you know, basically.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And it makes you realize that Carol and Darryl are both these two who were abused,

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_02]: who at one point didn't think much of themselves and accepted that abuse,

[00:52:20] [SPEAKER_02]: but who in part through their friendship with each other, lifted each other up out of that

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and came to feel better about themselves, you know, which is just beautiful.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_05]: They really did. And I loved when Darryl was choosing to be with Merle.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_05]: I loved how open the group were about the fact that he's part of their family, you know.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't like things were unsaid by Rick and Glenn about like, we include you in this.

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Like they're very explicit about it.

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And I thought that was very emotionally powerful.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that. Yeah, that's such a good thing for him to do.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And it probably helped Darryl feel better about the whole thing, even though he chose to leave.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I loved when Beth said I'm pissed at him for leaving and Carol said don't be.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Darryl has his code. The world needs men like that, which shows even Carol.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's being understanding about what happened here.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was wondering what is the code? Is it just like blood is thicker than water?

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not exactly sure, but I do understand the point that just Carol knows that Darryl has integrity.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, he does.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And last thing on this is just talking about how Carol is sort of starting to come into her own

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_02]: makes me feel excited for The Walking Dead, Darryl Dixon,

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and the book of Carol coming up in about a month here, September 29th.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're almost there. Be cool to see more Carol story.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_05]: So exciting.

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's all my points. I only had a couple of notes.

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll just go through those really quick because there's only two.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_02]: No, there's only one.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I like the creepy ass zombie that peeled back the corrugated metal to enter Woodbury.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_02]: That was just a nice creepy Nick and Tara scene.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_05]: The group left open.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I know.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're like, whatever.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not seeing the governor's right, but it's not cool.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Not great.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Not great.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You got any notes?

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought the Hyundai looked great.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_05]: The Hyundai looked great in this episode.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Spotless and shiny.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Very clean.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Spotless, shiny, very well shot.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_05]: I forgot that Beth's a fan of giving people a little southern bell kiss on the cheek when they come back, which I always find very quaint.

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's it for my notes about the show.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I feel like the road where they stopped to have this conversation.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Looking at that road, I feel like they use that road a lot in this show, but they just shoot it from different angles.

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_05]: It looked really like one of the roads that they use a lot in season nine.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm just like, I wonder if they have specific roads in that area of Georgia that they like again.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I also enjoyed Herschel saying you're like my own son, Glenn.

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_05]: That was very cute.

[00:55:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I enjoyed that.

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_05]: In terms of trivia, the arena that we see is actually an abandoned mill which production designer Graham Grace Walker stumbled upon in rural Georgia with its existing rusted steel and broken windows.

[00:55:27] [SPEAKER_05]: It already looked apocalyptic.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the Woodbury survivors in this episode, Brendan Cornwell, is the uncle of the first set of twins Adelaide and Eliza Cornwell to play Judith Grimes.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_05]: You might have spotted the sheriff ammo bag that the governor was using at about 25 minutes into the episode.

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_05]: That's obviously the bag Rick left behind in episode 1.1 Days Gone By.

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I wish they would show that like hanging off some statue in season 11 or something just off the corner.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It would be cool to see where it ended up.

[00:56:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe we know, but I don't remember.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Andrea takes off the farm.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_05]: It's with them right through.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like it stays.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll have to keep track of it.

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Following on from last week's trivia, this is the first episode of The Walking Dead to be rated TVMA.

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_05]: I wonder if it's because they use the term rapist because it's not the most violent episode we've seen so far.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So I wonder if it's, I don't know, an overall decision that the show is getting darker.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But I read, and I don't know if this is true, that so I think it was either Kristin or Karen or maybe it was you that said all the episodes from now on are TVMA.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But I also read that previous episodes were changed to TVMA in reruns.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe they just decided, you know what? We were kidding ourselves. This is a show.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_02]: This was dark.

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_05]: From this episode until the end of the season, Judith Grimes is played by a different set of twins.

[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_05]: So we now have Loudon case and Leighton case replacing the Cornwell twins.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_05]: The girls were between four and seven months during filming.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Probably why they seem like absolutely massive babies when they're supposed to be like a week old.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Walking Dead timeline, we're on day 304.

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_05]: So not quite a year since the apocalypse started.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow. Yeah.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Only on The Walking Dead could your boyfriend pit two of your friends against each other in a death match and you go, oh, that seems bad.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure though.

[00:57:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Only on The Walking Dead could you find yourself with a man who makes Shane seem like a good choice.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_05]: You know what? Shane would never pit people against each other in a death match.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_02]: That's true. Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Say what you like about Shane.

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_07]: Obvious threat to untold numbers of citizens.

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_07]: The people he kills get up and tip.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Are they slow moving chief?

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up.

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a Walking Dead cast news update.

[00:58:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a couple of things.

[00:58:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Number one, after six months of production, The Last of Us season two has wrapped filming.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow. Which is great. Here in August.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_02]: We know it's set to come back in 2025.

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know when.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm hoping early.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Last of Us season one wrapped in July 2022 and premiered six months later in January 2023.

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe it'll be sometime early, February, March, something like that.

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Be cool.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_05]: That's exciting.

[00:58:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And second and definitely last and least, Fear the Walking Dead is now on Netflix.

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_05]: That's it.

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Is that US? It must be US.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I know it's US but I don't know outside of US.

[00:59:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They put all the Walking Dead spin-offs I think on Netflix now.

[00:59:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Or at least they're coming.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Now it's time for Listen Mones, Grums and Grunts.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Alma Contreras says, that's it.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_05]: No, she doesn't.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_05]: She says, this is one of the episodes that really honed in my hate for Andrea.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_05]: I felt like she was so ridiculous as if because she was sleeping with the governor,

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_05]: it would make her some kind of first lady.

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Girl, get real.

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_05]: The governor doesn't even care about you.

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, I'm still enjoying the rewatch with y'all.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, Alma.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Glad you're watching along with us.

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Dobolino Bob Grippy, someone I haven't heard from in a while says,

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to comment on when Oscar found the pair of slippers in a cell in the tombs,

[00:59:57] [SPEAKER_02]: quote, you know, for real accident at the end of the day.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I remember buying slippers as a result of this.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I wonder if the actor had slippers given to him at cons.

[01:00:07] [SPEAKER_05]: He should have.

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I hope he's got slippers in heaven.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Andy Swan says, hi Jason.

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I hope all is well.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_05]: As you probably know, Daryl Dixon is now officially available in the UK.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I have just finished it and your coverage.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I loved it and really nice to listen to you and Lucy again,

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_05]: even though it's a year ago in real time.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Fucks, a year ago.

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Please it was good as I had pretty much given up on The Walking Dead.

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Fear has gone to shit and to be honest,

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't think The Ones Who Live was much better.

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Dead City next, although not great by most accounts.

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Most enjoyable to listen to you guys again.

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm self-employed and often work alone so it can make a difference to the day.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh Andy, that's how I enjoy my podcasts as well.

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_05]: My little tea breaks and so on.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_02]: As you're reading that,

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm wondering if Andy just meant to write that to me and not to be read on the podcast,

[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_02]: but I don't think it's anything salacious.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_04]: No.

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, glad you got to watch it.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, The Dead City actually,

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_02]: you said not great by most accounts,

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_02]: but I know it had more a higher viewership than The Daryl Show

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and I know a lot of people who liked it.

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So I would keep an open mind about it.

[01:01:14] [SPEAKER_05]: It got really good right up in the Guardian of all places.

[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, oh, okay.

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Eric Kane liked it better than Daryl.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He did.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: But he's just wrong.

[01:01:25] He's just wrong.

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Billy Thompson says, hello, hello.

[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Hope you guys are well.

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm well.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm well.

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm feeling good.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I've missed a few weeks, recently got a new job.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, congratulations.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Been busy, but I'm all caught up with the rewatch and damn, I've missed you guys.

[01:01:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, what a great opening scene.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so iconic.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: The governor with his eye patch and long coat,

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Dixon Brothers fighting and the crowd going wild.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really odd to see Daryl heavily breathing

[01:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: and seeming quite scared of the situation he's in,

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: which we never see towards the end of the series.

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that scene reminded me of The Daryl Show

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_02]: when he's with Quinn in the arena.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Adam the Gatiss.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Andrea has a lot of good leadership qualities,

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: which she shows when handling the woodbarians.

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I agree, but also makes some awful decisions throughout.

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I agree.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I've always wanted to see what she would be like

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: if she made it further in the show

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: and if she could iron out her mistakes.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_02]: What I noticed is Rick really doesn't seem to have a proper connection

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: with Judith initially, which I didn't really notice before.

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I also forgot how scary it is seeing Lori standing there.

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot spookier than I remember.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, thanks guys.

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Bye.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Fair points.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Ria Reinbold says,

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I finished the series and then Chris and Jason started their rewatch,

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_05]: so naturally so must I.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_05]: This afternoon to decompress after a very long work week,

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I found myself watching The Walking Dead in a very odd order.

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Season two, episodes three and four,

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_05]: and season three, episode seven.

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Not because I wanted to watch the show,

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_05]: but because I want to be a prepared podcast listener.

[01:03:29] [SPEAKER_05]: You all are the absolute best and I appreciate everything you do.

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_05]: It's so cool to have two great podcasts

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_05]: to stay up to date on all things The Walking Dead.

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Perhaps you might consider a rewatch crossover someday.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, that would be great Ria.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_05]: We love those guys.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because they're doing two at a time.

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I've mentioned that by the way,

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: if you didn't know,

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The Talking Dead started a rewatch and yeah, they're so great.

[01:03:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're digging ours and you have some time,

[01:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I totally recommend going and checking theirs out too.

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're doing two episodes at a time,

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_02]: but they started later than us.

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was thinking maybe when we all caught up to the same episode,

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_02]: we could do it together.

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it'll work out.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_04]: That sounds great.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It'd be fun.

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, thanks for writing in.

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad you found us Ria.

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Me too.

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Andy Fisher says Jason and Lucy re-watching season three,

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: quote,

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: with you and the podcasting family is so much fun.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_02]: What an episode.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone fighting everyone and Rick trying to hold them together.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone against Merle, Glen versus Rick,

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: everyone against some shown Rick versus Lori.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I love your segments of only on The Walking Dead and explaining the

[01:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: timeline.

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I've watched the show all the way through about 10 times,

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: yet you and the listeners bring up so many insights,

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_02]: beautiful acting also on our parts or on the show?

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_04]: I put everything into it.

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You're so good.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Lucy's not even Scottish.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm Karen.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I just took on a new personality.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_02]: That would be crazy.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't do video, so I'm not sure exactly.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: He goes on.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Carol amidst such sorrow and despair with the one word gone and the

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: look of everyone.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Equal scream, sweaty, dirty Georgia summer in prison.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they always talked about how hot it was filming the show and

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_02]: the great writing and Merle is 100% crazy redneck tweaker.

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, please leave Andrea alone.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Her acting is wonderful and her character has so many levels.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure about the rest of the show, but I would say,

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: stickers tell the truth.

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: You would be jumping on top of each other for a chance to live

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and Kuki would bury away from the zombie insanity.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Just like her.

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I totally would until I saw the leader pit two of my friends

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: against each other.

[01:05:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'd stay one more night, have a shower on breakfast and then

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_05]: leave.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Then I'd be out of there.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You'd be in there for sure.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, can't wait to hear your thoughts on the second half of season three

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: and beyond five pizzas and a ring.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Yay.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yay, Andy.

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Jennifer McGinley says, Oh, this is the one.

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_05]: I set my alarm for 5 30 AM Monday morning to watch before going

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_05]: to work as I knew it was uploaded to one of those sites just

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_05]: after airing in the US.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I knew I couldn't concentrate on work knowing it was there for me

[01:06:11] [SPEAKER_05]: to see at last.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember feeling sure that Merle would die in the arena, maybe

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_05]: sacrifice himself for baby brother.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_05]: We watched this last week with my best cyber friend forever who lives

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_05]: on the other end of the UK near Plymouth.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And we were trying to figure out how much time had passed between

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Andrea, who we've perhaps unfairly nicknamed who are and

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Michelle arriving at Woodbury.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_05]: But now as Andrea seems to have taken a right over as a person

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_05]: of great import in the community being the one to deliver the

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_05]: rousing speech, which everyone is responsive of with lots of

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_05]: heads nodding and smiling as this virtual stranger tells them

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_05]: what's what.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Are they really this spineless?

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_05]: She even has the governor asking her to take over.

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, but not surprised to be reminded that poor Oscar bites

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_05]: it in this one.

[01:06:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And what was creepy Beth kissing Rick all about?

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Ew was never sure why Glenn was so frenzied killing that

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_05]: said and shouting at Rick about letting him go.

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_05]: One review reads that he's pissed off that Rick didn't kill

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_05]: the governor.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_05]: But in the battle, any of our heroes had as much chance at killing

[01:07:09] [SPEAKER_05]: the governor as any of the woodbury ends.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_05]: They weren't targeting specifics.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_05]: The objective was to get Darrell out and cause fatal damage.

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Or did Glenn mean Darrell?

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Is he angry that Rick just let Darrell wander off with Merle

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_05]: after what the group did to get him back?

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I guess both.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he says why didn't you kill the governor and why did

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: you not or he's mad that Darrell's gone.

[01:07:33] Yeah.

[01:07:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, Jennifer says, can you solve this please?

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe you already have in the main part of the podcast.

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_05]: I usually roll my eyes at Herschel's saccharine speeches,

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_05]: but the scene with he and Glenn, oh, you lack a son to me.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I finished season three now and having a wee break before

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_05]: commencing season four.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_05]: It's left me thinking it was the best season ever,

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_05]: but I remember feeling that about every season until you know

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_05]: who reared his ugly baseball bat.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Whose idea was it to do a rewatch?

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Well done that man.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_05]: I am loving it.

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Jennifer, it's great to have you along for the ride.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Karen Chi says, hey, Jason and Lucy.

[01:08:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Great discussion last week with Kristin.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: We've had some good guest co-host lately.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Here's my interpretation of the many reasons there's friction

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: between Glenn and Maggie.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we hear Glenn repeatedly appropriate the

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: governor's assault of Maggie.

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_02]: He not only discards Maggie's words of what happened,

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: but by bringing up the situation, he forces Maggie to relive

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: that trauma each time.

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She screams for Glenn to leave the topic alone because he's

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: not letting her deal with her own trauma on her own terms at

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: her own pace.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally.

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Underneath Glenn's rage is guilt and shame.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He couldn't protect Maggie when he was right there in the

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_02]: next room, but he can't confront himself about this.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Instead, Glenn hurls himself at any tactile solution,

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: aka going after the governor to absolve him of his

[01:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: shortcomings.

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_02]: In a later episode, Glenn admits that he made Maggie's

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_02]: trauma all about himself.

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh good.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I forgot about that.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much to psychoanalyze about Darryl's

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: trauma bond to Merle.

[01:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: An abuser always makes his victim think that he's the

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: only one who will love and accept him.

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's clear that Merle is verbally belittled Darryl to

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: the point where Darryl doesn't have any confidence in

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: himself, so he returns to what feels familiar.

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: There's also a sense that as the younger brother,

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Darryl is ever trying to receive Merle's approval.

[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we haven't seen enough of them together

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: to get all this yet.

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we've seen the whole series, so we should

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: know, but we've forgotten or at least not have.

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: She goes, episode 10, we'll explore this further.

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, there you go.

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: PS, Jason says that Stephen wanted Glenn to be more

[01:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: of a badass, but I'd like to make a distinction

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: from various interviews.

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: What Stephen really wanted was to be a real

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: character with real reactions to situations.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Did I say you wanted to be more of a badass?

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Because what I remember is him saying he would

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: like him to be darker, but that doesn't exclude

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: anything you're saying here.

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: She goes on, season three did well with this as

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: we see in this episode through the rest of the

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: season, but from season four on, Stephen says

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: that Glenn became a symbol of humanity instead

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: of a fully realized three-dimensional character

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: with flaws or edges.

[01:10:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying.

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He didn't act like an actual human would to

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: things like Nicholas trying to kill Glenn

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_02]: or Glenn killing his first human.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He became an abstraction.

[01:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Well put.

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: PPS, another slight nitpick.

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I'm going to be that person.

[01:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Stephen Yeun has only won a Golden Globe,

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Beef.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: He was the first Asian male lead to ever be

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: nominated for an Academy Award, this time for

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: his role in Minari.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So he hasn't won an Oscar yet.

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, he will.

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I hope so.

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's coming.

[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: He's in that Bong Joon-ho movie that's

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: coming up, Mickey 17.

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a sci-fi thing from the same guy

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: who did Parasite.

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm super excited for that.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_05]: That would be great.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Hope so.

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's get into calls.

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Here's Renee.

[01:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, guys.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Renee calling in about the Walking Dead.

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I forgot to mention to you guys the name of

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: the group is not the Talking Dead.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It's called the Talk Through Media.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually reached out to them because I

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: wanted to see if some of the other people in

[01:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: the group wanted to do a re-watch and they

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: said it was okay if I introduced them to

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: you guys.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So I in-boxed them.

[01:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So you may be getting some new people in

[01:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: the group.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: They're really a cool group though.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_00]: They really are.

[01:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Just one lady, Glenda, I really hope that she

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: joins because she is like you guys.

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: She can break it all the way down.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: She really was like the head honcho in

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: charge because things that we did not notice,

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: she always noticed.

[01:11:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, she reminds me of you guys.

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully they'll be joining us.

[01:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But also Jason, man, listen, I don't know

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: if I'm emotional because my friend died,

[01:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: but you guys just make me cry.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_00]: You was talking about voting.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like this is...

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: My friend that died, she is married to a

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: woman.

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: They're in a same-sex marriage.

[01:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So I know that is so important when it

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_00]: comes to voting.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So like I said, I don't know if my

[01:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: emotions are all over the place because of

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_00]: her, my friend dying.

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But when you talked about voting and

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, please get out and vote.

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like thank you, Jason.

[01:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's truly, truly, truly awesome.

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let me get to the episode because

[01:12:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I always get to rambling and I want to

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_00]: be in and out.

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_00]: The governor, he's unhinged, and Andrea

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: is truly a pick-me-like Lucy said a

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: couple of episodes back.

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Andrea, I really do not understand.

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I understand what you're saying,

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Jason, but I do not understand how

[01:12:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Andrea could have been with Michonne

[01:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: for a year and she chose to stay in

[01:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Woodbury, especially when Sasha and

[01:13:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Sasha was talking about how our group

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: was the first good people they ran into.

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And then Hershel was talking about bad

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_00]: people out there.

[01:13:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure Michonne and Sasha ran

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: across bad people as well.

[01:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why them two just stayed together.

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, not Sasha, I always mess up

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: names. Michonne and Andrea, that's

[01:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: why they stayed together.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't understand how she

[01:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: believed that man,

[01:13:26] [SPEAKER_00]: chose that man over Michonne.

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, by after a year, she should have

[01:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: realized that Michonne was a good judge of character.

[01:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I think if it was the other way around,

[01:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Michonne would have went with her.

[01:13:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't agree with you on that, Jason,

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: but you know, hey, it's okay.

[01:13:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And for his dad...

[01:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I would just say to that, you could

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_02]: say it the other way, after a year

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_02]: together, Michonne should have realized that

[01:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Andrea was a good judge of character and stayed in

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Woodbury with her. And it's

[01:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: hard to think about it that way because we know

[01:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: that Michonne was totally right and Andrea was wrong.

[01:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But with what... That's what I

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: say, like, with what Andrea knew,

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: she, you know,

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: you could say, you could reverse

[01:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: that argument and say, oh, Michonne wasn't

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: loyal and stayed with Andrea.

[01:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I put it.

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Carol going with

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Murl, I don't think he's going to be able

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_00]: to stay with Murl because like Carol told Beth,

[01:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the same person

[01:14:22] [SPEAKER_00]: from a year ago. But Daryl

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: lives by a certain code and I feel

[01:14:26] [SPEAKER_00]: like Daryl's code is loyalty just

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: like mine. But

[01:14:30] [SPEAKER_00]: the place where he is now,

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_00]: he's not going to be able to stay with

[01:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Murl because Murl is not...

[01:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Daryl's not going to be able to accept Murl

[01:14:38] [SPEAKER_00]: because Murl ain't changed. Murl is

[01:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: not going to be able to accept Daryl because

[01:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Daryl has changed. And Daryl

[01:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: realized, yeah, I should be loyal,

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's called reciprocation. He need to be loyal

[01:14:48] [SPEAKER_00]: as well and Murl don't know how to be loyal

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to nobody but Murl.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And when he called Michonne

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: a Nubian queen, damn right,

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: that's exactly what she is, a Nubian queen.

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But he was being racist, of course,

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_00]: just like when he mentioned the

[01:15:02] [SPEAKER_00]: two men in chains.

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He was like kind of ironic.

[01:15:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Murl, you just a racist piece

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_00]: of shit. But like y'all say, he is truly

[01:15:10] [SPEAKER_00]: playing his role because

[01:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: he just gives off

[01:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: a racist here in Georgia, someone

[01:15:16] [SPEAKER_00]: that acts like that. I mean, I know, I have

[01:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: seen plenty here in Georgia

[01:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that acts just like that.

[01:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That's just ill, icky,

[01:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: just crass because that's what he is

[01:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: insinuating that Michonne

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and Andrea was out there, you know,

[01:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: doing something together as if two women

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_00]: can't be together and be friends. I am

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_00]: so over Murl. And Glenn,

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: man, he's sick. He really believed that

[01:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Maggie was raped.

[01:15:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He really does. And he just cannot

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: get that out of his head because he

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_00]: said it. And Maggie looked at him like,

[01:15:46] [SPEAKER_00]: sir, I done told you that I was not raped.

[01:15:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like come on now and sit down

[01:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: somewhere, get yourself together.

[01:15:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And when Rick made it

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: back, Lucy, he finally called, finally

[01:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: got a hug. He hugged Carl and he kissed

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Carl. Carl.

[01:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: He kissed. And I love the

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_00]: fact that Rick is a hugger because I'm

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_00]: a hugger. I love the hug and kiss

[01:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm an affectionate person.

[01:16:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was just thinking about Beth. She's so cute when she gave him

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_00]: the kids. I mean, I just love all

[01:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: of them. I really do.

[01:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And also I meant to mention this

[01:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: at the beginning, Jason, when you

[01:16:20] [SPEAKER_00]: said that Andrew Lincoln,

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: the reason why it was so much chemistry

[01:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: because that's how he

[01:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: wanted them to be

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_00]: on the set. That is what he

[01:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: brought to work and that's what he wanted them to

[01:16:32] [SPEAKER_00]: bring to work. He wanted them to bring

[01:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: peace and harmony. And

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: he leaves by example.

[01:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel the same way about you guys.

[01:16:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like you and Lucy,

[01:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you guys leave by example

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and y'all bring the peace and harmony

[01:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and you all don't agree all the time.

[01:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So therefore that trickles down

[01:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to your audience, you know?

[01:16:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like you guys are just like

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Rick on the Walking Dead

[01:16:56] [SPEAKER_00]: set.

[01:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Talk to you guys later. I don't want on long. Peace and

[01:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: love. Bye. And don't forget,

[01:17:02] [SPEAKER_00]: vote. Don't boo. Vote.

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. That's a great

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: compliment. Thank you. I love that.

[01:17:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that you brought up

[01:17:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that Carl got a hug because I didn't

[01:17:13] [SPEAKER_02]: notice, but

[01:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: he finally got his hug. He did.

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Carl got a hug. He deserves it.

[01:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, that's our show, episode

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: 595. Thanks so much for listening everybody.

[01:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Next episode,

[01:17:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The Walking Dead, season 3, episode 10,

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Home, of which I have zero

[01:17:33] [SPEAKER_05]: memory. There's

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_05]: a very infamous episode of the X-Files

[01:17:37] [SPEAKER_05]: also entitled Home and I

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_05]: get it. I'm glad it's not like that.

[01:17:42] [SPEAKER_05]: If you want to write in

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_05]: or leave us a voice message about

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_05]: that episode, you can find all

[01:17:47] [SPEAKER_05]: our contact information at Podcastica.com

[01:17:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And while you're there,

[01:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: please check out our other podcast.

[01:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's

[01:17:55] [SPEAKER_02]: a little light right now

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_02]: which is kind of nice to

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: not have it go full

[01:18:01] [SPEAKER_02]: bore all the time but one of the

[01:18:03] [SPEAKER_02]: podcasts that's going strong is still

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: slaying a Buffyverse podcast with

[01:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Penny and Kara. If you're at all a fan of that show

[01:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: and you haven't checked out the podcast, you're

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: really missing out. They knock it out of the park.

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I

[01:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: continue to think that we're going

[01:18:17] [SPEAKER_02]: to be swamped with Podcastica

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: shows at the end of this year

[01:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and early next year and we're gonna have to

[01:18:23] [SPEAKER_02]: figure out how the hell we're gonna do it all if we

[01:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: actually can or not, you know? But

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Squid Game is coming in December. I'm excited

[01:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: about that with David, season 2.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Peter and I have just finished The Bear

[01:18:33] [SPEAKER_05]: season 3. That's right!

[01:18:35] [SPEAKER_05]: It should be published in the next couple of days

[01:18:37] [SPEAKER_05]: and we're gonna be talking a lot

[01:18:39] [SPEAKER_05]: about chicken.

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome!

[01:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: This episode has been made possible by Patreon

[01:18:45] [SPEAKER_02]: supporters like Jeremy Hamilton

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: who pledged their support at patreon.com

[01:18:49] [SPEAKER_02]: slash Jason Kabassi so thank you so much

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: to Jeremy. We do

[01:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: more or less monthly,

[01:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: not monthly lately but every so often

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: we'll do a call-in show. People

[01:18:59] [SPEAKER_02]: get together and either talk about a different subject

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: or play a game. This time we're doing Cards Against

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Humanity online which I think is

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: really fun. Yeah, next week sometime.

[01:19:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yay!

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Renee brought up

[01:19:12] [SPEAKER_02]: voting and

[01:19:13] [SPEAKER_02]: we're gonna be asking

[01:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: you guys to vote, you know,

[01:19:17] [SPEAKER_02]: up until the election. It seems

[01:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: like a lot of you

[01:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: actually like that

[01:19:23] [SPEAKER_02]: that you would like if more people

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_02]: voted and I just love the idea

[01:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: that we can all sort of

[01:19:29] [SPEAKER_02]: think about ourselves as

[01:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: collective and pool our

[01:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: group energy together

[01:19:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and have a greater impact together.

[01:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So I would say

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: if you go

[01:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: to vote.org and register to vote

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: or if you vote whenever

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: voting starts and you want

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: a shout-out, let us know. We'll be happy

[01:19:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to shout anyone out who wants it.

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: If you really wanna make a difference,

[01:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: get another

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_02]: person to register who normally

[01:19:57] [SPEAKER_02]: wouldn't vote

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and then you'll get a huge

[01:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: shout-out and thanks from us too.

[01:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So again, vote.org

[01:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: it's a non-

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: what do you call it?

[01:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Non-partisan site where people can

[01:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: see if they're registered to vote and

[01:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: figure out how to register and vote and everything.

[01:20:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Love it. Vote for me

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_05]: guys, not for me but vote on my behalf

[01:20:18] [SPEAKER_05]: because I cannot vote in the US elections.

[01:20:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You heard it here, Lucy

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: says to write her in.

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, write me in. Oh god,

[01:20:26] [SPEAKER_05]: can you imagine? They're like, it all came down

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_05]: to one ballot

[01:20:30] [SPEAKER_05]: and someone had written in Lucy

[01:20:32] [SPEAKER_05]: and I'm like, oh shit, sorry America.

[01:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, that is our show.

[01:20:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for listening.

[01:20:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't get bit, Micaela Williams.