623: "Live Bait" (TWD S4E6 Rewatch)

[00:00:03] What is it? Chess. Looks hard. Huh? Well, maybe for some folks, but you're smart. You'll catch on quick. What's this one called? That's a pawn. They're your soldiers. Do they die? Sometimes. Do you lose if they die? No, no.

[00:00:36] Not necessarily. You can lose a lot of soldiers, but still win the game.

[00:01:14] Hey Zed Hetz, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Lucy. And I'm Nathan. Nathan! And this is The Cast of Us, episode 623. And this episode, we're covering The Walking Dead, season 4, episode 6, Live Bait. Live Bait. We have some live bait here. It's Nathan. No, I'm just kidding. Yay! Get down the well, Nathan! I thought about introducing myself as Brian, but... Oh! Amazing. Amazing.

[00:01:42] Nathan's great. How far back of a Walking Dead fan are you? And also, how did you find us? So, I started watching this show around the time season 3 was airing. I found the podcast around the Terminus era. So, end of season 4, early season 5. And then I didn't join the Zed Hetz chat group until... Until the final season. Season 11.

[00:02:12] Wow! A lot of people started coming in around then, but you came to our finale here in San Francisco. We watched it live. That was super fun. And also, one thing about Nathan, he had this great idea for our Patreon exclusive podcast, the Zed Head Show, where it was me and Nathan and Karen Shee. And Nathan posed three Walking Dead related questions for the two of us. I'm going to read them just because I think they're fun. He asked,

[00:02:38] If you were a member of the Commonwealth, what job would you want to do and what job would they give you instead? He said, If you could bring back your favorite dead character from The Walking Dead, but your favorite living character would have to die, who would they be and would you do it? Oh. Oh. That's a tough one, right? And he said, And what would you have happened if you could create a what-if type episode? Like, what if Shane killed Rick in season 2? Or what if the governor didn't kill Herschel and decided to change his ways for good? Oh my goodness.

[00:03:07] That's really fun. Then we did trivia and Karen and I had to answer questions. Nathan's trivia is intense. Yeah. I came up with that what-if question before The Walking Dead Destinies came out, so. Yeah, that's right. Nathan also played Walking Dead Destinies. He took a hit for us all. Yeah. He's the one I've asked. That's my claim to fame. There's some governor stuff in there, right? In that game?

[00:03:34] Yeah, it kind of goes from the pilot to Woodbury-ish. And T-Dog Can Survive passed up to there? Yeah, he basically takes on the Merle role. Okay. Depending on what you do with Merle in season 1. Oh, can you ditch Merle earlier? Yeah. Well, it's kind of wonky, I think. I'm having a hard time remembering it.

[00:04:00] Well, it wasn't a good game from what I understood. It's a great idea, not well executed from what I heard. Yeah. Basically, if you don't leave Merle on the rooftop, he finds a way to leave T-Dog alone up there instead or something. But either way, T-Dog comes back in the season 3 arc as the Merle type character. Interesting. That sounds so interesting if it was done well.

[00:04:27] Well, if you're interested in that Zed Head show episode, it's number 23 if you're a Patreon subscriber. I usually also ask, because Nathan, you had requested to come on for this one because you like the Governor episodes and wanted to kind of give that point of view. And I feel like, though, we'll get that as we go through our points, right? Or do you want to say something about it up front? Yeah, that'll be part of our points.

[00:04:55] But I would say even more than anything about the Governor, I just thought it would be cool. Since Tara's my favorite character, if I was on her first episode. Oh, nice. Yay! Okay, okay. I get it. And Nathan, we're on Zoom and I can see he has the Alana Masterson banner from Walker Stalker in the background, which I gave to him when we did that finale. So, represent. Yeah, thanks for giving me that because I didn't know at the time when you gave it to me.

[00:05:25] I didn't know that she signed it and all that type of stuff. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, super cool. That's cool. Well, let's get into the episode. Walking Dead, scene four, episode six, live baits. In a flashback episode, the Governor is abandoned by Martinez and Shumpert following his attack on the prison. He sets Woodbury ablaze and later encounters the Chamblers, Lily, Tara, Lily's daughter, Megan, and their dying father.

[00:05:49] He hides his identity while helping them to deal with their father and the three opt to leave with him when he moves on. They come across another group of survivors, this being led by Martinez. So, in general, Nathan, I mean, do you know this episode really well or how was it to rewatch it? I rewatched it this past week for the first time since maybe it's been quite a few years at this point. Yeah.

[00:06:18] But, actually, one of my points about this episode is actually the reputation of this episode. Yeah. Well, let's just do it in general first, like, what it was like to revisit. Then we'll go into your point first. Absolutely. It's cool. Yeah. So, Lucy, what about you? I liked it more than I remembered liking it, but it still didn't, it didn't, I don't know, it didn't set my tower alight. Is that a way of putting it?

[00:06:47] Nice to see David Morrissey again. And I'd kind of forgotten this was Tara's intro. And I think when you're watching it in a rewatch with that perspective, it makes it a bit more interesting. So, that gave me something to kind of focus on. It wasn't as bad as I remembered, but as I say, still not, still in my, like, bottom 10 episodes of The Walking Dead, probably. Is it, how much of it is because it's characters that we don't know? And how much of it is just because of what the episode is?

[00:07:15] Or is it hard to tease those apart? It's a really good question. I've got some points that might feed into this, so I might bite my... Okay. Yeah, we don't have to go too deep into it. Yeah, I might hold my, keep my powder dry for the time being. Okay. Well, for me, I mean, I had remembered that I liked it more than most people back then, but I didn't remember how much more. And now, I really like it. I think it's a great episode. I think it's good acting.

[00:07:43] I think it's really fun to follow this character who we all know to be a psychopath or at least have psychopathic tendencies and have him meet a group who don't know that about him. Yeah. And see kind of exactly how people fall for him. You know, I mean, we kind of saw that with Andrea already, but see it again from this new perspective. And also, I just love examining his psychology. That's one thing about on the rewatch I've liked about the governor, especially just looking into a psychology.

[00:08:10] Um, I do think that's maybe one of the reasons why a lot of people don't like it is because we're taking a break from all these characters that we know and love and focusing on these people who we don't care about as much. But for me, I, I, um, I've always tried to sort of, I'm just naturally curious even about new people. And like, there's that thing where when you start college and you, um, everybody's open to meeting new people.

[00:08:39] And then about a month in you found your cliques, you know, and I feel like spend time with. Yeah. And I feel like TV's like that. You watch a new show. You're like, Oh, who's this? Who's of course you're open to everybody. Cause you don't know anybody yet. But then when you get used to your characters, then new people come along. And often I've seen that with a lot of shows, people are kind of hostile, like Nikki and Paolo on lost and stuff, you know, who are these people?

[00:09:00] So, um, I sort of feel like maybe there's something like that going on here, but it reminded me a little bit of the webisodes that came out early with the walking dead that were also all about people. We didn't know or, um, tales of the walking dead. I think that's one reason why that show didn't succeed so well. Cause it was each week people we didn't know, but the webisodes I didn't like as much because I just think the acting wasn't that good, but, um, sorry actors. But, uh, this, this one, I think it was really good. I think they're all great.

[00:09:28] And so I enjoyed, I enjoyed it. That's kind of too long. Sorry, but. Well, IMDB told me that this is one of the, I think it's the only episode in the whole series. That's got only one. Series regular. Series regular in it. And who are they talking about? Tara or the governor? I think it must be David Morrissey at that point, but it's funny because he then, you know, he bows out. Yeah. Cause she's not yet a series regular, I guess. All right. Let's get into our points. Nathan. Like to go first.

[00:09:58] I called to the stand for the defense. Nathan Eshelman. Yeah. We're going to run a little defense for this episode. Uh, yeah. Jumping off of kind of what we already talked about. My first point is just kind of looking at the reputation that this episode has had over time. Cause it's safe to say these governor centric episodes have mixed reviews at the time.

[00:10:24] People had not yet gotten used to the, uh, single plot line storytelling, which would actually later become a staple of the Gimple era. Uh, where we focused on two or three characters in episode with the exception of maybe the first Woodbury episode where we see Andrea, Andrea and Michonne, uh, get introduced to the town. Um, I'm thinking also of 18 miles out. Yeah. But it was rare. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:52] So if I put myself in the mindset of someone who's watching this for the first time back in 2014 or whenever it was, my mind might be wondering too, where's Carol at? Or how was everyone recovering at the prison? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, at the end of the last episode, we hear Glenn is going to be okay, but we don't get to see him recovering. No.

[00:11:20] It's just kind of mentioned after the fact that they have the medicine now. Uh, so while this episode is going on, we're curious what everyone else is doing and I'll be interested to see since we've already watched all the future episodes, if people will now be able to enjoy this episode in a vacuum since we already know what happens afterwards and we don't have to, you know, wonder where everybody else is. Yeah.

[00:11:46] I feel like our story is being interrupted or something and that we want to know the answers to. Yeah. And I think, I think it's easy to say in hindsight, this episode is filler, but a lot of the emotional weights of the mid-season finale hinges upon you caring or maybe not caring, but wondering if this governor is capable of change and being a good person. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:12:15] And I, I also, I've never been much for the idea of filler anything because it's all just entertainment. We're watching something to be entertained. And for me anyway, the plot is just part of that, but there's also so many other facets to it that make it worthwhile. And every episode has those, you know? Yeah. I don't, I don't mind if a episode is character centric instead of plot centric. Yeah.

[00:12:42] I think it's like focusing on the governor is interesting. The way our house is set up, I like, we have an open space from the kitchen to the, where I sit and watch The Walking Dead. And Peter just popped his head through, he was cooking and he's like, is the governor the most evil antagonist that we meet? Is he more evil than Negan? And I thought that was a really interesting question.

[00:13:05] And this episode made me think about it because it seems almost like he could be redeemed, but then he gets, well not redeemed, but he could be on a different path. But then he gets pulled back into it, as we know from the next episode. Like he could just sort of pretend like his other life didn't happen and choose a better life now. And maybe if no one ever knew about his other life and he was a good man, then he'd be fine in the world. Like all dads post-divorce. Sorry, I'm joking. That's really mean. That's really mean.

[00:13:36] It doesn't have to be a dad. Like all people, post-divorce. Yeah, that's interesting. It's interesting. Because a lot of it, I think the conclusion we came to in the two minutes that we discussed it was, Negan's never played as being mentally unstable, whereas the governor is played as being mentally unstable.

[00:13:57] I think there's a lot, there's, you know, Negan's, he makes very questionable decisions and you can talk about narcissism or sociopathy with him, definitely. But he's never pictured as not maintaining a grip to reality, whereas the governor, I think, is portrayed in a much darker way as having lost that grip to the actual world around him.

[00:14:19] And I'm interested because my first point, and I want to talk about this because I know Nathan and I have both read the governor books. I read a couple too, but it's been a long time. I think one of the things that disappointed me about this episode was the character of Lily. Because although she's, so basically the protagonist of the Walking Dead governor books is a woman called Lily Call who takes over from the governor.

[00:14:47] She's the one who shoots Laurie in the comics. And we learn a lot about her interior life and what she's like and her flaws and things like that. And she becomes an engaging character. Like she's somebody who you end up kind of rooting for. I'm pretty sure, by the way, that she's based on J-Bonn and Singa's then girlfriend, now wife. Oh, really? I think so. She sounds cool. Jill, yeah. Yeah, she's super cool. Okay.

[00:15:10] I don't think, this is kind of the era where the show is dabbling with being faithful and unfaithful to the source material and whether or not you consider the governor books as source material is another thing. But Lily is, basically J-Bonn and Singa's books expand on Lily from the comics who we only see very briefly. So giving the character this name endows them with this idea of like, oh, we're going to meet Lily. We're going to learn more about that particular character.

[00:15:38] And I honestly think this depiction of Lily on screen, even taking away the fact that you could have expectations of something richer, is really thinly written. Like I find her a really difficult person to kind of root for because she just seems quite two-dimensional in a lot of ways. It's like, oh, she's a nurse. Oh, her husband walked out. Oh, she's kind of looking for love. She's kind of not. Like, she's just a sweet lady. They've cast someone who looks a lot like Maggie. That can't be an accident sort of thing.

[00:16:08] And I don't know if it's just because we grow to know more about Tara that I'm kind of feeling that Lily is a bit thinly written in response. But I just find her not that engaging or sympathetic. And I don't find that there's a lot of chemistry with her and the governor. There's something quite depressing about that storyline that I don't enjoy that much. I get it.

[00:16:35] She's not even supposed to be remotely related to the Lily from the comic books or from the novels. But give her a different name then, for fuck's sake. Yeah. Because we know that David Morrissey didn't read the comics and he did read the novels. Yeah. And he based his performance on the novels. So just knowing that. And I also read the trivia that this episode was originally called Rise, which I guess is a tribute to Rise of the Governor in one of those books. So you'd think that the name was a conscious choice.

[00:17:05] But maybe that was another sort of a Kirkman-y misdirect thing, you know, like with Dante. Let's make you think it's one thing and it's something else. I mean, Dante paid off big time. But this, I'm just kind of like, really? She's a nurse? She's going to like sexy heal him? Because that's what nurses do in these shows. Like, it's, I don't know. I just find myself eye rolling a little bit. It feels like there was one bit of writing that felt almost close to fear where she's like,

[00:17:32] I know you have a family and we're not your family, but we are here now. And I'm like, yes, okay. We got that, Lily. Like, yeah. I'm just, I'm also a little bit like, be more safeguarding with your child. Don't leave them alone in a bathroom with a strange man who you just met two days ago. That seems weird. Even if he hadn't kept his zombie daughter in his back room for innumerable months. I, yeah. I don't know. There's something about it that just feels a bit kind of penciled in to kind of get him to a certain point.

[00:18:01] Whereas Tara, I think, even from the get-go, is quite well-written and quite intriguing and has this kind of interesting chemistry with other characters. So that's one of my whinges, is Lily. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, it's tricky because this story is about the governor almost giving up on life and then just coming across this family that's like his family that he lost and what

[00:18:28] destroyed him and thinking, oh, wow, I guess maybe this could take their place. And so, yeah, then you fall into that trap as a writer that of the other characters just being there to serve the story of the protagonist, right? And so they can be thinly written. And so Tara is interesting in that aspect because she doesn't really need to be there. And I wonder if they put her in there just so it wouldn't be too perfect, you know? Like, oh, it's, I mean, there's this father, but he's going to, this grandpa, but he's

[00:18:58] going to die. And then there's just going to be a mom and a daughter just like he left. So that's too perfect. Let's throw in a sister in there too. So then she becomes not there just to serve a story. She's there to throw in a little something extra, you know, different. And then it's interesting that then she then becomes the only character to keep going in this whole episode. She survives. Maybe rather than governor backstory, this is Tara backstory. I don't know. But yeah, I didn't know, Nathan, how you felt about Lily compared to the, I mean, did

[00:19:26] you just read them as two separate Lilies? Yeah, I did. And it helps that in the book, full disclosure, I only ended up reading the first book, Rise of the Governor, which is all right, because that's everything that happens in this episode is part of that book. So in, in the book, when the governor meets Tara's family, the Lily character is named April,

[00:19:55] I think she has a different name. Yeah. And I don't know if there was some kind of conscious decision to parse out what they wanted to do with that character or something. Oh, well, there's another character named Lily later. Yeah. So I don't know if in the show, if they wanted to put two book versions together. But characters. They do have a history of doing that, huh? Like, yeah. Combining or changing roles. Well, she only lasts two more episodes though, so.

[00:20:24] I also think like, don't, don't hook up in the back of a van with your sister and your kid nearby. That just seems gross. I'm just judging them for that. Sorry, everyone. It's not the. It's not the grossest thing we see in The Walking Dead sex wise, but it's not great. It's not great. Yeah. Chapel Rowan has a song about that though. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Knee deep in the back of the van. All right. Shall I go into my first point? Why not? Yeah.

[00:20:52] Letting acting speak for itself without a lot of dialogue. I like that. There's moments where there's little to no dialogue and they let the actor's body language and facial expressions do the work. And so kudos to Nicole Beatty, who wrote this episode. The whole coal open before the title music is dialogue free. We pick up right after the governor massacred all his people. Martinez and Schumpert, his two henchmen are giving each other looks like, oh, what the hell? I don't know. What do we do?

[00:21:20] And then when they set up camp, there's this zombie approaching the governor shambling towards him through the campfire. And he's just seems so distant and withdrawn. Like I felt like he was going to let it eat him. And Martinez kills it and looks kind of like, what are you doing, man? You know, on his face. I think the governor was suicidal. I think his purpose for living was gone and his heart was dead.

[00:21:46] And even his quest for vengeance, it failed and he's just all vitality gone. And then when he comes out of the tent and sees that Martinez and Schumpert have deserted him, that was just such a great moment in the cold light of day. Everyone is gone, you know, from his life. Then there's the super quick montage of him bulldozing through the Woodbury wall and setting the buildings on fire. And it's just, you get that attitude of nothing. I tried work. So fuck it, burn it all down.

[00:22:15] And it's set to the song, the last pale light in the West. In my hands, I hold the ashes in my veins. Black pitch runs in my chest. A fire catches in my way. The setting sun, dark clouds gather around me. Due northwest, the soul is bound and I will go on a head free. There's a light yet to be found that the last pale light in the West. So it's a good theme for this episode.

[00:22:40] I ask for no redemption in this cold bare place was my favorite line from that. Yeah. And then a couple other moments with kind of spare dialogue when the governor's telling Lily how to kill the Zeds and says, you have to kill the brain. And she says, what? And he goes, your sister. She shot him in the body, but you have to hit him here. Points to his head. That's what kills him. And she goes, why? And he just shrugs. It doesn't matter.

[00:23:09] And then I do think you have some good points about her character. And I think it could be especially annoying if you want to see fully realized women in shows that have their own stories. And she's just kind of feels like an extension of his story. That said, their hookup scene I thought was really good because you see them there and you just get the vibe from both of them that they're probably interested just from their body language.

[00:23:36] But neither one of them, she's kind of leaning towards him with her back away. And then he's looking at her and almost like she can feel maybe she felt his breath or something. And she turns and looks at him and then they're both kind of like horny, but tentative. And that's how it is the first time with somebody you're like, am I going to be rejected here or am I going to do something that they don't want? You know?

[00:24:04] And so they're like making these little tentative moves until they both realize that they're both interested and then it quickly escalates. And I just thought that was a great acting job. And then at one point, I think he even like they start and then he pulls back a little bit as if to say, is this okay? And do I have your consent? And she nods and then they just go for it. You know, it's just a well done scene. So I don't know about like thinking whether they have chemistry or not. I kind of see why you would say that, but I thought at least in that moment they did.

[00:24:35] Agree to disagree. Okay. That's fine. All right. Let's move on to the next one, Nathan. So before I get to my next one, Jason, I actually have a question for you. So at the start of your point, you mentioned that in the beginning of the episode, we see the flashback to Martinez and Shumpert from season three.

[00:25:01] And I remember that this season three flashback at the start of the episode is the final appearance of Shumpert in the show. So it's mentioned next week that he died off screen. So I was curious since around this time, you spent a lot of time at Walker Stalker cons. Did you ever hear any story about why Travis Love wasn't able to come back?

[00:25:32] Trying to remember. Um, I don't remember hearing any story about that. I just know that a lot of times the actors who didn't die in the show would be like, yeah, I hope they call me. I don't know if they will. They just sort of be left to wonder if they were ever going to be called back. And I think Shumpert maybe on stage would half jokingly say, yeah, he's still alive. He didn't die.

[00:25:57] We didn't see it, you know, but, um, I don't know if I ever heard any reason why I suspect there was not really any reason and they just didn't have a good story for him or something like that. You know, he's a good guy. RIP. RIP Shumpert. So I guess for my second point, uh, kind of jump, jumping off of Lucy's point, uh, more about book comparisons. Mm hmm.

[00:26:28] So, uh, if you ever wanted to feel old, by the way, Rise of the Governor is pushing 13 years old. Oh my God. I'm so old. You know, The Walking Dead simultaneously feels new and I don't know, not that old to me, but then you look back and it's been 15 years. Oh, that is nuts. Mm hmm. But, um, this book, it starts at the early days of the apocalypse.

[00:26:57] And one of the big reveals of this book is that Brian is actually the governor's real name. And he's kind of a meek character. He's surviving the apocalypse with his brother, whose name is Philip. And Philip is more of what we know as the traditional governor personality. Mm hmm. From the comics. Yeah. Well, I guess maybe the show too. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:22] And Philip feels like you have to be a monster to beat the monsters. And to some degree, he kind of reminds me of Shane and near the end of season two in a lot of ways. Um, in the book, they do come across this apartment with Tara's family. Uh, uh, but this is all taking place prior to them discovering Wood, Woodbury. Mm hmm.

[00:27:48] Um, there are some similar story beats in the apartment, like the dad needs an oxygen tank and, uh, they don't know people can turn just by dying and things like that. Uh, the big difference is that Penny is still with Brian and Philip at this time. So they didn't write a terrorist family to have a daughter already there. But fast forwarding a bit through the course of the story, Brian and Philip are traveling

[00:28:15] and Penny takes a straight gunshot by some looters. And by this point, Philip is off the rails. He's torturing people and people suspect he's killing survivors just so he can feed Penny. But long story short, around the time they get to Woodbury, Philip dies. And Brian, who has become hardened over the course of the book, takes on the name of Philip

[00:28:41] because he feels like his brother is the type of person he has to be to survive. So, looking at all this through the lens of this episode, since the governor's stripped of his whole identity at this point, we think he's, we think he's lying when he tells a terrorist family that his name is Brian. But I think it's actually interesting if you inject some book lore into your viewing. Mm hmm.

[00:29:09] If you look at it, like, he may actually be telling somebody his real name for the first time. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And he, he says when he's telling Megan, the little girl, the story of what happened, he says the leader, what did he say? I forget, but he talks about himself as if it's someone else. Yeah. He let it get out of control or something like that.

[00:29:36] And we, we, we barely got out with our lives and the man in charge, he talks about as if it's not him. And so it feels like he's externalizing that person from himself, that he's no longer him anymore. And almost like, almost maybe even saying, wow, I was at the mercy of this part of myself that I'm letting go of now. You could think charitably. I don't actually think that, but that's one way to read it.

[00:30:02] But yeah, he dissociates in a way when he talks about the governor, like a different person. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of want to build on what you were saying there and I think, cause I was thinking about that as well in terms of one of the things you learn in the book is how fractured the governor's thinking is and how he believes, he really believes himself to be Philip. Like he doesn't let that bit of his brain in.

[00:30:26] And I do wonder sometimes like with this episode, how much when he's talking about the man in charge, is he really believing that he is someone completely different? Like I can read it just as him bluffing and saying the man in charge, we barely got out alive. But also I wonder, is he fracturing more? Or is he starting to see that real mental break that we, we kind of witness in the rise of the governor?

[00:30:54] I will say though, I also really enjoyed the cold open. That was one of my points. I should have bounced on this earlier, Jason, when you were talking about it, but I wanted to talk about it a little bit. Um, I think the music's wonderful. The last pale light in the West by Ben Nichols. And I think that shot of Woodbury burning is really iconic. Like him standing there. Um, it's almost a little bit like music video, like looking right into the camera there.

[00:31:22] He's like, he's like, Hey, he also knows it's like one of the last times we're going to see him without the terrible wig that he wears for the rest of the episode. That wig really distracted me. Um, but we hear him talking to Lily and Tara over this and we're kind of asking ourselves, where are these women? Who's he speaking to? And I recognize Tara's voice right away.

[00:31:45] And I was just like, yeah, it's so much fun doing the rewatch when characters that we've come to know and most of us love, um, to hear them or see them for the first time. And that's the feeling. And it made me think, I can't wait until Aaron comes on. That's going to be so much fun. Yeah, I know. Oh, it's going to be so great. And we see him observe the wall of names. We learned that Megan Cook died. Brian Harriet. Some people were really keen to find Brian Harriet. I would love to see a Tales of the Walking Dead just about Brian Harriet, just to get the backstory of that.

[00:32:13] Um, and his physical, his physicality, the staggering walk, he's walking like he's drunk, like the, he's so pathetic that the walkers aren't even noticing him. It's not even that he's evading them. They're just not noticing him. Like he gets rid of a walker just by sort of shoving it to the side. Because he's shambling around just like them. He's like the walking dead. He really is. Maybe they think, ah, that guy seems dead. I think he's one of us. Pretty much dead already.

[00:32:38] And so he keels over by this, um, Gorbelli van, the, the van that Tara's, uh, father was driving. And he sees the vision of this little blonde girl in the window and he gets up and moves towards her. And then we meet Lily and her baseball bat, Tara and her gun and Megan hiding behind them. And that's kind of our setup. Um, but it is, it's a really strong cold open. Like that's the thing that episode itself, I find a bit of a drag, but the cold open, I think is pretty exceptional.

[00:33:04] And we learn later that from the other side of that, Megan thought he was her dad. So not only did he think she was, um, Penny, she thought that he might be her dad come back after three and a half years. Cause we learned that her dad walked out and never came back. So they're both looking for something from the other. And I thought that was a neat parallel that I didn't remember from the first time I'd watched it. Yeah. They're all, I think they're all, yeah.

[00:33:31] I mean, it's, he found exactly the thing that would bring him back to himself because he has this hole in his heart from having lost his daughter and his wife, maybe to a lesser extent. I don't know, but it seems like it was mostly focused on his daughter. She seems to get, she seems to get less focused. Yeah. Uh, but then again, maybe that was just cause he had a zombie daughter and he didn't have a zombie wife. I don't know. He, he keeps looking at the picture of both of them either way.

[00:34:00] You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess, or something. I don't know. Maybe absence makes you forget. Maybe that's the motto. And he, and then, you know, there's this family that has a governor shaped hole in their life. They're like, you know what we really need is like a one-eyed pirate guy to come in and be our dad. You had both mentioned, uh, the song, the last pale light in the West. And Jason, you read the, uh, lyrics earlier.

[00:34:29] And I think they kind of mirror, uh, the governor's journey that we've been talking about. Um, you know, the song kind of describes this person who's seeking no redemption and, you know, he holds the ashes on his hands and things like that. But he sees this light in the distance. And for him, at least in the instance of this episode, that light is seeing Megan in the window and he sees, she evokes this image of Penny in his mind.

[00:35:01] I, I wonder if the real way to pronounce the title of this episode, we all say live bait because you think of live bait, but maybe it's live bait. Like this is the bait that causes him to live again. I don't know if that's what they had in mind, but that's kind of what it made me think of, you know, and it was her really, it was all about her. It felt like, like more than anything, same thing. Like I was saying, maybe he cared more about Penny than his wife. It feels like Megan is the real thing that reactivates him. Yeah.

[00:35:31] The daughter. Uh, so I, I, I have a point about the governor's psychology after his big failures that we saw at the end of last season. And I think of him as a narcissist, a classic narcissist who thinks of other people as objects for his own ends and not people. He's lost that connection with humanity. And there's the thing called narcissistic injury and collapse. And I think we're witnessing that.

[00:36:01] I've done a lot of study about narcissists over the last couple of years. Uh, cause I had one in my life and I wanted to figure out what the hell was going on. And, um, so I found out that extreme narcissists are actually really insecure at their core. But so that's why they have this carefully crafted image that they put out to the world. And it's really important to them to maintain that for everyone to be attracted to and to look up to.

[00:36:29] So they don't have to face what they feel they are inside. And so up to this point, the governor presented himself as this powerful, respected leader and a provider of safety and order. But that was just a mask that he constructed a persona to maintain control and admiration and everything. And deep down, he was driven by grief and rage and this need for dominance and control. And, um, narcissists thrive on the admiration of others.

[00:36:56] That's often called narcissistic supply by psychologists. So they just see other people as a supply to be used. They don't see the humanity in other others. And that props up this false image. And they, they like, um, see people as being either for them or against them. Will you help me uphold this image of myself, corroborate it? Or will you, if not, then you're a threat to me. And they test loyalty by being controlling. If people follow along, it's all good.

[00:37:24] But if someone doesn't buy into their mask, that's a threat. And so they'll try to forcefully take them down a lot of times like governor did with Michonne or Rick and his people. Um, and then with his own people, you know, he, he didn't shoot them all because they failed necessarily. He was frustrated that they failed, but he shot them all when they refused to keep helping him.

[00:37:48] I think that's when he got mad and shot them all because then they were no longer buying into him as this like savior or, you know, having this just mission. They're like, no, no, we're out. And then, then they're not useful for him anymore. Um, and so at that point he was broken. He, he, his grandiose image of himself was shattered and he was humiliated. And, and so that's why he's wondering like a shambling zombie, like a walking dead.

[00:38:16] And instead of trying to face his inadequacies, accept responsibility and rebuild, he burns everything down, literally erasing his past. And, and, uh, that's where he's sort of even like you said, Nathan dissociating himself with it, calling that person, someone else. And that was some other guy, not me. And then, um, then, you know, so he's in this dissociated withdrawn state.

[00:38:43] Like he's a non-person almost when we see him here, but then he slowly latches onto this new group. They're his new narcissistic supply. They see him as a kind savior. So he can build up that false image again with them. That's one way of looking at it. I mean, I think a more charitable view is he lost his daughter and that kind of killed his heart and it, it's what drove him into all this. Um, but then again, we've seen people in the walking dead lose things before and not become manipulative psychopaths.

[00:39:11] I'd say 50, 50, but, um, 50, 50 chance. And the walking dead 50, 50. But I, I think, I mean, just sort of armchair psychology, maybe the governor already had narcissistic tendencies all along, but they were kind of kept in check while he still had his family. Like before, maybe he, he might've been ordinary, but maybe a bit controlling and prideful, but still capable of love, but then losing his wife. And especially his daughter might've amplified those traits, pushing him over the edge into this full blown narcissistic pathology.

[00:39:41] Um, and even Matt, if that's true, then there's a decent chance his family life wasn't great that his wife and daughter actually were annoyed with him or felt controlled by him, you know, and he's got this idealized version of what it was in his head. So anyway, that's what I think is his psychology before we get into what happens this episode. And, and even with all that said there, I did find myself feeling sorry for him at moments.

[00:40:06] I mean, I never let myself forget that he machine gunned all those people down in addition to the other things he did and he deserves to pay the consequences for that. But I love when a show can also make you feel like see the humanity in somebody like that and see them as a fully a person who has pain and stuff, you know, why are you laughing at that? I like remove myself from what we're talking about. And I listened to the words we're saying and it makes me laugh.

[00:40:34] But it's just the way we're really like, I will never forget that he machine gunned down a whole heap of people. But I did feel sorry for him this episode. That's true. That's true. I would never want him anywhere near me. He probably deserves to die. But, you know, there were moments in this episode where I'm like, man, he, throughout his story, like he, he, he lost his daughter and he's just trying to get his zombie daughter to come back. And the way he went about it was so wrong and stupid and hurtful.

[00:41:01] But just that part of it, that loss. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I can feel something for him. It's a testament to David Morrissey's acting that you feel sorry for him even though he's the guy with heads and fish tanks. Yeah. He's so good. He was, I just, one of the many reasons why I loved Lance Horn's face so much was I think they lifted elements of the governor for Lance.

[00:41:28] I think they lifted a bit of the aesthetic and a bit of the kind of role that the governor played. And I think that was going back to the well in a good way of, um, a good point in the show in terms of a worthy adversary for our groups. Honestly, I think Lance is even better. I really do.

[00:41:46] The way he played it, you know, he, cause, uh, the governor, he's so, I mean, maybe this is part of his character, but, and I do think like he, you feel that mask, you know, there's something going on underneath, but you don't know what it is. And so it comes off a bit stiff. And I think that is what kind of draws people in because he's mysterious and they're curious and he doesn't seem like he's trying to get anything from them, you know, like you said in the song, not seeking redemption. And so they're like, oh, he's not chasing me.

[00:42:13] So that means I should be chasing him maybe or, but with, uh, Lance, he was a little bit more, there was more to chew on there because it was more on the surface, I guess. I don't know. Definitely. And I would say his fashion sense was like up and up. The Gile game was strong. They both, they both have a Milton in their life. They do. Oh yeah. That, that guy forgot. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:44] Uh, oh, you mean Pamela? Yeah. The Milton. I thought you were talking about. Oh yeah. So what else, Nate? Okay. I just want to talk about why I like Tara. Yay. Simple enough. Yeah. So first off, she uses a sense of humor to cope with trauma, which is something I do as well. I think a lot of people do.

[00:43:10] Uh, but something I find compelling right off the bat thinking about this episode is you could make the case that in a sense, her apocalypse doesn't truly begin until after she meets the governor. Up to this point, her family is intact. They have a food truck right outside their apartment and they've had to shelter in place, but they haven't had to experience the wilderness.

[00:43:39] But two episodes from now, her entire family is gone. And she feels a lot of turmoil and regret about being on the wrong side of the prison fence. Mm-hmm.

[00:43:58] Mm-hmm.

[00:44:25] Almost tragically, like they come together and you're like, no, no, no. It's like a horror movie almost. Um, but with Tara, then you get to see her realize that she's on the wrong side of it, like you said, and then how she navigates that with our group. And so that's, it's an interesting story. You don't get to see that a lot. I don't think. The like grace of Glenn and forgiving her and welcoming her in any way is just so lovely.

[00:44:50] I also, she's the first canonically gay character in the Walking Dead TV show. Mm-hmm. Which by the end of the show isn't such a big deal, but at this point, it was still pretty cool. Yeah, there's, yeah, there's a bunch more gay characters after this, but yeah, that's right. She doesn't have much luck in the partner department, RIP Dr. Denise, but yeah, it's good to have her around. Oh, do you know, sorry, sidebar, Merit Weaver, man. Merit Weaver. Yeah. I can't believe she was on the show. She was so good.

[00:45:21] Severance. Severance, yeah. That's right. It's so good to see her, yeah. She looks the same, like she hasn't aged a day then. She was great too. Oh, Tara, you're going to get to meet Denise. You're going to get to meet her. It's going to be great. I love how she's herself right from the start, really blunt. You know, she tells him, you look like you barely got out alive. She's sarcastic with the attitude, but she always, to me, had heart.

[00:45:49] And it's weird because she has a combination of this prickly quality, but also a yearning, big hearted quality there that's close to the surface with her. Like she wants it awkward too. She wants a fist bump, you know, and I find it endearing personally. I know some people just don't like how she played that character, but I like it. It kind of reminds me, she feels like a real person more than the other characters do in a way. They feel like a bit, like, I don't know, cinematic.

[00:46:17] And she's like, you plopped someone who was watching and pushed them into the show. Yeah. The way she acts. I think she does great. And it's kind of weird because I'm not going to go into details, but Alana Masterson was one of the few Walking Dead actors that I actually didn't always get along with when I was doing Walker Stalker. But she was great with the fans, though. I did see that. And I like Tara a lot.

[00:46:44] But there was one time when I did a panel with Alana and I don't know why, but afterwards she just came right across the stage and gave me a big hug. I don't know why. It almost felt like that fist bump thing. One other thing about her that I totally had forgotten is that she used to be in the police academy. Yes! And I wonder if that never came into things again, you know? I don't remember anything about it.

[00:47:14] But it seems like she'd be good with a gun, at least. Yeah, I mean, as the show goes on, everyone's a marksman. Yeah. So it's hard to make a distinction about what a history of gun use in your profession helps you out. Compared to anyone else. I always loved Tara's interactions with Rick in that sense, because I think he never quite knew what to do with her either. I remember her doing the fist bumps and there was one scene in Alexandria where she's trying to get them to do nicknames over the radio and stuff.

[00:47:44] And he's just not super into it. And I always enjoyed that. It's nice to see her. She feels quite fully formed from the Tara that we know later. Obviously, she develops and changes, but it's nice to see that all the building blocks of her are kind of there already, which is lovely. It's a nice kind of... I don't know. It's a good entrance. It's a strong, strong start. I think I had Tara as one of my points as well.

[00:48:13] I'm just going to see if there's anything that's not kind of been said. I'll talk a little bit about Brian and Megan and the kind of relationships that Megan has with these father figures, because clearly she's very close to her grandfather. She's playing backgammon with him, but she's not coping too well with the whole apocalypse. She's refusing to eat some things. Her mom points out she's not picky. She's terrified.

[00:48:42] The reason that Brian has to go upstairs to the veteran's apartment is to get a backgammon set that might make Megan talk again. Her grandfather asks that. And I think that's when he decides to do it. When the grandpa says it might make her talk again, then he's like, okay. Because I think on some level he's like, I want her to like me. I want this little girl to like me.

[00:49:03] I think as well, I was thinking about depression when I was watching this episode and Brian's gross depression beard and just how bad things were going for him. And I think there is this, speaking of someone who has never had a wig that bad or a beard that bad, but has been depressed.

[00:49:24] There is this point, I think, where you're deep in it, where having a task or having something to do, even starting to go through the motions again, can kind of bring you back to life a little bit. So he gets missions in this episode. He gets the mission of getting the backgammon set where he retrieves that gun. And he also gets the mission of the oxygen tank retrieval. And he takes them all on and starts to walk the walk again and take the steps.

[00:49:50] And I'm interested in how that sort of shakes him out of his funk a little bit. That parallels a little bit with Lily saying it's good to have something to do when she's dressing his wounds. You know, this is boring, but maybe they kind of helped each other in that way. Yeah, when she said nobody mentioned just how boring the end of the world was going to be. I was thinking of Dale talking about his books and if he'd known the world was going to end, he would have brought better books. It's a nice mirror.

[00:50:19] But yeah, so when he's finished his backgammon mission, he folds himself out of the picture of him and his family. So he's distancing himself there. And then after the oxygen tank incident and when Lily comes to heal him and after Megan's grandfather passes away, he burns himself out of the family photo. So it's like he burns the photo in its entirety. So it's like he's shedding this trauma. He's shedding the layers.

[00:50:50] But he also graduates up in kind of intimacy with Megan when she's sitting in the bathroom with him, kind of fascinated with him. Again, I feel like her mom should be taking more safeguarding measures, but these people are very sheltered. As you pointed out, Nathan, their apocalypse hasn't really started yet. She's falling for him at this point too, I think. So she's trusting him more than maybe she should. Absolutely more than she should. Yeah. So Megan asks Brian, what happened to your eye?

[00:51:19] And he says he's a pirate. And he laughs because she obviously doesn't believe him. And it's this moment of kind of levity. And he says he was trying to help someone, which obviously means his daughter. So it sets up this relationship between the two of them. And we see him teach her how to play chess. He's also shaved and clearly had a wash. And he's teaching her some big symbolism. You can lose a lot of soldiers and still win the game.

[00:51:46] She makes the king piece him by giving it an eye patch. But that is kind of shattered because he then has to go and put her grandfather down because no one else has figured out that he needs to get smooshed in order to not bite Tara. And that kind of fractures his relationship with Megan. But you see by the end of the episode, she feels safe with him again and looks to him to look after her. Yeah. And he promises he won't let anything happen to her. He says cross my heart.

[00:52:16] So at that point they feel emotionally committed to each other, you know? Yeah. Okay, I trust you. Yeah. Instinctive safety. Did you notice the chess set? Was it the one from Scotland? Yeah, it's a replica of the Lewis Chessman. I think in the back of my mind. Yeah, because I think you saw them, didn't you, when you were in Scotland, right? Yeah, a real one. So this is like an old proto chess set that's in a museum in Scotland.

[00:52:46] Yeah. The Iola Lewis. Yeah, it's very, very old. You can, fun fact, if you own a 3D printer, there are patterns online for printing your own Lewis Chessman. And there are really good images of them on Wikicomedia Commons, thanks to the National Museum of Scotland. But I saw it and I was like, huh. I thought of Scotland when I was watching this episode, not because of that. Maybe it triggered something subconsciously.

[00:53:10] But I was thinking, okay, they lived in this house and they're eating all this junk food, you know, for how many days is it? 500 something days. Something like that, yeah. And I'm like, do they then have to like throw their shit out the window and say, guardy loose? I thought you were going to say like, that's just how Scottish people live. We just sit in our house and eating junk food. We do not. We're great. But yeah, I did wonder. That's what they told us in the Middle Ages. Yep. Throw our toilet out the window. Yep, yep, yep, yep. But yeah, Lewis Chessman, which is cool.

[00:53:40] So clearly they got a really cool chess set from somewhere. But you can make one at home if you are so inclined. But yeah, I thought that it was quite light touch, the stuff with the governor and Megan. I thought the kid actor did a really good job. And I thought David Morris' performance was really good as well. She's Merrick Murphy. And she was a freaking blast to interview at Walker Stalker.

[00:54:06] She was just like full of things to say. And, you know, really intelligent. And I published an episode a while back that had panel highlights with her and Brighton Charbonneau, Addie Miller, who was Teddy Bear Girl from the very first episode. Emma Bell, who's Amy. So I'll put a link in the show notes. But it's fun to listen to just to hear her. That's lovely.

[00:54:33] So, yeah, I think he wants to help. Like you said, he's depressed. It's helpful to have a mission. And also, I think he's starting to get drawn to the idea of being there for this girl, you know, fulfilling some kind of a role for her. So when the grandpa says it might help her talk, that helps get him to do it.

[00:54:53] And then I think his withdrawn nature and air of mystery and not he's not at least overtly trying to get anything from anyone. And that, I think, draws her into. So she comes and asks about his eye. And, yeah, he jokes about being a pirate and laughs. And that was the first joyful spark we've seen from him since he flirted with Andrea, you know, back at Woodbury. So Megan, I think, seems to have woken him up.

[00:55:21] And then he talks about Penny and everything. He wanted to help her. And then teaching her chess. I thought it was pretty on the nose where she's like, they're talking about the pawns. Do they die? Sometimes. Do you lose if they die? No, not necessarily. You can lose a lot of soldiers but still win the game. Would you ever kill a bunch of your own pawns because you're mad at them? Sure.

[00:55:51] Because they didn't do what you wanted. But suggesting that he can still win shows that he's starting to feel more upbeat. I think that maybe this new arrangement could work for him. And then she draws the patch on the king, which I think is just like no matter how he presents himself, he has that leader energy, I guess. And he was tickled by that. But I think this fits the whole narcissism thing. Because in chess, the king's the only piece that matters. Any other piece can be sacrificed.

[00:56:23] Yeah. Well, it's all about access to the king, isn't it? It's all about getting that checkmate. Yeah. And every other piece is used to keep the king safe or accomplish the king's ends, kill the other king. It's a very sexist game. When they're talking about how the king can win the chess game, I'm kind of torn on if the governor is thinking about he could still win the long game with the prison.

[00:56:52] Or if winning is from the perspective of Brian having a family. Yeah, winning at life. Yeah. I think probably the writer would say, oh, I'm leaving that up to interpretation. You know, I bet you she didn't have either or in mind there, but I don't know.

[00:57:15] I'm interested to see in the next episode, like, does he, yeah, when they're driving, is he consciously driving back to near the prisoner? Does he get sucked back in because of Martinus? Yeah, I can't remember. Yeah, I'm really interested to see. Because she dies. Megan dies. Yeah, Megan dies. At some point. And I don't know if that's when he. Lily, like, fucking can't stand him after that, I don't think. She finishes him off, I believe. Yeah.

[00:57:42] Yeah, I'm kind of glad I don't remember because I'm excited to watch it. So when he burned the picture of his family, I was not sure what that was about at first. Because I thought at first, oh, this signifies that he has a new family now. He doesn't need them. But then he immediately tries to leave without them. Like, and she, Lily, catches him. Where are you going? You're not going anywhere. So thinking about it more, I think what, I think this is what happened.

[00:58:10] And he was like, oh, I'm getting, I'm feeling attached. I laughed with this little girl. She seems to, these people like me. But when I let myself be attached, then it hurts. That's what happened last time. So no, I can't let myself go through that again. I don't want to go through that pain again. So I'm out of here. And so that's why. And then he was like, I'm going to let go of the attachment to my old family too. It's all just too much pain.

[00:58:40] Something like that. And so that's why he burned the picture at the same time that he was going to leave this family. Just leave them both at the same time. All of it. But anyway, then it was too much of a draw when Lily asked him to stay. To stay. And I, and I'm also thinking, well, wow, that was a mistake. If not for Tara and her sister's kindness, then maybe Herschel would be spared, right? The governor would just go off and crawl into a hole and die. And that would have probably been the best thing for everyone. As cruel as that is to say. Just to think, Jason, just two minutes ago, you were like, I feel sorry for that. I know.

[00:59:10] How many people you shoot stone? And, and he deserves to die. And he also deserves to die. Can all be true. Yeah. All right. Anything else, Nathan? I have a note about SpaghettiOs. Oh, yay. Well, first off, he heard that Herschel wanted to have Spaghetti Tuesdays. So when he found out he was going to get SpaghettiO Thursdays, he was mad. Why didn't he eat it? Is it beneath him? It's so dumb. Well, yeah, he had some tuna instead or something.

[00:59:40] I didn't get that. I went back and watched an old clip of David Morrissey on The Talking Dead. Ooh. And he said the reason he threw the SpaghettiOs out of the window is because he still had the mindset of being, wanting to be in isolation and not wanting to be indebted to anyone. And that tuna can, I think, was in his own bag of stuff. Okay. But I think that, you know, not wanting help, that ship has sailed as soon as he decided

[01:00:10] to walk into the apartment building. Yeah. Also, like, rude. Like, eat your fucking SpaghettiOs. Like, just eat it. Come on. It's a waste. Yeah. It's a waste. There's like a zombie down below with spaghetti on its head. Like, argh. Mom, why are there Skettios on the ground outside? Because Brian's a dick. Yeah. Because your new dad is terrible. Lucy D. Do you have any more points?

[01:00:40] Just notes. I have one about Lily. I feel like it might piss you off, but let's find out. She's the best. It won't piss me off. I just... No. She's fine. It's just one of those things where I'm like, eh, like, this could be... I get it. Yeah. Yeah. I totally do. I think the actress was really good, Audrey Marie Anderson. I'll say that. And she looks like Megan Dively Lehman, also a three-named person.

[01:01:10] Really? I think so. I was taken aback by how much she looked like Maggie. I was like, this must be a deliberate casting thing. Like, they've made her look like Maggie, but yeah. Hmm. I thought she seemed to vibe with him from the start. She seemed curious. He activated her maternal instinct. You know, she wanted to feed him and tend to his wounds and everything.

[01:01:35] I mean, it is that really old-fashioned stereotypical thing that I can understand why. I mean, me too. I want stories where women get to be their own main character, you know? Like Orange is the New Black. It's one of my favorite shows, you know? And here she's very much serving his story.

[01:01:59] But, you know, you're trying to tell a story about him getting sucked backed in. And this is the perfect situation for him that he feels like he was missing. So, anyway. We find out they've been holed up and living off junk food from this Gore Belly food truck and don't know how to fight the Zeds. And I think the writers did that. So, it makes more sense that this family would need the governor and see him as a savior.

[01:02:26] And I think she fell for him little by little because of his actions. And we think of him as being this charming wordsmith. But that's gone, right? He's only got his actions because he's not saying anything. And so, she loved that he got the bad gammon set for his daughter. You could see when she thanked him that she was very moved by that. Yeah. And I think she finds him mysterious, as I've said. And that draws him in. And she's tender with him blowing on his wound and everything.

[01:02:56] And then when she says, Megan thought you were her dad when she saw you on the street. I think she's saying that because she's seeing him in that role, too. And she wants a man in her life. You know? Her father is weak and almost dying. And she knows he's not going to be around. And she's bored. And, you know, like I said, they're a family with a governor-shaped hole in it. But it's too bad she's not as good at reading people as Michonne. Because Michonne wouldn't have done any of that, of course.

[01:03:26] Nope. I guess that's all I had to say about her. So, why don't we... Well, I had one more about Martina. So, Martina and Schumpert, they desert the governor. And it was interesting to me how they stuck with him until that particular moment. And I think that could have been because they were still sort of processing the shock of him massacring all those people. And it just took them a few hours to be like, yeah, no, we can't do this.

[01:03:53] But also, I think it could have been that he seemed ready to give up. Like maybe with the zombie coming through the campfire and he just sitting there. Maybe they would stick with him through any atrocities he committed as long as he still seemed strong and purposeful and committed to his mission or whatever. And I feel like that with a lot of leaders where people follow a strong leader straight to hell.

[01:04:19] But as soon as that person shows doubt or loses their fighting spirit, then people scatter. It could have been something like that, you know? I don't know. And then they fall at the end in Martina's trap, which is the same kind of trap that they used to make for Woodbury. And so I thought that was kind of cool that the governor fell in a trap made by a guy who maybe he even taught to make those kind of traps. Or at least he used to make them for him. I sang the pit song from Parks and Recreation about falling in a pit.

[01:04:48] And it made me really laugh. So that was my good ending to the episode for me. All right, let's get into notes. Excellent. I like This Ain't the Holiday Inn. That made me laugh. I also enjoyed him lifting the grand... I enjoyed the governor lifting the grandfather up bodyguard style, like a rom-com hero, to take him to bed, which is very cute. Yeah.

[01:05:16] Aside from that, the old folks home was suitably creepy. I enjoyed that. And... Yes. Yeah, that was a good set piece. I thought that was awesome. It's dark and eerie and grody old Zeds. Oh, so gross. One strapped to the bed and wheelchair. And then I like how he made his way in, kind of trying to avoid him and stay quiet. And then you see the orderlies come as zombies all converging on him. That was well done, I thought. I also love just how gross the death of Tara's dad is.

[01:05:45] It's not just like, oh, he got shot in the head. It's like, I'm going to smoosh him with a fire extinguisher or an oxygen thing. It's going to be gross. It's like, properly disgusting. So well done for that, Governor. Well done. I have my IMDb, but we'll wait till after. Only on The Walking Dead. Let's see. A couple notes. When their truck broke down and they had to walk and then Tara hurts her leg and a bunch

[01:06:12] of zombies are coming up and Megan freezes and the governor, for some reason, is calling her. Come on, Megan. I'm like, go over there and get her. Why? Why are you saying come here? But anyway, she runs into his arms and then he carries her away from the zombies. And that scene reminded me of Rick with Sophia. I'm not sure if that was intentional, but I'm like, you did the right thing here. You took her with you. I thought about that as well. Especially. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:42] I mean, Sophia's bigger maybe, so he couldn't, but I don't know. But this episode did feel a little bit like the pilot, like the governor's version of a pilot where he's alone. He finds this family. Rick found Morgan and Dwayne. Just a little bit. I wonder if there were intentional parallels there. I don't know. I like it. Yeah. And last, I was thinking maybe live bait is actually live bait because it's this family that makes him want to live again.

[01:07:12] And then next week is called dead weight. And so maybe after Megan dies, the rest of the people are just dead weight. You know, they're just objects to him again. Live bait, dead weight. Like it. Like it. All right. What do we got for IMDb? Okay. So IMDb. In preparation for season four, David Morrissey lost weight to show the hardship the governor faced. While the weight loss was real, the hair and beard were fake. Especially made for him in London.

[01:07:41] I like that they included in London, like they're classy because they were made in London. Um, the fire that destroyed Woodbury was mostly visual effects since it was shot in the real town of Sonoy. They should have given one of those barristers wigs. It might have. Oh my gosh. Hello. I'm the governor. Um, but the town hall was a set that was actually burned to the ground. Um, the skull crushing moment needed more than just a prosthetic walker head for full impact. I think this is about what happens in the pit.

[01:08:09] A fake hand was also used to prevent injury as it hit the solid wall of the pit. The chess set used in this episode is a replica of the Lewis Chessman, a 12th century chess set found in Scotland. The woman portraying the governor's wife is, do you know, Nathan? In the picture? Yeah. Denise Huth? Yeah. Um, it's the acting debut for Myrick Murphy, who played Megan. This is the second episode that doesn't feature Rick Grimes or his group.

[01:08:40] A big thing for the writers and the audience was to allow the governor to be humanized. After everything he had done, giving him likability and a soul was very difficult. I love that because it's not really a fact. Someone should put it in. Um, first appearance of Alanna Masterson as Tara. The place where the governor Martinez and Schumpert camp in the flashback is the same place where the governor and his soldiers wiped out the National Guard. Now, the timeline is a bit gnarly for this one.

[01:09:05] So this episode starts on day 313, which is also the day of Welcome to the Tombs because we have that flashback. Day 314 is the burning of Woodbury. We then don't really have any set dates. We know that Martinez dies on day 521. Um, so assuming that Martinez is going to die, I don't know how long they spend with him and his group in that camp.

[01:09:32] So we could be around about day 500 or so. Um, but if we take Martinez's death date on day 521 as being like basically the pit day, give or take, 208 days have passed between the fall of Woodbury and what we're seeing now. That's almost 30 weeks. So he must have wandered around because they gave him a beard to show a time jump, but he just wandered around for like a hundred days or something. That's what I was thinking because Lily and Tara, the timeline is murky, but you don't get

[01:10:00] the sense that he's with them for that long. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's a bit of an unknown, but yeah, it's about 30 weeks, which is roughly a seven months pass. So yeah, there's a lot that could, could happen in that timeframe. So yeah, but it will bring us right back up to day 524 by the end of next episode. Cool. Only on The Walking Dead would a family eat only junk food for two years. No, I'm just kidding. That would happen anywhere.

[01:10:29] Only on The Walking Dead would you turn down some alphabety spaghetti in favor of a tin of tuna. Only on The Walking Dead does someone give you a fist bump for saving them from their dead dad. I like that one. That's true. Yeah.

[01:11:33] Obvious threat to untold numbers of citizens. The people he kills, get up and tip. Are they slow moving, chief? Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up. This is a Walking Dead cast news update. So do you know about the Saturn Awards? Yeah. It's a, they're an American awards ceremony every year presented by Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Started out just to be science fiction, fantasy and horror, and then it's expanded a bit.

[01:12:01] But the 52nd one happened a few days back and The Ones Who Live won an award for best television presentation, which sounds vague, but it just means like things that are limited, TV movies, miniseries, anthology, stuff like that. So it won. Oh, that's cool. It was up against Fall of the House of Usher, Fargo, Salem's Lot and some others. So that's pretty good. That's amazing.

[01:12:27] I, you know, I was very like, they're not going to do a season two, but this plus the Netflix thing, I'm a little bit like. It would be cool. I mean, if it was good. Um, I looked, I went and looked at the other winners and it was nuts. There were a bunch of other podcastica shows that podcastica covered that won awards. House of the Dragon, which Wendy, Renny and Veronica cover on Dragon Cast won best fantasy

[01:12:51] TV series from on MGM plus, which Alex and Lizzie cover on what is from cast one best horror TV series. If you guys aren't watching that and you like horror, you should check it out for sure. Amazing. Agatha all along that Penny and Jim covered on Marvel TV cast is best adventure TV series. Monarch legacy of monsters, which is that, uh, uh, what is it? Uh, who's that big monster? Godzilla. Godzilla.

[01:13:22] Godzilla. Godzilla one, uh, Ben and Mark covered that on house podcastica. That one best adventure series over Shogun, which surprised me. Um, fallout, which was so great. Ben and my friend Doug and I covered in a single house podcastica episode, one best science fiction TV series, which I think is like the premier award. So it won the big one and Cobra Kai, which Rima and Richard and I cover on Cobra Kai cast one best action slash thriller TV series. That was really cool. I love that.

[01:13:51] We can pick them. Um, there was a Q and a at the Saturn awards and Scott Gimple said, I, the question wasn't audible, but his answer was Robert Kirkman. When he initially pitched the comic to image, it was a zombie movie that would never end. He would always see it in zombie movies and be like, wait, what happens after that? And it was a brilliant idea. And then Robert's own brilliance of character and novelty, incredible dialogue. It hooked me as a comic reader.

[01:14:17] And even though I was working on the show when this happened, when he stopped the comic, I was bummed out because I wanted a zombie movie that never ends. So we're picking up the torch and we're trying to do that. It's hard in the world where there's a billion TV shows, but yes, the goal is to always have walking dead shows on the air and to have those shows that feature the characters people love, and then take those chances and be experimental and do new things with other shows. So he's still saying that.

[01:14:42] I wondered at this point if AMC was like, you better stop saying that, but he's still saying he wants to keep going forever. Wow. I don't know how I feel about that. I know you're stuck. You're late. Yeah. I mean, it is never ending at this point. Yeah.

[01:15:02] I mean, if you would have asked me, you know, in season 10 of The Walking Dead, hey, what would you think if we ended this show? But then we have a show about Daryl and another one about Rick and then one about Negan and Maggie. I probably would have said, don't do the Negan and Maggie one. But anyway, I've been pleasantly surprised with how it's gone.

[01:15:31] I was listening to a politics podcast earlier and I got really confused because I was only kind of half listening. I was cooking or doing the dishes or something. And they were talking about German politics and they were talking about the left, the left wing. And I forgot that in German it's Die Linke, but the presenter started talking about Andy Lincoln. And I was like, Andy what now? Andy Lincoln, what? He's in German politics now? And then I'm like, oh, Andy Lincoln.

[01:16:00] So he's not going to turn up as a German. Too bad. Sorry. Did that show come out that he was filming when we were in Scotland? I don't know. Yeah. I haven't heard anything about it. I will watch it when it comes out because it was mostly filmed in Glasgow. So, yeah. Gotta watch it. And it's Andy Lincoln. Andy Lincoln. One more thing. The Last of Us Season 2 is coming soon sometime in April.

[01:16:25] People think April 13th because the White Lotus, which is also on HBO, ends the week before. But we know April for sure. And so before that starts, we'll do a few things. We'll do a Season 1 catch-up episode where we just kind of briefly go through each Season 1 episode and give a few thoughts to remind everybody. We'll also do a Season 2 preview episode.

[01:16:52] I think that one will mostly be for people who played the game or don't mind spoilers because we'll be talking about casting and other things. Maybe the trailers. Though Lucy won't be on that one. I won't. Right? I'm impressed with myself. I love it. I've not been spoiled at all. I love it. I'm bloody killing me. But here we are. I'm mostly reporting this right now because I'm seeing a steady trickle of news come out. And I've been tempted to talk about it in the news segments each week.

[01:17:20] But I think we'll save it for this single episode maybe a week or two before Season 2 premieres and just talk about all the stuff that's come out. So Last of Us fans, that'll be coming. Also, Eric Featon, a.k.a. Mr. Blog, and I did a review of The Last of Us Part 2 a while back. I looked because I wanted to listen to it, which I did. It was a little over four years ago that we did that. I can't believe it was that long ago when The Last of Us 2 came out. So I'll probably republish that as a bonus episode in the lead up to Season 2 as well.

[01:17:49] So we'll be getting into Last of Us stuff coming up here in just about a month or so. Is Eric coming back to join us for the pod? Yeah, he's excited for it. Yeah, I'm happy about that. Yeah. All right, let's move on to Lister Moans, Grunts and Grunts. We got more calls than messages and text messages this week. So we'll start with a call from Archmaester Rennie. Rennie. Three of you.

[01:18:20] Jason and Lucy, I'm glad you're having Nathan as a guest. Last, as someone who loved the Governor episodes, because I do too. In large part because of how much I appreciated J. Bonansinga's Governor novels. I remember being very impressed with those when I read them because I thought Kirkman had a sick and twisted imagination. And Bonansinga managed to take the Governor character and give him an even bigger twist. I think he pulled it off well in the novels.

[01:18:50] The show makes a nod to the novels when the Governor tells the family he meets that his name is Brian. And how could I not love this episode? Since it introduces one of my favorite non-comic characters, Tara, who does her first fist bump.

[01:19:06] And lastly, I find the ending where the Governor is making promises he cannot keep to another little girl who's an echo of his dead zombie daughter, Penny, to be one of the most chilling endings of any Walking Dead episode. So yeah, I'm a fan of these Governor episodes. That's cool. I like that, Rennie. Sure. I also feel very validated when Rennie likes, I'm like, oh yeah, Rennie's smart.

[01:19:36] I must be smart too. Yeah. Thanks, Rennie. I hope I did you proud as one of the Governor, I don't want to say fans, but Governor fans. All right. We're going to read the first one, Nate. Yeah. So Doug Fick says, this is the episode where he, the Governor, is sleeping on a pillow with a parrot on it just over his shoulder and he has the beard and eye patch. R.

[01:20:06] LOL moment. And he includes a picture. There's a parrot on the pillow. Oh, that is hilarious. Yeah, that's cool. I didn't notice it. Amazing. Amazing. All right. Here's Carissa from Portland. This is Carissa from PDX. Not really calling about a particular episode, but the last one I rewatched with you guys was episode five, I guess, that wrapped up the flu storyline.

[01:20:36] I'm just really enjoying the rewatch. I feel like the flu storyline was better than I remembered. It was really good when I first watched it, but it was just so nail-biting, especially the last one. With, you know, Herschel trying to save everybody. And it was just perfect.

[01:20:58] I will set out these next few episodes that wraps up the Governor's storyline because it's kind of demoralizing seeing them lose the prison and Herschel. So I will just enjoy slash, well, not enjoy, sort of enjoy these next few episodes, just listening to your rewatches. And I will maybe tap back in when Herschel is reunited on the road.

[01:21:28] So just love you guys. And I'm just, like I said, really enjoying this rewatch. Bye. Bye. People dip in and out. That's awesome. And when just said she's starting to listen to us, I think she said the Walking Dead episodes weren't available over there until now. So she's just back on.

[01:21:57] So welcome back. And when I hope you write in or call in. Andy Fisher says, hmm, this episode focused on the Governor. Puke emoji. But also introduced Tara's family. Happy emoji. The good, a well done look into the ZA and how a family was able to survive it. The bad, more Governor back story. His dark storyline never really went anywhere in season four. And I never bought his obsession to take care of a family after destroying so many others.

[01:22:25] I love the parts of the episode where the Governor barely acknowledges the zombies and just casually walks around them. Five slices of pizza on an engagement ring. As much as I've been talking this up, I think that's, I totally get that. Like, I feel like there is something missing in the Governor's story or, I don't know, that's hard to buy. All right, here's Carly Jackson. Hello, Jason and Lucy.

[01:22:54] This is Carly. And for last week's episode, I wrote that I wasn't looking forward to watching it because it was so intense. And that has everything to do with, like, my own personal situation right now. I got a lot of intense emotional stuff happening. And it had nothing to do with the show. So when you said I didn't have to watch the episode, I laughed because it never occurred to me to not watch the episode.

[01:23:20] So I watched it while playing games on my phone to kind of, like, keep some distance. But then I heard you guys talking about it and how many great moments there were with Carl and Rick and Herschel being such a hero. And I had some FOMO. Like, I wish I had paid more attention because it was a really good episode. And who cares if I'm crying and snotty at the end? She's like, there's no one who would care if I had to cry while watching it. So anyway.

[01:23:50] And so for this episode, Live Beat, I have to say I enjoy the Governor episodes. I think they're fully aligned with the theme for the season of Can You Come Back from the Terrible Things You've Done? And the governor is a reflection of Rick. You know, like the old man, Tara's father says, when my kids were born, that's when I learned what it was to be a man. And Rick and the governor are the same way. Protecting their kids gives them purpose.

[01:24:20] But it also makes them willing to do terrible things. And they're afraid of that capacity in themselves. So I think it's worthwhile. You know, if you watch it, like the governor is there to reflect back on Rick and what Rick is going through. I think these episodes add a lot to the season. Also, I love the music this season.

[01:24:47] Like every time I hear one of those bluesy songs, they just hit so well. I love it so much. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks, man. That was really good. I'm glad you brought that up because I forgot the theme. Can you come back from that? It reflects that really well. Yeah. Beth Pieri says, favorite zombie encounter of the episode was sidestepping a walker on the sidewalk. So funny.

[01:25:16] I love seeing Tara because later she's one of my favorite characters after she joins the group. I was crushed when she and Enid died. Me too. That was sad. That was rough. Yeah. I was surprised. PSA to all parents. Don't leave your daughter with some random guy in some random apartment if you just met him, regardless of it being the ZA. Well, especially in the ZA. Yes, Beth. Quite right. If he looks like a pirate, even worse.

[01:25:46] I'm surprised at how incapable the governor is at killing zombies. In the old folks' home, in the street, in the pit, you should know better. That's a good point. Well, wait a minute. In the pit, he didn't have any weapons, so he had to use his own hands. Didn't he do pretty well, given the circumstances? I think he did all right. I'll give it okay. Side note, the David Morrissey is in a show called Prime Target on Apple TV right now. Cool. I need to watch Prime Target. It's had some good reviews.

[01:26:17] All right. Here's Renee. Renee. No, Rick. What's Renee going to talk about? Hi, guys. O-M-G. Phillip, a.k.a. Brian, a.k.a. the governor. Whatever the hell he's going by is awful. I hate him. And that's a word that I don't like to use because it's such a strong word. But I hate him. Hate him with a passion. And I'm just happy.

[01:26:47] You see Tara, though. I love Tara. Tara, Tara, that's my girl. Yay. It's like I forgot that she was on the bad side. And she just made some poor choices. She really didn't know that Phillip, a.k.a. Brian, was crazy. But it's like her sister, one of the other listeners was like, why would you leave your daughter in there with a strange man? I concur. Like, seriously, ma'am. I don't care if it's the G-A or not.

[01:27:15] Do not leave your daughter with a psychopath. And I know you don't know that he's a psychopath, but that's just the thing. You don't know. So why would you leave your child? Other than that, I don't have anything else to say. I just wanted to call you guys and leave a voicemail because on the last episode, well, on the last podcast, you guys said spread some love. Tell someone you love them. Give someone a hug.

[01:27:41] So I'm sending you guys, Lucy and you and Jason and the rest of our family members a great big hug. I love you guys. We spread peace and love over here at Podcastica. So whoever does not like it, they can kick rock, deuces, whatever going about your business. Because I saw some of the reviews and they were like, um, they deal with racism too much.

[01:28:08] They deal with sexism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Again, we spread peace and love over here. We deal with real life issues. And if you don't like it, kick rocks. Oh, and another thing, Lucy, whoever said that your laugh was horrible. It is definitely not. It is cute and quirky, just like you. And I love your laugh. All righty. Again, peace and love. I love you guys.

[01:28:36] And a great big hug. All righty. Bye. Oh, we love you too, Renee. You got my endorphins all swimming around in my head now. Thanks. Me too. That was so nice. I feel like Renee's voicemails always lift my spirits when I'm listening. Oh, it's just a big hug back, Renee. Yeah. Massive hug. Hopefully we'll get to me in person at some point, Renee. And Renee's coming on for an episode. Did you know that, Lucy?

[01:29:06] No. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. Yeah. I don't remember which one she asked to do, but she's on the schedule. I don't think it's for a little while here, but yeah, that'd be awesome. Oh, that's amazing. Dang. All right, date. Okay. Billy Thompson. Hello, hello. Hope you guys are well. Love the song in the opening of this episode. I have no idea what it is, and I'm sure you guys will mention it, so I won't bother looking. Well, you're right. We did. I totally forgot.

[01:29:34] This is how we got introduced to Tara. I love how quirky she is, even at the end of the world. Learning how Tara's family survived the fall and have been living since then was probably the only thing I found interesting until the end when the governor is killing the Zeds in the pit. It's so awesome when he rips the throat out. Not the best episode, but I guess it's necessary to reintroduce and show us where he has been, et cetera.

[01:30:03] Let's all get through these couple episodes together and get back to what we know and love. Anyway, thanks guys. Bye. Bye. I wonder if people would have preferred if we would have just done these two as one. No. No. Okay. Nathan's like, no. Well, let me, I think because this is our second go around and we already know what's coming,

[01:30:29] this is a golden opportunity to do just the expanded, I don't know, I guess I just value. Yeah. Because we're not, I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I'm not in a hurry to get to the end. So. No, that's cool. I like that because that's how I feel, but I wonder if that's how I'm going to feel when we get like three fourths of the way through season eight. We'll see. All right.

[01:30:59] Here's a call from Robin. Robin. Oh, it's me. And this episode did not really bother me the first time and it didn't bother me this time either. It is kind of interesting to see the governor completely unhinged. And as he says in later episodes, which I got hung up and started watching ahead, I tried to die. He did try to die. It's interesting.

[01:31:27] I love Tara right from the beginning. It was so fun to meet her again and see her in her feisty little goofy self. I was so sad when she died. But Lily and Megan drive me a little nuts. They're a little too good to be true, but they're okay. They're okay. The thing that struck me this time that I never thought about the first time was the emphasis on good and bad.

[01:31:57] Megan always asking Brian, I guess, was I bad? Am I good? Are we bad? Are we good? And he clearly is thinking about it because he knows he's bad. But at that point, he's still trying to do good. And so that's really interesting, the good, bad thing. You know, black and white, really.

[01:32:25] He really is bad and he knows it. Lots of other interesting things happening. It was good to see Martinez again. Loved the walkers in the pit. That was some gnarly, gnarly walker stuff happening in there. That was great. And I think that was the moment that the governor slash Brian really decided to make them his family.

[01:32:51] He did take them along, you know, and of course, at one point, Burns, his photo of his family. But I don't think that he felt really, really attached to them until that little girl was in danger of becoming like Penny. And I think that's he had affection for her, of course, right from the beginning. But I think that's the moment that he decided to to really make them his family. And and that was just that was really crazy.

[01:33:19] So good to talk to you again. Hopefully, like I say, fingers crossed that this works. Hopefully we'll talk soon. Bye. It worked, Robin. It worked. I think it's a sweet question to help. Definitely. I love this next listener response. We've got Ross from West Yorkshire, UK.

[01:33:49] Very near where I am. I went to the West Yorkshire Sculpture Park the other weekend. It's a great part of the world. So Ross says, After the comment last week from the blind person who watches The Walking Dead and has what's going on described to them by another person, I wanted to write in with my experience as a fellow blind person, as it was great to hear from them about theirs. I have some sight, but generally not enough these days to be able to follow along with the TV show without audio description,

[01:34:16] a feature offered by most streaming platforms that fills in the gaps of dialogue to explain what is going on. One of the most frustrating aspects of following The Walking Dead on Disney Plus here in the UK, as well as The Ones Who Live and other spin-offs on Now TV, has been the lack of audio description for those shows. The Disney platform has the feature, but for some reason The Walking Dead never had it, even as the final seasons were airing, while Now TV is one of a few platforms that don't have the feature whatsoever.

[01:34:45] Because of this, another reason why I appreciate your shows and others like The Talking Dead is that you often play the role of filling in gaps for me. You'll discuss things that I totally missed because I couldn't see what was going on, so thank you for that. I do sometimes watch shows with people and it can be helpful for them to let me know when something important happens, if the show doesn't have audio description. But more often than not these days, if a show doesn't have audio description, then I won't watch it. The Walking Dead just came at a point in my life where I could see a bit more than I can now.

[01:35:15] I'd encourage you and anybody else to give audio description a go, even as just a one-off to experience what it's like. Most shows on Netflix, Disney, Apple TV and Amazon Prime have it. It can be a good way to enable you to focus on something else while still following what's going on. I'll share this YouTube video from a charity in the UK that has short clips of some audio description. And Jason, I think, has put that link in the show notes. Ross, that's amazing. Thank you so much for writing in.

[01:35:45] I've loved hearing more about your experiences. And I'm really pissed on your behalf that Disney Plus and Now TV are not delivering for Walking Dead audio description. That's not cool. Yeah. Yeah, but it's good to hear that a lot do because it's just great, you know, in a world that's not designed for everyone, that people make efforts to have it be more accessible to people. I love that.

[01:36:08] And I never even considered that we would be a part of that, that we would actually kind of help people who can't see as well understand things better. That's really cool. I'm guessing, Ross, that you love my in-depth descriptions of Lance Hornsby's fashion sense. I'm always happy to go into detail about his yeleys. Everyone's like, no, we don't want to hear more about that. I'm like, okay. Mostly we're just focused on the tone of your voice, which clearly conveys lust. Yes, my feelings.

[01:36:38] All right. Here's Steve Brown. Steve Brown. Last final call. Hello, the cast. This is Steve. And this is for The Walking Dead season four episode. Is it six? Live bait? Yep. Okay. Starting right where the governor left off, whatever it was. Ooh, is that depression or what? The governor just let that walker walk right through the fire and started to get until whatever his name is, shotter. Ooh. And they left him alone. Who's he talking to? I don't understand. I guess it's still the cold open. So there's, I don't remember enough of these governor episodes. Okay. That's right. Tara.

[01:37:08] And I guess he's telling them his story a little bit, I guess. But he's been real quiet right now. She just say Atlanta city police. They just say Atlanta police. I don't know. Then we're cool. Pounded. Oh, he's calling himself Brian Harriet from the name on the wall. He's in the apartment of someone named Wilhelm, like Wilhelm scream. So the old man just said there's zombies up in the apartment above them and they keep shooting them. But what? They don't shoot them in the head. They haven't figured that out yet. Okay. And now he wants the governor to go get this back game and set. I don't remember. Yeah.

[01:37:37] Oh, the guy was paralyzed and what? He tried to kill himself in the bathtub, but didn't know. Oh, the governor just, I guess he shot himself, but I don't know. The governor just took the gun though. I almost forgot. I think Nathan is, is joining you guys this week. Right? So hello, Nathan. The governor looks at a picture of his family and folds down his own face. Okay. So now she wants the governor to go get an action tank for her in the old folks home down the street. I don't remember whether I liked these episodes or not coming up, but this one's okay so far, I guess. It's kind of slow.

[01:38:06] I guess they're trying to make us care about this family with the little girl. And I don't even remember what happens to them except that Tara, Tara survives and ends up going on with them. Ooh. And this old folks home is everyone in the wheelchair. And he finds a whole cart of oxygen tank. And of course, he's going to make as much noise as possible trying to get it out of there. Yeah. Rattle it around. He got one. Or I guess he got two. It's literally trying to be a nurse again to the governor. Oh, that's nice of her. Okay. Looks like he found a chess set. Oh, and he's shaved. So I guess it's been a little while. Aw.

[01:38:36] The king and I patch. Oh, uh-oh. The old man died. Oh, no. And now he's opening up his eyes. Yeah, he's a zombie. Oh. Brian? Um, that was rather graphic. And he just buries the body. No problem. Of course, the little girl's now scared of him. Another fist bump. Yeah, we're cool. And now he's burning the picture of his family. Why? Because he thinks he's found a new family. And so Lily chooses to go with him. And they're taking the truck. That's right. And Tara admits that she was only in the academy, not an actual cop.

[01:39:04] And it looks like things are about to progress between Lily and Brian. And now they're walking. And that's a whole bunch of walkers. Aw, and she jumps into the governor's arms. They all run off into the trees. Oh, and they fall into this pit. And there's walkers. Oh. Oh, and the governor shows how resourceful he is using that bone to kill that walker. And there was machine gun fire up top. Hey, I take it back. For a slow episode, a whole bunch happened right here at the end. And the governor's found his old crew. All right. I don't remember how many episodes this came from.

[01:39:36] Two. And then season finale. Oh, I'm not looking forward to that. I mean, I kind of am, but I'm also not. That's where, you know what I remember the most about that, aside from Herschel's head, is Rick going, Carl! Carl! Carl! Yep, yep, yep. It was peak Carl. That's right.

[01:40:08] All right, that is our show, episode 623. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Nathan, thank you for coming on. I'm really glad you wanted to come on to this one. I hope you enjoyed it. It was so great. Thanks for having me. To have you. I hope I contributed. You did. Yeah, you were great. Absolutely. And yeah, we'd like to have you on again sometime, for sure. And I wanted to ask, I know you're involved with some other, like, writing, entertainment writing and possibly podcasting. What's going on there?

[01:40:39] So, my friends have a podcast called Hacker Slash. It's a horror movie review podcast where each week they review a different movie. And for my part, I write some articles about horror on their website at Hacker Slash.live and on their Patreon. I also have my own show where we talk about the history of their podcast.

[01:41:07] It's kind of inside baseball, but the show is over 300 episodes at this point, so there's a lot to go through. That's cool. So, people can go to Hacker Slash.live to see your writing. I assume your name is on all the articles that you write. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I'll put that link in the show notes for people, too. That's awesome. Thank you. Next episode of this podcast, Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 7, Dead Weight with Rebecca

[01:41:36] Louise guesting from Australia. Yes. I feel like I'm not going to like that one as much, but I hope I'm wrong. But it'll be fun to have Rebecca on either way. Well, it's our Valentine's Day plan, so you better like it some. Because that's when we're recording. If you want to write in or abandon your Valentine and leave us a voice message about it, you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com.

[01:42:05] After this, I'm taking Jenny out to dinner or something. Yeah, something like that. After we record. Yeah. And while you're on podcastica.com, what should you do? Maybe check out some of the other podcasts. Yeah. That'd be cool. The other one, we just finished up Squid Game and put up the finale episode. And that was a crazy season two finale. Something different for that show happened.

[01:42:32] And then we're about ready to get going with a bunch of other shows. White Lotus is coming up. Yellow Jackets, the last five of Cobra Kai. And so that's coming up in like a week, all that stuff. That's exciting. Yeah. This episode was made possible by Patreon supporters like Julie Gary, who pledged their support at patreon.com slash Jason Cabassi. So thanks so much to Julie for that.

[01:43:02] I so appreciate it. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. Don't get bit, Ross Megan.