Can you imagine fighting zombies in an amusement park? Or how about surviving a zombie apocalypse with nothing more than a butterfly net or potato gun? Our 19th episode explores these wild scenarios and more as we dive into the wonderfully chaotic world of the Korean reality show, Zombieverse. We dissect everything from the characters' hilarious incompetence, to the show's questionable editing style, and even the strange allure of a turnkey business opportunity called Puff Prosperity.
Our conversation takes an unexpected turn as we ponder the moral dilemmas presented in Zombieverse. Are zombies still people? Should we still take care of them after they turn? Is a harmonica an effective zombie muzzle?
So, whether you loved Zombieverse, or thought it was the Zombieworst, you're in for a treat. This episode is a rollercoaster of humor, insights, and surprises, guaranteed to keep you entertained and thinking long after it's over. So grab your potato guns an, tune in to the Zombieverse.
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast! https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Can you imagine fighting zombies in an amusement park? Or how about surviving a zombie apocalypse with nothing more than a butterfly net or potato gun? Our 19th episode explores these wild scenarios and more as we dive into the wonderfully chaotic world of the Korean reality show, Zombieverse. We dissect everything from the characters' hilarious incompetence, to the show's questionable editing style, and even the strange allure of a turnkey business opportunity called Puff Prosperity.
Our conversation takes an unexpected turn as we ponder the moral dilemmas presented in Zombieverse. Are zombies still people? Should we still take care of them after they turn? Is a harmonica an effective zombie muzzle?
So, whether you loved Zombieverse, or thought it was the Zombieworst, you're in for a treat. This episode is a rollercoaster of humor, insights, and surprises, guaranteed to keep you entertained and thinking long after it's over. So grab your potato guns an, tune in to the Zombieverse.
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast! https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where sometimes a book is actually a reality TV show. That's exactly exactly like the Walking Dead. Beat for beat starts off great, requires some suspension of disbelief in the middle and ends with a big what the fuck was that Accurate? I am Dan and I'm a writer, and when I'm not scraping hard and asphalt out of a dirty trailer for 12 to 14 hours a day, I'm writing a book about people coming together to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 2:Much like this reality show, and I'm Leah Alas. As we record this, I currently feel like a zombie baby is flying its way out of my uterus, which is essentially my very own personal bloody monthly apocalypse that I go through.
Speaker 1:It's an apocalypse.
Speaker 2:It is in my womb. It's pretty much the revenge because I'm never going to have kids of my body. It's pissed, but on the right side our zombie baby is now 19, Dan.
Speaker 1:The podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, podcast is now 19. Episode Just turned 19.
Speaker 1:Not years. Yes, just episodes. Yeah, if episodes were years.
Speaker 2:If our zombie baby podcast was a person, it could now buy alcohol and cannabis legally in Canada. So I just want to celebrate that Happy birthday Zombie Book Club.
Speaker 1:Yeah, happy 19th birthday. You're legal. Go get smashed. We upload episodes every two weeks on Sundays. Do you think people listen to every episode but never really grasped that when we said it Like, ah, how come it's so irregular?
Speaker 2:Like my periods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I expected every Sunday. No, it's every other Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean nobody's complaining.
Speaker 2:Maybe one day it'll be every Sunday. We'll see.
Speaker 1:One day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:We're talking about the Korean improv show Zombieverse. It's a reality TV show set during a zombie outbreak. The contestants are given no information. After the show starts, they claim and are required to improv as survivors, navigating escape room like zombie scenarios.
Speaker 2:Over and over and over. It's like inception. Yeah, just a new room.
Speaker 1:Personal life update Leah.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think we have no life. I'm scrolling down.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess the one thing I really wanted to make sure that we gave folks an opportunity to save the date for I'm assuming, if you listen to this podcast, halloween AKA Samhain, if you're a pegging out there is probably your most sacred holiday of the year and we're going to be hosting our first zombie ween game show episode that will come out October 29th. To celebrate this most sacred day, we're going to have a few authors and fans of the genre be contestants on the show and it's basically going to be like a zombified version of Hollywood Squares or Snatch Game. If you're familiar with that, Dan, what's Snatch Game?
Speaker 1:It's from RuPaul's Drag Race. I mean it'll be a little bit different because in Snatch Game it's about them playing characters. This will be more just about the game show aspect of it. But mostly what we're looking for is they're going to be asked questions and they're going to give answers, and those answers need to line up with my answer. It has to be closest to my answer. My answer will be the funniest.
Speaker 2:Or if this is very funny, then they can win a point.
Speaker 1:Or not. If, like, I'm not on my game that day, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this could be really great. It could be terrible. We could label it as the terrible zombie ween game show episode.
Speaker 1:Don't listen to this, but I don't think so. We've got some special guests lined up. I think it's going to be a ton of fun.
Speaker 2:And if you've never seen Hollywood Squares or Snatch Game, I would say check out Snatch Game on YouTube like Best of Snatch Game. You'll get a sense of the kind of thing. But just imagine zombie related questions. It'll be a lot of fun. Plus, there is a trophy involved for the arbitrarily selected winner. That is horrifying, stupid, obnoxious and honestly very wasteful. But we're excited to give it to you. But we're excited to give it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want them to regret winning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to regret signing up for this, and we've got some shout outs, dan. Today We've got three folks we want to just say hello to and, to be clear, especially if they're writers out there we don't get any compensation. We just like to share who we're following on the interwebs and that we really are enjoying right now. I'll go first. I have a little bit of a crush on pink zombie rose. Pink zombie rose, if you're listening to this, I have a crush on Instagram. It is a zombie graphic novel and it's written by Dia van Guten, and the way that I would describe Dia's writing is like it's the right amount of existentialist dread, feminism, sexy grittiness, all mixed in with a little bit of mysticism. They're actually working on like a tarot deck, sort of thing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the artist they work with, Beppe. The imagery like I've never seen anything like it. I'm a little bit obsessed. I definitely want to read the whole graphic novel. So that's my big shout out. Thank you for the zombie rose.
Speaker 1:Thank you for existing. We've had. We've had some people on threads. You know I go, I go on threads. I'm on the threads, I'm a thread.
Speaker 2:I just repost.
Speaker 1:Leah repost. I mean I've got my own personal threads that I use, dan Dan the zombie writer, but also we have our page, our own podcast breads account, zombie book club podcast, so I use. I go on both. I try to check the our podcast one like at least every day. We've got some shout outs for some people. Then threads from threads that I've talked to, which is cool.
Speaker 2:And I've liked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've liked. We've mutually liked their messages. Indie author Samantha Cook, who wrote the clearing and which is a zombie novel. You can find her at S cookie reviews on threads and also on YouTube, where she reviews books. I haven't checked her out on YouTube, have you?
Speaker 2:I have. Yeah, she's really great. I'm looking forward to hopefully eventually interviewing her and reading the book.
Speaker 1:And also shout out to Carly loves horrors on threads she quoted us from. I don't even know what episode, but apparently it's the episode where I said zombies are real.
Speaker 2:I mean they are.
Speaker 1:I made. I made a claim that could be verified, that zombies are real.
Speaker 2:I mean the CDC says that you have to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:So there must be some truth, yeah we'll have to do an episode about the CDC. You know we could mix the CDC's survival tips along with the US Army's Khan plan 8888.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:Which is the federal government's plan for dealing with the zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:A real military plan.
Speaker 2:My superstition self is kind of creeped out that they made it 8888, because eight is also the infinity symbol, which means that this is like an ongoing living hell. Yes, that they're preparing for Okay, yep, well, let's move right on to zombie verse. Dan, can you give us a little bit of a synopsis before we dive in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, so it's a. It's a group of Korean celebrities that I'm not familiar with them, no, but I'm also not Korean. Really I'm not. I know this comes as a surprise, but I am not Korean.
Speaker 2:We have a Korean cookbook.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, that might cause the. So yeah, they're. They're going to a TV show premiere. This is the setup, this is, this is the hook. When the entire cast turns into zombies, they all escape and they have to survive by completing scenarios that are basically zombie filled escape rooms, like filling filling a gas tank in their getaway van or getting supplies from a grocery store, escaping the parking lot filled with wrecked cars and zombies.
Speaker 1:That was a great one, yeah, and it's important to know like there's a lot of confusion, and I mean, in the episode one, I had to do a Google search to be like is this fucking for real? Because, like, my ability to enjoy it was hinged on whether or not these people were just like, if this was just like a low budget zombie show where they're like, oh, and then zombies showed up and they're acting right, like I did, I needed to find out if this was actually like legitimate and it turns out that yes, and it's it's. It's important to know that this is an unscripted reality TV show, that people, the cast, isn't competing for anything, there's no cash prize, everybody's getting voted off the zombie island.
Speaker 2:They're already rich. I think, yeah, well, you know, let's do an OK.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean this is probably a vehicle to like, boost their social media or get them other, other roles, but it's mostly just them improving. So they're playing, pretend, you know, like, like we as kids might have done, and they're playing themselves and and doing these zombie puzzles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it was a like a theme park, I would go to the zombie versus theme park. That would be super fucking fun, would you Dan?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Where you just get to, like, enter a zombie world and then figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But your only weapon is a potato gun and maybe a fishing net.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, I'd like to do it if, if this was just set up for us. But I feel like the the nightmare of running a place like that to the open public would be awful, because so many people would get hurt.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean, there's been those like those like zombie walks, like people do zombie walks a lot, where people dress up as zombies and like they walk around and it looks like a zombie apocalypse. But there's been times where those things have gotten out of control and like people have like jumped on people's cars and smashed windows and stuff, like pretending to be zombies, and like people just want to drive home and they're stuck in the middle of a zombie crowd.
Speaker 2:They're like tearing their car apart. Oh, zombie riot would be a great band name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's start a band. Ok, are we a?
Speaker 2:punk band now, oh sorry, if you all hear my zipper. Well, some are there.
Speaker 1:We're professionals.
Speaker 2:High quality podcasting here. But yeah, it's. It was very confusing at first and I do think that they were given some kinds of heads up that like they thought they were on like a dating show or something like that, and then then you know, everything goes to hell and they're zombies. So I think they were told that something weird was going to happen, because they definitely rolled with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like there was like some amount of like some things that you would have to know to like they had to go in with the knowledge of like something will happen, just play, just play along, yeah, and they must have had like some amount of training, as as in like what the rules of engagement with zombies are like. Remember, they're just stunt people, don't smash their fucking brains.
Speaker 2:They might have had some rules, but at the same time, like the first episode, I want to say although honestly, some of this shit drug on. We'll talk with that more later. They're in a gas station and they don't understand a zombie's work at all. So this is like the part where you know, dan, you said it starts off great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it starts off great.
Speaker 2:And once we know the fuck's going on anyway, has some fun moments. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the gas station, I mean this. I feel like this was the peak of the show. To be honest, a little bit. Yeah, episode two, or was it episode one, I don't remember now. Anyways, shortly after escaping from the TV show premiere, they're, they get in a van with two of the sound crew of the show Pretty great and they they don't have much fuel. So they got to pull off at a gas station. But the gas station is filled with zombies and this is like they have to fill the gas tank but there's zombies walking around and they have to figure out the rules of these zombies. Like they're not like site driven, like it's almost like a video game in their like perception.
Speaker 2:And not only is it like a video game their perception, but they also get like little, like life batteries over their head and the zombies get like exclamation marks when they realize there's a person they could eat nearby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're fast zombies.
Speaker 2:We should clarify they're fast zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, they're relative, they're not slow, they're not shambling. There is a faster zombie. One of the things that I think was done really well and like the gas station scene is a perfect example was their visual effects, like you said they would have. They would have question marks over top of their heads when they didn't, they weren't aware of anything, but as soon as like, they would make a sound loud enough, first of all, they would animate the sound.
Speaker 2:So you can see the distance it was spreading.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like if they drop something like they would. They would use visual effects to show the sound spread and then, all of a sudden, everybody that was within the correct range, their, their question marks, would turn into exclamation points and they would start walking towards the sound. Yeah, so I mean these, these are really cool ideas and they had, like I said, they have a really good start.
Speaker 2:And they have a sense of the characters immediately, like who the coward is, yeah, and who's a little bit more brave. And I also appreciated like for me coming from a North American context the fact that pretty much no one knew how to drive, or it only driven a couple of times and so like they didn't know how to use a gas station, which is like common knowledge here. But you know, korea is probably a little more involved in their public transit system than what we've got.
Speaker 1:I think they were also kind of using that as an excuse, like, like.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're absolutely using his excuse to not go outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're trying to get everybody else to do the challenges so that they are at risk. So they're like you go out and pump the gas and they're like I don't have a car, I don't know how to pump gas. They're like how do you know how to pump gas? And they're like it's hard.
Speaker 2:So hard and it was like a lot of chaos because it's early days. They don't understand zombies. They're just like I, just really like them running around and throwing shit to make sounds to get away from them. It was full chaos. If you don't want to watch the entirety of Zombieverse, just find this one episode. You'll have a good laugh. It's funny.
Speaker 1:My favorite part of that whole episode and I feel like this goes into something that I really loved is that, like their fear seemed genuine at times and Suki, who was a Japanese pop star, that joins their group, she leaves the van and she's running around screaming her head off because she's so scared and she runs through the car wash and wakes up a new zombie type, the sprinter. But what's really funny about their sprinter is that his rules work like he runs really fast, but only in a straight line. They said he was like a race car with a broken steering wheel.
Speaker 2:That was a good joke.
Speaker 1:So like if you step out of his way, he keeps running until he hits something, which I think is such a brilliant way to do a different zombie type, like a sprinter, because otherwise they're like really overpowered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was just cool to watch them like learn zombie roles. But, dan, what was like the funniest moment for you, because there was a lot of humor that was saving grace overall as a show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my favorite, my favorite funny thing and character I don't know, I don't even know how many people notice this, but there's this character when they get to the grocery store that they just call Mr Rice Puff.
Speaker 2:It's like a brand name.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So he has a truck that makes rice puffs and he sells rice puffs and when he's introducing himself he says I'm in the rice puff business, it's a legitimate business, I'm an entrepreneur, yeah, and he keeps on telling people it's a legitimate business. He keeps defending himself and his rice puff business. I'm like nobody's telling him that it's not legitimate. It doesn't seem to be security. That's business choice. So they just call him Mr Rice Puff. All we know about him is that he's Mr Rice Puff, he's in the rice puff business and it's a legitimate business.
Speaker 2:And what happens to Mr Rice Puff?
Speaker 1:He dies but he does come back. He gets bitten but he comes back in a later episode to kind of save them with his rice puff truck. He has a thing where he can make his rice puffs explode out of the back and it makes a really loud sound and when he does it he says Rice Puff.
Speaker 2:And then it explodes.
Speaker 1:That's the way to get zombies to follow you, if they're sound activated, and it would go off every five minutes, so he's on a five minute timer and then you just hear him say Rice Puff.
Speaker 2:It was this moment of heroism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and is that? He was the real hero?
Speaker 2:Is the grocery store when we meet Patricia, and I'm forgetting his name Jonathan yes. Okay, yeah, cause they're just a grocery store. And Dex, oh and Dex, who's like the military guy, he's a.
Speaker 1:Navy SEAL.
Speaker 2:Yeah, patricia and Jonathan are from the Congo, but they've lived in Korea for most of their life. And then Dex is a Navy SEAL. He's a.
Speaker 1:Navy SEAL, you told me.
Speaker 2:Dan, it's not possible.
Speaker 1:No it is.
Speaker 2:I looked it up, okay.
Speaker 1:The South Korean Army actually does have a Tier 1 Special Forces group that they call Navy SEALs, and they are very similar to the American Navy SEALs in that they do underwater demolitions and combat.
Speaker 2:A helpful guy to have around. Yeah, yeah, so Leah, yeah, dan, what what? Sorry, I'm feeling a little aggressive today because of the zombie baby inside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also we're just. Things are not going as smoothly, mostly because of me and my inability to read today. Leah, when did?
Speaker 2:you two and out? Oh, that's a good question. I don't think I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I wasn't paying attention. At some point I just realized like I could play snooze on my phone. Shout out to snooze.
Speaker 1:Leah loves snooze it's so great Great.
Speaker 2:Download snooze Chilling.
Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by snooze.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that would be great. Wow, I think I paid like $2 for snooze four years ago and I played like 1600 games. Now I still haven't had an ad. It's totally worth it. But anyways, I started playing snooze because I got a little bored and then I was like you know what? This plot line is so slow? I could go make art. So I would make art and then, like, look up every five minutes and it would still essentially be the same part of the plot line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah, that's not the great part. So it has a surprisingly diverse range of characters and everybody kind of gets a decent amount of screen time. There's certainly some that get a lot more, but I was not expecting this level of diversity because, like it's a Korean variety show, basically You'd expect that everyone would just be Korean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciated it because I mean, to be honest, I don't know what the demographics of Korea are, but other Korean stuff that we've watched has been 100% Korean folks. Yeah, and in this series there are again Jonathan, patricia Yambi. They're from the I'm probably butchering their last name, sorry y'all from the Congo, sukis from Japan. There's even a white Russian woman named Tina that gets a couple of minutes of screen time when she is surrounded by zombies on a what's it called?
Speaker 1:A carousel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's on one of those horses that goes up and down, and in Korea they're very responsible. Everybody has to strap themselves in with a seatbelt, which is the only reason she's not dead, because all the zombies are attached to seatbelts and she's sort of just stuck there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what we grew up in the 80s and 90s we didn't have seatbelts on our plastic horses.
Speaker 2:I don't. I mean, I'm actually kind of curious to go to the fair now and see if this is a normal thing in the States too, because definitely no seatbelts when I grew up.
Speaker 1:This is what's wrong with the world the homogenization of plastic horse carousels.
Speaker 2:You know you're having a lot like my grandpa, who got upset when they added seatbelts to cars as a form of mechanic.
Speaker 1:What they're adding seatbelts to cars Next. We're not going to be able to drink while we drive.
Speaker 2:That was, yeah, that was basically my grandpa, correct, but yeah, it actually passes the Bechtel test. So there are, there are plenty of women characters and they talk to each other about something other than the man. It passes the race test. Right, there are, that's the surprising part. Yeah, that was really cool and I want to look up marine demographics later. And it passes the or, sorry, it does not pass the Vito Russo test. There are no obvious LGBTQ plus characters, but I will say like the thing that I found really refreshing about this was how unsexualized everybody was. Like the most sexual thing that would happen was like somebody saying that they were cute. It was really sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was actually a pretty funny moment. They were trying to get their way into a community that was safe and they're like we're all celebrities. And they're like this guy used to play baseball. And they're like this is Suki, she's from Japan, she's really cute, she's in a girl group and then she did like some kind of like J-pop dance move.
Speaker 2:Dance move. Yeah, they're like yeah, adorable yeah it was sweet, but it did make me realize like I mean, I've always complained about how hypersexualized our media is, particularly the male gaze of females, female-bodied people. But you don't need it. It was lovely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were just having a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I also enjoyed was the most sexualized characters. Actually dexed the Navy SEAL.
Speaker 1:That's true. As soon as he introduces themselves he's like the quiet, mysterious guy in the corner and they're like I forget who it was. But two of the female characters are just like yeah, those special forces guys are kind of hot, yeah, and like every time he would do something like heroic or physical, they would always comment on how manly he was and then usually that'd be like a comparison to one of the other male characters who's like running away and being cowardly, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. Actually I hadn't thought of this. But Jonathan is one of the strongest characters as well, and he's very heroic, but they never talk about how attractive he is.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So there might have been some like implicit racism there. Because he's a good looking guy, there's no reason, and he also was like kicking ass in the zombie verse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he's not. He's not K-pop handsome though.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's a very specific view of what attractiveness is based on race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, like Dex could probably be in a boy band.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100 percent. Yes, yeah, he would be actually, I think he is. Yeah, I was reading about who they are.
Speaker 1:I have to look it up, or you can look it up, but I'm actually is sort of like in a boy band kind of vibe.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I enjoyed was that it brings in like a great moral question right from the beginning that I hinted at last episode, which is like are zombies still people? If you're infected, do you still get treated like a person? And once you turn, do we still care about them and take care of them? Yeah, which is like a common thread. It's not a moral dilemma we haven't seen before in the zombie world, but I thought the Korean take on it, the zombie verse take on it, was a little bit different. What do you think, dan?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was definitely interesting because Jonathan Jonathan wasn't the first to be bit, but he got bitten the most and he turned really fast. So he had a really steep decline and pretty much when he was full on, full zombie no longer can communicate. They're still asking the question like do we bring him along?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to be clear at this point, he is chained to a hospital bed and had previously had a harmonica in his mouth so he couldn't bite anybody. Yeah, he was tied to his face.
Speaker 1:They've tied harmonicas to the mouths of zombies so that they wouldn't bite people.
Speaker 2:Well, this was in particular a zombie survival expert who had kind of like figured out some techniques that they had finally gotten to, but anyways, Jonathan had. Yeah, Jonathan was like at his last leg and then eventually actually a zombie, and the debate was do we take him with us? And the thing was they're like, well, if the sister Patricia wants to take him, we should take him. We should just do it. But ultimately they made the other choice Like and, what was interesting, nobody talked about killing him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was no talk about killing zombies, really ever.
Speaker 2:There's not one zombie that got smacked with that spiky thing in their head and died.
Speaker 1:That was the only one, but I think that more served the plot than anything, because that guy was also saving the zombies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is like the most quaint, nonviolent, non gruesome zombie thing I've ever watched. Yeah, now that I think about it. So they decided to let him stay there. But people are really upset about it, but at the same time, the two folks who get bite. First one of them is Park Na-rae, a comedian in real life, and then I don't know how to pronounce this person's name. Do you know how to say Kwatu Young? Is that right?
Speaker 1:It's probably just like that.
Speaker 2:Wow, look at me. There's anyone Korean listening and I butchered it. Feel free to let me know who is, in real life, a doctor who does sex education on YouTube. He's got like 200,000 followers, but they get bit only once, and so they take like 48 hours to turn, but immediately upon them getting bitten, the group is doing things like putting gags in their mouth, tying them up, tying them up, calling them zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're like we're half zombies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were really bitter about it. It was weird how much they wanted to be in denial, that they were going to become zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're like you can't leave us behind, and they're like we should leave them behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then? Well then, they chose not to leave them behind because they realized their utility in the zombie verse.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because they can walk around zombies without getting bit. Yeah, the zombies ignore them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can do things for the group, but they were treated shittily. I will say yeah, so that'll make a lot more sense, but what Nareh chooses to do later if you choose to watch the show. But I think it was interesting that that was a constant thing and also the way that it was. The debates were so much more communally focused around the well-being of the group and Patricia wants Jonathan to stay, then you should stay. Then I think of American versions of what's his name, rick's best friend, shane Shane when it's much more hostile, it's much more individualistic in the way that that it's being approached and how people are arguing. It was just all around kind of a heartwarming show.
Speaker 1:It was Heartwarming zombie show. It was strangely that way for a little while. Yeah, another thing, a few things that I also liked. First of all, zombie extras deserve awards.
Speaker 2:They do. They were some athletes too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some of them got manhandled pretty bad. Yeah, like I remember, there's a long haired zombie in the grocery store that gets elbowed by Jonathan like three or four times right in the face and he does not even react to it, he just keeps going zombie style.
Speaker 2:Committed to the role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that guy deserves like a bonus, I think.
Speaker 2:That could be a new K-pop song zombie style.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2:But zombie style.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're halfway there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just got to drag that out Characters.
Speaker 1:At least for the first half of the show the characters did not have plot armor, so the zombies would rush characters. If they didn't get away in time, they would get bit. Some of them would die. Some of them did die. There was, I think, three characters that died in the grocery store. There were two guys that were wearing like letter varsity jackets and one guy with a leather jacket.
Speaker 2:I'm realizing this is the episode I tuned out. I don't remember a lot of the grocery store episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had to tell it. We were like, why is that guy laying on the ground? I'm like he's dead. You're like who is he? He's like I don't know. He's part of the group, but, yeah, at least for the first half of the show they don't have plot armor Kind of changes. A little bit later on, yeah, and then the fear seemed genuine. The thing that I said about Suki screaming her way through the car wash Also. I forget his name, the one that they call Appa, oh yeah he was terrified the whole time.
Speaker 1:He was like the perfect coward. He was always like leaving people behind, pushing people in front of zombies. He was hilarious and I loved him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was definitely my favorite character as well, but I do think like it's again why I think zombie verse would be a great theme park, because, even though you know it's not real, it's kind of like going through a fake horror house or whatever. Like it feels real, like an imagine, and you could see the fear on their faces, which was entertaining. Sounds kind of exploitative, actually, but I think it wasn't real.
Speaker 1:I mean, escape rooms became like a popular thing over the last decade or so, like maybe the next logical step is a zombie escape room. Yeah, zombie escape room.
Speaker 2:But you can't touch, you can't elbow the zombies in the face, because they are real people.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you could do it like flag football.
Speaker 2:You have to. You have a flag. If they get the flag, they've got you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you pull a zombie's flag, they're dead.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, this is our million dollar idea Zombie.
Speaker 1:Close your ears. Everyone, Don't take this idea.
Speaker 2:So it's like a combo between flag football and escape rooms. Yeah, love it. But back to zombie verse. I know that you thought the visual effects are really cool. We talked about that a little bit already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we talked about that a little bit like they had health bars, zombie alertness, noise noise meters. I will say that this level of detail and effort does seem to stop at episode five where it gets proceedingly more boring. Yeah, oh, I've got notes for Nong Hung Chul, the guy I just talked about, the hilarious coward, so he was a good part. Yeah, moving on Skip that.
Speaker 2:So what I really wanted to talk about and this is where I started paying attention again this might have. I know this was after the grocery store and also after a very harried encounter with some people who were trying to feed humans to zombies in a small town. So after that they escape and they come across this guy, the zombie expert we just referred to, where Jonathan gets locked up and this man first of all, it's only been like 24 hours or 36 hours since the zombie apocalypse outbreak, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense how much of a pro he is, unless he's like one of us.
Speaker 1:Well, he did say that he knew. He knew it was coming, yeah.
Speaker 2:So he decides to train all of the main characters into a whole bunch of innovative zombie weapons that he has also so wholesome like no actual guns.
Speaker 1:He had a bunch of guns on his wall. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it. Yeah, he had AKs, shotguns. He had a whole arsenal we don't actually kill the zombies.
Speaker 2:We just want to like knock them out for a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want to shoot potatoes at them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my favorite one, like right off the bat, was he showed them how to take a zombie down by putting them in a rug and rolling them really quickly. Basically like just getting behind the zombie, throwing it down onto a rug and then rolling it into the rug.
Speaker 1:Yeah so.
Speaker 2:I'm going to remember that one next time. The zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was it?
Speaker 1:That was actually a pretty good idea. It is, yeah, you know. They used a giant butterfly net. That was also so genius, kind of like one of those dog control I forget. I don't know what they're called.
Speaker 2:Oh well, it's just. It's a butterfly net with a very long metal pole and a net on the end. That's very large that you can put over a human body and it keeps you, the zombie, like just out of reach of you and the net kind of stops their hands from being able to move very far. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Excellent. And then they're like yeah, but it keeps on pushing you back and he's so. He backed his way up to a wall and he put he put the butterfly in that rest of the butterfly on the wall. The zombie couldn't get any closer and he's like now I don't have to use my hands.
Speaker 2:And he was taunting that zombie. Yeah, it was actually kind of terrible.
Speaker 1:It's okay. It had a harmonica in his mouth.
Speaker 2:That's right, because this is him training with the live zombies that he has captured. Yeah, I think we need to talk about the barrel hide and roll tactic, which was pretty great. They had those plastic blue barrels and basically he was just like look, you can like get in it and hide with the like, basically like crouch, crouch, and then put the barrel on top of you.
Speaker 1:And you got a hill.
Speaker 2:You just roll, yeah, but you got to keep your legs tucked in. This is very important, otherwise the zombie can still get you.
Speaker 1:I don't think that was a really good idea, like I wouldn't want to escape zombies that way, because you're dizzy when you get out of it and the zombies see where you went. True, they watched you roll down a hill.
Speaker 2:Supposedly they're not sound activated, so if it wasn't or not, visually activated, so as long as it was quiet, I think it'd be okay, roll quietly.
Speaker 2:But I think the point of the only versus like really going with what's available to you in the moment and you can survive the zombie apocalypse with what's available if you're just innovative. The other honestly, like the potato guns were super fun. I have a memory of going to a friend's cottage and they had a bunch of potato guns and we could shoot them across the lake, which was super fun. I don't know who was on the other side of the lake.
Speaker 1:I kind of feel maybe they also had potato guns.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just was like I don't want to hurt anybody, I can't see over there, but we were able to shoot him pretty far. So that was nostalgic to watch and again so very innocent. But the best one is the harmonica jag.
Speaker 1:So they tied harmonicas around the zombies mouths and the zombies would come out with these harmonicas in their mouth blowing the harmonicas. They're all making harmonica noises.
Speaker 2:Dan, you need to get a harmonica side effect. A side effect, harmonica side effect. Are you suffering for?
Speaker 1:harmonica. Side effects I have my doubts about the innovative zombie weapons, but they were fun.
Speaker 2:They were, and I think in a pinch I would definitely go get a giant butterfly net. I don't think I really need the harmonica gag, but it was cute, yeah, because you could always hear them, you knew where they were coming, sort of like you're. Oh my God, they stole the idea from you that what was your innovative sponsorship? Zombie loudeners yeah.
Speaker 1:They could have.
Speaker 2:This is actually much more effective because not only is it a zombie loudener, but it's also a zombie prevention tool for biting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it works for both things.
Speaker 2:I think the zombie loudener is going to go out of business.
Speaker 1:I put everything into it. I know you did Zombie survival tactics. It has some interesting ones for sure. You put down the food survival. Do you want to talk about the food survival tactics?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, first of all, this was the first time I'd ever seen somebody eat just ramen out of a package dry. And then I suddenly had a dream about myself eating a zombie or not a zombie package. My noun retrieval is shitty today. It's part of my ADHD. The ramen package raw. But also there is a moment again where the lovely zombie expert has saved them and he decides to cook them a bunch of ramen and then adds a huge boatload of dry mealworms and crickets into it, which I don't think I'd be very excited about. But a very good point that it is an excellent source of protein in an apocalyptic scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to make that ramen last.
Speaker 2:You got to stretch every stretch, every noodle, yeah, and I'm not surprised to see that you wrote down hand to hand zombie fighting techniques which I don't give a shit about.
Speaker 1:Well, they at the same place. I mean this guy. This guy basically closed all the open loophole ends Like, once they left this place, they had all the info they needed, had all the tactics they needed. There's no more excuses to not survive the zombie apocalypse. But he had the harmonica zombies and he would bring them out into his fighting pit and he would show them how to fight hand to hand with the zombies. And mostly it was like like you said before, like getting behind them, tripping them and rolling them up into a rug. But he had the survivors then take turns going one on one with zombies and fighting them. And then he's like all right, you graduate onto two zombies and they throw two zombies. But it's an interesting idea to like train fighting hand to hand with zombies that you don't see in any other zombie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're safe. It's like actual zombie school, like they went from being terrified, not knowing the fuck they were doing, to being sort of not really heroes but to help some people out later on in the show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when they were in the grocery store they duct taped some printer paper to their forearms.
Speaker 2:I mean that's tired. It's a good one, but you see it a lot, you don't really see it very often, and we have World War Z.
Speaker 1:It was in train to Busan.
Speaker 2:It was in zombie verse. That's three things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, three things. That's a lot In the vast universe of zombie movies.
Speaker 2:Did they never do it in the Walking Dead? No, they never, ever protected their forearms. They really should have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're making all these fucking leather vests and shit. They could have made leather bricers.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, they did protect their forearms, but it was with those stupid foam things in the very last season.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God yeah that doesn't count, the foam shredder.
Speaker 2:Shredder gloves yeah for those like police scary people's uniforms. But I don't want to remember that let's not go back there. They're traumatizing. Last season.
Speaker 1:They also, when they were in the grocery store, used barricades like shopping carts. And that one point, na Rae, who at that point had a twisted ankle. They put her on a shopping cart and then put a shopping cart over top of it and Jonathan's like I'm strong and brave, we'll go and do the thing. And then he leaves her in the middle of a bunch of zombies. But they couldn't get to her because she was in the shopping cart, so they ended up just kind of bouncing her around between them and she's just how does she eventually get bit because she is mad for the abandonment?
Speaker 1:She gets bit when, when Appa and her are trying to lift a car with a forklift to get out of the parking lot Right and the forklift keeps on making beeping sounds and attracting zombies. And when the zombies got too close, they they were both sitting in the forklift and they they get out, but Appa freaks out and, like, pushes her as he's leaving and he pushes her right into a zombie. The zombies jump on top of her. And that's also when the when the urologist goes to save her and he gets bitten as well.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, it doesn't pay to be a hero. It's another trope in this one. Like Jonathan's a hero, he gets bit real bad. This guy's a good. Yeah, I mean, appa has it right, shove somebody else into the zombie.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But she's pissed about it. Yeah, I, reasonably, I will also say the last thing that we had on our list of like, what was great about it is it's, it's zombie land right. That has the um that they're in the theme park Zombieverse does it so much better in my opinion. It's highly entertaining, except for the parts where it's slow, so you got to wait for the good parts, but they do really brilliant things, like that really terrible rocking boat ride where you like, get locked in your yeah, the pirate ship in your boat and they basically vertical, the pirate ship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the pirate ship they manage to lure all of the zombies to sit on the pirate ship and then close down the um safety bars. And then they're just stuck there and one of the zombies gets seasick, which I feel a little bad for that one, but it was a really great solution. And then they also, like, ran into this whole trampoline theme park, part of it, and the zombies have no balance, so they could get away from them that way. They used the spinny ride to catch them off balance, like it was good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, going back to the uh, the pirate ship ride. Um pro tip to people going to uh, to county fairs. The pirate ship is the best ride to standing in line ratio. Nobody wants to ride the pirate ship and it is a place to sit down. It is wind in your face during a hot summer day and, uh, there's never any line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I'd be puking on people, so you're going to go on that one.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't get. I don't get motion sickness, so it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're lucky. I wish I did it yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's fix you.
Speaker 2:I would love it if there is something that actually, like, makes it so I can go out on the open sea. I would really, really enjoy that, because every time I go the last time being to go swim with sharks, um, in Hawaii and uh, I chummed the water with my vomit. Basically, all the sharks came up and ate my vomit and, um, they're not actually supposed to bait the sharks. It's not like going to see a great white shark where you're in a cage, which can they feed this great white shark, which, like PS, is a fucking stupid idea, but you're just like, peacefully swim with the sharks and snorkel, but I, I fed them. So that was great. We attracted a bunch of sharks thanks to me, like, hmm vomit Love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, it was a thing Vomit sharks. So, um, I love the concept as a whole and I'd be interested to see, like adaptations to the idea or if they would uh, just do a better job in season two, because we're going to move into, uh, the middle.
Speaker 2:The middle. Yeah, I'm just going to say briefly that I would not watch season two. I don't. I'd be willing to watch the first 15 minutes and if I saw any signs of what we're about to talk about, that would quit.
Speaker 1:So characters are mostly cardboard cutouts. They rely on humor and ridiculous situations to keep the plot going. Yeah, they didn't really dive into people Like I, didn't? We only knew that Jonathan and Patricia were from the Congo because we looked it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We didn't know who anybody was. They didn't really share any details about their life or who they were. There was no like character development.
Speaker 2:I mean I can imagine that, like if you were immersed in Korean culture and you know who all those people are there might be, it might be more entertaining. But for us, uh, like it just lacked any sense of what I really love in the zombie genre, which is watching characters grow. I mean, they did grow in the sense of their skill in zombie survival, but there were very few moments where I'm like this is a person who has feelings and is growing, um. But I did enjoy, like the jokes and references. Like Jonathan is a YouTube influencer, um, and he went, as he's becoming a zombie, he decides to live stream it, which I really really enjoyed. Yeah Was like make this go viral. Yeah, live stream it, yeah.
Speaker 1:And at the end, right before he dies, he's like uh, comment, like subscribe, ring the bell for notifications. Yeah, it was pretty good.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing that felt a little bit like human was just that Nares seeks revenge against Noh Hong Chul, who was the guy who was responsible for getting her bit. So, like she's clearly pissed the whole time and uh, spoiler alert does eventually get to she says to him that she's the first person she's gonna bite. Yeah, and she lives up to that promise. It's pretty great, yeah. Next thing I want to talk about is the editing.
Speaker 1:Um so Korean variety TV shows. They have a very interesting, interesting way of editing, I would say Um. So what they do a lot of in these shows is they first show the reactions of people who are experiencing something happening right. Then they repeat that scene over and over from different angles, different people reacting to it, different angles of it happening. Then there's a slow motion shot of the reaction. Oh God, then there's. Then they add the full speed, wide, wide, and then they add the full speed. Wide angle view of what actually happened.
Speaker 2:Just in case you missed it. So like which I would have, because I wasn't paying attention at that point.
Speaker 1:And there's, and there's just like a lot of repetition, like if somebody's like, hey, look at that over there, and then something happens, you'll you'll hear five or six times hey, look at that over there, hey, look at that over there.
Speaker 2:It's really bizarre, I mean, it's upsetting it might be normal and as I, as you're saying, as I'm thinking like I wonder if um attention spans for Korean folks in that culture are better than ours.
Speaker 1:So they do this because of attention spans and they the reason that they do it is that they feel that the average person isn't going to, isn't going to soak in when something important happens. So they repeat it over and over again so that they don't miss an important detail.
Speaker 2:It might also be cultural too, cause the things that they thought were important. Sometimes I'm like I. Why are you saying this again? I don't care.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's absolutely cultural.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, because this, like I disagree that this is what needs to be done, because I do understand that some people have a limited capacity for attention, AKA me, yeah, but we, like in Western TV we figured this out a long time ago which is, um, tight editing. First of all, things have to be moving forward every second, yeah. And then the next thing is, um is having characters giving testimonial which not only tells you what happened but gives further insight into things that you couldn't possibly know just by watching it. So, like they're like, hey, look at that over there. Then they, if they cut to somebody who's like when I looked over at what was happening, I couldn't believe my eyes, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I don't know again, like I'm very curious, if that's just normal and people enjoy it, Like that could very much just be our um, like English white Western lens. But it was not. It didn't work for us.
Speaker 1:Um, I mean, I've. So I used to be a video editor a long, long, long time ago, just doing YouTube stuff, but, like I was a paid video editor you were indeed, and I uh I learned under the expert tutelage of uh Russ Russell has an hour who I. I ran a YouTube channel and he is a really great editor and he taught me everything that I know. And I think it's a universal thing that if you do good, tight editing and keep things engaging and find ways to explain the parts that are important other than just repeating it over and over again, that is a better way of doing things. But this leads me into the next thing, which is when I was researching why they do this. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they need filler for their episode.
Speaker 1:Probably later on in the series. They have a certain number of episodes they want to accomplish in a certain time slot that they want to fill. If they don't have enough happening, which happened at the end then they need to fill it with, basically, garbage.
Speaker 2:I think, the one exception being that was dragged out, but in a good way, was when Na Rae was trying to eat them and they were in control of the ferris wheel. So Na Rae and Ho Chung Yol, no Chung Yol. No, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:The doctor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the doctor Me, and my Western tongue can't say it, but anyways, now my brain's blanking Right. So they're in control of the ferris wheel and everybody else is in a different ferris wheel car and they're on the ground and then at some point they realize that they're going to die. And this is when Na Rae's like, fuck this, I'm going to get him. The guy who bit me or who shoved me into the zombies again which was Appa right and that had like really good suspenseful music she's losing her eyesight and can't really see anymore and trying to figure out like which car they're in to be able to bite him. And that was the one part where I was like okay, the pace feels okay to me because of the suspense.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:You hated it, leah, were you?
Speaker 1:on drugs.
Speaker 2:No, I was sober. Okay, well, that's Saturday morning that is very, very interesting.
Speaker 1:Take, because that took 45 minutes. It was 45 minutes of them being like. Which car are they in? Let's look in every car. Is he in that car? Let me ask on the radio are you in this?
Speaker 1:car. I'm going to eat you. Let's do a flashback to earlier, when I said I was going to eat you. Are you in this car? He is in this car, but is he? He is Okay, I'm realizing why. Music, let's do slow motion. Let's go. Let's have it go around two more times. Let's look in again. Is he in there? We're going to open the door. Let's think about opening the door Now. Let's go back to the control room and make it go around one more time. Make it stop Now. We're going to open the door. Now I'm going to go in and I'm going to laugh and stare at you, for another 15 minutes Well.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to laugh For 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:They laughed for 15 minutes while they're. I'm really upset about this.
Speaker 2:I think I'm realizing why I was okay with it. I was doing my PT exercises at the same time and I always strategically pick things that don't require a lot of my attention to do my PT, so it was just the right pace for me to look up occasionally.
Speaker 1:It took forever. I wanted to kill myself. I'm so sorry. You should have been doing some physical therapy.
Speaker 2:I should have been.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, you just really upset me by not agreeing with me immediately.
Speaker 2:Dan, what can I do to repair this?
Speaker 1:Agree with me? I just did. It was awful.
Speaker 2:It was awful. The only reason it was okay for me was because I was doing my exercises. I'm so sorry I hurt you.
Speaker 1:So this leads me into the writing. So in the later episodes they pushed the characters forward with plot instead of the characters progressing the story by themselves. So like there was this plot about the guy in the in the survivor town and his mother got bit and he's feeding other survivors to his mother and filling his factory with zombies. For some reason, they never do anything to figure out any of this stuff and there's just a point where they're like oh yeah, that's because he's feeding the people to his mom.
Speaker 2:I know that somehow Been 24 hours since the outbreak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a steep escalation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then, like there's always, there's always some Deus Ex machina that comes along and solves the problem for them, instead of them, because they're incompetent, they can't solve the puzzles. No.
Speaker 2:Mr Rice.
Speaker 1:Puff comes along with his Rice Puff machine and he's like Rice Puffs and that's the only reason they get out, because he's like I'm going to, I'm going to do your job and I I was already written out last episode, but somehow I survived. I'm back here now. Rice Puffs it's a legitimate business and the zombies go over to the Mr Rice Puff and they finally leave. They wouldn't have left if it weren't for Mr Rice Puff. They wouldn't have left the fucking factory if the reporter didn't crash through the wall with a pickup truck.
Speaker 2:Where did he come from. Why did he do that? We don't know. He was investigating this thing. That only happened for 24 hours. I'm investigating.
Speaker 1:Let me run a truck through the wall. That's how investigative journalism works. I'm going to run a fucking truck into it.
Speaker 2:And he also knew the zombie survival expert. Very interesting, the reporter.
Speaker 1:The reporter was the zombie survival expert. Yeah, it's the same guy, and then the reporter set up the boat escape at the end, so they have to go to a fucking theme park to get on a boat that he sets up. I digress.
Speaker 2:Dan, you have a lot of deep feelings about this.
Speaker 1:They don't progress through the story at all and they push this contrived plot, which actually isn't that good, to get us through it. It would have been so much more interesting if the characters themselves were like, hey, we escaped the grocery store, what do we do now? And they go to a place and they're like all right, let's try to survive here, and maybe whatever happens there is what pushes them on to the next thing. They could just they could find their own solution to a problem, and that's how the story moves on.
Speaker 2:I hear you and I hear your deep disappointment and I think that you should bring it up in therapy because it's clearly touching something deep in you and the way that you're discussing this, but I will say you all listeners, we adore you because we watch those last two episodes for you, not for us. There was a downline. I was like I don't want to be doing this, but we committed we're six episodes in.
Speaker 1:Are you feeling stuck in a rut, tired of counting pennies while dreaming of the life of luxury? Oh God, yes, we've all been there, working dead end jobs, living paycheck to paycheck. But what if I told you there's a golden, crispy light at the end of the tunnel? With the sudden and tragic loss of Mr Rice Puff, there's now a gaping hole in the rice puff market that needs to be filled, introducing Puff Prosperity. We're not just a snack, we're a crunchy revolution. We're here to tell you this is a legitimate business.
Speaker 1:This isn't a sales job. It's a turnkey business opportunity. It's about building an empire. Recruit other rice puff pioneers under your wing and watch as your rice puff pyramid rises to the sky. For every rice puff pioneer you bring on board, the closer you get to becoming the ultimate rice puff tycoon. Luxury cars, exotic holidays and the life of financial security your family deserves is all within reach. Puff Prosperity is your ticket to breaking free from the mundane and stepping into a world where every rice puff skyrockets you to the top. Remember this is a legitimate business. Don't let this opportunity slip through your fingers. Log on to wwwriceteritchescom and take the first step towards a life of rice puff abundance, Puff Prosperity where dreams are made and legacies are built.
Speaker 2:Puff, puff and beyond.
Speaker 1:Oh, Mr Rice Puff.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:What a hero. Rest in peace.
Speaker 2:So this brings us to the fact that it ends with a big what, Dan?
Speaker 1:It's a big what the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck, dan, please Just like season 11 of the Walking Dead. What the fuck?
Speaker 2:Why is it? What the fuck?
Speaker 1:All right. So Suki and Dinden, they get on this fishing boat, the boat that I mentioned previously that they go to. There's this whole thing where they're trying to get across the water on these floating things. Only those two make it. Patricia can't climb the ladder. She can't swim either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not a good thing.
Speaker 1:And the final three still remaining. They're stuck on the other side while zombies are bashing at the gates. And then the gates break open. The zombies are coming, they got their backs to the water. They're going to die. And then the bus comes. The bus comes and a bus Hold on A bus. They get on a bus. The bus runs over a bunch of zombies. Another Deus Ex Machina moment where a bus comes to save the day because they couldn't save themselves.
Speaker 2:I mean it feels realistic, though Sometimes you need to be saved. This is not the most active group.
Speaker 1:It's true, but, like it happens too often in this story, and they get in, and not only is it a bus, it is an aquatic bus, so they drive into the water.
Speaker 2:That was a pretty great part, you got to admit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like the bus. I wish I had one. Let's make an aquatic bus.
Speaker 2:I think we should. And, oh my God, an aquatic like RV bus. Yeah, that's a great escape vehicle from the Zion Populips. So you got to give them credit, and I will also give credit that it was kind of funny to realize that Suki and Dinden were actually on a fishing boat and not yeah, they just got on some guy's boat. Yeah, now they're going to be fishing mackerel or something I forget what he said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're fishing mackerel.
Speaker 2:Forever. Yeah, that's their new job now the fishermen didn't even know that there was an apocalypse Honestly sounds like a great situation. I would be okay with this. You got food and you're not near the zone.
Speaker 1:I mean for me what the fucks were the seventh and eighth episode? Yeah, mostly the Ferris wheel situation that we talked about, which we have already discussed in detail, and I'm racking my brain trying to understand what professional film production team would have thought it was a good idea to show their characters basically doing nothing for 38 minutes from 17 different angles. The last few episodes is where the editing really became a problem. I accepted the idea that Korean TV is different from Western TV for the first six episodes. I'm like okay, that's fine, it's just different, it's different and it's fine. But after episode six, it really just got really fucking and this is like amateur level. This is amateur hour editing. This is like stuff that I would have done in 2011.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Usually when we do that, you could do it. Could you do it better? Segment of a podcast. It's more about the scenario, but in this case Dan's like please let me re-edit this.
Speaker 1:Could you do it better? Yeah, I could make a better show.
Speaker 2:However, I'm curious Did you read Korean reviews of the show?
Speaker 1:Not Korean reviews, but I read reviews of people watching the Korean show.
Speaker 2:That's still a Western lens. I would love to know and clearly we don't do our homework on this podcast but I would love to know if that was still the same perception of Koreans who watched it. Because, again, I hear you that you're saying this is a universal thing, but as an anthropologist I can tell you almost nothing is universal, so it's still entirely possible.
Speaker 1:I think it is. It's acceptable. You might be right and I stand by that, and Korea is wrong.
Speaker 2:Oh that's a big statement.
Speaker 1:You're going to get canceled. That is terrible. Cancel me, Korea. Never let me back in your country.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you've been there. I forgot.
Speaker 1:Briefly, I was on an airstrip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like you touched, it's like I can say I was in Amsterdam as in the airport.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was on an airstrip for two weeks, but I didn't do much else. So I will say, though, when I was in Afghanistan, I did go to the Republic of Korea's dining facility.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you've told me how much better it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they won't let you eat in the dining facility, but there is a room behind the kitchen that they let foreigners. Well, we're all foreigners in Afghanistan, except for the Afghanis, but they would let us eat there if we paid for it. It was basically a restaurant and, oh my God, I didn't know what it was called. It was just to me it was spicy beef and it was spicy beef with rice, and now I know that it was kimchi fried rice with like little beef chunk and it was the hottest fucking thing.
Speaker 1:I've ever eaten in my life I would go there, I would eat it and then I would sweat the entire way back to my barracks and it was in a world where there was no other flavor and I would go to the Korean de facto taste something.
Speaker 2:I think that's a lovely story.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you're an opportunity we cannot the amount of action that made up episode seven and eight. I'm continuing my rant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is not going to stop anytime soon, though.
Speaker 1:The amount of action. That consisted episodes of seven and eight. I could make one 30-minute episode. I believe that and it would be good and it moved the story along and you know it would move fast enough that maybe you wouldn't say what the fuck? So often when ridiculous bullshit happens, that's true.
Speaker 1:Like when they spend 25 minutes playing bumper cars around the Tilt-A-Whirl, messing around with zombies, when it could have just been like a quick in and out, like something happened. Now we're out, mm-hmm. And honestly, I could say the same thing about episodes three through eight. I feel like one and two was solid. One and two had me excited. I'm like I love this and I can't wait for more.
Speaker 2:That's true. We were really enjoying it there.
Speaker 1:But if Netflix wants to pay me, I can make a solid five episodes from zombie first, and you know it's a, I'll do it for I'll give you a deal.
Speaker 2:What's the deal?
Speaker 1:Netflix. I'll give you. This is a bargain One million dollars, not bad, hey, I mean you would definitely be a scab.
Speaker 2:It'll take me a week Probably. We need to pay you a million dollars because you'd be a scab right now.
Speaker 1:No editors aren't on strike.
Speaker 2:They're not no.
Speaker 1:I don't understand Actors and writers.
Speaker 2:Oh, ok. Well, you know what I'm pro strike for this. So, editors, I still think it's scabby to do any work. I want a million dollars. We cannot end discussing this show without talking about how, after Na Rae eventually bites Na Hung Chul that he, which we've been referring to as oppa, by the way, he somehow becomes like a sentient zombie. The very ending scene is the most this was the most.
Speaker 1:What the fuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was, I was kind of OK with it, because it was so bizarre that I was like, well, at least that was different. But I didn't like like it. I just was like what the fuck's happening here? He literally, he literally is dancing with a little like piano keyboard thing that goes around like one of those things called a strap over shoulder, so piano.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a little keyboard that he has strapped around, but it also has like a voice tube, so he puts the voice tube at a zombie's mouth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why is he do that?
Speaker 1:And then he starts playing. He's sampling zombies. Yeah, he's making music. I didn't know he was a musician he must be a musician in real time in real life. But he's jamming out. I mean, this scene also takes way too long. Like it's just a great. It was so bizarre.
Speaker 2:I. He's like putting his butt over top of zombies are lying on the ground and like dancing on top of them. He's feeding zombies.
Speaker 1:He's a zombie, by the way.
Speaker 2:He's undead he is a zombie and then at the end, at the end he starts to dance. Yeah, full on dance and just dances off the screen. So zombies, I guess, have human rights and are sentient, was the end message they wanted to zombie type. Well, maybe they put that you know all of Jonathan's still alive, nari's still alive as part. Well, they're all still alive. Nobody kills zombies, except for that one, that's true.
Speaker 1:So maybe the yeah maybe there's even the motion sick zombie, the leather jacket man from Episode three in the grocery store is still alive, just eternally on the.
Speaker 2:what is that thing called?
Speaker 1:Mr Rice Puff is still alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they're all still alive, so maybe they are sentient, maybe they do deserve to be treated with kindness. No, it's very American of you.
Speaker 1:Dan. So let's, let's do our, our final thoughts.
Speaker 2:OK our Jerry Springer final, we're going to give it our zeds. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:So the good started great. It was very enjoyable in the beginning. It was a very unique idea and had a lot of promise. Yeah, the characters were fun and it would have been nice to see them develop more. That's I put. I put a bad in with my good. I want more. The bad, poorly executed by the showrunners in the last episodes, show a lack of effort and it could have been much better, but it's almost like they gave up.
Speaker 2:Maybe they did.
Speaker 1:They probably did, probably ran out of money.
Speaker 2:I'm just reading what Dan's going to say next. This is you're definitely getting canceled. I'm getting canceled.
Speaker 1:People may argue this, but Korean TV editing is not very good. They have formulaic style. It assumes that the average viewer isn't paying attention, so they repeat crucial details over and over again to drive it home. This could be better done with more engaging editing, and Western Reality TV shows nailed it decades ago by including testimonials for characters to explain the scenes, provide deeper insight and keep viewers engaged.
Speaker 2:That is very ethnocentric of you, Dan.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm right. That may be true, but I'm also correct.
Speaker 2:So, on that note, ethnocentric Dan, how many Zeds would you give us out of 10?
Speaker 1:This is a really hard thing to choose, because if I was just basing this off of episodes one through three, I would give it at like nine out of 10 Zeds, wow. And if I was judging episodes four through eight, I would give it three Zeds.
Speaker 2:So I guess you'd have to mean in the middle, like a six.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's give it a six.
Speaker 2:I was going to give it a five because I felt like it is, yeah, like 50-50.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's some stuff worth watching. I yeah, just watch the first three episodes if you have not watched it yet.
Speaker 1:I mean, let me. I mean, when we were like three episodes in, I was genuinely excited to see where it went. Yeah, I was at work being like I can't wait to get home and watch zombie first. This show, I'm loving it so much, so like the fact that it goes so downhill is like a betrayal to me.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:And it's not the people's fault doing the show Like they did great. The characters did great, they did a fantastic job with what they had to work with and I don't even think the writing is the problem. I think it was fine. You know it's it's it's kind of stilted and formulaic, but you know they're not going for like an award-winning zombie story. But the editors really fucked this show up and you know, if, if, if, if, korean TV, if, if people in Korea like that kind of editing, that's fine, but this is dubbed and marketed to USA Netflix.
Speaker 2:Are you basically saying this is America Make?
Speaker 1:a different version, just edit it better.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've watched other great Korean stuff, like um oh my God, I never wrote it's call but that one where they're in a game where they all have to die Squid game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was excellent.
Speaker 2:That was excellent, Top notch, and so was uh trained to Busan. So we made something there with what you're saying, but I, I don't think I know top notch.
Speaker 1:That's the. That's just a rating.
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean it was some kind of show, top shelf Got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 1:Even like we only watched like one episode of all of us are dead and I don't think that it was bad, Like the editing was definitely good and the the acting was good.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't 100.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, some 100 Japanese. Oh gosh, that's my, you're getting canceled yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, we're, we're white, we are deficient in another way of working on it.
Speaker 1:It was probably animated in Korea, though.
Speaker 2:Still, though you know I'm a learning, I'm a learning girl, um, but I think I think you know zombie verse. It was fun to talk about, but we are on to, uh, the final end of our discussion today, and I'm really excited that next episode is episode 20. Dan, we did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to talk about a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For the book club. Yeah, we're doing a book club. What's the book, Dan? It's a. It's the girl with all the gifts by MR Kerry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I just realized. This means officially, I only have three weeks as of this recording. Two weeks, Two weeks as of this release, which is a week from now. Uh, for me to read this and I am still on the picture of Dorian Gray which is for my other book club, I think I'm going to have to quit my other book club. I don't have time for both.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so, uh, so we're we're reading that. If you want to, uh, if you want to be part of the book club and join along, read it too. Yeah, so you know what we're talking about. So that, uh, so that we don't just spoil books for you, or maybe you've already read it. I know some people said that this was one of their faves.
Speaker 2:That's really nice because we complain a lot on the show, yeah, but sometimes I think you love to complain. I think I'm curious about other books too. I think you're most animated when you're mad. It's true.
Speaker 1:This is me when I'm happy and this is me when I'm mad.
Speaker 2:I think you get a lot of dopamine from being mad and this is the part where we say to you hey, y'all subscribe rate review. Um, thanks for listening to us and please come say hi on Instagram and threads. Like seriously, we love when people give us a shout out and say hello and tell us what they think. Yeah, um, we love when you disagree or agree. Either sounds great. We just want to chat with y'all. That's why we created this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you need links to any of those things, including uh, where to find this podcast, whatever platform you want to use, um, or links to our uh, to our threads account or Instagram, it's in the link tree. It's in the description of this very episode, Unless I forgot to put it there, which I usually do until about an hour after the episode's uploaded.
Speaker 2:Because AI helps us write those descriptions. We're just going to say it.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're scabs. Is that a scab thing? No, it's not. Well, the writer's union very much does not want AI writing things for us.
Speaker 2:Oh shit. Well, we're going to have that. That's called the discussion another time. Bye, bye, everybody, bye, see you soon. Bye, bye, I love you. Yeah, bye.