Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
What Makes 'The Ones Who Live' So Compelling? | Zombie Book Club Podcast ep 43
Welcome to another gripping episode of the Zombie Book Club! This week, hosts Dan and Leah dive deep into the complex world of "The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live," a thrilling post-apocalyptic drama that continues the saga of beloved characters while introducing us to new, challenging environments. As totalitarian regimes merge with the undead threat, the series not only provides edge-of-your-seat horror but also profound existential questions that tug at the very fabric of human morality. Whether it's debating the effectiveness of revolutions from within or pondering the deep-seated societal divides labeled as 'As versus Bs,' our hosts unravel the narrative's layers, discussing the dire consequences of techno-centrism, totalitarian dictatorships, and the power of love in a society overrun by the undead. This episode, they ponder over why herds of zombies migrate south and what it truly means to save one's family versus saving the world.
On the flip side, today’s discussion isn't all praises. Dan and Leah express their frustrations over the pacing of the series, where rich stories seem rushed, leaving a treasure trove of untold character depth. They tackle the portrayal of various social issues within the series through the lens of multiple media representation tests, such as the Bechdel and DuVernay tests, discussing how well the series fares in portraying diverse and complex characters. Despite some shortcomings in emotional connectivity, particularly in the series finale, our hosts appreciate the standout episode written by Danai Gurira, which featured a poignant love story that beautifully captured Rick's internal struggles. Tune in for an intense blend of criticism and admiration as they dissect the cinematic excellence and the sometimes frustrating narrative choices of "The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live."
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Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a totalitarian regime and you're living inside of the CRM, but they have ice cream and well-groomed parks and the health care system covers really cool robot arms that have knives on them Knife knife robot arms. I'm Dan, and when I'm not biting my fingernails thinking about the oppressive regime we currently live in, I'm writing a book about how adding zombies makes it a million times worse.
Speaker 2:And I'm Leah, and the last time I saw a total solar eclipse was 2017, when my personal life was also an oppressive regime. Yeah, and I honestly, the eclipse happened and everything got really fucked up. So I'm not going to go outside. The solar eclipse is happening tomorrow, but we'll be two weeks or three weeks.
Speaker 1:I was going to say why are they talking about a thing that happened a month ago?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'm talking about it for this reason. Remember our zombie astrology episode? Yeah, all I'm saying is, if you watched the solar eclipse three weeks ago and your life is a mess, it's because you it's because you looked at the sun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's because you. It's because you looked at the sun. Yeah, and maybe there's zombies now because of because of you and it's your fault. That's what happens when you look directly at the solar eclipse you turn into a zombie or become donald trump. Yeah, this is this, is this is the uh. The origin story of my zombies in my book is that people looked at the solar eclipse today we're not talking about solar eclipse.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the ones who live the long, long, long awaited tv series that answers the question of what the fuck happened to rick. Yeah, why are there scratch drawings of michelle and judith on cell phones? Yeah, why cell phones? That was so confusing until it wasn't because of this series until it was explained and then I was like that's such a great why?
Speaker 1:was there japanese on it?
Speaker 2:who knows? Actually I still don't know that part or they told us what we forgot I forget.
Speaker 1:Should I just say it? Sure, I'll just say it there's. There's a guy in the crm and he he draws the likenesses of people's loved ones on tvs and tablets and cell phones. You know that they find out in the wasteland, and he happens to be Japanese, so he wrote kanji letters.
Speaker 2:But what I mean? That seems like a strange thing to do. It was a strange choice, I feel like.
Speaker 1:here's a picture of your son and I wrote Japanese on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there had to be a better reason for that. We release episodes every Sunday on all podcasting platforms, so subscribe, yeah, subscribe to all of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Download new podcasting platforms and subscribe to us and give us reviews.
Speaker 2:Give us reviews on all of them. Our requests just keep on getting more and more.
Speaker 1:Dan needs to quit his day job, come to our house and clean our garage. Oh, that would be wonderful.
Speaker 2:That's also on the list for simon. Yeah, I'd like to be clear that, uh, for those listeners who know that simon is dan's brother and then he's coming to live, uh, with us because he's awesome and we're starting our zombie commune, we are not abusing him. There will be compensation for all the things I have on my list that he's helping. That he has already pre-agreed to he's agreed to the abuse true, I don't think it's abuse.
Speaker 2:We're paying him a fair amount for the things I'm asking him to do. Yes, but anyways, that's neither here nor there. He's not coming to the crm, which I also just need to briefly say.
Speaker 1:If he listens to, this will he be like wait, I'm getting paid no, it's in the thing I wrote to him.
Speaker 2:well, never mind, that's not our listeners business, I shouldn't have brought it up. But in brief, I'm just saying we're not abusive and exploitative like those dirty capitalists out there. You will receive a fair compensation in the form of trade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the form of zombie coins that can't be exchanged anywhere else except for here.
Speaker 2:Do we need to start a new Bitcoin that's called zombie coin?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Zombie coins. Well, anywhere else except for here, do we need to start a new bitcoin that's called zombie coin? Yeah, zombie coins? Well, they're actually physical coins it's not a cryptocurrency, but like oh, what do they look like? Um, they got little zombie heads on them and then on the back side there's zombie butts and um is it like an homage to um zombie ass toilet of the dead?
Speaker 1:it is it's exactly what it is and uh, and you can exchange it for things that you need like toilet paper or beans. Those are the only two things that we carry right now. Actually, no, no, it's the only currency that we pay anybody with, but they are useless outside of the zombie commune.
Speaker 2:That sounds a lot like the CRM, which my point that I was trying to say but then got distracted. Ha ha, Surprise for me to do was that I always thought a CRM is a customer relationship management software.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it is Right.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what CRM stands for in the show, but the whole time like are you talking about Salesforce? Is this the Salesforce company? Like how?
Speaker 1:did it get called this? Yeah, this is how they survived. Is this the Salesforce company Like how did it get called this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is how they survived. The Salesforce company is an oppressive regime.
Speaker 1:We're going to get sued, yeah, or you're at least going to lose your job.
Speaker 2:That would be bad, because I have shared this with a few coworkers and maybe sometimes I think should I have done that?
Speaker 1:I don't know, you're going to go viral at work.
Speaker 2:Do you want to know something great before we dive into this? So we did an interview a little while ago with our friend Sylvester and we had as our backgrounds the Zion Book Club logo and I haven't used it on Zoom since, but the one time I randomly popped up was in a meeting with my boss. I turned my video on and it said Zion Book Club.
Speaker 1:I was like well, you gotta have something to say in those moments. Just be like I. This is the book club that I'm a part of.
Speaker 2:We talk about zombies yeah, but people already know I have a podcast that says podcast it was too late.
Speaker 1:You volunteered too much information. You're in too deep now, I know please don't fire me um.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the walking dead the ones who live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is it, dan uh, of the ones who live according to walking dead fandomcom, slash wiki. Slash the walking dead the ones who live hashtag cast hashtag characters is an american post-apocalyptic horror genre television miniseries created by scott gimple. Uh deny giri, how do you pronounce?
Speaker 2:her career?
Speaker 1:I actually don't know and andrew lincoln for amc. It is set after the conclusion of the original walking dead series, season 11, see episode 9. Yes, uh, and lincoln guerrera and pollyanna mcintosh reprised their roles and is the sixth spinoff and overall seventh television series in the walking dead universe. How's it the? Sixth spinoff there's some dixon dead city fear, oh fear, the walking dead. Yeah, um, there's some that I haven't even seen because I didn't even know about them.
Speaker 1:Um, some of them were like online exclusive, like uh, I don't even remember the names of them now there's at least three others, or no, there's at least two others, because there's one that's like an anthology, like each episode is about different characters. Oh, that's fun. Um, terry cruz is in one of them. Don't know who that is, he's, he's a big dude, a big dude. Yeah, that's very, he was the old Spice guy for a long time I never pay attention to the old Spice characters. He was in White Girls.
Speaker 2:Never watched that movie. He's black. That doesn't help at all.
Speaker 1:It would, if you, if you do, if you're trying to narrow it down this was quite a way.
Speaker 2:This just shows you how like out of the loop of basic cultural norms of television, I am in yeah when were these old spice commercials aired? Oh, I don't know, it was for a while.
Speaker 1:Were you a child? No, I was. I was an adult man. Uh-huh watching a mostly naked muscular dude sell me Old Spice deodorant that sounds lovely In the commercial. His pecs turn into drums and his whole body is like a cyborg machine. And he starts flexing his pecs to make the drums go.
Speaker 2:I definitely have never seen this. I'd remember that. Why are we talking about Old Spice man commercials? Because he was in the Walking. Dead series that we're talking, that we mentioned briefly okay well, we're not talking about that series, but the good news is we have amc now, so hopefully we'll be able to watch the other ones. We definitely haven't watched dead city yet. Um, we watched dixon. We talked about dixon on this show. Yeah, love dixon sort of.
Speaker 1:Somebody said that we were very critical of dixon. Not wrong, but harsh and yeah, yeah, accurate.
Speaker 2:I think, though, the standards are so high like I think this is an example of like if I had watched, it would be such an interesting experience to watch dixon. Having never watched anything from the walking dead, like what would my experience have been if it was that, versus 11 seasons, rest in peace. The 11th season of the walking dead and then dixon, like my expectations were just really fucking high yeah I mean the walking dead.
Speaker 1:I would put on the same pedestal as like breaking bad as uh, saul goodman as the sopranos as the wire, like like these, like really high level of acting and writing and directing style, shows that like went beyond what our expectations were for even high budget movies. Yeah, um, and it was, and it maintained that for at least nine seasons. Yeah, the last two seasons, you know, it dipped Quite a bit. It dipped a little bit in 10. There's just enough to be like this isn't as good. And then 11 was what the fuck? Yeah, and you know, I think that my criticism of Daryl Dixon is because I'm afraid, I'm afraid of season 11, daryl dixon and I think we talked about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, season 11, daryl dixon also rip never watching that one version of him again. But I think what I will say about the ones who live as the second spin-off that you and I have personally watched is I think it's way better than dixon it is, and I'm so happy. It was really wonderful to like look forward to every Sunday night, which is not a feeling I've had for as long as there's been Netflix, because even before there was Netflix, I refused to have cable television, so everything I watched was streamed via websites that were sort of shady at the time. Yeah, that's orbit, torrents or whatever, and so, like torrenting, you risk a few viruses.
Speaker 2:I couldn't afford cable for most of my life.
Speaker 1:I was so broke I don't think I've ever subscribed to cable in my adult life Me neither. Maybe in 2006, right after getting back from Afghanistan, I remember briefly having cable, but that was only because I wanted internet and they gave me cable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you could afford cable. I feel like that means that you're in the middle class land somewhere, maybe. Cable makes you middle class now, I don't know, I don't know, but I know that I could not afford it for a long time and now we have so many subscriptions to so many things. I feel like it's probably comparable to cable. It's doing a lot better lately, it's not more.
Speaker 1:We unsubscribe to some of them if we're not watching shows regularly like we don't have hulu.
Speaker 2:No, but I wish we did sometimes like a long time and amc, really and truly we got just because I think actually the ones who live was what kicked eyes like we have to, we have to get it. We got it from daryl dicks, well, yeah, no, I think we got it because we saw the previews for the ones who live and we knew it only be on amc and we're like, oh, we're gonna have to suck it up and we knew that if we waited for um, the ones who live to come to like netflix or wherever else we can watch, it would have been ruined by memes.
Speaker 1:Yeah it, let me tell you. But let's, let's take a brief thing here's, here's. The thing is like we don't want to spoil this for you because it was spoiled for me because I dared look at instagram. For what? 30? Seconds two hours after the ones, the ones who live was added. It was it comes on sunday, so it's like available all sunday and we're like we're gonna wait until, like you, nine o'clock prime time. We want to watch it at prime time.
Speaker 2:We don't want to watch it at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wasn't even looking for anything related to the Walking Dead. I just opened up my Instagram and I looked and the first thing that was there was the last scene of the last episode of the Ones who Live and I was like fuck you. And then my phone, my my instagram feed, updated and it was a different group of things and I scrolled through my phone to try to find the asshole that did that to me, because I was going to unsubscribe and leave him a nasty message and tell him he was stupid. But I couldn't find him again. I searched and searched and searched for spoilers.
Speaker 2:Are you listening to us right now? Meme maker, we've got beef with you. Yeah, meet me outside. Which we established in episode 41. We don't go out very often, so we're going to try our best not to spoil this for people who haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:But we are going to talk about things that might spoil it if you don't know what you're getting into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there'll be a like. You know there's some things that we might say, but I'm going to try really hard to talk about themes and how I felt about it and stuff that I think is interesting to consider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are some things we'll mention, big details, and if you haven't seen like a few episodes into the show, you might, you might be like, ah, come on spoilers guys, but it's kind of hard to not mention those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in other words, amc, give us a code, because I'm about to say, uh, maybe you should get amc if you can afford amc, which I again am stallaging this shit's expensive and as much as I want to be generous and say I'll give you my password, that's a lot of people I'm offering my password I don't think everybody can log into your password. No, I think that would definitely get me flagged in some way that I can't imagine.
Speaker 1:I think you can give it to like one person.
Speaker 2:I don't think you're supposed to give your passwords to anybody, but these are the ways we fight back against the man.
Speaker 1:Yeah become ungovernable.
Speaker 2:I shared my Netflix password with my canada brother canada brother, my brother in canada, that was the opposite way I want to say it and, um, I was repeatedly like reminded by netflix when I would log on to netflix, that I was doing something very wrong so I had to kick him off, and I felt terrible there was also times where, like your brother would be watching a show.
Speaker 2:Tell us that we can't use netflix because he would have it on his phone and his computer and his tv and it's like tell him well, it's not too long, you could only have it on four devices at a time, or three devices at a time, and he would have it on all three of his devices I'm watching like three different things at once. Also beef, jesse, although I know you're not listening to this. Uh, you ruined our algorithm because you didn't use the one that was assigned for you at first, and I'm still suffering from Garfield suggestions. And if other people like Garfield, that's fine, but I didn't need it in my suggested.
Speaker 1:I'm a Garfield fan. I haven't watched any of the Garfield movies. Do you want a tattoo of?
Speaker 2:Garfield. You know what the tattoo artist that I got this done is like high on her bucket list is to do a Garfield tattoo.
Speaker 1:She's never done a garfield tattoo and she really wants to.
Speaker 2:She's got some flash ready to go. I feel like garfield, like I resonate a lot with really, yeah, well, I hate mondays, I don't remember anything about garfield, except that he's an orange cat.
Speaker 1:Yes, and given the option, I will just sleep all day this is true, but also that's possibly depression.
Speaker 2:Garfield depressed. Garfield is depressed. This is not at all about the ones who live. So we're going to side wander back over here and I'm just going to remind folks again, because we're not going to tell you the details, but I'm going to say who's in it. That is important for you to know. Like, generally, these characters exist. So obviously there's Rick and Michonne, and if anybody's listening to this and has never watched the Walking Dead, I also want to know that I would be shocked if anyone listens to us who's never watched the Walking Dead. But maybe there are a couple.
Speaker 1:They're out there. Yeah, yeah, and if that's you, there's definitely some people out there that are like. I stopped watching after season three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rick is the main character. He's the one who he was formerly a sheriff white guy, uh, southern georgia white guy michonne. It becomes his love interest many seasons and you know which season, dan, oh, season three, and michonne is like badass, wields a samurai sword, like she's had it as a fifth limb her entire life. Yeah, um, really like a kind and compassionate, lovely person, and they fall in love, um, but then they're separated. These are the things that happen in the walking dead they're separated. Everybody believes that rick is dead, yeah, but not everybody.
Speaker 2:Michonne and daryl look, because they don't they haven't found his body, they're looking that. When, which, which season did he disappear in nine?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, it might have been nine. Uh, yeah, it was nine somebody correct us. I think it was nine that he disappeared, so we have two seasons of the walking dead and then years go by yeah, many like like 12 oh, 12 years in the show, yeah, oh, I was thinking about like the years that we wait to see what's happening with rick 12 or 13 years into the apocalypse at that point, but like no, since the bridge explodes, I think it's like no, it's eight, it's almost eight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because RJ, his son that he never met, he has a son that he didn't know that he had. Yeah, Spoiler, yeah Well, that's not again never heard of the Walking Dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also none of these details are going to make it not worth you watching the Walking Dead, yeah, but this is just to give you some context. And so Michonne goes out looking after some lunch, stuff happens. She decides to go on like a major adventure to look for him because she finds on a boat this phone that has scratchings of a picture of her and their daughter Judith. Yeah, and that's what compels her like she's, like he has to be alive, he has to be alive yeah so that's this now.
Speaker 2:Then we have two seasons of the walking dead. Nothing happens. We don't see rick at all. Then we have however many years between season 11 and now I don't know how long that is, between season 11.
Speaker 1:No, I think the events, because Michonne, I think, actually leaves the end of season 10. I don't think she's actually in season 11. Smart move, very good move, michonne. Yeah, michonne's always one step ahead, isn't she? Yeah, didn't I the actual person who read that script and was like absolutely not, no read that script and was like absolutely not, no, uh, so my understanding is that the events of the ones who lived takes place pretty much at exactly the same time as season 11 oh, interesting, okay, but I'm talking about for our time frame.
Speaker 2:We wait a few years, yeah, to see rick again all the way from season nine to today. When was when does season nine get released? You can get rid of this giant gap in space. I'm about to give you season nine walking dead year 2018.
Speaker 2:It's been six years yeah six years without rick, with no understanding of where he went except for these weird hints. And then, finally, we get this show. Um other folks that are important to the to the um. The series are Jadis. Jadis is the trash queen, the garbage lady, yeah yeah, if anybody remembers who she is, she ruled the society in the Garbage Dump.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Played by Pollyanna McIntosh or McIntosh, not sure how she pronounces that McIntosh. And then Donald Okafor is a. What is his ranking in the CRM?
Speaker 1:Oh I don't know. He's some kind of officer yeah, he's higher up there, he's managing Rick.
Speaker 2:He's above Rick. He picks Rick to stay at the CRM.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he's a little bit of a shitster. He's got plans to cause a rebellion.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then there's Major General Beale, who definitely does not want to cause a rebellion.
Speaker 1:In fact, is probably the originator of the crm in many ways. Played by uh, played by lock from from uh, uh. Oh, that movie, the show, the show, I can't remember that lost.
Speaker 2:That's the one yeah, I love like I mean you're looking at me because we're sitting across each other at a table, but I also I'm like do you expect me to know what you're talking about also?
Speaker 1:I didn't, didn't know why. Read my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but also I'm not going to remember stuff like that. And then there is a thorn who is sort of like Rick's peer in the military oh, by the way, rick is a military becomes a military member, yeah, of the.
Speaker 1:CRM. So for a very long time he resists joining the military of the crm which we're not gonna get into what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they, they, they. Everybody kind of has to like earn their way in, and the people who don't earn their way in kind of like live on the outskirts in this more dangerous area for a very long time. Like he's put on these like like kind of like shit job duties where, like he has to like just stab zombies through a hole in the wall to keep the city safe right, and after like being there for like six years, he finally decides to join the crm because he thinks maybe this is his only way to have a little bit of control over his destiny and maybe escape one day yeah, and there's a south african immigrant, uh thorn, who also had to go through that same process and then joins the military along the same side, along the same time as him, and okafor plays it pays a special interest in thorn.
Speaker 2:I swear we can't, we can't record a single episode without our dogs interrupting.
Speaker 1:That was nero's ear flap if you heard that he flaps his ears when he wants us to pay attention to him yes, which is better than the barking that he started doing the last six months.
Speaker 2:Um, our old boy. So, yeah, thorn was. Thorn is basically rick's peer in the show and alkafor is, uh, paying special attention to both of them, which we're not going to get into. A lot of reasons why for this episode. And then, last and not least, um, a character that I really loved in the show was nat white. He is a little person and he helps uh, michonne, yeah, get to where she needs to go. He's gonna.
Speaker 1:He's. He's a crafty guy that kind of knows how to like, make, make, uh, improvised explosives and gadgets and stuff. It's very gadgety. He's got lots of gadgets. He makes like a little he's a pyromaniac?
Speaker 2:yeah, he is literally, and it turns out to be very helpful in the apocalypse yeah, he's literally an arsonist what? What about zombie?
Speaker 1:type Dan. Oh well, we know the zombie types. They're the walking dead zombie type.
Speaker 2:They're slow, they're lumbering, they're undead, they're very very rotted, yes, but there is one strange thing about them, which is that they gather together in hordes and move south at a certain time of year.
Speaker 1:I'm in hordes and move south at a certain time of year I'm not sure what time of year it is yeah, maybe fall. The group that nat is a part of is like this big convoy that never stops and they, they have some information about like the convoys are moving. I don't know how they're tracking these convoys, but they know that. Or the, the hordes, I mean, they don't they, they don't explain like very much about like why the hordes are moving or where they're going, but it does seem to be like they're migratory, like maybe I, what I, what I always think about zombies is that like one zombie sees a zombie walking and they just start like following that zombie and then they just kind of like go into a direction before until something catches but the fact that they do it every year and that's been established is, I think, new yeah, they're migrating, but where and why they're going, they're going to florida.
Speaker 2:Don't forget that in season 11, we established that these zombies seemed to have some level of intelligence, some of them skill, some of them so like. Is there a special zombie?
Speaker 1:person. Maybe there's a special zombie, yeah, but it's not one of the uh mask people?
Speaker 2:what do they call again? Oh, the whispers. Yeah, yeah, not one of those. If none of this makes sense to you, again watch the Walking Dead. It's really good, I think, for folks who are like, oh, it's a zombie show, I don't want to watch that, it's a really, really great show. Just not season 11. Just stop at season 10.
Speaker 1:I mean, you can watch season 11, but don't expect it to be any good.
Speaker 2:Listen to season 11.
Speaker 1:I honestly think it's more entertaining than the entire season I'm trying to think if there's anything canon that you really need to know from season 11 I don't think it really, I mean, unless there's stuff in the like a spinoff in the future that like heavily.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you want to watch dead city, you probably need to see season 11 yeah, and I think they refer to the commonwealth a couple times, in dixon and the ones who live. But you know it's the community and that's all you really need to know. Yeah, existential questions and themes. There were a lot of really excellent ones and I think ones that In the Walking Dead, no in the ones who live.
Speaker 2:I think that they're. Let me say this a lot of the themes that we see pop up in zombie media are very like I don't know starts to get repetitive. I would say. I media are very like I don't know starts to get repetitive, I would say. I think there's some interesting ones that I don't see as often but are really excellent dilemmas and that are pretty explicit in the ones who live. The first one is do you save the world or save your family? And and what we're going to do to not spoil, uh, the show for you is not give you a lot of detail and just respond to this question like what we would do, what? What would you do? Oh, I'd save my family, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you know that the whole world is going to fucking fall apart. It's going to fall apart anyway, but if you're special like Rick and have the potential to save the world, I that did sound terrible.
Speaker 1:You are special honey.
Speaker 2:I love you.
Speaker 1:No, I would save my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even if you knew that that would mean like it's only short term gain and then the world's going to fall apart in, let's say, 13 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll be fine, though. That's the point, that's the point of saving your family is that, like you come together as a small community. I mean, we could talk about this all day, about how civilization as it stands right now, this like thing that we have, is like unsustainable, because we're not meant to have groups this large 300 million people. Yeah, we're supposed to be in small bands of like 30 to 50 people. In a band of 30 to 50 people, you could, you could withstand a lot of things and you could, you could survive and you could find your own way to exist in this world.
Speaker 2:That's not, you know, like having electricity, or having sewage, or having cars, or, you know, eating ice cream in a, in a, in a park you make a really good point, which is like why do all of these shows assume that going back to the way it was is like the best solution?
Speaker 1:yeah, and that's I mean, that's, that's the, that's the thing that um is going like, that's the, the distraction yeah, that's the version of the version in this or the.
Speaker 2:The dilemma in this show is save the world aka make it like it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is, uh, an oppressive regime yeah, and is like is making it what it was before? Is that actually a win?
Speaker 2:and I don't think it is yeah, that's true, because to save the world requires you to sacrifice some for others to live and thrive. That's the worldview that we're handling here. Um, and that is a a lot of how our current society is. Yeah, like, they have terms like sacrifice zones for environmental issues, and sacrifice zones are almost always, uh, in places where people are, uh, very poor and or folks of color, indigenous lands.
Speaker 1:And you know, like in in this world, in the Walking Dead universe, like this is like this is natural selection because we are returning to a world where we don't have all of the conveniences that keep us alive. So it's now dependent on our ability to make it in the world and how we go about doing that. And skipping ahead to something later in this list, the A's and the B's, the CRM. They have people like Jadis out in the outside world finding people for them and they label them either an A or a B.
Speaker 2:Reminder Jadis is the trash queen, Trash queen.
Speaker 1:The garbage lady? Yeah, lives in the garbage, garbage lady artist. Yeah, and we saw the theme of A show up so many times in the Walking Dead and it was so subtle that you wouldn't even know.
Speaker 1:We saw it in the prison cell block when everybody had the flu, they went to cell block A. We saw it at Terminus. They were put in rail car A. We saw it carved outside of Gabriel's church. We saw it on Rick's house when they went to Alexandria. We saw it on Daryl's chest when he was captured by Negan. Wow, it's this thing, and nobody ever knew what it was. It was always like a sign that something bad was going to happen. If you saw an A.
Speaker 2:And when you say nobody knew what it was, you mean like the watcher, the viewer doesn't understand why this keeps coming up.
Speaker 1:It just keeps coming up and nobody knew what it was about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then Jadis gets the question is he an A or a B?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we discover that she is capturing people and there's a helicopter landing pad in her junkyard and a helicopter comes every now and then and they ask if they're an A or a B and she's looking for Bs. And here's the thing. That kind of ties together with what I was saying about this is a natural selection thing. The CRM wants Bs. They're taking all the Bs and they're incorporating them into their society, because Bs are people who follow the rules. Bs are people who never challenge authority. They are not leaders, they're not strong.
Speaker 2:I think, most importantly, they're not critical of their context.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as like Rick are leaders. They are, they're, they're very capable, they they make big moves and they are survivors.
Speaker 2:I want to like. I think my definition of A is a little bit different than yours. It's not just being a leader. I think that that's how Okafor describes it, because Okafor is who tells us that this is the case and tells us that both Thorn and Rick are A's. But I think it's not just being a leader, unless you think that to be a leader, you have to be somebody who's willing to question the status quo, and I'm not sure if that's true.
Speaker 1:No, I think it is true.
Speaker 2:I don't think that every leader like to be. A leader is like a role, not always a quality. So if we're talking about a quality, then a quality of leadership could be questioning the status quo and striving for better. I think there are many people who are in leadership roles that I guess are, quote unquote.
Speaker 1:I don't think that everyone that's in a leadership role should be a leader. This is very true, and that's exactly the differentiation that my point is is that when you have somebody who isn't a leader like Rick or like Michonne or like Daryl, that are willing to stand up and do whatever it takes to lead people out of a problem, to question things, to always fight against something that they know is wrong, that is just a manager, that's just a middle management position, and that's what the CRM wanted. They wanted middle managers, they wanted people to do the work but never question it, and what they did with the A's because they were picking up the A's too is they executed them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't want A's in the world. That's part of the solution of fixing the world is get rid of A's.
Speaker 1:So, you know, when they are faced with the possibility of their society collapsing, it's not because it's inevitable, it's not because you just simply can't survive, it's because they are filling their society with people who just don't have the leadership chops, like Rick, like michonne. They're filling, they're filling their, their ranks with people that just like they, with people that frankly, need to depend on other people to survive, not the people who who help those people survive so this is where I like have some feelings about the a or b concept in the walking dead.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's a little bit discriminatory towards b and or like the way that we're led to think about it, and that's why I like to think about it differently, which is you need people who are going to do the things. You need the people who are going to take the orders and get it done, and they're just as important as quote-unquote a's. Yeah, um, I think it's really risky when you start dividing people in this way. It's basically like a new form of um discrimination. Are you an a or a b? In this case, it's better to be a b, because the a's already exist in the crm. They don't want any others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but uh well, they want the, they want the control, they want the power yeah, I think the way that, like, while it's a good thing to be a b in this universe, to be a follower, to do the things you're told, to get shit shit done, but not question it that much, I feel like the angle that they're trying to get us to feel or believe when we're watching it is that being a B is bad, and I don't know that that is necessarily true because sometimes you need to be a, b and I don't think that in the long run, that it is the message.
Speaker 1:I think I think there's a risk of it being viewed that way yeah, well, there is the risk, but that's I think that's more of a problem of storytelling and not having enough time to actually tell that story. But what I what I am saying is I completely agree with you that you need to have a's and b's. Um, and I think that's the point, because if you had all a's, it'd just be a bunch of negans and ricks beating the shit out of each other. Think that's the point, because if you had all a's, it'd just be a bunch of negan's and rick's beating the shit out of each other.
Speaker 2:Um, that's basically probably what dead city is, because that's two a's negan and um and uh maggie, maggie.
Speaker 1:So what the crm is doing is they are upsetting that balance because they want to be the only a's in the crm. They want to be at the top while everybody else is at the bottom.
Speaker 2:Well, even the people who are higher up the ranks are still B's, so they might know more and have more responsibility, but they're not making critical decisions, but there's one, a right at the top yeah or they're making decisions that are based on what A is telling them to do yeah, and I think the message is is that you can't have a society like that, where only one person decides for everybody. Do you think that the ones who live has any message for us as a society? I think that's it Is.
Speaker 1:that is that they that they saw society as a way to control people. They didn't. They didn't want to live and coexist with all types of people. They just wanted people to serve them, and I think there there was probably a lot of story that could have been explored if there were more episodes in this series.
Speaker 2:That is a refrain we will say multiple times throughout this podcast episode. I agree with you and I think that it felt kind of like eugenics. It just felt like let's get rid of it. This is the kind of person who's inconvenient to exist, and neither are, and I also wanted to ask you, while we're talking about a's and b's, what do you think you are and why?
Speaker 1:I think I'm an a yeah, I'm, I'm, I am ungovernable you were in the military for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were governed, then there's a reason why I didn't stay in the army. Well, there's many reasons, but uh, while I was in the army, I was not. I would say at the time, what I would have said about myself is I'm not a good soldier. You said that about yourself while you were in the army. Yeah, and the reason that I wasn't a good soldier is because I questioned things. I didn't take things at face value. When people told me that there is one way to do something, I'm like I think there's another way to do this. And they're like no, this is the army. There's only one way to do this, do you want to know something cool about that?
Speaker 2:What You're challenging white supremacy culture. When you said there was more than one right way, yeah, sidebar, yeah I didn't even know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of the things that I did in the army, you know, my my biggest achievements were not because I was told to do something. It was actually because I was kind of pissed off in the face of of what I was expected to be and expected to do and I went off and did my own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense that you're in a. I think about like when I knew you, when we were teenagers and we're talking on the phone, on our little international phone cards at two o'clock in the morning, yeah, and I think at this point I was more of a B and you are more of an A because I don't know about that. You were interesting. You can you can respond to that in a second, but I want to just say why I think it was evident to me that you were an A and why I feel like I was a little bit of a B back then. You saw things like the school system and the kinds of stuff you were supposed to be striving for, for status and to get one more leg up the rung, to play the game. Yeah, you saw that it was a game and you did not want to participate and you thought it was not useful. I, on the other hand, was crying if I got less than an A. Still have that issue as a recovering perfectionist.
Speaker 2:Also, a component of white supremacy culture is perfectionism. So that's why I think that you were always an A and I feel like, because of the way I was raised, the values I was given that I didn't question for a long time. I think I fell into be like follower do the things you're told and do them really well, like that was. My ethos was like do what you're told and do it excellently. And that's what I did, which again has some purpose. But you don't think I was a B.
Speaker 1:I remember specifically one time you told me this very detailed plan about how you wanted to have all of your friends together and you wanted to take over, um, a uh, historic military fort with, like wooden palisade walls and like secede from canada and make your own, leoland. That's hilarious, yeah, I mean, you probably started my, my obsession with this idea of like not being a part of society and like and like going off and blazing your own path.
Speaker 2:Well, society was not like the way I describe. My experience being a kid was like I got all the things I needed physically. I never wanted for food or shelter or clothes. Maybe I didn't have the coolest clothes, but I had, I wore them and I never felt like I belonged anywhere and, in fact, really didn't. People thought I was fucking weird, because I was and still am. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know where I'm going with this, but I I feel like both you and I had that feeling of like, not belonging, and I wonder if that influences people in leadership positions as well. I don't know if all A's have to have that experience, though, but that was definitely mine, and so when I was thinking about Lealand which I do remember, I just think there were a lot of things in society pretty early on that I was like this is ridiculous, I don't like this. Now I think about Lealand, and I was like was like oh, that's kind of my inner colonizer coming out, a little bit like thinking. I'm thinking that, like 14 year old, leo knows better about how to run. The world is hilarious, but I see why you're saying that. That sounds like an, a um, and kind of pompous of me to be like I can do this, and also I had zero awareness of um the fact that land that I was living on didn't belong to me and was the result of colonization and ongoing colonial project like I had no idea.
Speaker 1:None of us knew that back then.
Speaker 2:We didn't think by us, you mean like white people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, white people in this, in, in the western towns yeah yeah, unless you were an indigenous person, it was something that, like, wasn't taught to you. You didn't think it because it was never, it was never incepted into your brain.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, if you, I. What I learned about Native Americans, indigenous people, in school was basically like they used to be here. It was always like in weird past tense. Yeah, it's messed up. So I give grace for little Leah and her thoughts around Lealand, but they were a little problematic.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying Speaking of indigenous people and growing up and realizing that you're either an A or a B. A little bit of story time, ooh, you know. I don't know if kids do this now, because it's kind of not politically correct, I would say. But kids, especially boys, would play cowboys and Indians Right this now, because it's kind of not politically correct, I would say, but kids, especially boys, would play cowboys and Indians, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's deeply problematic. So all of my friends they had they'd rushed to form their own cowboy band and that left me and the other people that weren't picked to be the Indians.
Speaker 2:Oh, you were like literally the kids who didn't get picked. We didn't get picked. The leftovers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So I was upset about it because that meant I had to be the bad guys, because that's how it was viewed. I told my stepdad that I keep on getting picked to be the bad guys the Indians. And my stepdad told me, you know, the cowboys went and, like, stole their land and murdered them. So actually you could say that the cowboys are actually the bad guys.
Speaker 2:I got to give your stepdad credit for this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it blew my mind and I started reading like history books, like you know, like not history books, but like you'd go to the library and get like this is the history of Native Americans, you know, and like, had pictures in it and diagrams and showed like what their houses look like. And I started reading stuff like that and one of the things that I read was how they would make tools like knives and arrows and bows. And I realized we are sitting on a really big thing right now, guys, in this war between the Native Americans and the cowboys, which is the cowboys are running around with stupid finger guns and we have sticks and rocks in the woods and we can make bows and arrows. And I started smacking rocks together, you know, flaking off pieces of rock and turning them into arrowheads making knives.
Speaker 1:We had knives. Arrowheads Making knives, we had knives. We had bows and arrows, Real bows and arrows. And we come out to do battle and they were like it's not fair. You got real weapons and we're like, too bad, Give us all your stuff. And we took all their pine cones. We took all of their building supplies Pine cones, high value. We took their cowboy hats.
Speaker 2:We took it all. That's wonderful. I love this history. Yeah, definitely a messed up thing to play, but I think it's also a good example of just the way that we're enculturated and the folks and going back to the ones who live, the folks who live in the CRM are just grateful. They're grateful they've got a comfortable bed, they're grateful they've got a job. There's normalcy, they don't want to ruffle any feathers and I do think that's another message of the uh.
Speaker 2:The show is that when you're comfortable, you're more likely to behave like a bee. Yeah, when you don't have stakes right, like both thorn Thorn and Rick also had stakes involved. They had people they loved. They didn't want to be there, they wanted to, like, figure something else out. They wanted to leave. Yeah, which is rare, because the bees don't want to leave. They want the comfort and safety and I think that all of us can be a little bit of a bee and if we want revolution, we're going to have to think a little bit more like is all of us and be willing to sacrifice in some ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another. Another little note about the CRM is that you're not allowed to leave. If you leave, that means that you could potentially take the location of their city, which is about 30,000 people, and you could leave, and that would cause problems for them on the outside. So if, if people are getting close to where they are, it's a well-kept secret, they, they are hidden and they kill anybody that gets close enough. So if you leave, they're going to kill you. They're going to go find anybody that they think that you know and kill them. Um, and the thing about rick is that he wants to leave, he tries to leave.
Speaker 1:So many times and they're like nobody tries to leave except for thorn. Did thorn try to leave?
Speaker 2:yes, okay, I don't remember that part we don't watch it, but it's talked about how she was just like rick yeah but she figured it out because she got there before rick. Yeah, but yeah, I don't know she did the extreme things that he did. We don't know. He did extreme things. Watch the show. Yeah, we won't ruin. He really want, he really, really really wanted to leave.
Speaker 2:He did things that normal people would not do yeah, unless there was a level of desperation and a certain anus that would make you do. That anus I meant like a dash n-e-s-s, not the body part, but you gotta have a good.
Speaker 1:Maybe this will be the clip for this episode.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, I think that's really all I've got to say about a's versus b's. There's one more existential question theme that I want to bring up is there's a moment where michonne and rick are living together, uh, sort of in secret, in this building. That was clearly like an attempt at society during the apocalypse. That was completely tricked out to give you everything that you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like a stand, like everything was run by, like um technology. Yeah, like it. It was like a smart building, like everything was voice controlled.
Speaker 2:There's all renewable energy, sustainable solar panels. The only thing they didn't have was food yeah, well, they tried though they had like all these different technologies to grow food indoors and stuff, but something happened and they starved to death. They all started out and become zombies and uh, I just learned this term last week from a uh colleague from another organization called techno centrism and I was like my God, that's exactly what happened, and also it is a critical message, I think, of this show. I'm going to describe what it is.
Speaker 2:It's a value system that is centered on technology and its ability to control and protect the environment. So technocentrics argue that technology can address ecological problems through its problem solving ability, efficiency and managerial means. So clearly this building with all of its cool tricked out things was made before there was ever a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This was people who wanted to live in a more sustainable way, but doing it through technology. You could literally just to give you a concept of just how techno-centric this world is. They enter this house, or really like a condo, and a voice comes over, always a female voice, which is problematic. Always a female voice comes over and is like hello, raising temperature to preferred temperature. Preferred temperature will commence in 15 minutes. That's the world that they've created for themselves, yeah, and I think it's really important that they showed that world and that that world failed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I do think there's a lot of people who think that technology will fix this. Let's make a pesticide that'll kill the worms. So they kill the worms. They end up killing all the bees too, and they're like ah, without the bees we have no natural pollinators, and it's like really ravaging the ecosystem speaking of the benefits of bees.
Speaker 1:so now we need to make, make micro drones that are b-shaped and go around and grab pollen from from from flowers to pollinate other flowers, and it's just a thing that just keeps on going. It's like you did one thing and that solved a problem, but now solving that problem causes a different problem because you're trying to replace the ecosystem with technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an incredible movie that blew my mind. I watched it in fourth year university for my international development studies course, called Manderley. That basically shows this conundrum. I've told you about it in great detail many times. We should actually watch it sometime, but honestly, it's so good and so disturbing I'm not sure that I need to watch it, because it's one of the rare movies that I could tell you how it goes from start to finish, because it was such a critique of the concept of like technology will fix things or that anybody coming into another culture has a solution for them. Um, and that when you think you do, you're gonna fuck everything up. It's just basically the the message of that movie. Really, it's weird, folks. It's like it's a different kind of filming, but, um, if you're into that kind of thing, I would highly recommend manderley. Uh, anyhow, back to the ones who live, I feel like I said that 15 times already in this episode Back to the ones who live, back to the ones who live uh, leo, what.
Speaker 1:What did you love about this show?
Speaker 2:michelle and rick together. One number one reason to watch it. Finally, a satisfying answer to what the fuck happened to rick. Yeah, uh, and episode four epic love story. That I think rivals episode three of the last of us for epic. Epic love story written by deny the actor who plays michelle which is incredible.
Speaker 1:I didn't.
Speaker 2:I did not know she was a writer I wish that every episode of season, not season six every episode of this series was written by deny. I think it would have been better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I don't know if it rivals. It's similar to episode three of the the last of us. I still think episode three of the last of us is like better than this such a better story, but it is still an incredible love story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the Last of Us, episode three, is better than the Walking Dead, episode four, but I think it's very different and I think what makes them similar is they're just incredibly compelling love stories. Yeah, it is an incredibly love, yeah and like riveting from start to finish. Absolutely love that episode. If you're only going to watch one thing that episode. But you have to watch the locking dead first. I will say that episode is what really made me feel their love.
Speaker 1:yeah and um, because it started from such a bad place where, like, like, things were not good. We won't say why, but michonne and rick were not were at odds with each other For a while. Yeah, and it had a lot to do with Rick trying to push Michonne away, but he was pushing her away because he wanted her to live.
Speaker 2:And he had feelings for the ones who live.
Speaker 1:But he did so at the cost of his own heart being broken. Yeah, and she called him not as bullshit as Michonne would do.
Speaker 2:Yes, what an epic character.
Speaker 1:And also pulled him out of a helicopter.
Speaker 2:I think Michonne is one of the best. You just spoiled it. I think Michonne is one of the best characters of the Walking Dead period, yeah, and I'm glad that she really got her due. And I'm glad that their love story got their due, because I did not, like I said, I did not really feel it as much in the first like iteration of the walking dead, like it was present. There were some lovely moments between them, yeah, but in this one, particularly this episode, I was like holy shit and their screen chemistry was impeccable, impeccable, impeccable, like I think it was their best acting in the show or in this, this world of the Walking Dead ever. Is this, this episode? What else did you love?
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't really know. You know what I love. What Is that? It didn't disappoint me yes, the best version of the walking dead, no, um. But you know, after season 11 of the walking dead and like, while daryl dixon wasn't a terrible show, um it it did. It was very indicative of, like, how divided their show running efforts are at this point, like the fact that they have much shorter seasons of these spinoffs and the writing quality and the rushed nature of the pacing I love how I asked you what else did you love, and you've gone on a diatribe about the things you didn't like yeah, but I I say that because what I'm glad about is that it didn't disappoint me.
Speaker 1:I was really worried about this. I was so worried and I was just like please don't fuck this up. My and it didn't, and like, could it be better?
Speaker 2:yes, but I am satisfied with what I was given I agree like I would like there to be more seasons. Um, there has been conflicting things about there being more seasons or this being the end of it. I'd like there to be more. Uh, because it was. The quality was excellent and I really think that's because Deny intervened. I think also Andrew Lincoln had some supporting like helped write it as well. Yeah, I think there were. I swear they probably watched Fear, the Walking Dead and they watched another shit and they were just like, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:We're keeping our standards high. Norman Reedus, do that for season two of Dixon, please, although I guess the book of Carol, although I guess it's the book of carol. So, carol, please do that. Daryl dixon, the book of carol don't even get me started on that, uh. But there were a lot of things I loved, like I loved the storyline between nat and michonne. Um, yeah, they made me really love nat. Yeah, like a lot. I was well, never mind it was a good story.
Speaker 2:He was a very compelling character yes, he had a lot of personality.
Speaker 1:He was somebody I was invested in you know they did great world building, which is what daryl dixon kind of tried to do but really failed at I don't think dixon failed, I think it did.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess different worlds they built failed. But uh, well, the nunnery was cool. I guess that was all episode one, that was just one episode. There's five more episodes, sorry we're trying not to be so critical and failing yeah yeah, uh, also, there's some really beautiful storytelling in the way that, um, they show the arc of the relationship between nat and michonne and what they go through together. Again, watch it, and zombies were interesting, but not the main point of the story, which is always my preference.
Speaker 2:They were just kind of like an environmental nuisance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, an environmental threat. They didn't feel the need to throw in any of our new zombie types that we've been seeing pop up, thank goodness. They didn't need a new zombie to make it interesting. What they needed was a compelling story.
Speaker 2:None of them needed a new zombie to make it interesting. And I feel like that makes this point. So, dan, what did you not?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, what didn't I like? Yeah, oh, you know, what I didn't like actually was I mean, this is a problem that I've seen so much in AMC shows is that there was not enough episodes to tell this story, not even close, and this happened in season one of the Walking Dead. We got six episodes until season one and they did a fine job in season one and also it helped that our standards were very low at that time. Yeah, season one of Fear, the Walking Dead, again only gets six episodes and they rushed a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Daryl Dixon got six episodes and lo and behold, feels rushed. They blazed through a whole bunch of stuff without doing a whole lot of storytelling.
Speaker 2:I would love to know why they do this? Because they know that they have a legion, a horde, I might say, of fans that want more. Yeah, every episode, except for Deny's, which was perfect every episode of this six-episode series could have been like a three-to-four episode arc.
Speaker 1:And that's how it would have been handled in the Walking Dead. We would have seen an arc. We would have spent time with these characters and become emotionally invested with them, instead of just blazing through a lot of world building stuff and seeing this person show up and then now they're gone. We would have learned more about who they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just say this they make you love people and they kill them and I think well, you know what?
Speaker 1:But you know that's what's going to happen. Annoying, that is annoying. That's why I don't like. But at least they made us love them, that's true yeah I don't want to start.
Speaker 2:I don't want to start again. I just want to say we had to make a hard cut because we realized we spoiled something really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we made a hard cut, yeah we cut it hard cut spoiled something important we did we didn't want to spoil that for you, because I think what we came to the realization of is that there is two possible ways that this series could have ended.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we don't want to spoil that.
Speaker 2:In fact, the way we just spoiled it that you didn't hear listeners is the way that Dan was spoiled via a meme. Yeah, but worse because we described it in detail. So I'm glad that you caught yourself, because I honestly forgot that we weren't supposed to share that kind of stuff yeah, so I'm gonna it's.
Speaker 1:It's good, this is good. We caught it. We're getting good at this like we've been really wanting to not like. I've been listening to a lot of our, you know, because I edit it, so I do listen to our podcast quite a bit. I.
Speaker 2:I just do it, but then I'm like I do.
Speaker 1:I do recognize that, Like if we talk about every single thing that happens in a movie, not only is that like a two hour episode, but like anybody who hasn't seen that that thing, that like nobody's ever heard of, they might not want to watch it after because we spoiled it for them. Or they might not want to listen to the episode until they watch the movie.
Speaker 2:I feel like I would be surprised how people will listen to this that haven't watched or looked at something yet. And maybe that's just my psychology is. I don't want to listen to something that I don't know anything about. Yeah, unless it's going to inform me about it. But there's one last thing that I want to comment on that I did not love, and I think I'm probably alone or in the minority for this feeling. So fans, don't come for me. Okay, I didn't love the last episode, particularly the very end, not because of what happened, but because it was one of those things that, again, really deserved more time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And because they didn't have a lot of time, the dialogue was extremely on the nose. I was supposed to feel these really big feelings that you'd want to feel good or bad. Not going to tell you which ones, just big feelings we won't tell you how to feel. The kinds of big feelings that you need emotional regulation for later. You know, I got to do some deep breathing but I didn't really feel that because it was just the things that they were saying. I was like, oh my God, this is like who wrote this last episode. It was frustrating for me in that way, but it was still. Having said that, I still love the show.
Speaker 1:I just didn't have the time to tell that story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wanted to feel big feelings Like Danai's episode episode. I felt them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this last one, it was just, like you know, denies episode was all about emotion yes, and that's why that's the thing that the walking dead is so good at is that they portray emotion. Yeah, and in a story about zombies and uh killing each other and fighting the bad guy, um, it's, it's. There's always a big focus on the emotion that comes from the characters. Definitely, and sometimes there's long periods of silence where you're just watching a character do something without talking, and those moments are so great because you get so much more story, because you're seeing more of what they're having to go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, humans are such story files, for lack of a better word. I don't know if that's a real term. Yeah, it is now. I'll look it up later. Well, we have arrived at my favorite segment. Do you want to name it Dan?
Speaker 1:Oh, is it the racist sexist-y? That's a typo Capitalist, colonial, ableist misogyny of the living dead it is yeah it is, but this time I'm gonna not go through.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna. I bet you how many people, how many of you skip, how many of you yeah, um, I know the folks who would listen to it. I'm not sure if everybody would listen to this part, but I find it interesting. Um, I don't want to talk about all of them this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do like a, just a quick like let's, let's blow through okay, bechdel test pass, does it?
Speaker 2:yes, because michonne talks to a couple of other female characters that I'm not going to name because they're not that important and I don't want to ruin things for you. But they're a conversation with something other than a man. Yeah, I guess you're right between michelle and the woman race test. Uh, yeah, passes, right, you've got um a fully realized black person, okafor, also a black person. Um, thorn is south african and um mixed race. I don't want to misname thorn, yeah, um, because I don't actually know, for sure.
Speaker 2:But yeah, not white, and we all know the system of race is all about whether you're white or not. Yep, and then it's degrees of shitty right for what you get in society are you a race or? Not. Yeah, white people don't have a race. Did you know that? Yeah, raceless. Um, I hope you know we're joking, we are totally joking. Yes, don't cancel us so passes that um veto. Russo test. Are there any queer characters?
Speaker 1:characters. Oh, I don't know, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't remember any, but what I think is the most interesting test that it does pass, and pass really well is the Fries test, which evaluates the media representation of people with disabilities by checking for one characters with disabilities portrayed as complex individuals beyond their disabilities, for one characters with disabilities portrayed as complex individuals beyond their disabilities, two narratives that are not solely about overcoming their disability and three, ideally, actors with disabilities playing these roles to ensure authentic representation. Nat is a dwarfism, is recognized as a disability, and that is the least interesting thing about him.
Speaker 2:he's a fabulously fleshed out character yeah I just used a term that is not appropriate to describe a little person and dan had to bleep it out because I realized I said it. And then we, uh, I was like, oh, that's not okay. And I thought about, do we just leave it in so you can hear it and know that it's not okay? And I decided that you could look that up for yourself if you don't know. But something that I'm committed to in this podcast, if I'm going to be somebody who random people listen to, is to make mistakes on them and then do something about it, and I don't think the responsible thing to do is to play the mistake.
Speaker 2:It's better to just say I made a mistake yeah and we fixed it so that if anybody's listening to this, um, honestly, whether you are somebody who is a little person knows a little person, loves a little person or not, I think it's a harmful term.
Speaker 1:So that's it. This is something that, like I, don't know a whole lot about, and I I sometimes get confused about what is appropriate to say about a little person, so I'm glad that we that we covered this, because it's also taught me.
Speaker 2:But Well, I want to be clear. The term dwarfism is okay. That's the condition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dwarfism is okay, that's the condition. Yeah, and like that's. That's kind of. What I wanted to touch on is that dwarfism is a recognized disability, but that does not mean that they are a insert word.
Speaker 2:Insert word yes that is similar to what we, because you they are a little person they're a person who's little, just like you're a person with disabilities, you're a disabled person, you're a black person, you're you know, you know interesting with You'll say non-binary person, but it's like you're just a man or woman. Never thought about that before. But regardless, usually you want to like include the word person to remind folks, which is unfortunate. We have to remind folks that you're not nobody's a thing. We're all people with different experiences of existence and challenges and benefits. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's only one thing that I don't like about his character, and it comes, it comes from having to rush his story as well, and that's just that. Uh, his, his, his, the, the reason that he survives seems a little gimmicky sometimes. Like he has. He is a, uh, a tinkerer. He makes like inventions, he makes weapons, he makes like little tiny rocket launchers. He has like some special stuff that he can throw down and like make a wall of fire around him, um and like. That seems very gimmicky, but I allow it because I'm like we're, we're just we're blazing through this story. He needs to tell us all these things so that we know what's going on?
Speaker 2:yeah he does very much serve to push the plot forward, which isn't a specific critique in the fries test, but is in the race test around just pushing a white character forward, although he's also not pushing a white character story, for he's pushing michonne's story, who's a black woman, but regardless I do think is one of the best examples of a person with disabilities having a really interesting role in um zombie media, um leah, could you do it better?
Speaker 1:I would have greenlit this for three a seasons, and I would have only gotten to season episode three in the first season I feel like episode four is a good place to end that season, true but then we only have two episodes left.
Speaker 2:But honestly it did get more rushed towards the end. Yeah, like they.
Speaker 1:Why does that happen across the whole country they went to portland and then went back to the east coast in an episode. Yeah, that's all we're gonna say about that. Yeah, they just showed up somewhere else and like that in itself could have been a whole season yeah, and it would have been an interesting season.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess you could ask the question of your writer, which is like, is it something you haven't seen before? And I would say, you know, it's true. If I think about, like, what would that story be of them walking across the country, it could have at least been an arc. Yeah, it could have been an arc. So I'm gonna revise. I would say it could be at least two seasons. It could easily be two seasons, that's the only thing I would do better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there could have been a lot more like um, of the political interplay within the crm, like the way that that rick has to navigate um that command structure to get where he is towards the end. Yeah, you know, like that's it's a big place, like he's not, he's like he he's trying to pretend not to be special is what he's doing and he's um inadvertently being pulled in by the top dude talk, you know, and I feel like that's something that could have been some you know he could have. He could have had an arc about, like trying to work his way up to get to this point of trust that is very true, and that would have been a really interesting arc.
Speaker 1:There could have been a lot of ethical quandaries in earning that trust.
Speaker 2:All of those things would have made episode four even better too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Because they rushed through it a little bit. But overall I'm really happy with the show and I'm really glad they did it. If they had not given us some resolution to this, it would have been really, really rough.
Speaker 1:I would feel like the oa. If anyone's watched that show or just got canceled, then you're like I never, I'm never gonna know. Like, is it a super intelligent octopus? What's going on? Yeah, are they crazy? Or are they actually shifting between dimensions?
Speaker 2:yeah, is it all just a dream? Are they gonna end with?
Speaker 1:it was a dream we all know I've watched the oa, watch the oa, it's still good it is, it is. You just won't be satisfied because it got canceled yeah it'll, it'll edge you, yeah, oh, that's very edgy to say uh, survival tips.
Speaker 2:What's the favorite survival tip that you think we got from this show survival tips I would say the show wasn't so much. Well, well, sometimes actually I've got one I don't have written down. Sometimes to survive you have to comply, yeah, but you have to keep. You have to be able to keep your insides free.
Speaker 1:And that's what I think about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you did in the army. Nelson Mandela was I forget how I was like two decades or three decades he was in prison. It was a really long time and he somehow managed to keep his mind free. But sometimes you have to comply to survive and that's okay, but don't give them your heart and your soul and your mind, and I think there's lots of stories of humanity that have that resilience and that's a really important one to remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had a lot of interesting gear for the CRM soldiers. First of all, let me let me say that the ones who live the CRM, their military gear is what season nine should have had.
Speaker 2:But still, who's manufacturing that shit? I'm still asking that that stuff is just laying around.
Speaker 1:Well, the CRM is actually making their own weapons, like the like the twisty stabby thing that rick has to use to to, uh, stab walkers through a hole in the wall. Yeah, like they're making those, they're making certain um stabby attachments for their m4 rifles they made this really cool thing that we can't describe. Yeah, this thing that helps him yeah, we're not saying what it is because that's a big spoiler.
Speaker 2:Yes, um, but yeah, like this isn't high tech stuff, but it does require the ability to manipulate advanced materials, like you have to have a foundry to make steel yeah, you have to have a machine shop to to turn that steel into things all of those things do imply that there's a bigger world, which we know that there is now when you think about it, because like, yeah, people are alive 30 000 people is not that many, it's pretty small and that's like that's a really big place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, but most of the technology that they have, we have now.
Speaker 2:They have helicopters, they have, they have bombs, they have other yeah ordinances I guess they're growing corn, we don't know yeah, I'm sure they have tons of crops within the crm.
Speaker 1:Um that, uh, all the people who haven't risen through the ranks yet go work at again things that like, I'm sorry I'm interrupting you a lot this episode that's. That's good, I'm just done oh okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I was gonna say like these are the things that, as somebody who loves world building and particularly like re building society and thinking about how to do that that they've done justice to in previous seasons of the walking dead uh, they didn't do here, like I just wish there'd been a little bit more. How did I think about it? Because that stuff would be interesting more time yeah, that's, that's the metaphor.
Speaker 1:Another metaphor, that's the and denies episode. Like that was rushed too. Like there was, there was things in denies episode, episode four, that we've been talking about. That like they have to just explain to us, the viewers. Yeah, um, because there's a big world there, there's this big place where people used to live.
Speaker 1:They gotta fill us in run by technology and like there's there's just points where michonne's like all these people, they had all of this and then they starved to death. And I was reading on the wall about how that used to be scientists and it's like, okay, I get it, you have to tell us these things, but like I feel like we could have learned this if you had more episodes I wonder.
Speaker 2:Here's a dream probably unfulfilled. I wonder if the anthology, season or show has an episode about this world. Oh, maybe I hope. Also, if you know that they do have one, because you've watched it, please let us know. But don't tell us anything else. Just tell me what episode it is, or if there's multiple ones, because I think this would be a really interesting world to see. But or if there's multiple ones, because I think this would be a really interesting world to see. But back to survival tips Very anime, the power of love and friendship is really important. Yeah, jada says a thing, I'm not going to tell you more. But Jada says alone, I know that, I knew that I could defeat you, but together you're unstoppable. Referring to Rick and Michelle the power of love.
Speaker 1:That's why I think I'll survive baby because of you. Yeah, the friend the friendship, friendship and love family. Like vin diesel would say yeah, nothing's more important than family yep, any other survival tips you can think of dan? Oh, you know what have? Uh have secret weapons hidden in your appendages that's very important.
Speaker 2:Have a pyromaniac for a friend yeah, they come in handy.
Speaker 1:Oh, another thing that we didn't really talk about. There's this group that they run into when they're out in the wild after episode four and they give them some ramen Tasty nudes. That's actually the brand name folks, Tasteful nudes.
Speaker 2:You need to do an ad for tasteful Nudes. That's actually the brand name, folks Tasteful Nudes.
Speaker 1:You need to do an ad for Tasteful Nudes. Anyways, they give them these nudes because they're starving. Yeah, got to give them nudes. And they're like, wow, thank you so much, you're so kind. And then they pull guns on them. They're like give us the rest, give us everything. And then Michonne and Rick just kind of like they just slap them around.
Speaker 2:They're like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:that was a spoiler, dan it's kind of a spoiler spoiler, um I think it's an okay spoiler all right.
Speaker 2:Hopefully people will forgive us what are michonne and? Rick, I think I actually spoiled something.
Speaker 1:Let people take their nudes, but yeah, but, um, they, they realize that because they are so strong that they, they can be compassionate. Yeah, it's lovely. Um, even if, like, even if that does hurt, hurt them in the long run, if they come back, you know, like if you leave somebody that like tried to fuck you over, they might come back later. Yeah, um, they're like, we'll just deal with that. Then they are so confident in their ability to handle these situations and rightfully so that they're not worried about being compassionate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just wish we were all compassionate. So survival tip is-.
Speaker 1:Be, compassionate and strong. Yeah, be strong enough so that you can risk being compassionate, because sometimes being compassionate will screw you over. But the true, the true metal of, of of strength is being able to afford compassion.
Speaker 2:You know what Something strange my therapist totally would have wanted them to kill those people. Yeah, probably, I don't know Would have been safer. She did tell me recently I don't have to have compassion or empathy for everybody. And I was like really this was hard for me to comprehend.
Speaker 1:You know they chose compassion, though they didn't yeah, they didn't need. In fact, they questioned it after they're like we should have just killed them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like we don't have to do that well, I think maybe that's the crux of it is like, if you're not going to be hurt by having compassion, you know what it's like? The mug that my little sister-in-law from my past marriage gave me Do no harm but take no shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that sums up, michonne and Rick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do no harm but take no shit. That's basically the ethos of that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, michonne took the noodles back.
Speaker 2:That was the consequence. That's a fair boundary. Yeah, you know, that was actually a really good example of boundary setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not taking it too far. She's like you tried to rob us. You don't get noodles for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet you this. You know what Nedra Tawwab if you're randomly listening which I know you're not, but like what a cool thing. I know you're not, but like what a cool thing. Nedra Chowab's like an online social media influencer, therapist. You should reference this episode for your boundaries, books and talks, because it's a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody. Let them know. Yeah, how many Zeds.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know. I'm going to give it like eight because it needed to be longer.
Speaker 2:What happened? I'm going to give it nine.
Speaker 1:I want to give it nine. Trust me, I want to, but I think that it needed to be long.
Speaker 2:I agree with you, but I think, like I always try and benchmark other things that I've given grades to and I we, just before this episode, recorded episode 41 about hashtag alive and I gave that one an eight and I'm like, ok, hashtag alive versus the ones who live, and it's very possible that the reason I'm giving it a nine is because of the long story, of all the backstory that leads to this moment, and how satisfied I am with having an answer yeah because there I agree there are lots of problems with the the show, but overall I loved it.
Speaker 2:I looked forward to it every Sunday, just like back in the day, when shit came out on Sundays or whatever day of the week, and it was wonderful. I'm glad that they did it. Could it be better?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I mean originally I'd heard for years that this was supposed to be just a movie, and I'm so glad, like I don't even know, when I learned that it was going to be a multi-episode series and I was so happy that it wasn't just going to be a movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But now I'm saying there should have been more episodes.
Speaker 2:I am glad it's not just the movie they originally planned. That would be terrible. That would have been so heartbreaking. Well, not only have we come to the end of the Once you Live series, we've also come to the end of this episode, and it's late at night here. Oh, my God. We've also come to the end of this episode, and it's late at night here, uh, but oh my god, it is, it's we need to eat some food.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna wrap this up. Tasteful nudes, yeah, in. Uh, what episode is this? 43 and one, two more episodes we're gonna be talking about. To lori calcaterra, one of the creators of path of the pale rider, check it out at path of the pale ridercom. She's epic. Uh, the comic series is epic also. Not going to spoil it because you really need to read it, but it's going to be a hilarious conversation.
Speaker 1:Um, let's see if we can weave in precious moments, uh, little figurines into our interview questions in some way, laurie is hilarious and I think she needs to be our best friend yes, she did tell you that you were friends on threads once. And I made you really happy. That makes it official, we are friends, lori, come live in Vermont, be our neighbor, come be in our zombie commune. Yeah, come be in the commune.
Speaker 2:I mean talk about a useful person to have your zombie survival crew. Yeah, Badass is the only way to describe Lori. Calcaterra karate master yeah, and she's got a cool knife. Yeah, knife skills.
Speaker 1:I forget what the knife's called yeah, and she has an inflatable zombie and she's funny.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:We gave her an inflatable zombie as a prize for zombie ween yep, uh, but yeah, we're gonna read that and uh, you should read it so that you know what the hell we're talking about yes, at least get, at least get the first one.
Speaker 2:You know, give it a try. You can download it it as a PDF for like not very much money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what that money? It goes to Laurie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she likes making money.
Speaker 1:Big, big Google. You're not even helping us, it just goes to Laurie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't ever pay anybody. Yeah, or get paid by anybody we should. How much will you pay us, laurie?
Speaker 1:what are you excited about for the comic? Oh, honestly, I think that I really want to use that episode to have the great debate about whether or not zombies have human rights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've been wanting to do that ever since she said that it was in the comic series. Yeah, well, you wanted to do it before then that's true.
Speaker 1:It was a question that you kept bringing up and then lori was like well, it's funny, you say that and then your, your, your pupils dilated to the size of saucers yeah, it's the dream, it's the episode I want I, I dream of it, so maybe we'll touch on that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Um, please, if you're feeling a need to to do a zombie cluck, it's that time. Yeah, we need some more. By the time this is out, I will probably have done a giveaway. Um, so maybe I'll do another one if I get enough of them. I know I said I needed 100, but this is a podcast run by two people with severe adhd and, um, you know, yeah, I think I'm just gonna randomly give t-shirts away after I get a certain number to be determined.
Speaker 1:This is the most unofficial and if you just if you just want the shirt, you can go buy it. Now. It's a, it is available now. I did it, I made the store.
Speaker 2:You did and you suffer. You got denied because our, our art was too violent. I'm kidding, it wasn't. There was just some weird transparencies you had to fix there.
Speaker 1:There was a lot going on yeah yeah, but it is. We got a link.
Speaker 2:It's down there in the in the description, down in those, those little notes at the bottom, buy a shirt, wear it, then call me and clock like an evil magic chicken zombie at 614-699-0006.
Speaker 1:And you know I want to throw something in there, oh and uh. You know what? I don't. I don't know if this violates any copyright laws, uh-oh, but maybe if somebody gave us a zombie bear impression.
Speaker 2:That would be amazing. And you've got to give it to us. Oh, because we're recording soon. I don't know if we'll get it on time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get it to us. As soon as you hear this, call us, because we're recording right when you hear this.
Speaker 2:This is how you know, we're going to record out of order because we've got to catch up on our Casual Dead episode, so let's talk about this in the Casual Dead episode. That is between 41 and 43.
Speaker 1:If you're hearing this now, we haven't recorded 42 yet, and now we're going to record that and talk about zombie bears. This is when it happened. This was when it got into my brain.
Speaker 2:Zombies for is when it happened. This was when it got into my brain. Zombears for the artwork alone is also why you need to look at this comic series. I just fucking love a zombie animal. Yeah, I think it's one of my favorite things. Yeah, you need, yeah, you need some zombie maybe I need to draw another kind of zombie animal.
Speaker 2:I can't steal the bear. What about a duck? Too close to a chicken? Good point, squirrel. That could be great. Both of our dogs just looked at us with great excitement. Well, don't forget to subscribe, rate and review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give us those ratings. They're delicious. We need those stars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we're really bad at doing any kind of promotion, oh my God. So if you like this, share it with somebody else. I'm weirdly better at doing promotion when I have less time and I'm working, because you can use it to stop thinking about work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I fuck off during work and I'm like well, let me see what the zombie book club is doing on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Everybody Also on Instagram and threads, subscribe, rate and review. We already said these things. Linktree is in the description. It has everything All of our links, all of our social medias.
Speaker 2:It's in there. And you know what? We should add a cute picture of the dogs. Yeah, we should add.
Speaker 1:I don't think we can add that to a Linktree, but we can put it on our secret website that we haven't launched yet. There's Mom dogs. Yeah, in the description there's a place that it says secret website. We haven't told anybody about yet.
Speaker 2:I would like to end this episode by being a little bit nostalgic with you, and you know what. This is why people should listen to the whole episode, because the end is always kind of strangely good. Yeah, ending our podcast kind of feels like trying to get off the phone with you when we were teenagers, which was that I never wanted to get off the phone with you when we were teenagers, yeah, which was that I never wanted to get off the phone with you, and the thing that would force us to get off the phone was the end of the money on the phone card.
Speaker 1:True, and there was also a few times where you fell asleep, oh, and you said you didn't want to get off the phone and you would rather fall asleep while I was talking. So I would keep talking until I heard the sleep sounds from the phone, and then I would hang up.
Speaker 2:This is a pregnant pause of us looking deeply into each other's eyes. Both of our eyes are probably. I can tell. I can feel the tears in mine. I see them a little bit in Dan's. We're going to end with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have a good night everybody. If it is nighttime or if it's daytime, wait until nighttime and then remember that we told you have a good night.
