Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - S1 E5 | Talking Walking Dead | Dead City Edition

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Season One: Episode Five / Dead City  TITLE: Stories We Tell Ourselves     EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON IMDB:  Truths are unearthed and motives are revealed as  Maggie, Negan, and the others travel further into the city’s depths     With myself Jeff Fisher, Jason Buttrill & Maximus Fisher     Each week we discuss the latest episode and what the future may and should hold.                                                                                                                  We also discuss all things Dead.  Email the show [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season one, episode five, titled Stories We Tell Ourselves, Talking Walking Dead, Dead City Edition. Welcome to it, myself, Jeff Fisher, Jason Butrel, and Maximus Fisher, episode description on IMDB, truths are unearthed, and motives are revealed as Maggie and Negan and the others travel further into the city's depths. welcome to talking walking dead episode five of dead city i you know i enjoyed it uh jason nice to have you back i know you're out thank you thank you the countryside with your sand and art of art of motorcycle maintenance if you haven't seen jason's uh you know motorcycle maintenance videos you go ahead it's a new footstand okay i got anyway So, not that I watched them. But, so anyway, Jason, last week, episode four, you weren't with us.

Did you, did you enjoy it? I mean, I thought it was a really good episode. Yeah, I watched it from the road. And, yeah, the whole, like, Croat, you know, sabotage, which completely had me guessing on whether he did that on purpose or that, or he was already, like, planning to blow up that area. I was kind of torn on that at the time. But then again, I mean, that was the major thing that happened. And then we find out today or yesterday that, no, he was tipped off.

And I will say that, look, I called them the Illuminati from the start. You do not trust an Illuminati person, especially not a Walker Illuminati. You know they're going to be lying. You know they got some other scheme. When they show up, turn around and go away. Find another. I will say, after last week's episode, I got an email from one of our listeners, Lili from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

And I thought, oh, my gosh, why didn't we think of this? So I'm going to go ahead and say, oh, my gosh, we did. The email was just wanted to quickly mention the possibility. This was before this week's episode, okay? I just wanted to mention the possibility that perhaps Maggie made a deal with Croat. Is she actually bringing Negan to the Croat? For some sort of trade, Herschel is just collateral. And also in the same email,

Lili says that thank goodness we don't have some sort of spinoff with Herschel and Jenny as a couple. I truly thought the show might go there. But since we're left with only two episodes, I think we might be safe from any love interest of teenagers trapped in the hands of Croat. So thank you, Lili, first of all, for listening.

I appreciate it. And you were right. One, congrats. Good job, Lee. I know. We should have seen that coming. That's a very astute point. That's something that we should have seen coming for sure.

And, of course, this week, it happens. It was the deal to bring Negat to Croat. So, yeah, so Croat knew he went to Maggie, stole Herschel, and went, you'll get your son back if you bring me him. And didn't steal any of the grain. That was all bull crap. Right. Didn't do any of that.

I was like, I will say back to last week's episode, The whole saving of the Marshall thing severely pissed me off. Absolutely. That's not, I know. Well, no, here's the thing that really,

that confused the Crowat too. You saw that too. He's like, what? Because he thinks that Negan is still 100% crazy guy Negan. Yeah. That's who he, he thinks he's still that guy,

especially after he like, you know, gutted that dude. Yeah. Yeah. Earlier. So, yeah, he's still hoping.

I guess that apparently they see him as this big resource, you know, or leader for this group. Which goes back to my theory that Megan is going to end up taking over. He is. He's going to be running the joint. I'm telling you. That's going to happen. Even after how he's acting over the past two days. I know. He's going to, he keeps going back to this. I don't want to have missed it. I'm a school teacher.

It's called, shut up. It's called character development. I mean, that's what this whole show was. This whole episode was character development show. I mean, no question. That's all we got out of the episode. Yeah, the lawman thing just pisses me off. And I know that's what the episode especially was this week was, you know, the development of his character and, you know, getting under Negan skin with, these are the stories we tell ourselves. Oh, God.

Okay. I know. So, like, at first I thought it was just so, you know, they could explain what happened in Negan's family and stuff for this guy. Right. And give him a reason to run. But now they're using him as like the McGuffin. for like, maybe we should see people in shades of gray.

Things are not just, I was like, oh, you know, I just like slap in my forehead at this. I'm like, we did not need this guy for that. You could, you could have gotten that from Maggie and Negan easily. The thing is, I do kind of agree, Pearly Armstrong is a bit of a somewhat pointless here, but the thing is I love the actor. He goes on, like, how long was that monologue on his brother?

And I'm like, I don't. give a shit. No one about your brother. Because we know what I don't. We know what happened to your brother. He shot himself.

He's like, he shot himself because you left him. Okay, let's move on. The music comes on. And what's his name? Percy Jackson, what did you say? Pearly Armstrong. Pearly Armstrong.

I'm gonna call him Percy Jackson. Oh, man. Percy Jackson goes on this like very intense, you know, the more you know moment. And I'm like, okay. Because he's all happy. Well, you know, why did you save me?

I don't know. That's a question we all have asked. Why did Negan save you? Okay, yeah. And then also, all right, just now we're caught up into this episode. When Negan is trying to figure out how to get away from this guy, this guy can barely move. You have to carry him around.

And your one big plan, I'm not going to say your, because this is the writers doing this. The one time where you set it up where Negan can escape, as if he couldn't just knock this guy out, drive a, you know, a hatchet through his forehead. I thought for sure he was going to take the axe from the guy that was killed with the axe and just chopped a lawman right there. We're done. Have a nice day.

I have a new weapon, too, by the way. You had to have a way with the walker. Right. And then we just pushed the walker into him. Come on. Okay. Yeah, I guess. That was dumb.

I honestly thought for sure he was going to take the axe, and that was going to be his new weapon, you know, break. And then he would just take the, the axe off and have the stick. And that would be his new. new weapon. The better thing to be, if you want Percy Jackson in the show, it would have been better if Negan just treated him like an underling and just kind of like slapped him on the head, took all of his weapons,

and said you can follow me if you want to. You know, people are a resource and I need some. I'll keep you alive. Yeah, because I'll keep you alive. Yeah, because now we know all the and I guess Negan doesn't know this yet, but we know that all the tribe is dead. All right. All the tribe is gone. The Manhattan people, are gone. Yeah, they're all dead.

The Illuminati is now but they are never gone. We know they just kind of go underground and resurface. So they will be back. I don't think so. The only two people left were Tomaso and Amaya and

they're dead. Yeah, so I was genuinely surprised they killed them off. Maybe somebody comes up with a drill that's part of the Illuminati and you're right. If somebody else shows up. You guys are just now pieces for the propagandists. We know that they never go away.

There's going to be, you know, post-zombie apocalyptic celebrities making symbols on TV any day now. Yeah. And I'm going to say that. Another thing, you know, prior, before we even got to the guy with the axe, which I, honest, I still am pissed that he didn't take the axe for the weapon. But prior to that, they're in that nicknack store. And Negan is handling that little, a statue of. Liberty. You know where that Statue of Liberty would have looked good? Coming out of the lawman's

skull. Okay. Why? What are we doing? What are we doing? He's not going to kill him unless he attacks him fully, but... What are we doing? He is attacking him. He's threatening him, but he's like pointing weapons at him and stuff

and bringing to shoot him. He's going to be arrested. It's just amazing. I don't know. It's not ruining the show for me. It's just I'm like, why guys? What about the whole sewer sequence with Jenny, Maggie, Tomaso, and Amaya? It was fun to see, you know, the sewer sequences and, you know, the struggling with the methane and the, you know, how she ended up catching what's his face,

Thomas, as a traitor. And that was good. I was with that. It's okay. But, yeah, and again, it's the writer, maybe the writer strike has already affected the show, even though they should have been. They were already done. done yeah but um that was the sloppiest thing ever saw my life when he just picked those things up

the entire audience was like there was no mystery there we were like okay you know that is such a ridiculous coincidence that we're all rolling our eyes or he's in on it like you just had those two thoughts have to be that that was it and then all of a sudden maggie's like i saw what you did there i was like you put your backpack down first yeah why did you do that Why was Maggie refusing the oxygen the entire time? I don't know. Does she just like meth high? Maybe?

I guess so. That's a question for you. I don't know. You can answer that better. Well, I mean, look, I was raised in cow country, in Michigan, right here, just almost the thumb of Michigan as I point to it on my hand. And, you know, sometimes you get used to that cow crap in the summer, man. I can remember going outside with my dad going, ah, a good country.

air. Yeah, but I don't think... crap in the air, man. So, methane, you get hooked. Yeah, but I don't think your methane into the sewers would be a bit different. She's a country girl,

you know, was either that or huff gasoline. She was probably like, I'll... This is just like home. She's like, no, really, Maggie, you should have some of this oxygen. She's like, no, I'm good. No, I'm fine.

I see four of you. This is awesome. I'll just kill the one in the middle. But I was genuinely surprised that the, the uh that the that thomaso and amaya died the way they did i was surprised because i wasn't expecting them to die but at the end of the series i wasn't expecting them to die here so again their whole purpose was just to prove that the same monologue that percy jackson gave it was to

like oh maybe i should think twice about judging people over the evil things they do maybe there's some good in them that was the only point that's the whole thing the whole point I mean, and, you know, and we got the walk in the sewers with all the bodies. Okay. The fuse walker was awesome. Yeah, that was awesome. I mean, the attack with the, with the multiple walkers coming through one walker with the arms and the heads, that was kind of, that was cool. I'll give you that.

I also was confused. When they first went into the sewer, they saw what looked like just a hand moving. Now, I, I, maybe it was. still attached to a body, but I mean, I, originally I was like, I mean, hands, it has a, have to have a body. Anyway, so maybe we're adapting. Some of the walkers seem to move faster than other walkers, not quite sure where we're at, but I mean, if we've talked about it before, if we, if our people in New York get to

a point where they have to face the walkers that are fast and can open doors, they're going to be dead because they're not used to it right i mean they're just they're just not used to that yeah it'll be very fascinating so yeah i'm not quite sure i understood uh and it was great to see maggie fight off the you know the fused walker and you know get out of the muck of the dead bodies because and you could do that when you're high on math but uh that's it that's the only way you could do that is if you're high on math you get something you just see liar spray painted on the wall yeah if you're huffin oxygen you aren't going to be able to pull that off so Oh, it's good that she was just high on mouth.

So then we get to Croat, all right? So Croat, who we thought was the guy, right? But he's bending the knee to the queen, which is very fascinating. In a very similar way that they used to bend the knee to Negan. Yes. Yes. He's not a leader at all. He has to, you know, he's a smart man.

He's an evil guy, but he doesn't have the vision. vision that the queen had or King Negan had, but he doesn't have that vision, which is very interesting. I love Lisa Emery, who plays the queen. Oh, she's a great actor. I guess her name is Dahma in the show. She was played this really evil person in Ozark too. I don't know if you've seen Ozark on Netflix, but she plays that character great. I mean, it was really good to see her as that. She's, I mean, she's made a fortune now playing this evil witch and she does a great job of it.

I was just good to see. But that's a fascinating little thing that, you know, that Croat is, he doesn't have the vision that everyone thought he had. You know, he's still just the just a worker man. Yeah, I want to see a whole lot more

on this chick. Like, I actually wouldn't be opposed to a flashback episode, which I normally don't like those, but I wouldn't be opposed to this because I just wanted to explain because, like, how does she have so much power? Right. I was thinking the same thing.

She's in this theater, right? They're in the theater. With no security, hardly at all. Well, she's got all those people around. Those people are not letting people in. Are they? Because he just pulled up in a car and walked through the front door

with no guard on the front door. I was like, this is like some kind of compound? Like, you know, there was no... All the guards, I guess, you could say, were just watching a guy playing piano and like being raucous as he was playing piano. I was like, hmm.

I guess all those people think they have the city on lockdown. They can do what they want, right? Who's coming into the theater that's going to do anything? I mean, I don't know. A Rick Grimes strike group would have been done with this by now. I know. With that security, they'd been done with this by now. Just saying.

And the black chick that came out of the, uh, the dom, his office when he first got there brought away bitch and covered a blow. And he does. You know, it's really weird. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. And you're right. I do want to see that. I do want to see like the... I do want to see her rise to power like that.

They see how she came neutral of Manhattan. And she like, yeah, he and I guess the rest of her followers like love her. Yeah. You know, like it wasn't, it didn't seem like a fear thing. It seemed like I don't want to disappoint you because I love you type. Yeah. Yeah, she is the, the, the, pointed one, right? From the heavens. Okay. Okay. No problem. I want to stay alive, so I'll bend the knee to you, but really weird. Because she doesn't look like, I don't know, just that we do need at least a 10-minute episode, a 10-minute flashback. We don't need a whole show. Just let us know how she rose to power and let's move on. Yeah. But we may get a whole show and then show Negan and the school bus, you know, hugging the lawman. telling him I'm not going to kill you.

I know I understand. We both worked for the state. Okay. That's great. Thank you. It was. And the whole, I mean, first of all, the lawman thing is agonizing to begin with. But that episode last week when they turned and when they turned on Negan after

Nagan saved him, there's no point in him being alive. Yeah. There's just no point in him being alive. not unless i'll give you jason i'll give you uh unless he's an underling you know if he bends the knee fine all right you get to be alive for now yeah but that's it that's it well let's see they're clearly setting up you know maggie being able to come to terms with nigan the person he is today like yeah he's done some evil crap he may still still he killed my husband right but yeah Well, I'll let that slide.

He had to do it. He had to do it. I'm still mad at him, but he had to. Yeah. Well, they're clearly set it up to where she reconciles with him in some way, and I guess reveals to him that she set him up to get him there, I guess. I would assume that might happen next episode, which is what, the season finale for crying out loud? No, two more episodes.

This was season... Season six is the final episode, yeah. Wait, it's next week? They kept saying next week, season finale. Yeah. So it is the season finale. They'll have a little six episodes, right. That's it.

Yeah. And as far as I know, we talked about this last week, as far as I know, this show has not been re-uped. I mean, I'm sure it will be, and we'll never get to it anyway with the writer's strike and the actor strike. But, you know, legitimately has not been re-uped yet. So, I mean, we're going to get these six episodes. and that's going to be it. Who's the show creator? The showrunner?

Let me ask you, look that up. So he does the little commentary things afterwards. I'm sorry, man. We're not in COVID anymore. Get your ass into a studio. Do that properly. And put on a freaking suit or something and not that stupid ass hoodie.

This is not college. You're not Mark Zuckerberg. You can't pull that off. You're not a billionaire. You're just some low-level Eli Orn. Put on a freaking polo shirt at least. Look, okay, people can wear what they want to wear.

People could be comfortable. No. This is a professional show. Be a professional. I know this is AMC Plus. I got it. But I'm kind of with you on that. It's like having talking, walking dead or talking dead or whatever, still from their homes, like two, three years later.

I'm like, what are you doing? It was hilarious about that, though, about that, though. like if you watch all those like talking dead from home editions Hardwick still wore his suits those those in the beginning were hilarious because they didn't even have a mic descendant they just let him like FaceTime in and do the show you know it's like really it was sad I felt bad for Hardwick we all felt bad for him

remember that because he did not look happy for a little while I mean people all across America were doing shows from their home and they were doing shows with their home with equipment that worked. Yeah. YouTubers were for crying out. He was doing a national TV show. Really bad.

Really bad. So then at the end of this episode, we get, we get Ginny who comes through the pipe and Maggie still struggling with the, you know, coming down off the math high outside and knowing that Ginny knows that she's a liar. And we have the, we have the flare shoot up from Jenny. So the only people that saw the flare are our people. people. Nobody else in New York could see that flare except our people, right? Of course. I mean, duh. I mean, we probably will have more people see the. Flares are very selective.

No, it's called perspective. As a writer, Jason, you should know it. Selective. No, perspective. Selective flare. They exist. They exist. Do they? Yeah. We say all of Ukraine. Anyway. Still, my favorite part, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. When you were mentioned the meth high on Maggie, that was still probably my favorite. Maggie's look every time they tried to give her oxygen. You know, she just looked like she wanted to take a big dump, you know, or she was holding in a fart for like the whole episode. No, not going to do it. I'm like, why?

Why aren't you using the oxygen? It's fair. Maybe I mean the excuses. Maybe she thought it was poison. Because I thought that at the very beginning that is possible. But the kid was using it. I know. I know.

But at the very beginning, when he, look what I found. Oh my gosh. There's oxygen tanks. here. What? I thought, okay, so maybe it is poison, maybe this is the way he gets rid of him. I don't know. But obviously

it wasn't because they all used it. Yeah. And she kept saying, she kept giving that face. I don't understand. I don't know. Tense angered face. Like, not going to do it. I'm fine. I'm like, what are you doing? I don't know. Whatever.

Let the fart out. Take the oxygen. So bad. And we know, I thought, we'll see i mean crow at had pen station you know he blew it up and let the walkers in but we still have some of that where he had it set up

for the fuel and stuff for the city so i mean we're gonna have to find a way back in there right that was a planned explosion for doma so we still have to have a place where fuel is made uh i mean that's what gives them their power right is having the fuel

uh using using the bodies for fuel, but having it and being able to move, that's what gives you the power. I realize she's, you know, anointed from the gods, but... And it was weird that they were that concerned about the Illuminati, that they had to, like, this mat, they had to have informers, they had to this mass, like, they had to blow up critical infrastructure to get rid of them. I'm just curious why they thought they were that formidable to what they're trying to build. I don't know.

Well, it's the Illuminati, so they know they have that. Yeah, it is the Illamity. And they had made ties with the evil Nigen. Right? I mean, they believe that Nagan is this evil guy, which is why he's going to end up ruling Manhattan. And taking over, Herschel's going to stay with them, and we're going to say, tell Maggie and Jenny.

I still don't think that's going to happen. Get out. That's going to happen. And then we find out that all the babies are the cure for the walking. We were proven this was wrong. I mean, I'm just saying. It's all going to come together. Facts are facts. Even though we've seen a kid Walker.

They're going to put the crown on Negan's head for King of Manhattan and all these conspiracy theories. Well, all these theory theories that we have are just going to boom. Everyone's going to say, yes, talking walking dead was correct. Even though there's been Kid Walker's before it was prone. Don't bog me down with your little facts about the shows. And then what's her name's going to show up and say she was the one that, uh, you know, poison, Maggie. She's dead.

That's the reason why. No, she's not dead. Enith. Oh, yeah, Edith. Yeah, she's going to show up a Travis, and they're both going to say it. We're tying it all together. Don't mess up my predictions. So we got a season finale coming up, and then, wait, do we have any other dead shows coming

at the moment? I don't know. We've got the Daryl show, right, and the Rick and Mishon show. But I don't know who's, I mean, are they, I don't know if they were, they were still shooting some of those, so those are all shut down, right? Unless the Rick show is still shooting. I mean, the Daryl show is still shooting because it's in France. But I don't think that matters to sag after it, right?

Everything would be on strike. So all those shows have got to be shut down as well. Well, it depends if they're union or not, but... Well, yeah, but, I mean, they are. There's no way they're working on these monster shows without being part of the union and sag out. after it's just not going to happen. It just isn't. So, I mean, we're just in limbo now.

It's going to be a while. They already shoot the Rick and Michon show. They were shooting it. They were shooting it. So that's written. Okay. Yeah, but I mean, now we're not even having the workers there, right? I mean, I don't know how it's all going to, how it's all going to pan out, but with

the strike is going to affect. a lot of shows. I mean, there's a lot of shows that still have new stuff out. Okay, I just looked at. So we have, you know, I mean, uh, prime put out Jack Ryan, which just ended the final season of Jack Ryan, which is, uh, I know, six episodes. It was pretty good, by the way, it was all right. And, uh, Netflix has, uh, the Lincoln lawyers last season out that they split up into two parts,

which I hate. And the, uh, but, uh, so AMC had this show, MC Plus had this show and they were filming those other shows, But those, that's got to be in the middle of shutting down. Nope. It has just been announced the series where Daryl Dixon will release Sunday, September 10th on AMC. The show was finished before the writers and actor strike. So it went on without delay. Oh, wow. Okay.

These, like, this is probably a topic for chewing the fat, but I mean, these, this writer strike and all this stuff could be like a gift, really. I mean, these people think that they're that important, and they've been writing and producing crap over the past few. years. Just straight crap. Nobody says that though. No, I wonder. No one says that. Surely someone is like sitting in something like the ABC boardroom or all these other AMC, all these networks and be like, look, we are just losing money by the truckload. Our product sucks. And primarily the writers are to blame for that, I think. And the producers are pushing it. But here's the thing. Are they losing money? Oh, yeah. Disney? Disney lost a gang in. Was it billions?

Was it like $9 billion? But that, again, well, that's, you know, crappy content. I mean, that is, that is crappy content. And that's what they, that's what they, what they ask for. So, you know, and I mean, I want the writers to get, let me, I'll rephrase. I want the writers to get what they deserve. Yeah. Okay.

Let's leave it. You know, it's funny. I agree. I agree. What they deserve. You know what, you know what movies being like was filmed during this whole thing? Like, a movie was, a whole movie, which is going to be a huge movie, was filmed during this entire rioters and actor strike. Well, the actors just went on strike.

No, I know, but I think it's still being filmed right now. No delay. Okay. Deadpool 3. Okay. I mean, it'll be huge, but is it still ongoing? I think so. I don't know, because those, the actors and...

Yeah, but it's Ryan Reynolds. I don't know if he cares. That's easy to say. but when you have the union coming after you, that's a tough word. It's a tough word. Anyway, okay, so you're right. That is a chewing the fat episode of not Talking Walking Dead.

So at least we have... We do know that we have Daryl coming up, right? September. Awesome. Hey, I got to come on chewing and tell you about my motorcycle trip. It was fun. I would love that. We need to make that happen.

Let's Peter come back on. Okay, yes, absolutely. So we have Talking Walking Dead next week, which is episode six, the final season. the final show, Doma Smow. So maybe we will get a little bit of flashback on the Dama or Doma or the Angel or whatever. And we'll also end it with Negan on the throne.

Anyway, thank you for listening to Talking Walking Dead. Jason Butchow, Maximus Fisher, and we'll see you next week on Talking Walking Dead.