Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - S11 E14 | Talking Walking Dead

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Season Eleven Episode Fourteen Title: The Rotten Core WELCOME TO IT… With myself Jeff Fisher, Jason Buttrill & Maximus Fisher EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON IMDB: Maggie, Lydia and Elijah help Aaron and Gabriel on a rescue mission; in the chaos, Negan finds himself watching over Hershel; Sebastian coerces Daryl and Rosita into pulling a heist. Join us as weekly during the season as we discuss the latest happenings and what the future may hold in the AMC and The Walking Dead Universe… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 11, episode 14, titled The Rotten Core. We are coming down to the end of part two of the final season, and that makes this Talking Walking Dead. Welcome to it, myself, Jeff Fisher, Jason Butchell, and Maximus Fisher. IMDB description. Maggie, Lydia, and Elijah help Aaron and Gabriel on a rescue mission. In the chaos, Negan finds himself watching over Herschel. Sebastian coerces Daryl and Rosita into pulling a heist.

And I like the episode. I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was another good episode of seeing how the graft and the greed and the payoffs worked behind the scenes in the new commonwealth. And we had some good fight scenes, some good death scenes. And we talked last week in the show that only Putin got that, you know, how the inner workings of Nigen in this group was going to, you know,

endear him to Maggie, kind of. But I don't know that I expected the scene with the kid, Herschel, and Negan. That was a fascinating scene. But I did it overall, an overall quick recap of enjoying the episode. Same. Yeah, it was fun, just like the last episode. There's a lot of things like in it.

I only had really like two kind of like disappointments with it. One being you had such an awesome. like assassin, CIA assassin type character. Why kill him off so fast? I know. Why do that? I agree. Like, if he, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been surprised if he got shot, like, injured and then, like, was able to run off escape, but with a few bullet wounds.

But now he fell off the building. Right. Why kill him off? Two great episodes and now he's gone? Yeah. And you make, like, all the, in the other shows, they make the, the death so, like, you know, ambiguous. You know, like, what's her face from fear? Yes.

Madison. Madison. Her husband, for crying out loud. Countless times of Daniel, or is it Daniel? Yeah. Daniel. Yeah, Daniel. So if they want to, they can bring him back.

But, like, why, like, he would have been so much better if, I don't know, let's say he fell off and then somehow crawls away. Just ran away. Or his boys come and pick him up and then they run off or something like that. Would have been better. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, no, I will say it was a great death scene, you know. Yeah, it was a great death scene. And he got, you know, obviously, you know, killed by his own, his own kills, which was a good way to go for a character.

Just not that one. Right. But I will say, like, but my second one disappointment or just kind of like befuddlement, I guess, is what they're doing with Negan. At times, at times I think that I get it. And I'm like, okay, so he's still like, he's still the badass, but he's like kind of reshifted and refocused. But he's still got the crazy in him. And he'll show you his crazy if he has to. Like when he did with that soldier that was screwing with Herschel.

Yeah. So he'll break out the crazy. But when you have the guy tearing up, I don't know. Did we forget he teared up when Carl died and was literally crying when he was begging Maggie to kill himself? I don't care how many times it's happened. I don't want to see it. It happens in the comics a lot too, very similar. Jesus, Max and I had this very argument last night

because I am like, stop it. Yeah, stop it right now. It's in character, you. I know, and I know they're trying, you know, it gives him more reach and more expansive character issues. I got it. But I just, you're right, Jason, I don't want to see it.

The only time I think it's warranted is if he's like flashing back to his wife or something like that. Like you know what I mean? Like drawing from that pain that kind of turned him into what he became. That's the only time it's excusable for me. I don't want to see it otherwise. And now he's got the new wife. And, you know, she hasn't even told him she's pregnant yet. Only, you know, only Maggie knows because she was, you know, eating ginger, which is a telltale sign of being pregnant.

I had no idea. Ginger. How can you tell us that the show is ran by women without telling us the show is ran by women? Exactly. Throw in one of those things. I figured it out. And that is exactly what, what's her face, Angela King said in her interview following the episode last night when she said that, well, the writers were wanting to have a way to tell that she was pregnant. Because when I was pregnant, I didn't want to tell anyone. And one of the writers automatically knew I was just by what I was eating. That's exactly right, Jason. Tell us how it's written

by Wim without telling us. I figured it out. Yeah, again, thank you. I'm just saying, Miss Maximus, thank you. Thank you. Miss Maximus, that's fun. You know, and he's, and

I did, you know, I, I love Negan's character, and we already know that he's going to survive. We know he's got the, you know, the upcoming new series happening, and you know, we've got that. But I didn't, with Herschel pulling the gun on them, I mean, it was a... I thought it was a great scene.

It was a great scene. It was a really good scene. And no question about it. I don't know that I, you know, I'm going to, you know, come back to me later years from now. We can have this talk and you can end it. Okay. All right. A lot of people were saying it was...

Come back to me later and I'm going to put a baseball bat on your little head. How about that? Okay. So yeah. So that scene would have been cooler if it would have been delivered more like that. You know what I mean? Like not the not the soft voice Negan, but it would have been to where, wait, did he just threaten him or not? I would have liked that better. Right. A lot of people said that was like a reference to kill Bill, which I have not seen. I need to. But I mean, it would have been better had he given him the side threat of come back to me later and we'll have a talk and we'll see who works it out. Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah, that would have been fun. No question. Because then it would have, it could have gone either way with it.

And so, and anyway, it's just, I was, I'm glad we're, you know, we're all safe now. And we know, we, we, we go through the, as we go through the episode, I know I'm jumping to the end. But we do know now who stole the weapons. It was Leah. Of course. Okay, so let me revise. There were three things that I was. Come on.

I thought you liked Leah, Jason. No. This is stupid. Like, I mean, I served it. The rest of the whispers are dead, though. It serves somewhat of a purpose, her character, but what is her, like, what? Like, I don't care about Leah getting the weapons. She should have died and we should have kept Toby. We could make her die.

Exactly. And not know where the weapons are, but she dies. And Toby survives. I watch this on AMC Plus. And then after every episode, they have Angela King, like, describe a bunch of stuff, like, really quick. Yeah. Like things that happened in the episode. And she said in the AMC Plus version that she was like, yeah, we were always going to bring back Leah.

We always had a plan to bring back Leah. Which is why we never killed her? Yeah. And I'm like, why? Like, I don't understand it. Like, unless she's going to hook up with Daryl, but I don't see that happening because isn't Daryl and the death chick. And Connie. Yeah.

So I don't understand. Yeah, I really don't understand. We don't need another, oh, I'm an evil crazy person, and I'm going to go after. We don't need another one of those. You know, we've got Commonwealth. And that couple is already broke. I mean, the Darrell-Lia thing is already gone. That's over.

Yeah, that's already done. Yeah, and so was the plot of that. So why continue it? I don't know. I just don't get it. I don't know either. And what is she doing with the weapons? I mean, is she just setting up her own little fort out in the woods by herself and waiting for

Darrell to come so she can kill him. Yeah, I think, I think, I think King also said that, you know, she's, she always has like a place in her heart for Darrell, but she picks her group over Darrell, you know, every day and twice, you know, twice on Sundays. Right. So I guess that hints, she's kind of hending, I guess, that there's more Reapers out there. No, I don't, no. Okay.

I don't think so because we saw them all die. And we, and that was basically what Leah was saying. So, like, maybe she's just on her own. now fully that well that's what i thought but the way angela king described it in the after remarks sounded different like she's got at least another group right maybe and she or building one yeah maybe she knew about some other people that were you know not good enough to be reapers before but now they are who knows i don't i liked also when we sent uh we found out uh you know sebastian sends darrell and rosito can we talk about sebastian for a second everybody

sure go ahead so that's a douchebag we all hate him right yeah that's what his character is he's awful you hate him in the comics if you've read them and you hate him here they nailed it i got it was funny the uh uh the the look from darrell and rosita when he was describing what he wanted you know is that there's a whole lot of cash and they're like what point is cash in this world like what are you know what are we living in right now what is the point of all this yeah i mean we're definitely back to the greed and the graft and the corruption of the old days which is you know so far past them that's why it's so weird having them in commonwealth right because they're what what what are we doing here yeah life is what we're trying to build yeah life is practical it's more like

basic now and you know they're introducing something that clearly doesn't belong in this world anymore and we got a we got we did get after that was all done said and done and carol and mercer i love they came and rescued them at the house of walkers and the walk through

you know the goo walk and you knew april was going to go the i mean hello she's yeah what's real built for death as a character yeah well what's really interesting is they specified this on the show that comes on after April's name, if you look, remember the list that was given to Connie with all the different people's names on it?

April was on a name, April Martinez was on that list. Okay, so, but that list was of all the people that were on the, what was that list? It was just, I know it was all the people, but I mean, what was that list for? We don't have full confirmation of it yet, just like I think people that either they want to make disavis. disappear or people that could easily just go, okay, do this, you're off the hook. If you don't do it, you're not. Because that was, I mean, Lance was saying these people had great debt and he was trying to, you know, saying, hey, you know, if you can live after you jump off this bridge, you're free. Well, Lance doesn't know that Connie has the list. Right. Now, I do, and I did enjoy, you know, now we

know that, you know, Mercer is, you know, is, he knows a lot of what, what's going on more than ever. But I do think it's smart that we don't go to tell the head lady about her son. And Carol played it smart, I think, by going to Lance and feeling him out where he's at in all of this. Because at the end of that, you said we got the, we got the Carol look that we all know and love of, okay, I'm going to bake some cookies and I'm going to chop your head off. Yeah. I love Carol. It's like most people when they got the truth and were asked that question, they would like show some kind of like, you know, some kind of sign in their facial expressions like, oh crap, you know, like what's going on here? And she just played it off perfectly. It was what we had to do. Yeah, just what we had to do. And then turns around and walks out. And it was just, yeah. That was great. Yeah. It's so nice to be able to have someone to talk to. Is it? Is it?

And then Mercer's really growing on me more, more already. Yeah, no question. No question. He's going on the inside. I find it, I just don't think we should, in the preview for the next episode, episode 15, called Trust. We see that Eugene is going to his girl and talking to her about what happened with Sebastian and the House of Goose. and, you know, the safe room. And that's a, that's a huge mistake, man.

Do not let, do not go to those people and start telling them what's going on like that. Well, she's not going to, she's going to side with their son. And she already, I have a feeling she knows. But Pamela doesn't know. I think she does, though. One, Pamela doesn't know. And why would you, Eugene told Max, not Pamela? I know, but she knows.

I'm just saying that she already knows. She knows what Lance is doing behind the scenes. she knows that her son's a douchebag. That's why her son was doing all this because she cut him off. And so whatever he has to do to survive, he will do. And she's going to let it slide. I thought we were talking about Pamela, not Pamela, Max. Eugene tells Max.

I know that, but that is, he wants to tell Pamela. Oh, that's why he's going to her. And that's a mistake. True, but I don't think she knows what's going on there. She just knows kind of like, okay, my son's a douche and Lance is doing something. That's a mistake. So what I didn't get was Does Lance

So he so he was Lance was also one of the ones That were sending people Into the house to get that house So it was both of them Like competing trying to get this time Yes Lance is a Lance I feel like is a you know Like a double spy right

Yeah Almost a triple spy He's just trying He's got Pamela He's got Sebastian and he's got his side So he was working with Sebastian that's what it seemed like I couldn't tell if they were in competition

if they were working together that's what I was confused It could be either We need to figure out We need more context from later episodes But it seems like Lance is playing Every side Like he's part of the group that wants to restore

To fix the Commonwealth He's part of Pamela's inner circle And he's working with Sebastian Just to get him out of the way That's just Yeah He's playing all sides So when everything goes down

He gets to win someone called it a triple spy oh yeah i know me but i will it was it was fun to have uh i mean you knew that darrell and rosita were going to uh to make it right i mean there's there's the two that are going in i wish i did enjoy the death of the sebastian mafia soldiers by mercer at the end that was awesome yeah yeah just gonna put that we can't have these people around anymore so yeah he's he's he's clearly one of the good guys yeah yeah but uh yeah i mean i think he's just like but he's also a realist he's like well we got to we got a we got a we got deal with people like this right bag uh we have to play nice with them if we want to like live and

um but there is clearly a line that he will not cross yeah well that's where i get into you know not telling pamela right because now we have you know we know we know what's going on, but Mercer is way on the inside. Right? I mean, he's the guy. And if word starts getting out that we know what Sebastian's doing, that's not good for him. Yeah. That's not good for him.

I mean, that puts him on the out. And he may survive and go to, you know, go live at the hilltop or whatever, but he's not going to be part of Commonwealth. Mercer's kind of a guy you want on your side. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. He's not really an enemy that you want.

I know. I know. I want to fight. I know it's not going to happen. Mercer versus Beta. That would have been cool. Yeah, it would have been. Yeah, that would have been a good fight. No question. Too bad beta is dead. You got away better death. I've said this before on this show. I'll say it again a million times. His death was 10 times better in the show than the comics. I would have said that like a three-way grudge match between Mercer, Beta, and Negan would have been fun, but they completely. gutted Negan's fighting ability. I don't know why they did it. But like, Negan,

remember back in the day was just completely unstoppable. He like, he coward Rick for crying out. But I mean, one on one, no one's going to take him out. But now he's just like,

like extra number four that has a club like thing that he might swing from time to time and effectively. It has been like nine, nine or ten years and he's been stuck in a cell.

I know. He's been. experience, baby. I know, but now he's in love and he's got a new woman. I was surprised when he lifted up his hand and he showed the ring. Like, I was genuinely surprised. Yeah, I know. Oh, so like the death of one wife drove him crazy.

The death of a second wife. What did that do to him? And if he finds out she's pregnant? Oh, boy. Yes. Please give it. Please give it. That would be awesome.

And that would be a way to endear him to Maggie, too. That would be the payback that Maggie's looking for, right? The redemption of Negan losing something. She actually witnessing Negan losing something that was important to him like she lost. Oh my gosh, a lineup type scenario with his wife getting it and him surviving it. Oh, oh boy. Why are we not the writers for this shit? It would be so much better.

Because Leah would not be at the end of the show, stealing weapons. That's what. I'd also have to be the guy to make sure you guys keep in continuity and make sure you keep your characters in character. That's fine. There wouldn't be these, they wouldn't be sitting around, you know, nibbling on ginger and be like giving each other little winks. Like, yeah? I know. We did there?

We see what we did there. No, we don't see what you did there. Stop it. I and it was you know it was interesting that the wife now what's her name Annie Annie that she told Maggie that she knows it all Negan's you know laid it out for and he knows you know he's just trying to be a a better person now I mean that was him living at the asylum right than just being being another face in the crowd and that's a you know that's kind of leads into I guess what they've done to his character up to now is that he was was he wasn't Negan at the asylum or the cult, right? He was he was just Negan. There's another guy with Annie that was, you know, working to survive and part of the group, right? Yeah, he wasn't Negan.

He was Negan Smith. The death of the wife, though, I mean, that's coming. That has to come. That's going to ship him. Yeah, that's going to shift him into Neon. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, she could be in the spin-off. I mean, Negan. can't be in love going into the aisle of the dead.

I can't have. I disagree. I think that could happen. I thought it was just Negan and... Your fire was a writer. And Maggie. Yeah. I mean, if it's just Negan and Maggie,

then she has to die somehow. Yeah. I don't see him leaving her. No way. No way. And Herschel's already part of it, so Herschel's just going to have to go away, right? He's just not going to...

No, he's going to definitely be there. I guarantee you, Herschel will be part of the show. Okay. I love that won't just be a two-person show, obviously. We got a guarantee. Woo!

I mean, it's definitely possible. I'll give you that, but I'm not going to guarantee it. The only way I could see it is if they do with her... Don't walk it back. Yeah. The only way... Nope, we got a guarantee. Is Herschel stays in the Commonwealth

and becomes the person he does in the comics. I hope not because he's a little like Sebastian. Not as much, but older Herschel in the comics is a little like Sebastian. He could become that, though. There's no question about that. He could definitely become that. And which could happen, right? Definitely could happen.

But I love Annie's got to go. The baby's got to go. It's got to be, that's the only way that Maggie will feel vindicated with Ningen, having him suffer the same kind of suffering that she went through. and it'll be different because he will have lost a wife and a kid in front of her. She only lost a hubby, right? She only lost a spouse. She still has the kid.

Yeah, that's got to happen. It's got to happen soon. I hope so. Yes. I have to disagree with you all. Now, it'd be cool to see it. I completely agree with that. It would be cool to see it.

But I genuinely think she will be part of Isle of Dead. You know, another thing that happened in the episode that I thought was kind of weird and out of character. and it was fine, but I feel like Aaron shooting Toby when we killed Toby off on the roof. You know, we've already talked about how we hoped, you know, we wished he hadn't had died two great episodes from him and then he goes away. But I thought it was a little bit out of character for Aaron to shoot him. I feel like he would have clubbed him in the head with his, with his arm. You know what I mean? Which maybe, maybe that's this alternate scene where he lived.

right and so they decided to kill him off because he should have really lived he was too good of a character to to kill off I just felt it was strange Aaron picking up a weapon well we've seen him shoot before but but not close up like that

no we haven't seen him do that but I don't know it just felt kind of weird so this we have two more episodes left of the second part of the final season right we have a trust and then God episode 15 and 16 trust and God and then we go in then we have to wait then we have a layoff with fear

which will be great I mean it will be awesome the trailers are great yes they are the trailers are awesome except for the end and come on you love Madison dad that's just terrible but anyway it was fun it was a great fun episode and I'm looking forward to the final two of the second half no question about it. They, I'm not sure how we need to end the second half. It would be interesting to end the second half with, with the death of Annie, with from, if Leah kills Annie and the baby and then Daryl has to kill her.

Leah? The end. Yeah, because they're out, she's out there with all the weapons. They're still looking for the weapons. she has. She still has to show up somewhere. Yeah. I don't know. I think I'd prefer

like more of a Lance death. I'm Lance killing them off. Something like that. To like really drive home why we hate this guy. That would be the lineup, right? Lance would have the soldiers line them up. Yeah. Yeah. And he wants to send a message. He pulls out his little handgun that he liked shooting

there outside of hilltop. Or Alexander. He's like snub-dose-35. Yeah. I mean, because you would think that that would get out that this group just killed, like, his number one, like, lieutenant. It certainly will, yeah. And he's going to be pissed. Yeah, because Gabriel and Aaron are going back. No, we see in the preview of next episode, Lance is on that rooftop.

Lance is on that rooftop with them. We see that in the preview next episode. Oh, there you go. There you go. Because, I mean, Daryl and Gabriel are going back, and Lance is going to want to, right, he's going to have to go see what happened. I mean I know it's pure speculation but it kind of seems like it's heading that direction could happen that's awesome all right any final thoughts mr. butrew I mean it's walking dead has been fun for the past two three weeks so it's

it's been fun it's been good to watch minor you know annoyances but it seems like it's heading a good trajectory so yeah we'll see like I actually enjoy tuning in every weekend now yeah I thought this was a really good episode. It was the nice to have the Toby Carlson duology. Everything going really well with this show. I'm

excited to see what comes next and think about this. If this was a normal length season, we'd be two episodes away from the season finale. Well, that's what I'm saying. We are two episodes away from a finale, right? I mean, they have to finale us for the second half headed into the final eight episodes. How far

are we? Like this Negan character, this is not comic books. So, I mean, we are completely gone from there, right? They very much followed with the comic books up to Here's Negan when he let, when he was in the cabin and they did his backstory. Because at that point in the comics, he's gone. He doesn't show up at all. Right. You get a hint of him at the final issue of the comics when Carl goes to knock on his door and he doesn't answer and he goes, let's go. Right. And you just, and you just see it like a grave that says Lucille. It's all you see. Right. So, I mean, the fans definitely

kept Negan because of Jeffrey Dean Morgan alive. I mean, there's no way we wouldn't I mean, if Rick is gone and then there's no Negan, I mean, Maggie's great and all about it. Not carrying the show. No. Sorry. Not happening. I know. So go ahead. I was just going to say Daryl, Carol, and Eugene and Negan and a lot of those characters are carrying the show definitely yeah but i mean it was the slow was the show was not uh not moving as well with just them i agree i wouldn't say carrying the show they're keeping it a lifeline uh for the show they're allowing they're helping it move forward but there's there's not a single person really that's carrying the show right now i don't think they could be neat

and he could carry the show. I think, yeah, and I think that he actually, I mean, technically kind of is, right? I mean, what other character could go away? They tried to do it with Daryl, go away and come back, and Negan go away and come back and get the same reaction. Only Negan and Rick. Right. One of the two things we always talk about, like, that we really hope to find. And I think we kind of, like, you know, encapsulate like your OG fan of Walking Dead.

Yes, absolutely. But at this point in the series, we're like, show us a glimpse of Rick. Yep. And then show us the crazy and Negan. Those are the two big things we talk about. So right there, yeah. Those two things can oomph this show to the next level. Yes.

And under that, give us Daryl and Carol being themselves. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I guess now we have to add Maggie to that. Yep. I mean, they've driven that home with Maggie. And then underneath. that we have Aaron and Gabriel, right? And Rosita, I guess, could be in there. And we like, we throw Eugene in the mix because, I mean, his character has, I guess, really developed to a point where we, you know, he's, we like him a lot since, you know, these last second half of the season, you know, his character has been one that we're supposed to like, oh, and then we, I mean, we have to, my girl. I know. I was about to say your personal favorite princess who is going to show up next episode. episode. That is confirmed.

I miss my girl. We've got to bring her up. She'll be a strong character to help them wrap up Commonwealth, though. Princess? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she'll be strong with that because she likes, she, she doesn't, she's not hip with the, with the way things were. You know what I mean? She likes, she likes that new world. That's why she was, that's how she was living, right? I mean, she was by herself and set up, set up a new world for her. She didn't like the old way. She was treated like crap the old way. Why does she want to go back to it?

Yeah, she wants to grab her some Mercer and... No doubt about it. You'd hear a little Mercer business. And by the way, who wouldn't? Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. If you're sneaking this episode in and you're not a subscriber, nobody likes a freeloader, okay?

Subscribe to the real show, chewing the fat, and then you'll be alerted when this show downloads. Jason Butchow, Maximus Fisher. Thank you for being a part of Talking Walking Dead. Thank you for listening to Talking Wallywolder. thank you for listening to Talking Walking Dead.