Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - S11 E19 | Talking Walking Dead

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Season Eleven Episode Nineteen Title: Variant   WELCOME TO IT…with Jeff Fisher, Jason Buttrill & Maximus Fisher   EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON IMDB: Eugene goes on the run, and Mercer is tasked to find him; Aaron's group faces a complication on the road.  Join us each week as we discuss the latest developments in the new episode and what we can expect in the Dead Universe future  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 11, episode 19, titled Varian. That makes this Talking Walking Dead. Welcome to it. Myself, Jeff Fisher, Jason Butchell, and Maximus Fisher, the third episode of the final eight, five episodes remaining. Episode description on IMDB, Eugene goes on the run, and Mercer is tasked to find him.

Aaron's group faces a complication on the road. So we started out with Commonwealth chaos and the dead Sebastian on the table, Bursar and Pamela getting our people all rounded up. It was a good episode. It was enjoyable. I found it fascinating that we just all of a sudden we, oh my gosh, there's, is, is that a, is that a renaissance festival building? Oh, my. We never knew that existed.

Oh, okay. Renaissance Fair, yeah. I was like, I didn't know, like, when I first saw it, I was like, what is familiar about that? I was like, is that medieval times? And I was like, no, it's a Renaissance festival. I don't want to admit that because I look like a nerd, but that's exactly what I was. Hey, no, you can admit that.

I'm a nerd too. The kingdom 2.0. Yes, so is so good. They've got to pay that off in some way. If they don't, I'm going to be pissed. Well, they kind of did, right? Aaron did say that looked like Jerry 2.0. or whatever, or the kingdom of Jerry or whatever.

I'm on board of that. I am too. I am too. I mean, he's got, what, 80 kids now? Yeah. And so I might as well just move in. Take your fiefdom to, you know, a kingdom. Absolutely.

That's definitely going to happen. Guaranteed. That'd be great. No, definitely going to happen. And of course, I mean, we, I don't know what Aaron had up his craw. You know, he's a little cranky. And so he wants to keep on the road instead. to stop and they take the side road

which is how they found the kingdom 2.0 and you know it gets stuck in a rut and Jerry gets run over of course and then we have to stop okay all right a little foreshadowing when Jerry says are you sure

you want to do this? Maybe you should listen to him. Right agreed right I did and so you know I enjoyed the episode you know it's just it's another you know, Walking Dead episode,

there was some, you know, I know Max liked a couple of the big scenes that they had. There was some good scenes in this episode. You know, with, you know, Aaron and Lydia. And, uh, what was it? There was a couple others, too. Princess and Mercer, that was a good scene. Oh, yeah. Princess and Mercer. Was there, I guess, I guess Pamela

and Lance was okay. Um, it was interesting with the, with the coin turn. I enjoyed it. It's all right. Those, I mean, those scenes were like,

yeah, to me. I mean, I mean, they were acted well and all that stuff. I just don't really care because it was forced,

it was just overshadowed by this new Walker threat. And I was fascinated by that. Like that, that's got me pumped for upcoming Walking Dead universe, multiverse, whatever you want to call it.

Right. Expanded universe, stuff. Expanded universe, multivers is a completely different thing. Nerds unite. Yeah, I was about say nerd.

Yeah, that is interesting. And, I mean, there was only one, though, right? I mean, he was just the leader. It was the leader. We got the, as they were, as they were making their side trek when Jerry got hurt to bypass the herd, we saw the, you know, they showed the one walker turn his head like, hey, you know, people. There was a one of the Romero What was the Romero movies called again? The Living Dead or whatever.

Oh, not the Living Dead? Yeah, there was one that was like kind of goofy. They didn't do it right, but there was one where there was a zombie that just like wakes up and he's smart and he uses guns. And anyway, by that point they'd kind of gone off the rails and they were getting better. ridiculous. But I always wondered if they did that right, you know, a little bit more serious how that could be. And that's, I mean, they're kind of where we're at now, right? Yeah. That's where we're going. I remember watching that movie and I remember there was like a, like a, like an armored column moving through a bunch of zombies and they're just shooting them. And they like, they would fire fireworks in

the air and that would make the zombies look up at the fireworks and distract them. Right. Because they're stupid and they could do whatever they want. But at one point, that zombie looks away from the fireworks, then looks at the, the armor column. And you're like, ooh, this is different. And that scene where they're all just walking like sheep, like cattle. Aaron's not scared in the slightest. Jerry's just talking, like not even whispering. They don't care. Like, they're not scared at all.

But then that one guy looks back. And I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. It's done right. That's cool. It was so freaked out. I remember Aaron, he was like, they thought they were whispers. I was like, this is getting kind of badass. Yes.

It's just got potential. And they should, you know, they obviously gave you the scene with the hand. climbing up over the fence. Yeah. And, you know, the doorknob turning. And they did think it was the whisperer, right? They, they showed the guy, the one, that one walker grabbed Lydia's sword or her stick, you know, her killing stick. And so, and it did resemble whispers, no question.

Yeah. And, you know, it was, it was, then they, you know, they're up on the roof and, you know, they kill them and, you know, pull the face and like, what that is. I love that seed. where Aaron rips the face off and you just see the skull and it's still moving and he's like maggots in it. Yeah. And he was holding it later as like a mask. It was so great.

He's like, am I shit? What the? I mean, the name of this episode variant. Yeah. And just think about the mind frame where all the writers are right now. They know they're coming out of a pandemic, you know, all the different variants of the coronavirus.

Like that's what that's the mode they're thinking it. I mean, it's it's confirmed. straight up. There are going to be different mutations of the zombie virus. Which we've known about for a while now anyway. And finally, it's like materializing. I mean, that's the direction. It seems like they're moving into it. I think that's really exciting.

I mean, that can make me watch a lot of these spinoff shows, even if I'm not interested in some of the characters. I am interested in finding out their lifespan as well. You know, I don't know. we've talked about, you know, how they have the different variants and, you know, some walkers. We talked about the ones in the one Tales of the Walking Dead where, you know, the one Walker was the kind of pack leader and he would kill and then take a little bit and leave the rest for the herd, that kind of thing.

But I'm interested, too, in their lifespan. Nobody's ever brought up the lifespan of a walker. I know that they, you know, obviously they, you know, go until they, you know, we, stab them in the brain and kill them. But, you know, how long do they last if you just leave them alone? You know, if we just ship them off into the, into the wild, we know that we've seen walkers, you know, cut in half, buried in mud, still when people walk up, we know they're quiet in the dark, right?

I mean, when they're, there are some walkers, not all, but some walkers that like, when they're not fed enough, they just kind of lay down. They go dormant. Right. They go dormant. Yes, that's a good way to put it where and they're just attracted by light and sound, right? So until they have light or sound, they're sitting in the dark bedroom and the second floor of a house until they hear somebody bang on the wall or something. But how long do they last?

You know, they just, do they just go until they rot to nothing? I mean, it's really no one's never. Yeah. I would think that too, because they kind of, they kind of, they kind of. kind of did that in that tails episode too. Remember he had that one walker sectioned off that he had kept tabs on for like over

eight years or something and then that Walker eventually just stopped moving. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Anyway, it is interesting and there's definitely all kinds of different directions we can go. Right. And that's what's cool

about it. And that's what gives me hope as they started exploring some of these avenues. And like I'll take a, you know, a Jeffie plot line. What about the animals? You know what I mean? Like, what happens if the variance all of a sudden can affect the animals? You can get your rapid squirrel, you know,

posse going. That could be terrifying. Absolutely. You are lying. It could be terrifying. Plus, that goes into, you know, the food. Right? I mean, now you're talking about, now you're getting, now you're talking about affecting the food. Yeah. Because the point was is that if you, if I killed an animal that wasn't, you know,

chewed up by a walker, we could eat it. Still good. But knowing that it, you know, there's a variant in the squirrel. Could be an issue. Now we're talking about and what happens if we're like if we go to other parts of the world, right? We have walking dead in India. I don't, where we have the variants in the monkeys. We're all dead. I don't think that's how, I don't think that's how unfortunately works because we know, about through cannibalism in this show, and as well as just this show in general, everybody's infected.

You'd just have to die to get, to get to turn. However, we've had cannibals eat other people who are perfectly fine, but they got sick after they ate somebody who was bitten because the infection was in their bloodstream.

I kind of like a, you know, Beware the Squirrel Burgers plot for one of these episodes. That's interesting to me. Squirrels, I'm going to move on that. Any of that stuff that kid that they had go out and hunt for.

I mean, Daryl's been out hunting these animals forever. Right? Yeah. I like that. Getting attacked by a family of squirrels. This episode entitled, Beware the Squirrel Burger. I am a fan of that.

We actually did have an F-bomb drop this episode again. That's two so far. Yeah, we're just stretching it for AMC. I mean, they're just proving that they can get away with it and fine you know whatever it's the way people talk and who dropped it i didn't even i even notice that princess yeah yeah and that was interesting princess with her little backstory and uh you know how she it's time to go and she's not going to take it her and mercer so it really woke up mercer i mean that's what's going to bring mercer over right mercer's going to be with princess and be

with her and the sister who uh you know is disappointed in him for not being well what she thinks their dad wanted them to be. And so he's, you know, he's really becoming part of our group now. Yeah, the, he was done.

I think, I think he was already, he's already part of our group in some way. He's just fighting that last little bit. I know. Yeah. I feel for him because he just doesn't really know what to do, right? Can you blame him?

He's been, no, no, not at all. He's been the head of the guard forever. But, yeah, but then he was,

he was signed, sealed and delivered. when Eugene gave gave himself up and said I acted alone. Absolutely. When he said I acted alone, Mercer was like,

Oh, definitely. You just count yourself saved because I'm going to come in, riding in, and I'm going to be the one to save you. We are not going to kill you now. There's no doubt about that. I know,

that was awesome. I was awesome. And I will say, you know, I'm okay with Eugene dying now. I've had just about enough of them. Oh. Yeah, I have.

I've had just about enough of them. First of all, well, you said that during the Nigen, First of all, he's eating way too much. He's not lost any weight, which means he's pounding down way too many, way too much food. And I say that as a co-conspirator eating food. With Eugene.

That's time for him to go. All right, we've had enough of them. It's just me. I know he's a beloved character. I got it. But it's time to go. Have a nice day. I don't want, I'm at this point.

I was back a couple of episodes, I was, all four, like, for the shock value, I guess, and for like this to prove to us there was no plot armor for some of these characters that I. Yeah. At this point, they've introduced so many uninteresting characters. Kill them off at least first. Then towards the end, if you have to kill a main core character, fine. Kill the guy with the annoying ponytail.

I mean, that's, yeah, well, they're going to kill, I mean, Lydia's boyfriend's got to go. Oh, you think that they're going to kill Elijah? Yeah, Elijah, that's his name, that she's all in love with. I know that the Lydia bidness with with Aaron and love. Talk about the most uninteresting interaction between two uninteresting characters. Lydia isn't uninteresting. She is now. She wasn't during the Whisperer's arc, but she is now.

Yeah. Like, why? Like, who cares? Why is she even around? I know. She's just a hang her on. I agree. She was very interesting during the Whisper arc.

Now, nothing. Like, I'm like, why are you here, girl? Yeah, we needed her for that. And she's, after that, it's like, oh, okay, thanks. Yeah. So you're here. All right. Go hunt a squirrel.

Yeah. Not this again. I did, I enjoyed, you know, and Pamela with Sebastian. Oh, yeah, you can talk about that. And, you know, she brought in Sebastian as the Walker and the one CIA guy is dead, right? She throws in the warm body. The other CIA lady is still around. We don't know where she is.

And then their hunt, that was kind of interesting. I'd be fascinated to see what happens in that cell with Lance. I mean, Lance is going to come out ahead, right? I mean, he's going to end up killing. Sebastian and you think so? Oh yeah you don't think he's gonna be you don't think he's gonna cop chop his own men up and feed him well they kind of blew that in the preview for next episode

because he was all over the preview for the next episode there you go he comes out on top I'm gonna call it here guys Major prediction stop major prediction Lance is so look Lance could have been a flashback though Flashback scenes Lance is such an interesting character it's like he's one of the weirdest

interesting characters in this show so far. At least in my opinion. I like him as a bad guy. Yeah, I like him as a bad guy too. I don't know if... Pamela. Yeah, I'm still torn between Pamela whether I'm okay with her or not. Not at all.

I mean, I don't really like her because, well, I mean, whatever. I guess you got to have those characters, but I don't... She's not interesting like a Negan bad guy, Because at least with Negan, they built from the start that he was like, he had conflictions. So like he was doing things for, you know, in his mind, something that was good. And he was willing to go Uber evil to achieve those good goals, right? Right. Yeah.

Pamela is just me evil. You know, like, who cares? No, I would say that would be, that would be, that'd be Sebastian. And like, like, Pamela is politician corruption. Her son was just, I'm, I'm a dickhead. politician. Do we really care if the politician dies? No, we do not. Not for one second.

Not for one second. In the show or? Oh, stop it. It's just a joke. I did like the Daryl Eugene scene where Eugene squares up on Daryl. Daryl doesn't even flinch. He's like, go ahead. I laughed out loud, and I haven't done that in some of these shows for a while, but when he called Daryl Haas and he started rolling up his sleeves. This is why I want Eugene to stay.

He squares up and he's like, yeah, I'm not really going to do anything. Go ahead. That's like when everyone's seen that in junior high school. It's the two kids that are kind of pushing each other with one hand on the shoulder. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? That's like they're not going to do anything. I'll save the suspense.

Yeah. And I saw our girl, our girl, Rosita, pretty badass throughout the episode. I wasn't sure if it was if she set up. She didn't set up Max. I feel like she did, though. I feel like she did. She knew she was being followed and she knew that the soldiers were around. And then she kind of pretended like, oh, no, no, don't come, don't come.

but for them to see her do that, that's kind of like setting her up. So, yeah, it definitely appeared that way because it was written so horribly. That was like the most ridiculous, like, seeing like, oh, I just found you right as they found you. Right. I just think it was bad writing. But yeah, it's like they opened themselves up for that. Yeah, we're not going through this whole conspiracy theory again, especially when you went on this whole tangent for over two years of Enid being a traitor. She was.

It was a traitor. She was. That's been confirmed. It has not been confirmed. It has. 100% confirmed. Yeah. Anyway.

And then now they've, we, we know that Pamela is rounding everybody up, right? She's rounding all our people up. We've got squirrels attacking you? You're okay? The squirrels. They're all over the place in here. They're barking squirrels now. The squirrels.

The squirrels. Catching a theme here, this podcast. So now they're rounding up all our people, right? And they've, especially with the preview for next week's show, what's been lost. We know that they're rounding up all our people. And they started at the end of this episode, bringing in Rosita fighting the new Pamela's CIA guys. And we know that that continues into next week. So we better have that and we're down to five episodes left.

We've got to have, we better cover some ground where Pamela and or Lance meets with the other worlds and brings them in. That's got to that has to happen soon. Yeah, it kind of seems like Lance is going to be part of this insurgency, I guess, to like over the whole thing. Do you think Lance is going to die? I mean, he maybe, maybe towards the end. But I mean, like Jeffrey said, he's got to be the one that introduces them to this big new world. Right. I mean, it's kind of like that from way back in the day, right before our group met, you know, found Alexandria.

And Jesus said something on the lines of you're about to be introduced to, or your world just got bigger or something like that. Right. I think that would be awesome if Lance was the Jesus in that. Yes. You're about to have your minds blown. This world is a lot bigger, a lot bigger than the Commonwealth. And that's how we get introduced to CRF, Rick, all that stuff. They have to.

Yeah, they got to. But, I mean, just looking at the preview for next week, it looked like Lance was part of this insurgency. So if he kind of, if they begrudgingly ally to overthrow Pamela and the Commonwealth leadership, I mean, he either could die at that point after making introductions or he could just, I hope he just survives. And he becomes one of these characters that's, you know, kind of the intermediary. Right, because he's still trying to play both sides, right?

That was, because Pamela knew that he was going to start some of this, some of this insurgency to get rid of those people. And like he said, he had, you know, he didn't mean for Sebastian to die, but, you know, oh, well, sorry about it. Oh, well. Yeah. I did, you know, oh, well.

And what's her face? Stephanie, Max. She, you know, they really didn't count on her full actions with Eugene. That's what brought, you know, Sebastian down in, you know, the chaos that ensued. So, you know, it has to be that Lance and or Pamela bring in the new groups. Has to. We've got to get to that. And I just don't think it's going to be Pamela.

We've got to get it bogged down. We can't get bogged down with our people getting out of Commonwealth, which I feel like we've done now, okay? We've had three episodes of bogging down, wanting to stay in Commonwealth, wanting to leave Commonwealth, you know, what are we doing? What are we doing? Okay, well, we know what we're doing. We want to leave Commonwealth.

We don't like what they're doing. We want to maybe make it a better place, but we can't make it a better place until we bring in the new world. So let's get to it. Yeah. Just. And if you believe Lance, the only person that can do that is him. Right.

And we've talked about it before. It's got to be him, right? He's the one that's been out shaking hands and laying groundwork outside of the commonwealth. So he knows. Honestly, I'll be honest. I'm about 70. I'm about 70, 30 on whether they're going to like actually introduce CRM into the show again.

Oh boy. Just saying. 70 you'd think it's that's what's going to happen? Yes. That's good. I mean that's about good as you can get it. I'll think a 7. I know because I feel like

I know because I feel like within the last three episodes my my hope is waning. I don't know. It still might be a good ending though. Even without that. You've got to tease Rick and Michelle. Yes. You've got to.

So how do you, if you don't... Just the flashbacks in the beginning? No. That's not enough. No. It's not enough. No, I'm sorry, no. No, I hope they all die from a herd of squirrels.

Not the squirrels again. I want the herd of squirrels flying. I want flying squirrels. I want brown squirrels. I want gray squirrels. I want them all. Just attacking everybody. I did like, I thought of you,

too, Jason, when they were fighting at the Renaissance Fair and they had the slow motion Jerry kills. Oh. Fighting the Walker. Yeah.

He was getting it. I know. Go Jerry. I know. That was awesome. I mean, he showed up and looked. And we missed the whole Walker kills with them too. You know, they looked down, we saw the herd, and they said, you know, you climb down and do this, and bring this and do this. And then we wake

we come back from the break and they're all dead oh okay I thought the same thing what are we doing there was so much of a threat that you had to abandon the downstairs and just kind of sit up there help us on the seat roof like with no solution cut go to black and they're all dead I was like we're all dead and we come back from break and you're eating a turkey wing at the renaissance festival they're all dead what do we know hitting the squirrels and everything I know what are we doing we let's see some kills or something something that was something was That was kind of, I was a little disappointed with that. Yeah, but I mean, but the way Jerry, like you were saying,

swooped in like a samurai. I mean, I guess he just did it in like five minutes. Between him and like Rosita suddenly knowing Kung Fu. I was like, when did these people learn all these like ancient parts? She is a, like she isn't, wasn't Rosita like full blown military? She wouldn't know how to fight. Yeah, we don't all know Kung Fu. There are some that do.

I know you know that for a fact. And she was being trained. she was being trained with Mercer and his crew too. So, I mean, there was probably some kung fu going on. Okay. Absolutely. Don't be bringing down Rosita, man.

Girl. She's your girl. Also, we had Eugene give her, his bolo for Coco. I know. Here's something for the kid. That's why I want him to go. Now you get back to get rid of them. Pissing you off again. The funny thing is, I was like, oh, I know about it. I was like, hey,

I have a Bolo like that. Okay. Thanks. Just square up on the rest of them. But I will say it was great. It was great to your point of how he saved his life with Mercer when he went in and turned himself and just walked in and admitted to everything, did it alone. I'm your guy. Nobody else is guilty.

Mercer was like, okay, well, I'm saving your life. Yeah. And it was a big character development for Eugene, too, because he's always taken the easy way out every single time. And that's why we had that conversation earlier. Do you think people are born, right, or do you think people are brave, or do they become it? Right. Yeah, with Daryl.

And, you know, Daryl's answer obviously was both. Thank you, Daryl. Appreciate it. Appreciate your insight. So anyway, next week we'll see Daryl and Carol. are, you know, looking for all their friends because everybody gets rounded up. And we saw that they came after, we saw in the preview that they came after Carol as well, although she gets, she escapes.

Because it's Carol. Right. She's going to have to become the Carol that we love, which I hope that happens. Looking forward to that. Yes, me too. So five episodes left. That hurts. They got to pick up the pace.

I know. That's what I'm saying. There's got to be some, we've got to have some groundwork covered soon instead of getting lost in this, the Commonwealth chaos stuff. I mean, I like the Commonwealth chaos, but we got to move. Yeah, I definitely feel like there are, they did three episodes when they could have just done two episodes. Like all of these could have been condensed, I think, in two episodes. Yes. Just kind of annoying. but whatever.

I know. I know. So our next week's episode is what's been lost. Any last comments, Mr. Butcham? About this episode? I'm just, I'm, I guess this sucks to say. It's kind of counter to what I've been saying. But I was more interested in the future of the spinoff series after seeing this episode.

And I should be just, I should just be focusing on the end of the walking day. dead main show. That's why I should be focused on. But they threw that part in there. I don't think that that's, that doesn't feel like it's going to be a plot in the next five episodes, like a major one, right? Like, just kind of in the background, but we know what it's for. Absolutely. It's to push their other shows.

Yeah. Yes. Definitely. So I should be annoyed, but damn it, I'm not. I know. So I totally fell in, drank the Kool-Lade on that and fell for the hypnosis. Maximus. I'm with Jason. I definitely agree. I can't, I can't wait to see what they

do with the different variant ideas. I thought this episode wasn't bad. Some great scenes in it. Some meh scenes. Aside for next week. Let's see what happens and fear the squirrels. There you go. We'll leave it at that fear of the squirrels. Thanks for listening.

Jason Butchell, Maximus Fisher, myself, Jeff Fisher. We'll see you next week right here on Talking Walking Dead.