House of R - Did ‘Daryl Dixon’ Reanimate 'The Walking Dead'?

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Mal is joined by Ben Lindbergh to discuss ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Season 1. They start by talking about the state of the ‘Walking Dead’ franchise, their history with it, and whether this show could be a good reentry point for people (8:17). Then, they dip into the season by talking about Daryl and the new supporting characters, the show’s new French setting, and the similarities to ‘The Last of Us’ (34:30). They also look forward to what’s next for the franchise. Host: Mallory Rubin Guest: Ben Lindbergh Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus. Offer dash terms. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors.

So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Where are we? The Cathar comes, brother. Among the remains of the 6 million who died in that best of noir. The black death. America is an infant.

But here, we survive many apocalypses. We will survive this one, too. And welcome to House of Ar, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you, not only back to Paris, but also to our new-ish House of our podcast feed. Joining me today, now that he's finished giving a complete stranger, a soothing, healing bath. It's my House of our co-host for the day, Benjamin Lindberg.

I thought about doing a Daryl Dixon greeting, kind of like a boy, but I couldn't. I don't think I can pull it off. I'll just give you a little nod and a a little gruff sort of scowl. That's my Daryl. You should have brushed your hair down. I should have completely obscure your eyes or showered for who knows how long. Sometimes that's the case. Always always always always always always odd by how Daryl is able to see his target so clearly with his hair, his curtain of hair completely. obscuring his vision. It's remarkable. Then, as that Darrell Tees might indicate, we are here today

to dip our toes back into the Walking Dead waters. We're going to talk about the Walking Dead Darrell Dixon, which concluded this week. We're going to talk a little bit about the state of the Walking Dead franchise and universe, and that attendant question

of whether Darrell is a natural return point, a natural rediscovery moment for anyone who just completely fell off like a rotting walker limb in their walking dead consumption consumption over the years. But before we dip in to Demi Monde for a drink, maybe to look at some beautiful paintings, I hear there's a Monet, some quick programming reminders. Over on the ringer verse, The Midnight Boys, Beo, Beu!

already have an instant reaction pod up for you on Loki episode 3. It's there on the feed. Jessica Clemens will have a new splash page video breakdown on that same Loki episode later today, heading into the weekend. So you have all your Loki coverage on the ringerverse waiting for you before your weekend even begins. Incredible. Next week, folks, it's a button mash bonanza. Ben.

Ooh, double button mesh. Give us a taste of what's to come on the button mesh front. Jessica Clemens and I have been very busy playing video. games lately. Just not a great hardship, but Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Nintendo's new Super Mario Brothers Wonder came out on the same day, which is just great. There are a lot of days in the year. You know, they could have released one of those on one day and the other on another day. But no, same day. To be fair, there have been a lot of big games this year that came out on other days. But because those both came out on exactly the same day, we have been buried in both of them,

and we will be potting about both of them. So we did a primer. We caught everyone up on where Marvel Spider-Man has been on our most recent episode. And then we will be doing a deep dive into Spider-Man 2. Coming up next week,

early next week, and then mid-next week, we'll be talking about Mario. Amazing. I can't wait. I loved the Spidey refresher pod. An absolutely wonderful one. Check it out if you haven't yet.

And yeah, play some games this weekend and then get ready to listen to some pods, folks. One time. We'll be making podcasts over here on House of Our next week as well. Joanna Robinson. Aviannavalads returns. Joe will be back from her triumphant book tour. She will be returning to us, Ben, as a New York Times best-selling author.

Incredible stuff. We are so thrilled and so proud. Unbelievable. It's actually not unbelievable. It's completely believable. Yeah. Wonderful. Joe will be back on Monday for our Loki.

Episode three, deep dive. And then next Friday, it's House of Who time again. If you've been wondering, where is the pod on Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor and those three seasons of television? That's your answer. It's coming at the end of next week. I'll be watching a lot of Doctor Who this weekend while Ben is playing video games. Yep. We're having a blast, folks.

We really are. Ben, it's a lot. It's a lot of pods. How can the people follow along? Well, they can find us on our respective feeds, the Ringiverse and House of our, and of course, on all the socials, right? Twitter, whatever Twitter's called now, Instagram, TikTok, we're on all of them at Ringerverse. You love social media, Ben.

So much. You've gotten the bug. Huge on the socials these days. Yeah, you've gotten a taste after doing a couple videos in the Ringervorverse handles. Now, like, you'll become a TikTok star before long. I mean, you already are one, honestly. The faves went to my head. I just got to keep pumping out the videos for my fans out there.

I love it. They would be thrilled. Keep them coming. Send us your emails as well, of course. If you have thoughts on the newest Loki, Dr. Hu, anything else, send us your House of Art inquiries, your Apple thoughts. Sign it with your pickle. All of it at Habits and Dragons at gmail.com.

Okay. Lastly, final programming reminder, it's always the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Now, obviously, we will be talking about the first season of The Walking Dead Darrell Dixon. We'll be talking about all six episodes. So anything that happened in the first season might come up. Ben, what is the spoiler warning for the wider Walking Dead universe? Is everything on the table today?

Yeah, we discussed our strategy for this. And I think we're just going to do a blanket spoiler warning for the entire Walking Dead universe, which is ever expanding. And that doesn't mean that we remember everything that has happened in the Walking Dead universe, even if one of us at least have seen it. One of us definitely has it, which we'll explain more in a moment. Yeah. But basically, anything goes, I think fair game,

because we're envisioning this as, hey, if you've been away from the Walking Dead for a while, and you just want to know what's going on with this franchise and should I check back in, then this will bring you up to speed. Now, if you're planning at some point to watch all of the Walking Dead that you've missed, then I guess we might potentially encrovales. on some stuff that you haven't seen yet.

But I've got to imagine that that ship has sailed for a lot of our listeners here and are just interested in should I get back into this and might welcome spoilers, if anything. Indeed. Okay, well, you mentioned ships. Let's keep our eyes peeled for creepy doctors and seafaring vessels

because it is time to pod. Today, Ben, we're calling this a not-so-deep dive because we're going to really, like, pan out. Again, we will talk about what happened in the first season of Daryl, but before we do, we want to start with a couple big picture considerations. The first is, why are we doing this podcast today? Why was today the moment after days, weeks, months, years of you imploring your colleagues to podcast with you about the Walking Dead? Why is today the day? And as part of that, we're going to discuss the state of the Walking Dead franchise where we're, we're going to discuss.

both are in our respective viewing. Spoiler. We're in pretty different places. That's part of what's going to be fun about doing this together today. What has been happening on the spinoff front, etc. So, quick primer. Why are we doing this today? I'll give you my answer. And then I want to hear yours. Because Joanna's on a book tour. But not just that. As part of this, I want us to each share our respective histories with the franchise, just for a little bit of content. here. So the reason I was excited to do this with you today, yes, is in part the practical. I was looking for something that made sense to do while Joe was gone. And this certainly fit the bill. But you have been, you genuinely have been covering the Walking Dead.

Writing articles, wonderful articles about The Walking Dead for a decade. Plus, for quite some time. At least more, yep. Quite some time. I had the pleasure. I just as your longtime editor back in the day of editing a number of those over the years at Grantland and at the ringer. That was one of the fun things about prepping for this pod was I just got so nostalgic about receiving four to five thousand words of pipe and hot, gooey walk and dead copy from you two hours before it was supposed to be published. What a wonderful series of recollections. I lapsed though. I used to love The Walking Dead. This is probably going to be an incredibly common story.

I loved the Walking Dead when it premiered. I watched it rabidly. I don't know if you could see on my comic bookshelf behind me down at the bottom. I've got all the hardcover editions of the comics. We started collecting them. It was a universe that I loved spending time in. Like many other people, I lapsed in my Walking Dead viewing Ben. And when I lapsed, I lapsed completely.

And I made it through season eight of the primary show. Yeah, not bad. Yeah, thank you. I watched the first couple seasons of Fear of the Walking Dead as well. But I did not watch the final few seasons of the primary show. I did not watch beyond season three of fear. And I have not watched any of the other myriad spinoffs that you'll give us some context for in a few minutes here.

And so this was the first show, I think in part because of my genuine fondness for Darrell as a character. Like he was always one of my favorite characters through my eight season original Walking Dead journey. And so I was intrigued. Oh, Darrell has a solo vehicle. Okay, you have my attention. But it just also felt, I think, in part because of what I was hearing from people like you, in part because of the trailer and how it looked. it's this idea of a different setting,

the French countryside, Paris, which we'll talk about the on-location filming and what that did for the show a little bit more later today too. A largely new cast, right? Obviously, our central protagonist is a long-standing central figure in the universe, but a number of new players.

It felt like the first time in a long time where not only was I had like drawn because I'm interested in what's going on with Daryl, I felt like there was an on-ramp for me. Like this would be an opportunity for me, to check back in without necessarily feeling the weight of all that I had missed. And as you know, both as just a genuine, like a consumer in my own life and also as a podcaster, I have, there's a compulsion to try to read and see everything I can about every story.

So like when we started talking about this, I was like, shit, do I have to catch up on how many hours of TV do I have to watch? Okay, quickly realize it's not possible. And then- She's got up in five seasons of fear, three seasons of the walking dead. Yeah, no sweat. And I then started to, and this is a hard thing for me. to do. This is not my inclination, but I started to embrace it. I started to embrace the fact that that could be part of the experiment and part of the exercise was I don't actually have that knowledge from the

last few years and many, many seasons across many, many spinoffs of canon, would it be okay? Like, would I feel like I was lost constantly in this show? Would I feel like I was able to embrace my walking dead fandom and new and maybe begin a new phase of my walking dead journey? So for me, that was why I was genuinely interested. Not only because of the opportunity to podcast with you, but genuinely interested in seeing what it felt like to watch Darrell. And we'll get into all of the particulars,

but I will just say right now, I really liked this season of TV. I thought this was a lot of fun. And were there a couple minutes where I was like, oh, I wonder if I'm missing some crucial aspect and backstory here. Of course.

But most of them were ultimately addressed and answered. And broadly, I felt pretty well positioned to consume this show. I did not often feel like I was missing things I needed. I'm sure I was, but they didn't feel like prohibitive barriers to entry for me. And so I think that this was just my experience, but I feel like this is going to be a kind of common thing

where people who may be lapsed, but then are a little sad that Walking Dead is not a part of their life anymore, say, is this the thing that brings me back? Check it out. Does that mean, well, I'll watch every single. single show for the rest of time. Who knows? But I'll watch, I can't wait already for season two of Daryl, right? So I'm back in, at least in this respect. What about you? What's your history with The Locking Dead? And why were you excited to talk about Daryl Dixon?

This will be liberating for you. This will change your entire approach to consuming stories. It won't. It definitely won't. You know, keep a cash. You know, but just check in on that. How's that going? Today, it feels good. It's like a little freeing to do something a little bit differently. Yeah. Well, it feels good for me too because I knew my day would come. If I just watch the Walking Dead for 13 years faithfully, it would eventually lead to a podcast appearance. You would come to me. Someone would say, you know, it's like, George, is anyone here a marine biologist? The call would go out. Is anyone here still watching the Walking Dead after all these many years? And I would say, yes, yes, I am. I am the one person who is stuck by this franchise all this time. So I have watched... It's a victory tour, man. Almost every episode of almost every Walking Dead series. I say almost only because I have not seen the current season of fear.

I just, I had to draw the line somewhere. I had to have some sort of standards. So I've kept up via synopsies, but I have not yet. And we should say fear returns, right, this coming Sunday for its final six episodes. but I thought I was out, actually, because I had successfully cut the cord on fear, and I thought maybe this will be the breaking point for me. Maybe this will be the last Walking Dead content I consumed.

Godfather three gift. They pulled you back in? I'm pulled back in by Daryl Dixon by Dead City to some extent. We'll talk about that, another spinoff. But yeah, I have stuck by this franchise through thick and thin, mostly thin, up and down, mostly down. And I'm not here to tell you that you were wrong, that you've been missing out. If anything, I'm here to congratulate you on at some point deciding that it would be better

for you to make a clean break. And I think that I probably should have done that. And I think most watchers of the Walking Dead did do that. And I didn't. And so I'm here to tell the tale. But I'm not here to say that you were all wrong and you've all been sleeping on this franchise, Although I think there have been some high points after most people just noped out of there and moved on. So I've been there throughout at all.

And I don't know if you've ever gone to the website, Binge Clock, but it's a website that lets you plug in a show. And it tells you how long it would take to watch from start to finish if you did nothing else. Oh, boy. So I plugged all the Walking Dead shows into Binge Clock because sometimes I like to go just to sort of, you know, calibrate my, my missing. spent life and just see the life decisions that I've made. To figure out how many of those TV viewing hours you could have devoted to video games instead? Some other form of screen time, probably, yes. Not necessarily like more meaningful life experiences.

It's not like you were going to go get fresh air. I probably wasn't going to like go to France or, you know, meet some nuns and some possible messiahs. But I think it comes to a total of roughly 13 days, just start to feel. finish if you watched every piece of Walking Dead content that has aired without sleeping or doing anything else, 13 days. So like two weeks of my life, you know, like someday I'll be on my deathbed and I will look back at how I spent my time. And I will think I could have gotten two weeks back to do something. I could have spent that time with my family. I could have seen the

world. But no, I had to watch the Walking Dead world beyond. So that's how long it's been. Two weeks, roughly of my life given to the Walking Dead. I don't know what this says about me. I'll have to reflect on this later. That doesn't sound like a lot to me. Like, actually, I know you're, I know the point of that. Right.

Was to indicate the absolute voluminous toll of Walking Dead consumption. I don't know if it's just because of the number of like, yeah, could I, could I bang through 14 to 16 episodes of TV today, like Saturdays and Sundays I've spent over my life, rewatching Game of Thrones or whatever else at a given moment in time. But I'm like two weeks. I mean, in the span of a long and fruitful life, that feels like time well spent, honestly.

That's like you've gone from being a slow walker to a burner, man. Yeah. I mean, our producer Carlos was saying before we started that it's almost like a personality test quiz, like one of those like BuzzFeed, which character are you is like, when did you stop watching The Walking Dead? And I don't know what it says about me that the answer for me is never. But I just, I go way back with these characters now. It got to a certain point where I should have probably said it's a sunk cost.

I've poured all this time into that. That doesn't mean I need to, you know, pour good TV hours after bad. But like I met Daryl Dixon before I met my wife, you know? Like we go back. I mean, I met my wife 12 years ago. I met Daryl first. So I got to see what's going on with my boy, Darrell, right? We've been through so much.

We've come a long way both of us in our respective journeys. So even if you didn't stick it out like I did, I think this is a pretty good place to jump back in if you have any interest or appetite. A, because Darrell's always been a fan favorite, of course, right? I mean, so many characters have bitten the dust over the years. That was initially sort of a selling point of The Walking Dead and then maybe it was too much. but Darrell has survived and basically because no one would have tolerated his death, right? I mean, there was kind of the rallying cry was if Darrell dies, we riot, right? And Darrell never died.

So he managed to survive. He and Carol, his bestie, were really the only original season one Walking Dead characters to make it to the end of the series. And so I just go so far back with him. And this is kind of a fresh start, right? Because we're in a different country now, a whole different cast of characters aside from Daryl. And so it is a good place. If you've made a clean break and you want to start with a blank slate, yeah, there may be some allusions to things that happened on the Walking Dead proper. But you can absolutely start here without knowing anything that has transpired in the past several years.

Yeah, it was definitely like a, I was surprised and impressed by how welcoming it felt for, either somebody who has never watched any Walking Dead or somebody who missed a number of seasons and was returning for this. And it seems like it also felt equally fulfilling for people who have, like you, stuck with it every minute of the way. I mean, this is a well-reviewed series.

I think the common refrain is that this is the best The Walking Dead universe has been in a while, right? Like, people are enjoying it, which bodes, well, I'm curious, do you think there was another character around which a series that led to this, like, potentially mass rediscovery could have been oriented, or was Darrell kind of the one figure who could have, like, created this confluence of events?

Yeah, as maybe we'll discuss, this wasn't originally intended to be a solo vehicle. It was originally supposed to be Daryl and Carol, right? And season two will be, right? It's being called the Book of Carol. Yes. And of course, we got Carol in the closing stretch of the finale. Yes, right.

So that was like an audible. That was a late pivot where it was because the actor was unavailable for filming in Europe on location, which is a very important aspect of the series. And so they switched it up. Almost every Walking Dead character who made it to the end does have some form of spin-off. Right. I mean, Negan and Maggie have their own spin-off, The Walking Dead Dead City. And of course, as we'll discuss, Rick and Michone are coming back as well.

So I think the fact that Darrow was such a favorite that he was a survivor and a lifer. And also the fact that we haven't really seen him be the leading man. You know, he's kind of, even though he's been the fan favorite, he's always been sort of the sidekick. You know, it was Rick for nine seasons was the leader and Darrell was by his side or Darrow was just, wondering out in the wilderness crossbowing stuff and, you know, sort of sulking. He's still doing that, to be clear. He's still doing that. Yeah. Now he has a medieval flail. Some wonderful weaponry in this television series. I guess unless you watch the AMC series where Norman Redis in real life just rides around on a motorcycle, we haven't really seen that be sort of a starring vehicle for Daryl.

And there were questions, I think, about how that would work because he's a man of few words. he's fairly taciturn. And so can he carry a series if he is just kind of grunting and scowling most of the time? And it turns out that, yeah, I think he can. But it wasn't a total gimmee or slam dunk. Like there was a reason why he was sort of a helper of someone on the periphery who everyone loved, but didn't really have to bear the full weight of carrying the franchise, which might be one reason why he was so loved,

is that he was never the leader. He was never the one who was. having to make the stupidest decisions that Rick often made. And so here he is, just sees in the spotlight, finally getting his flowers here. It's so interesting. I think that's a really great observation about the shift from psychic to protagonist, because I think one of the smart decisions,

in many ways this is like a, as we'll talk about, lone wolf and cub, or maybe more accurately, like, lone wolves. I guess it's a pack of wolves. Can you have multiple lone wolves and cub story? and Daryl is for Isabel, for Laurent, in many ways, embraced as the leader, as the person who will keep them safe, who will help them get where they're going as the protector. But he is latching on to their group, to their life, right? He is finding his way in a completely new community, new environment. And so there's still, even though he is in that protector role and in that leader role during their quest and during their missions and the person that people turn to, he is still kind of a sidekick in a way inside of their family unit.

Like he's the person trying to figure out how he belongs or wrestling with some sort of inner turmoil over these bonds that he is developing in real time, like the power and potency of these new attachments with the pull of the promise to return back home, to get. back to Carol. So I really loved that dynamic. And of course, we have like the added thrills of getting to see Darrell put down the leather for a moment and end up in some like suspenders and a lovely knit sweater and just like look like he's been in the French countryside for his entire life, even if he's like jailed at a given moment. We'll talk about all of that more and all of those other key figures in the story more in a few minutes. But, you know, you mentioned the Rick and Mishon show. And I would say that just for me, again, as a deeply lapsed viewer, that would be the other one that like, I, if not, if Daryl hadn't come first, I think I still would have said,

this is the show I'm going to opt back in for. It would feel strange to me as somebody who consumed as many hours of the walking dead as I did to not check out the Ricken Mishon show. So I think that that'll be an interesting one to follow the response to in real time as well. Can you take us through a little bit of the context for where we are in the Walking Dead spin-off asants, because there are so many series and spinoffs that many people watch and enjoy, but also many people who tapped out of Walking Dead genuinely may not even be aware of, like, how vast the sprawl is at this point. Can you give us a little bit of a snapshot of that, but more than just running through all the shows, can you give us a sense of which have worked, of which have popped and

resonated with the fandom in some way and which haven't. And maybe why? Like, you've written about this before, but what went wrong along the way? I know you have tried to identify these specific either moment in time or aspect of the storytelling that maybe led people to walk away. But why were these other shows not able? And again, I don't want to imply that they have like no passionate viewers or fans. That's obviously not the case and not what we mean to indicate.

But maybe haven't been able to spark this, hey, If you haven't thought about The Walking Dead in a while, this is actually the show to check out the way that Darrell has. Yeah, it's really an interesting contrast with the way AMC has tried to sustain this franchise. And the Walking Dead, like people have been describing The Walking Dead, either the show as the franchise or the franchise as a zombie for most of its history at this point. Right. But it is still shambling along. And even though it is a lot less popular and less watched than it once was, it is. arguably as big as ever in terms of just the sheer number of shows and the volume of content that is being produced.

And it's very different from, say, the strategy HBO had with Game of Thrones, for instance, where you have this massive, massive show. And everyone's wondering, okay, what is the sequel? What is the spinoff? What is the prequel? And it took them years, right? And they had to curate it. Okay, we think this will be the follow up. And, oh, this pilot didn't work.

We're going to scrap that entirely. And we've heard, you know, they have X number of things in the works, but really it was, we're going to wait for the one that really will pop. And that seemed to serve them well. So they have a big follow-up in House of the Dragon. AMC has sort of flooded the zone when it comes to the Walking Dead. It's, you know, oversaturation, I guess, would be one way to say it. And it started really at the height of the Walking Dead's popularity when it was the biggest show on TV, certainly the biggest show on cable. I mean, you look back at the ratings that the Walking Dead got and. And that was before cord cutting really ramped up. But even so, it was just massive, right?

And so Fear the Walking Dead was the first spinoff to come out of that. And it was a prequel. And the conceit was, this is different. It's on the other side of the country. This is in California. It's we're going to see how things went wrong instead of picking up after the apocalypse is already in progress. That was thrilling in real time. Like those first few moments and days of like the outbreak and what it felt like.

like to be a person in your home or at your school. I was really, I was really into the concept of fear initially. Yeah. And I kind of appreciated the Walking Dead mostly skipped that at first, because it's, it's kind of like the conversation we have about superhero origin stories where do we need to see, you know, Spider-Man get bitten again or Batman's parents get killed? Do we need to see society just fall into chaos? We know how that goes, right? But not having really seen it in depth in the Walking Dead, it was, okay, we can explore this here. in fear. And we even see a little bit of that, the French version of that in Daryl Dixon, too. So you had a completely different cast in fear. It was a different setting. It was a different time period.

And so those were differentiated enough that I think initially fear worked pretty well and there was a lot of interest in it. And I guess to sort of establish where things went wrong, it's no one thing, but on the original Walking Dead, so you checked out after eight seasons, you said, I think a lot of people, that was sort of the stopping point, if not slightly before that. Like, there wasn't one moment, but there were a few moments that stood out especially, right? Especially the season six finale, the famous, infamous cliffhanger, where you finally introduce Negan. We know he'd kill someone with his bat. It's very gruesome, but we have to wait several months to find out who it was. And people felt so jerked around by that because there'd been so much build up to Negan. You knew he was going to be this

big adversary from the comics, then they finally introduce him and up, we're on hiatus again. You got to wait. And this came after the fake out earlier that season with Glenn, who appeared to be dead, but he wasn't. And it got to the point where it's gone beyond like the, this is sort of the Ned Stark, like anyone could die. Oh, this is so exciting, right? You never know what's going to happen next to just, this feels cheap.

Like, this feels exploitative. You know, it feels like clickbait kind of in TV form. And you can't trust anything that's going to. to happen because it looks like someone dies and they actually didn't die. Then you come back from season seven, Glenn bites it, of course, and they did that in an extremely comics, faithful way, with the eye popping out and everything, just gruesome even by walking dead standards. Obviously, it's always been a violent, gory show, but they really leaned into it. And because Glenn was so beloved and was an original character, a lot of people felt that that was gratuitous, that it had sort of

of crossed the line into torture porn territory. The Walking Dead producers even said, like, we don't want to be torture porn. And so they sort of dialed it back a bit, but it was too late by that point. And that whole season was just so dark and just so relentlessly grim. And, you know, the saviors had captured the protagonist group and they were just beaten down figuratively and literally. And there was just no daylight. And between that and also, So I think just, you know, some of the subsequent deaths and, again, possible spoiler territory here. But, you know, one by one, the originals left or were killed, right? Rick gets kidnapped because Andrew Lincoln walked off the show.

And then, you know, his son, Carl, Carl, he gets killed in a way that, like, had no real stakes associated with it. And, you know, any show that runs for 11 seasons and what? 177 episodes or something runs the risk of feeling stale at a certain point. But the Walking Dead, like initially it seemed like, okay, there's a narrative drive to this. They want to find out where this plague came from and maybe they want to cure the zombie apocalypse and they want to build back up society. Like it's building towards something. And then it became clear that it really wasn't building toward anything except how many subsequent seasons can we make and how many spin-offs can we pump out here? And so it was this constant just sort of keeping plate spinning,

oh, we found a safe harbor. Oh, and wow, there's this benevolent leader here. Everything's great. Oh, what do you know? Would you believe that there might be some ulterior motives? There might be a dark underbelly to this seemingly civilized outpost. And that repeated itself over and over and over again in a way that I think just turned a lot of people off because it was, hey, we've seen this formula. We know how this works. We don't need to keep putting ourselves through this. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business

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It should be severe for mildhouse. There was a bar at the end of the street. When the owner pulled the curtains, only the regulars were allowed to stay. Artists, musicians, students. I was in one. What's on me? Reinventing the world. I thought it could make it better.

Ever imagining how bad it would get? I least just thought about it. Didn't you? I didn't do much thinking back then. But I'm glad our past crossed. We should get gone. Let's talk about what aspects of the Walking Dead Daryl Dixon season one felt fresh. We've already discussed why it made sense to build around Daryl and to try to have a Daryl and Carol that then became Daryl show.

Let's talk about the location. Let's talk about France. I mean, the show. And we watch a lot of volumes. filmed series, right? So we're often like talking about, can you tell this was made in the volume? Oh, the like absolute injection of fresh air

if something is filmed out in the world or sometimes you see something in the volume that looks really cool and we try to figure out like what made that work when maybe some other volume filming didn't. This is a stunning on location production. It is astonishingly beautiful. I mean, it's France.

A lot of it is in Paris, but a lot of it is also in the French countryside. we're at a number of like gorgeous cathedrals and these old like ruins and you have these like there are things that you just think of and associate with Europe that is this like very effective visual shorthand for we are not in the same places in America that we have been for a number of seasons of many shows to this point but it wasn't just. just that we were in a different place. It was like what the nature of the filmmaking and the style of like moving across the land when the land is different unlocked for the story. So this

was something that I really loved about it and found quite riveting from the start. There were like a number of places that they went in the show where I was like Googling to see if they were real and I could visit potentially. It's just really lovely. Yeah. What did this, what did this do for you and especially given the volume of Walking Dead that you've consumed. How much of a, like of a of a panacea was this for a lot of the visual tapestry that you've spent your time inside of. It was huge. I don't think I've ever seen a more powerful illustration of just the impact of filming on location and in a beautiful setting because it was so different from everything else we've seen in The Walking Dead. If you could divorce Daryl Dixon's story from its setting, it probably would be.

wouldn't be that groundbreaking or mind-blowing. It might just feel like more walking dead. But because it took place on a new continent and actually took place there, and they really luxuriate in that. I mean, there are just a lot of just sweeping landscapes, countryside. They're like, hey, we're here. We're going to make the most of this. Look at the way the beam of sun is pushing through the fog over this meadow. Look at the glint of light on this pool of water. over a marsh as you make your way to a remote stone enclave. I mean, it was stunning. Yeah. And it really just, I think I comped it to Andor when we were talking earlier because

Andor was sort of similar in that we had seen all these Star Wars shows on the volume. And I think the volume works well for what it is and can be a great asset to these productions. But it was still different. It was still, oh, wow, we're in Scotland here. Like, there's, there's an actual slope in this scene, as opposed to it just being sort of this flat, you know, circular area that has this cool background, but is clearly sort of a set in front of that. And that was such a breath of fresh air, you know, to go from CGI stuff to practical effects or to go from filming on a soundstage to filming out in the world somewhere, it really can make a big difference if you're accustomed to one thing. And with The Walking Dead, at least with the volume,

you can really switch up what the background looks like, right? I mean, it does kind of limit you in terms of the actual set that you're on, but you could be on any planet, on any universe, right? In theory, at least. Whereas the Walking Dead, you're in Georgia all the time, or you're in Virginia, but it's still Georgia in real life, right? It's just over and over, like Georgia is always on your mind in the Walking Dead. And it's sort of similar to the MCU, I guess, in some ways.

we talk about filming there as well. Great that you get those tax credits, but there is a price to be paid. And I think just the fact that they could start over somewhere new, where you know, you don't know what the apocalypse was like there. I guess it wasn't so dissimilar, but at least the scenery is so different. And I think that just totally, it was night and day, the change for me, Whereas I was almost trying to evaluate, like, do I only like this because it's in France? Do I like it for other reasons, too? Because no matter where the spinoff was or where the show was, like, as I said, at the beginning in fear, you know, it was in California. It was kind of a different setting, different scenery.

I was intrigued by one of the other recent spinoffs, Dead City, which is the Maggie and Negan show. And if you checked out of the Walking Dead several seasons ago, you're probably wondering, wait, there's like a buddy show with Maggie and Deegan. How did that happen? I thought he killed her husband. Yeah, that, that happens. They haven't fully worked out those issues. I would imagine not.

Yeah, that would tend to linger. But I was intrigued by that show because the Dead City in question was New York City. I'm a New Yorker. And I was thinking, okay, wow, we get to see The Walking Dead in New York. This is an exciting pitch, at least. And then in actuality, it was filmed in New York. Jersey and it was very clearly not filmed in New York City. And like to the extent there was New York City, it was like, let's show the Empire State Building, except like it has a lot of moss growing on it now. You know, it was very like clearly CGIed New York landmarks and then it would switch to interiors. Like just a lot of like like fire escapes and stairwells and just, you know, dim, drab like looked like any other place in Walking Dead. Right. And so that series, you know, It wasn't bad, but it definitely wasn't the fresh start that it sounded like it could be conceptually.

Whereas this show absolutely was. Like, they totally backed up the potential of let's film in France. Let's film anywhere else in the world. I think the other thing that really works about it, in addition to just how mesmerizing and magnetic it is to watch, it works on a character level too because, I mean, Daryl like literally washes. up on the shore. That's how the season starts. And it's not until a penultimate episode. This was actually one of the things where I was like, do I not have the information that I need here? Do I not have the backstory of exactly how he got here? And then we ended up getting it in a subsequent episode closer to the end of the season with the journey across the sea and how Darrell ended up on that boat in the first place.

But the setting gives us, first of all, it gives us a lot of classic, French and American comedy, right? The way that Darrell not understanding French comes into play in so many scenes, the way that he is like derisively referred to as like the American by so many characters. But there is, Daryl is not a character who we think of as, boy, I'm just bowled over by the natural beauty around me and let me take some time to look at and can, consider this Monet, but still, like, the fact that he is in a different place and he is surrounded by different people and he is trying to figure out in real time, what is the same, right? Like, like you said, what has happened that is just a universal shared hellscape?

And there are some characters that we can encounter at certain points to trying to actually make it back to America, Daryl's like, there's nothing to get back to. Like, there's no family waiting for you. And the more places that Daryl, any character, goes and sees, the more daunting and heavy that inevitability is, right, that every corner of the earth was touched by this. But there's also new beauty for Daryl to discover. Like there is a large religious through line of the season, which we'll talk about a little bit more in a few minutes, I think,

which was an interesting aspect of the storytelling choice as well. But for Daryl to be this like fish out of water and his skin, are essential and necessary, which is a constant, right? That's always been the case. Daryl has skills that people need. Darrell has skills that keep him and other people alive. But it's like the context around him is completely new. Like, who is this young boy? And why do people think he's a Messiah? And what part of it sounds like bullshit to Daryl, but what part of it may be even against the logical inclinations of his own mind or tendencies or like the patterns and rhythms of his life? Does he feel himself like opting into and believing in a little bit along the way?

How much of that is just the affection that he finds developing toward Laurent and Isabel as they go, etc. And so there's something about seeing Darrell in a circumstance that is distinct and him being like just as essential of a presence for other people. That was like an interesting way of stitching together the world around him. And then, of course, you have like new walkers, right? you've got the burners and we're early, early, early in the season. We've got a hand on Darrell's arm that is burning through his flesh and we can tell that something new is happening. This was another one where I was like, is this been a thing for a long time or is this new? And of course, you had a wonderful piece on the ringer.com that kind of

primed us for this evolution in the Walker canon. But I'm, there's a part of me that's like keep the show here forever. Carol, as we know from the way that this, The season ends. Carol's out looking for Daryl, trying to figure out after their thwarted radio connection, where he wound up next and what happened. And so does she make her way to him? You know, he is trying to get on a ship at the end and then looks back. And after he has made his way through a D-Day graveyard and found his grandfather's tombstone

and confronted the cyclical nature of Dixon men. Which was an interesting finale choice. Yes. He looks up and there is Laurent. He has followed him. He is surrounded by this impending hoard. And so we have, we have Daryl and Carol, like,

both trying to find the way back to each other and the question of like where that reunion will happen is an interesting one. Does Carol make her way over to France? Does Daryl decide to stay? There's a part of me that would love the show to continue in this current location. And then there's a part of me that, like, would like, I think it would be cool if they almost pulled a white lotus. and not with the anthology like cast where it's new people every time,

but we're like, Darrell, let's just send Darrell to a new exotic locale. Let's get Darrell to Hawaii. Let's get Darrell the Sicily. You know, let's get Darrell to every White Lotus setting. But like, would it be neat if he ended up in Spain or Portugal? Like, would it be wonderful if he just made his way around Europe. I would kind of love that. Yeah, maybe every country has its own Messiah and its own authoritarian.

regime so he can just hop from country to country, just solving problems. But yeah, I mean, I think one of the least realistic aspects of this zombie show is that, A, so many people, including kids, speak English. Like, if you're a kid in this many years after the apocalypse, is there a point to learning English, but also that they're all very willing to accommodate, graciously accommodate this lone American by speaking English in his presence. I feel like it might not go that way in the post-apocalypse. It doesn't go all that way today in my experience of visiting France. But yes, I think it's not just that it's a new setting and kind of a clean break and fresh start. It's also like there's some inventiveness to the characters, the visuals.

Like there's some set pieces, some groups he stumbles across that are different, independent of the fact that they're in France. Like in episode three, you have this guy who supposedly has a working radio, right? And then it turns out that the radio's wires are cut. But he does have a reanimated zombie orchestra where... This was upsetting. It's just genuinely disturbing. Yeah. And so if after this many seasons of the Walking Dead and Walking Dead adjacent properties,

I can still be sort of surprised by like, oh, here's something different you could do with these walkers. Just like strap them up to a bunch of instruments and have them play Ravel's symphony. Sure. Like that was new, right? Or, you know, when we see, like, the group of kids who've been on their own and it's sort of like, like, hooks, lost boys or like the undersea from Station 11 sort of, you know, a lot of the show, it has like things that have been pulled from other post-apocalyptic stories or at least remind us of them. But that was nice, you know, like just a nice little setting of kids kind of making it on their own. So these are things that are like, okay, there's like a creativity here. There's an effort to try to. do something new beyond just let's film in a different place.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned similarities to other post-apocalyptic tales, and we're transitioning from talking about how new some of this feels, but I think we have to discuss the really prevalent parallels to the last of us in The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon. Now, some of this probably feels like more. top of mind as a viewer because even though it feels like 100 years ago already and we miss it every minute of every day. The last of us came out this year. That was a show we watched this year. It started in January of 2023 and it is currently October of 2023. So Ellie and Joel are very

top of mind for us. But the Walking Dead video game came out a decade ago. Excuse me, the last of us. The Last of Us, video game came out. They're going to go, right? So it's difficult to not when you're, I think, especially some of it, like the, again, lone wolves and Cubb aspect of the quest and needing to get Laurent to the nest. That's very like Joel and Ellie, you know, moving across the map. But beyond that, Laurent is certainly like not only. an Ellie figure. Laurent is a Christ figure.

Like Laurent is presented in the story and discussed as a Messiah. But there's also an aspect of this that is like, oh, so Laurent is just Ellie. I mean, there is the nature of I guess we should issue maybe a last of us, spoiler warning

here too. I don't know what level of detail we want to get into, but if you don't want to hear the nature of the comp between Laurent and Ellie, maybe hit hit the fast forward button just a couple times. We'll keep this part very contained. There's the life from death aspect of this, right?

Being born amid a turn and that level of... We don't know exactly yet what that means for Laurent, the way that we do for Ellie, but there are many moments in the series where we are seeing like a moving through a crowd, or some sort of different relationship and also this mass embrace, not only because Laurent is like an empath,

but this idea of Laurent as the savior, right? As a figure who can lead people into a better future. So we've got our kind of chosen one prophecy trope, which is like a proud storytelling tradition, that we always enjoy. And then we have the more direct Laurent L.E., last of us kind of comp here. What did you think about all of this, especially given the proximity? And like shows come out when they come out.

But did you bump on this at all? Or was this just like, oh, yeah. Great. It's basically, right. It's an identical origin story, essentially, right? Like the explanation for the immunity or invisibility to walkers or whatever it is. Same exact mechanism, right? I guess the difference between Ellie and Laurent is that I like Ellie for one thing, whereas I was rooting for Laurent to be dismembered for most of this series.

I mean, he's got great hair. Incredible hair. Yeah. Shalomey-esque locks. Wonderful hair. Yeah. I mean, I guess. Yeah.

Who does a little rubyx cube? It's partly that the other difference really is that Ellie is incredibly capable, right? I mean, they're roughly the same age, adolescence, but Ellie has been on her own. She's been taking care of herself. Like, she doesn't think she needs anyone to help her. And she doesn't sometimes, right? Sometimes she's the one in charge. I would not want my life to depend on Laurent at this stage, maybe later.

Though he has been in his defense, like, coddled and sequestered and sheltered and an effort to protect him. So he hasn't, like, been able to develop these skills. And he seems to, on the one hand, very fearful of needing to kill a walker, which he is a moment he is confronted with in dire circumstances. But it doesn't help that that. Your first walker is your dad is your dad. It's a top one. It's a tough one. I'll talk more about Quinston.

Start slow. Start with someone. Start with a stranger. Brutal. Brutal kill one. but he does seem drawn to Daryl, not only because he thinks Daryl's cool and interesting and just really different from all of the nuns who raised him,

but because he seems eager to learn a certain skill that he is cognizant he doesn't possess, right? He also doesn't want to possess those skills, right? I mean, he's like, he's on a knife's edge. I think he has like a little bit of a, I know that I am missing something that is necessary to survive in this world, but also is fearful of what that, what that makes you or what that would,

mean given his beliefs, his moral beliefs, his religious beliefs, right? Should we talk about that? Should we talk about the religious through line of the story? There's the point where he asks Daryl, like, what do you believe? What keeps you going, right? And Daryl's just like pulling my weight, you know, which is sort of a rebuke to Leran a little bit like, hey, kid, like got this fish already if you want to eat something. Yeah.

But also it's true. Like he's bound by the people he cares about. and his found family and sort of, you know, not letting people down. And that's the case here, too. Like, even though Laurent would, I think, be a pretty high seed in the ringer's annoying TV kid bracket if we did that again. I like that Daryl likes Laurent. I like the Daryl. It's very straight.

Yeah, because, and Daryl's had this on The Walking Dead, like especially in later seasons when Judith is growing up, Rick's kid, right? And, you know, we've seen this tender side to him. Like, he's not a father, but he's a good father figure and kind of like a cool uncle who will teach you how to gut fish and shoot stuff. I like those moments where we blend from protector into nurturer. Like, there is an embrace of that from Darrell. Like, he wants to not just keep people safe and alive, but he does want to make sure that there's a wider and broader meaning to, like, being okay, right? And, like, it's not necessarily, like, the most natural. thing for him, or maybe he would be inclined to say it wasn't the most natural thing,

but then in these organic scenes, like, you feel that it actually is, that, like, people are drawn to him. And that when he is drawn to somebody in turn, there is this, like, depth of devotion that can materialize really quickly that is, like, quite compelling to watch. And obviously, that's here with Loran. It's also here with Isabel, though. Were you shipping it? Well, that's an interesting question, because Daryl's romantic history or lack thereof. has been sort of a subject of fascination for much of the history of The Walking Dead, right? Like, does Darrell fuck? It's kind of enduring question.

Wait, so this is one thing where I will ask you to just spoil some of the stuff that I've missed. Okay. Yeah, you haven't missed that much, honestly. Do Darrell and Carol never fuck? Never, never. You're kidding. No. What?

No. Ben. Yeah. No, this is when Harry Marks, Sally, can men and women be friends? Yes, Darrell and Carol have proved that it can be done. They, there has been like, that's beautiful. That's great. Yeah.

Good for them. I mean, there's as close as you can be, but just not in that way. Carol has had her own romantic entanglements, but not with Darrell. But so then this is actually like more, this gives me more fuel. for my shipping Darrell and Isabel fire then, because there was a part of me that was like, I mean, obviously the relationship and bond between Darrell and Carol was very present

in the time that I was still watching, but I did wonder, like, what had that morphed into? And is there any sort of like element of, is Darrell holding back here because he would feel like he was like straying or betraying something in that respect? But if not, then it's like, Darry. No, he's not cheating on anyone here.

No, it's, so he, you know, people thought, okay, Daryl and Carol at some point. I mean, it rhymes, right? But also, after Rick departed, there was a character called Connie, who was introduced to. Daryl became very close to and was always looking out for her well-being. And there was a tenderness there. It seemed like, okay, maybe Daryl and Connie, no. So there was one character introduced in season 10 named Leah, who was really the closest, that Daryl has had to a romantic relationship.

And this was like in the pandemic era season when they like tacked on some episodes and they were kind of limited in what they could do. And there were a lot of time jumps and like things happening off screen. But it was maybe kind of implied that they had like they were together, you know, but nothing was ever shown that that's as close as they've come. And it's kind of interesting because people have always questioned like,

what is Darrell's deal? Like, is he gay? Like, is he asexual? Like, what is going on with Daryl? And there have been comments on this by various people over the years, like showrunners, Robert Kirkman, who wrote the comics. Redis himself has talked about this. And basically, you know, he's an original character, unlike a lot of the characters who were pulled from the comics and sometimes altered dramatically. But because he was an original creation, could have been anything.

No one really knew. And it was discussed that he was. that he would be gay early on when Frank Deribont started the show. They had conversations about that. Reedis said like he would have been all for that if they had gone down that road, but they didn't. Later on, it was clarified by Kirkman that he's straight, but that he's also somewhat asexual, I think, is how Kirkman described it.

And Darrell has sort of said the same thing. So in a sense, like, you know, he is sort of like asexual representation for kind of an action hero. Like, it's not a common thing that, you know, usually you're shipping, right? And often we get to see someone be with someone. But because Daryl's such a loner, and Carol's kind of a loner, too, so that's maybe one reason why they wouldn't work so well together. Like, they all like to go live in a hut by themselves somewhere. But like, beyond that, like, that's just Daryl's, you know, he deeply cares about people. And he, I think, has just as meaningful relationships. But there's a time, In Daryl Dixon, when he's asked, have you ever been in love?

And he just doesn't answer, right? Like, there's a form of love. But I kind of like that he is sort of a cipher there, you know? Yeah. Like one character who resists all shipping. It's interesting, though, because I do think that, and maybe this is in part just because, like, folks, Flood de la Cor is here. Combezzis here playing Isabel. And there is, like, an electric charge.

between them. I mean, the earliest interactions involve her, like, bathing him and reaching in, you know, into the top and he,

like, jerks away. And then he baths her at the end, sort of, too. Yes, yeah. Like, very, and again, there's, like, a,

that is, that evolution, actually across the season into a more, like, less, like, oh, there's a kind of

question of a sexual charge here into just, like, a tenderness, right? But in part because Isabel, seems very drawn to Darrell.

The show is certainly inviting these moments of consideration of like, is this? Yeah, there's flirting going on. Is this going to happen? And this, as you note beautifully, I think, does not have to be sex. It doesn't have to be physical.

The closeness can manifest between them in different ways and ultimately does over the course of the season. They have like a, all of the people who become a part of Darrell's party or the party that he joins more accurately. Like, we have a lot of really compelling characters. You hate Laurent. You're on the record. I thought he was such charming young man.

But Isabel's a great character. Like, it's a really great performance. And Isabel and Daryl are great together. You alluded earlier to the glimpses we get of the French outbreak. Like, what was it like when this was unfolding in real time in Paris? And we get little glimpses of Isabel's life as a pickpocket as like a, as a, a drug user, a partier, in her relationship with Quinn, out on the club scene before. And then we're getting all of that clarity after the initial time we've spent with her as a nun and somebody who embraced religion and this life with the union and learning what drove her to those doors in the first place, like her sister's death and then everything we learned about what happened between between Quinn and her sister.

We get kind of an incredible... This is a pretty short show. I mean, the episodes are long. Like, we've got true hours, but it's a short show, and we're introduced to a ton of new characters. And I think the backstory and what we... The clarity we have around all of them

is not as successfully executed for some of the other figures who we'll talk about in a few minutes, maybe when we get to the foes, the antagonist. But for Isabel, we get a pretty full sense of who she is as a character pretty quickly,

which allows us to invest in her arc individually. her arc with Laurent and then her arc with Daryl. And also then we have other relationships. Like we see her with Sylvie and then we see, you know, Sylvie and Emil and like the way that, I think this is interesting, especially on the heels of hearing you talk earlier about maybe where some people fell off with The Walking Dead and why and how like relentlessly grim it became. Like there's obviously a lot of deeply dark and disturbing stuff in The Walking Dead Darrell Dixon. But there's such a constant beat of hope, right? Whether it is because people are determined to fight for something better or because they believe

that there is something worth fighting for or striving for, or even like the moments you get with characters like Sylvia and Emil, who we don't get to know nearly as well as some of the other figures. But the fact that they are like drawn toward each other and are feeling new things with each other and like they have just another reason, even though they are not ultimately on like a totally aligned journey, to want to try to stay alive and like to want to try to make the world a little bit better

because there are people you want to make it better for, you know, our whole like rooftop gang that we meet. And then obviously there's everything at the nest at the end. Like I think always in my mind is a walking, when I'm watching any walking dead, you made the great point earlier about you stumble into a new place and you're like, should I be surprised when I love that somebody here has ill intentions?

But there's also the other. thing that's always in your mind of like actually maybe some of these places things were just totally fine and okay and then our characters brought hellfire down upon these people like and god the worry I felt for those poor kids who you mentioned earlier yeah there's always a walker in the closet somewhere right but yeah but there there should be somewhere where it's not necessarily just sunshine and hope all the time but but there's got to be a little bit of that like you've got to have a ray break through the clouds or else you're just going to drive people away. And it is sort of a shame because I think they did kind of course correct like season nine of the Walking

Dead after you and a lot of people checked out, I think is one of the better seasons of the show. And there was some light to it. And really, the show kind of has a happy ending by Walking Dead standards, despite the fact that most of the characters are dead. Like, you know, it's it's kind of a happy ending. And there is some lightness and hope here, too. I love the Sylvie and Emile relationship, which we only see glimpses of. Give them a spin-off. Yeah, just like Sylvie's vows of chastity, like, last five minutes after she encounters the first boy she's ever encountered. I loved that. That was so true to life to me. I didn't know that there were boys like this out there. when I made that now, so actually

are no backsies on that. And then yeah, and it's like, this is what a relationship would be like, probably post-apocalyptic. It's like you don't have your choice. You know, you're not like swiping on the apps, right? So it's like you come across someone who's like close to your age and single.

It's like, all right, we're together now. Well, and the fucked up related element of that is like maybe you found your, well, we're together now person. and then their ex wanders into your nightclub, and they're done with you. So let's talk about some of our antagonists. Let's talk about Quinn.

Yeah. Interesting character. So our first exposure to Quinn is in that, what was the fall? Backstory, flashback stretch. And we learn over time that Quinn is not only Isabelle's ex, but fucked her sister. Folks, it's not what you want.

And they are Laurent's parents. And you would think when Isabel makes her way back into Quinn's life, he'd be like, you took my car and you drove away during the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. Like, I have some notes, and that is not the case. He's like, I have been waiting for you. I miss you.

I am done with my musically gifted current romantic interest who will eventually turn on me and all of us as a result of my straying eye. And he's just so smitten and so in love. And, you know, he's supposed to be this tough guy, right? But he's also kind of presented to us as this entrepreneurial spirit, like not only with the club, right, but he has carved out these relationships with other power broken. and other figures of might so that he can maintain his life. He can trade favors, right?

He can get things done. He's a person who can get things done. And so we know that he has, like, not only a survival instinct, but like, I watched Quinn in these episodes. I'm like, he would have done well on Survivor, right? Because he knows how to make friends with people he needs to. He knows how to build alliances. He knows how to, like, outlast.

And he has actually built, this was one of the settings where I was like, wait, why don't everyone try to do this? Like, that just actually looks like a great place to hang out. like even now? And then so quickly, and I don't mean this in a, like as an indictment, I mean actually kind of in a complimentary way.

He's just so pathetic. Like, he's just so loved Lauren and basically just wants to like sniff Isabel's neck and like let her be near him, even though she has a razor blade that she has crafted by hand in her pocket waiting to stab him. So I thought he, was more interesting to me than the other antagonists in the series, like the actual

ultimate big bads inside of the series, who we'll talk about more in a second, the power of the living group. What did you make of Quinn? I liked Quinn. I like this actor, for one thing. Adam Nagaitis, I think I was introduced to him in the terror. He was great in that, but he's been in Chernobyl and the gold and some other things. So he kind of nailed the, like, you know, I'm almost disappointed that his arc ends the way it does. I guess it's sort of a redemption story. It would have been fun for him to stick around a little longer. Yeah.

I would have to see him have a redemption story that's not just about sacrificing himself. And then coming back as a walker and attacking them, which kind of undercuts the gesture of like, I will sacrifice myself. But then I will return after I'm dead to continue to haunt you. Great moment, though, when Daryl's like, you were on his mind. Isabel's like, did he ask you to say that? Darrell's like, nah. Um,

no? Yeah. No? So funny. But he's a bad boyfriend in any number of ways. He is extremely controlling. He just kind of wants to like lock up Isabel in an ivory tower and, you know, bring her eggs and just have her. They look great eggs.

Those eggs looked amazing. If you're going to be kept captive by someone who says he loves you, that's not the worst place. But it's not ideal, right? So he just kind of wants to like dress her up and have her be docile and domesticated. And that's obviously not who she is. So yeah, he loves too hard, I guess, is Quinn's problem. But I would have liked to see him get like a second season arc where maybe he resigns himself to the fact that he's not going to end up with Isabelle and actually, you know, but he's he's kind of like, I don't know, like a he's the guy who makes.

stuff happened, right? And he's doing things that are illegal, but they allow him to stay around. It's like a Casablanca, I don't know, you know, kind of smuggler, guy who gets stuff done for the regime. So, so yeah, he worked for me more than any of the other antagonists. Yeah. Yeah, likewise. I can't say how much of like a nightclub lounge singer person has been one of our, one of our many, many, many, many bonds. Part of the reason we've become such good friends over the years and work together so well because we were basically the same person. Just love to sit at home

in our pajamas with our pets and watch baseball and nerd culture stories. So I don't think either of us is necessarily like the nightclub type. But this was, like, of the many shows you've watched in the Walking Dead universe, what has been the place where you're like,

yeah, that would be where I'd want to maybe hang out and live? Demi Mond was high on my list because he has such a good whiskey collection and lovely art. And there's entertainment It seemed great there. I think also the Nest.

I mean, that was just gorgeous. Absolutely stunning location. So this show has like some real. Yeah, I could hang out there. I mean, things go very poorly right away, but even the beginning of the first episode when Darrell,

I was like, oh, are these the other main characters in the show? No, the old dude was dead 10 minutes later. But, you know, it's just, like lovely fresh apples from an orchard. I was like, this seems like a fine place to be, even though almost everyone involved was murdered shortly, so not that great. Let's talk about some of the other antagonists in the show.

We probably should have issued this preemptive apology sooner in the episode, but let's do it here where it seems most likely to come into play. We'd both like to apologize for our complete inability to properly pronounce French names. We're channeling Daryl on this pot. We're not going to make an effort. But we tried to make an effort to at least have the correct Americanized pronunciations. We watched a lot of YouTube videos. Cordon.

Yeah, cordon. Key of the face tat, though a lot of people have face and neck tats. And Jeunet? Yep, let's go with that. Let's talk about, like, we could take them one by one or just overall. all the power of the living contingent. How did these characters work for you, both as like individual figures,

but also the quest and like what we are actually watching and what the mission is here? And I guess we can't really talk about that, even though we were planning to hit the fast zombies separately, but I don't really think we can talk about power of the living without talking about the fact that Jeannet and her doctor are overseeing efforts to make the walkers more lethal and more deadly.

They move faster. They're juiced up, right? With these zombie PED injections that sometimes make their heads exploded spontaneously, you hate to see it. But sometimes make them even more dangerous, which is, of course, a notable thing. You've written tombs about this in the Walking Dead universe. But there's the like the acids.

skin, the burning blood. There are a number of ways that the figures they are creating can harm people who are just trying to survive in the world. So there's this interesting aspect of human beings attempting to take

their downfall, the walkers, and turn them into a tool and a weapon for like a new assent and the dawn of a new age that feels on the one hand completely bat-shit fucking crazy, insane, like the new, you turn to the hubris page in the dictionary.

This is the first thing you see now, right? You're just like, who could possibly think this would go right? And then there's a part of it that feels like very true to human nature that people would try to weaponize anything they could to achieve their ends. Cordone is like more of the muscle who then latches on to our primary power figure. He's on a quest, a personal quest for vengeance for his brother's death, involving a Darrell-centric plot in the beginning of the season. And then goes on one of the stranger,

and I thought just genuinely confusing journeys in the season. Like, this was one of the real, like, low points for me. His finale face turn, I just think you could have done a couple things along the way to set this up, that the season does not do. And so when this is happening, it's like, why? What? Yeah, totally with you on that.

Yeah, at the end. So he's asked to execute everyone. And I guess, like, being faced with the prospect of killing a kid, even a kid as annoying as Laurent. Might make you question your superiors. But, like, he knows that's the deal, right? Seemed happy to kill everybody up to that point in the season. Right. Really, really, really wants to kill Daryl.

Like, definitely wants to kill Daryl. Like, definitely wants to at least capture Laurent and nothing good is going to happen to him. So when he suddenly is like, no, you know, I'm going to do the classic, like, turn my weapon on my fellow soldiers and let you guys go free. And he's like, not today, Dixon, next time. Like, why, though? Right. And then, like, why wait for next time? And it's like, why?

Right. Like, if you thought the orders were so unjust that you didn't want to carry them out, then why go back to Jenae immediately? And yeah, I didn't, that didn't track for me. And Jenae is just like, I feel like I need to understand her platform a bit better than I do. Yeah, we got a stump speech, but we need a more detailed pamphlet. Yeah. It's, it like dawned on me kind of late in the season that she was even like the big bad. Like I didn't even feel the need for a big bad in a sense because it was kind of like

the last of us, just Joel and Ellie. I mean, yeah, there's the fireflies and, you know, all the larger conflict and everything. But you just, you know, you care about the people you're following. It, I felt like as Daryl says, you know, it's not my fight, you know, like the Fifth Republic, the government of France. I'm not as invested in that. Like, for all I know, these people are in improvements over what came before. I don't know how things have been going there. But I think maybe it's just kind of like, well, yada yada the specifics just because we've seen this archetype.

many times in the Walking Dead that it's just like, okay, here's someone who wants to bring order, but does that in this way that makes them the baddie too. And like, you know, maybe they actually kind of like being a tyrant, even though they say they have noble goals. Like how many, you know, the governor and the Commonwealth, like we've seen this over and over again. So it's, it's kind of like, okay, you've seen this. You know, this is the cardboard cut out of the Walking Dead antagonist. And that's all you need to know. Well, so then let's see. Your thoughts on the fast zombies, though, because this is a new age walking dead element, right? Yes, yeah.

I have a lot of thoughts on this. The bloodstream floor is yours. I talked earlier about what went wrong with the walking dead and the franchise in general. But my grand unified theory, like underlying all of that, I think the root of the problem or certainly one of the roots, is that the walkers are too slow. They've always been too slow. They're not enough of a threat. And I know the whole concede is like the enemies are other people, right?

Hell is other people. It's not actually the walkers, right? It's what they bring out in us and your fellow man. But also, like, the walkers have to be sort of scary and a credible threat too. And that just hasn't been the case in a really, really long time. So if you go back through the history of Walking Dead, like early season, like when Frank Deribont of Shawshank was running things, he had sort of like more capable walkers who would, like, throw things or pick things up or climb things occasionally, right? And then when he got tossed

off the show, they went back to just your classic Night of the Living Dead, like going to shamble very slowly and moan and not be able to climb a step or open a door. Honestly, sounds like you're describing me. Just like shuffling very slowly and moaned and like, eh, yeah, sure. Maybe be able to open a door. We'll soon. But the problem with that is that when you have to extend that for 11 seasons, And you have to put these characters in harm's way over and over and over again. They kept having to ramp it up to the point where, like, to have any sort of suspense or tension, you'd have to have a whole herd and a mob of the walkers. Because otherwise, you can just walk faster than them. Like, that's all you ever have to do to get out of the way of the, and it's, you know, like, okay, if it's night of the living dead, it's like, this just happened and you're not used to this fine.

But if you're years and years into this and you have all, you know, like, and especially they get like kind of decayed. in later season, so you can just kind of like smush them pretty easily. So gross. Just like a rotten canelope. Yeah. So they have, and the problem is the ramification of that is that in order to put these characters in trouble, you have to have them basically make the dumbest decisions possible. It has to be the horror movie thing.

And these like utterly contrived circumstances where like ultimately it's their fault that they died. Let's run into the dark basement with the chainsaw, right, except with Zommy. And so, like, Rick, the fearless leader, just had so many awful plans and so many times when he did the worst possible imaginable thing. And that happened over and over again. And they would kind of like, you know, pull the rug out from you or they'd suddenly change the ground rules. Like you'd have these like ninja zombies who like came out of nowhere and like didn't make a sound until they were a foot away from you. And as a viewer, you feel jerked around. It's like, I've been watching this for 10 seasons.

And the zombies always worked this way. And suddenly now you're trying to do something different. tell me that they could get a jump on this experience season survivor. So that I think was a problem that they have now tried to correct in some of the spinoffs and the latter seasons of the Walking Dead. And they've kind of been laying the groundwork for like, can, like, is it too late for us to just pull a mulligan on that and just like, what if we had fast zombies? What if it was not the Walking Dead? What if it was like the Running Dead or at least like the jogging dead or the sprinting dead? What if we went like?

Shogging pen. What if it was like a briskly walking dead? You know, just some slight ramp up in their in their power. And so we've seen that in latter seasons of the Walking Dead, they sort of brought back like the smart walkers who can like climb things and like open doors and things like that. And then they've given hints of that. So one of the spinoffs that we didn't really talk about,

world beyond, which was a two-season show that was sort of. of like a Y.A. kind of like for a younger audience. I watched it anyway. But in that there's like, I love YA storytelling and we'll be catching up on this now that I know that's what it is. There's a post-credit scene where they show one of the walkers in France. And you don't know anything about it. But this was a tease for Daryl Dixon. And it's like, oh, wow, this walker, like, remembers where the door is and can like run really fast and seems to have some sentience. And so they've been gradually like reintroducing this into the franchise. And it's a little late for that at this point, but they're going for it.

Like, that's one of the ways that they're trying to freshen the series up is let's have the walkers actually be a threat now. And so they do that. They explore that fully in Daryl Dixon. We don't really know, like, what the motivation is exactly. Like, we don't get details on why are we experimenting on walkers to make them more powerful? Isn't like, wouldn't you want to cure the disease or something? And you assume it's because, like, well, they hope to just, like, use these souped-up walkers as, like, a way to implement their power. And we'll have, you know, like this gladiator arena where we have these, like, roided up zombies who we can piss off.

And then they'll chase people, which was kind of a cool scene. But it's also, like, very much, you know, here are the consequences of my own actions. It's like, oh, you made the walkers even worse than they were. Darrell throwing the severed but still biting head up to her platform was just incredible. Tough real-time performance assessment for Dr. LaFleur. Still some kinks to work out thoroughly because sometimes their head explodes and sometimes they will eat other walkers. But every now and then there won't be a dud. And I mean, again, it's like Darrell handles the runner pretty easily.

He's got like a pickax thing. like he can just swing that and take them out. But for it once, it's a little tougher. So I guess I applaud the attempt, the effort, as someone who felt like the walkers were just too slow and too incapable ultimately. I guess, you know, it's a little too late to try to revamp the entire adversary of the franchise,

but they're trying. So are you hoping that this is a trend that continues and that we see other variants, like other strains? of Walker across different pockets of the story and that like the confronting that reality either because of a group of people like this who have tried to not find a cure

but rather further soup up the walkers to try to use them to further their cause or like for other reasons people out there or maybe the natural evolution of the strain. I mean we are in an era where like in our real lives We're thinking about those things all the time, right? Like mutations. So are you hoping that it's not just, okay, we have burners now, but like season two in the

book of Carroll, we meet another variant of Walker or in another pocket of the universe. We meet walkers who behave differently still and that the characters are always kind of confronting a new unknown, or did you think it was just a matter of making them faster and now they've done that? And so like we're in a better shot. No, I think they've laid the groundwork across enough series between this and that T's in World Beyond and the smarter walkers at the end of Walking Dead. And then the anthology show, Tales of the Walking Dead, which was a six-episode season that just sort of told self-contained stories or followed up on other characters from other shows.

There's one walker there who seems smarter and will kill animals to leave them for the rest of the herd. So they've been sort of seeding this concept across various shows in a way that seems like a concerted effort to just rebrand the walkers. So, I mean, there's part of me that, like, isn't all for, like, any of this continuing at all, because, like, I want to be free at some point. You know, like, please release me. But if, but if it does continue, then I guess, you know, as as hard to explain as it is that, like, suddenly there are all these smart, superpowered walkers, then I guess I'm intrigued by seeing where they take that, you know, just anything that's different or new or fresh, right? even if it's something ported over from other zombie properties, which actually I wanted to ask you, because I was talking about this with Miles Surrey, who wrote about Daryl Dixon for the ringer.com. What a great website. And I kind of blew his mind with this question that he hadn't considered, which is like, so we find out in episode five of Daryl Dixon, right, why he's in France to begin with. So there was this Walker hunt that was organized in Maine by the French scientists, the mad scientist, the representative. of this regime. And they're basically paying people in fuel to collect walkers. The fresher, the better. The fresher the better. And then we see they're like experimenting with, you know, on the ship back across to Europe, feeding some of them and starving others. And they have sort of a portable lab set up. Very amusing panning shot of a head in a jar at one point. Yeah. Why do they have to go to America to get these walkers?

to experiment on when it seems like France is full of walkers, like why do they have to go overseas and organize this whole complex expedition? What I'm trying to figure out like that sort of, I mean, that's the justification for this whole series. But when I was over, I was like, wait, what? Wait, why? Yeah, I have so. I have two answers.

Neither. I don't actually know the answer. I have two thoughts, I should say, not two answers. I don't have any answers, Ben. The one is what you just said, which is like, it's the vehicle for, this story and they had to have a reason for Daryl to come across these people and this is what it was. Okay, well, that's not very satisfying, even though there are versions of that and stories all the time. My guess is that because the glimpses of the experiments and the glimpses of the

conversations about the experiments that we do see really hinge on like the extent or lack thereof of the progress. Like, what have they been able to achieve, but also where of the limits been? Like, they keep kind of capping out. This isn't,

this isn't quite, the promise is not being fulfilled of what they're trying to do, right? And so I wonder if part of Dr. Lafleur's quest was, is that he needed to try, like,

was he at some point, like, well, maybe, maybe the French walkers actually can't give me what I need. Like, maybe I need to go to a different pocket of the world.

world and see if that's a better canvas for my work. Maybe he's been taking walkers from all over the globe, right? And like, experimenting in a different way to see if something about, maybe it connects to what we were saying about like mutations and variants. Like, is the, is the virus at a different stage or in a different circumstance in some pocket of the world that would allow him to unlock something about his experiment? And that's like the explanation for why he went. Yeah. That would be my guess. I think that's the best I could offer to because Angela Kang, who was the showrunner on The Walking Dead for many years and was originally supposed to be the showrunner on Daryl Dixon, ultimately was the executive producer. At some point when she was trying to explain, like, where have these walkers been all of these years? She said something like, it's almost like it was a variant that was just regional and not everyone has encountered this kind of Walker.

So, yeah, maybe the research was stalled and they had to go to the U.S., the good old U.S. of A, where we've got the smart walkers. Our walkers are better than your walkers. So, yeah, it's American exceptionalism. Maybe the doc just wanted to, like, cruise through Bar Harbor and needed an excuse to go to Maine at some point. Maine seems lovely. It seems, I've never been, but everyone I know who's ever been says, it's great. So it's I mean, between the accents and Daryl's growls and gruffness, I understood about 70% of the non-subtitled dialogue in this series. So it's entirely possible that someone was like, we went to the U.S. because we had to get this guy.

And I was like, oh, yeah, they said something that sounded French. I don't know. It's possible. It's definitely possible. Well, let's spend a minute here before we wrap on one of our American pals, Carol, and that Carol, final stretch of the show, the announcement for Carol being a part of season two that we got, that book of Carol reveal near Comic-Con.

What do you want to see on the Carol front, on the Darrell front, on the Isabel front? I assume you're rooting for Laurent to be consumed by all of the, somehow fall off the cliff at the beach and not make it back. I'm rooting for Laurent personally. What are you hoping to see, given where this is, series ends and what we know already based on the casting announcements, the subtitle, etc. About season two, what do you want to see in the next season of this series?

Love spinoffs that start with The Book of. It's never gone wrong for us before. Never. Yeah. I actually got like a little like I got like a shiver seeing the book of. Yeah. It's like is it Boba 2 time? Yep. So I'm in. No, I really am in on anything Darrell and Carol do any of their future projects. I will pay attention to. Yeah, just because I've been with them for so long. And there is, I think, a larger question of, like, what's the goal for this franchise? Like, what are they building towards something?

Like, is this a shared universe interconnected? Because there have been so many crossovers. Like, I mean, fear there could be a whole separate podcast on what's happened with that show. But, like, you know, most of the original cast left. And then there was a whole, like, just change in the creators and also the cast was just like suddenly season four. It's just an entirely different show, which I liked a lot for a while because they brought in these great actors. And, you know, I think that in the way that like you and Joanna feel about Timothy

Oliphon, which, you know, I share some of your feelings, if not the life size cardboard cut out in my room. But like, I think the way I feel about Garrett Dillahunt, he's kind of like my olefant. There's just, there's a lot of, Deadwood lineage in fear. And so he plays an incredible, like, cowboy kind of character called John Dory. And one of the best episodes of any Walking Dead show is in season four of fear. It's called Laura. And it's kind of this bottle episode starring John Dory. So I liked a lot of that. But, you know, there have been crossovers now from the Walking Dead into fear. I mentioned that only Darren Carroll survived from season one. But Lenny James's Morgan is still going

strong after all these years. He was not a continuous character, but he came back and he's been a constant presence. And so he's crossing back and forth, basically. And that's kind of building towards, like, so there's this, there's a larger adversary called the Civic Republic, right? Which is going to be probably a big part of the Rick and Michone show, which was originally remember supposed to be movies, like a trilogy of Rick movies. which sounds a bit ambitious. But it's been like four years since Rick was on the screen. I don't know if Andrew Lincoln's career has really, like, picked up in the interim,

but he's going back to Rick. And now, like, we have these larger adversaries set up. So in a way, it's like, is Daryl Dixon going to relate to any of this? Or is it not going to cross over? Because when he hears Carol say on the radio, he came back, right? And then the radio breaks up. It's like who is he, right? Well, what's the answer?

What's your guess? Is that, I mean, I guess Rick is the obvious one just because we're setting up another spinoff here. That was my assumption. But again, I was like, this could be 80 characters. I just don't know from the last couple seasons. It could be Morgan. It could be anyone else.

But at the end of Walking Dead, like, things are okay. Like, there's this civilization called the Commonwealth, which was again, like, well, it's too good to be true. I wonder what's going on here. And then our group manages to triumph and depose the leader of the Commonwealth. And Carol is like kind of the new leader of the Commonwealth. And everything's hunky-dory. And Darrell is like, I got to go because I got to find Rick. You know, I got to find Rick and Michone.

So he leaves dog. If you're wondering where Darrell's dog is in the show, I'm sure you were. He left dog in the capable hands of Judith, Rick's daughter. So he's being well taken care of. But Darrell had to go find his friend. family, so he just rides off and then we know what happened next. And now Carol, I guess, is following him because he went missing. And so is like this French conflict somehow going to factor into this? Because you now have like the big bad of the civic republic who they're kind of

the ones who kidnapped Rick, right? If you can remember back that far, it's this, you know, they have helicopters and they have bases and they have advanced technology and everything. It seems like things are going pretty well for them. And they're also featured in World Beyond and also in some seasons of fear. So they've been like laying the groundwork for this big Philadelphia centered civilization, the civic republic to be a big player. But then you also have like in Dead City. Classic Philly.

Yeah. Dead City, you have this new adversary antagonist that's set up like a woman called the Dama, who's like the big bad who wants to take over. New York. And so it's not clear, like, how all of this is going to connect or if it's going to connect. Like, it seems like there's a larger plan here that's building up to things. But it's tough because there, I feel like so few fans who've seen all of these things at this point that they have been following these threads. So I imagine that the Rick show will probably remind people where we've been and what is going on here. And then the question is like, will there be some climactic

confrontation between the civic republic. Yeah, right. And like where, yeah, just like, will there be some battle that will end this all or can it never end? What is ending? Yeah, right. What is ending it all mean? That's what I was going to ask.

The comic ended in 2019, right? So we're in uncharted territory here. And AMC at this point is like the Walking Dead network. I mean, you know, it's been a while since they've had a big. original breakout, like the glory days of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and Mad Men and everything else. You know, it's been a while and they've just doubled down and tripled down and like octopled down on the Walking Dead. And it's like diminishing returns in terms of audience, even though Daryl Dixon is the most popular show on AMC Plus or the most popular launch, whatever that means,

right? But, you know, it seems like they are just trying to get as much out of this as they can and Will Daryl Dixon be a springboard and a relaunch? And hey, everyone's like got Walking Dead Fever again here? Or will this be a blip in the long? Can Darrell be a burner? Can Darrell give us that burst? That speed we need. And then like, what do you want from season two?

Like, do you want him to stay in the beautiful scenery? I, yes, I do. But of course, that's an easy thing for me to say because I'm not, I don't have a, obviously, I have an attachment and a fondness. for Darrell and Carol, but knowing she's out there looking for him, that gives me like a little bit of, that allows me to let myself off the hook.

And I don't have the Commonwealth investment because I haven't watched those seasons. So that makes it easier for me, I think, to say, why would you want to leave the nest? Why would you want to leave? Isabel? Why would you want this? It's great here.

Look at all of these wheels of chees and loaves of bread. And it just seems, it just seems wonderful. Now, I assume you would like him to get, as far away from Laurent as possible, but I find their dynamic completely winning. I mean, maybe if he makes Laurent, if he sort of schools him, he will be more tolerable to me. You want him to turn him into a killing machine. Yeah, less of like a little Lord Faunt Roy, petite prince kind of figure.

Like, if he can take care of himself, maybe. But then, like, is he the Messiah? Like, is Laurent, like, is this the end game of the Walking Dead? Is that suddenly Laurent will save humanity? Okay, so that was my last question for you, is do you think that is where this is heading in terms of that overarching story? Like, is a cure and a true savior in the cards? Or is it the agony of believing that that could be so that awaits our new characters? Once again, we're plunged back into darkness. Yeah. So, and because like all of these antagonists are spread out around the world, like you've got Jenae in France and you've got the Dama in New York and you've got. the civil republic in Philly and like this group called Padre and fear. It's like there's not a lot of connective tissue there. And like maybe he turns out to be a false idol, right? False Messiah.

Like we, we had wishful thinking. We wanted him to be the one who would deliver us from this. But as it turns out, he's just a kid who's got great hair, but not much else. Right. So, you know, like, Darrell's got to go home at some point, even if Carol manages to cross the Atlantic as well. Like they've got to go back, you know, Rick and Michone,

presumably. So how does this all lead back? I really don't know. And I don't know that as long as people are watching these things and talking about these things. And if there is kind of a Darrell revival, then it's going to be the same issue with like, how do we string this along?

How do we keep making more walking dead? Because there's no end in sight. Maybe that'll give us more opportunities to podcast. I'm not sure how long we'll leave our Walking Dead episodes in the trunk like Carol did with that poor fucker. Hopefully we'll open up at some point and resume these discussions. Yeah. It's like I know that there's a lot of post-apocalypse fatigue among people. Like just as they're superhero fatigue, there is equally pronounced post-apocalyptic.

As you know, I love a post-apocalyptic story. Me too. And that's the thing. It's like the bar is a lot lower for me when it comes to a post-apocalyptic setting. It's just like catnip for me because it kind of artificially ramps up the stakes. It's like suddenly every moment is life or death because there are zombies or there's a plague or whatever it is. It's almost like a cheap way to add drama. But it works. It works every time. And I grew up, you know, like reading all these stories like, you know, canticle for Libowitz and Earth abides and the stand. And then. Station 11 and the road and all like I can't get enough of them at some point. And so the Walking Dead, I'm just in too deep. And as long as there are characters I recognize and the same sort of stakes, I'm probably, I'm going to be in. Like, I don't really believe in the concept of guilty pleasure TV because if a show brings you pleasure, what is there to feel guilty about? You know, you're not, you're not hurting everyone. Everyone's a consenting adult here. It's a victimless crime. Or if there is a victim, it's you for wasting your time on the show.

but when or if, if I reveal that I've watched almost every episode of every Walking Dead show, which like if I were still single and dating, I would have to decide, like, on what date do I confess? No, this is an important thing to tell somebody about yourself, I think. Yeah, I got to be up front about it, probably. And I hope that people have come to appreciate like my critical faculties and my discernment when it comes to other series that I've covered. And so it might cause them to question, this guy's still watching the Walking Dead. like, why should I take his word about anything if the bar is that low for him?

You know? Yeah. I mean, I do feel a twinge of guilt when I confide that I'm still watching The Walking Dead and not even that much pleasure. You shouldn't, man. I think this is a wonderful level of devotion and this is a great time to be you. You are on your victory tour right now. People are like, Walking Dead, should we talk about it?

And you're like, I've literally been waiting for you to ask me this for years. I'm here. Yep. I've been ready all this time. the world caught up to me finally. Ben, this was so fun. Yeah, it was. I'm glad that we got a half-decent

Walking Dead show to discuss. I know. I had a lot of fun watching Daryl Dixon. I had an absolute blast talking about it with you. Once again, we've spoiled an entire television show for our wonderful producer, Carlos Chiraboga, who was here with us today. Thank you, Carlos, as always, for not only producing this podcast,

but for suffering through 90-plus minutes of spoilers. Thank you as well to our Juner Ramcapaal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomea Denneron for his work on the social for this episode. And Ben, thank you for joining me today to talk about this. There's nobody I would rather spend the French Walker Apocalypse within you, buddy. I'm happy I could be here. I mean, I don't think Joanna would have been watching this one,

even if she had not been out bestselling a book. But I'm glad I could fill in and I look forward to her return. Likewise. Buy Joanna's book if you haven't yet. MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios, folks. It's a bestseller. Check it out. And then remember to pop back over here to the House of R on Monday for our Loki for our

Loki episode three deep dive. Joe will be back for that. And then next Friday for our House of Who, our next Doctor Who rewatch episode on Peter Kovaldi's 12th Doctor. Ringer versus Poppin. Loki episode three coverage up for you by the time you listen to this. From the Midnight Boys, Pugh, Poo! Poo! Jessica Clemens on Splash page.

You can watch that on the Ring of Our's feed. You can watch it on our YouTube channel. And then remember, if you're like, wow, what an absolute thrill to spend an hour and a half with Ben today? Guess what? You're going to hear from Ben a lot next week. Yeah, I've got to get back to gaming right now. Button mash of plenty coming your way, Spidey-Doo, Mario Wonder, etc., etc., etc.,

Ben, this was an absolute joy. Have fun with the Rubik's Cube. I'll see you next time. Arvoir, wow.