Sept. 2, 2025
Zombieland (2009) Breaking Old Habits that Hold You Back | Becoming your True Self
Summary In this episode, Aaron and Brash explore the film Zombieland, focusing on its themes of personal growth, trauma, and the importance of connection. They discuss how the characters navigate their fears and vulnerabilities, ultimately forming a found family in a post-apocalyptic world. The hosts reflect on the lessons learned from the characters' journeys and how they relate to real-life coping mechanisms. Theme Arc: Becoming your True Self Takeaways Breaking old habits is essential for ...
Summary
In this episode, Aaron and Brash explore the film Zombieland, focusing on its themes of personal growth, trauma, and the importance of connection. They discuss how the characters navigate their fears and vulnerabilities, ultimately forming a found family in a post-apocalyptic world. The hosts reflect on the lessons learned from the characters' journeys and how they relate to real-life coping mechanisms.
Theme Arc: Becoming your True Self
Takeaways
Breaking old habits is essential for personal growth.
Zombieland illustrates the importance of vulnerability.
Characters in Zombieland represent different coping mechanisms.
Humor can be a powerful tool for healing.
Found family is a recurring theme in post-apocalyptic narratives.
Trauma shapes character behavior and relationships.
Connection is vital in overcoming fear and isolation.
Bill Murray's cameo serves as a moment of respite.
The film balances comedy with emotional depth.
Personal growth often requires breaking free from rigid rules.
Chapters
00:00 Breaking Free from Old Habits
01:06 Overview of Zombieland
02:18 Character Dynamics and Growth
08:31 The Most Valuable Takeaway
09:03 Jesse Eisenberg's Performance
11:19 Columbus's Rules and Vulnerability
13:34 Trauma Responses in Characters
18:15 Tallahassee's Journey
23:15 Emotional Connections and Humor
27:55 Wichita's Character Development
33:23 The Quest for Normalcy
36:09 Character Growth and Vulnerability
39:51 Rebuilding Connections
44:58 Moments of Respite
49:28 Best Scenes and Quotes
Sound Bites
"You have to blow off some steam in Zombieland." - Columbus
"Who's Bill Murray?" - Little Rock
"That's the worst goodbye I've ever heard." - Columbus
Apple Tags
Zombieland, personal growth, trauma, vulnerability, found family, coping mechanisms, humor, Bill Murray, character development, emotional connection
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00:00 - Rules for Survival vs. Living Fully
08:59 - Introduction to Zombieland's Characters
16:25 - Trauma Responses in a Zombie World
23:33 - Tallahassee's Journey Through Grief
31:25 - Building Connection in Bill Murray's Mansion
37:59 - Found Family: Breaking Barriers Together
45:04 - Key Takeaways and Movie Rating
WEBVTT
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What if the rules you lived by, the ones that keep you safe, are the very things that are holding you back?
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Does the arm of the ones protected you now limit you to who you want to be?
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In this episode, you'll learn how Zombieland from 2009 reveals that sometimes, to become your true self, you need to break the habits that once kept.
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Fandoms and film can help us learn and grow.
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I'm Aaron, a teacher and a lifelong film fan, and each week on the podcast, we explore the stories we love to learn more about ourselves and the worlds that shape us.
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Today, as usual, I'm joined by Brash.
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Hello everyone, I am Brash, big time nerd, and today we are here to do Zombieland from 2009.
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We're focusing specifically with this movie on our multi-themed arc on becoming your true self, where we're diving into the stories that break us free from expectation, silence and smallness, and stepping into the people we were truly meant to be.
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Whether it's dealing with grief or fear, as some of the characters in Zombieland do, or it is showing us that coping strategies that we developed while surviving really aren't good for helping us in the long run in living, we're going to look at it all today.
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Brash, do you want to give us a brief rundown of this movie before we jump into big discussion.
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Okay so Zombieland is set in a post-apocalyptic America run by the undead.
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Four unlikely survivors come together in search of safety and belonging.
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Columbus, a cautious and neurotic lover loner sorry, no, a lover, he's a lover Survives by clinging to his self-made rules of survival, but secretly longs for connection.
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His path crosses with Tallahassee, a tough, brash drifter, masking grief and loneliness behind sarcasm and a relentless quest for Twinkies.
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Their uneasy partnership grows more complicated when they meet sisters Wichita and Little Rock, skilled con artists who trust no one but each other.
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Initially at odds, the group navigates portrayals, danger and their own fears while traveling across country.
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Over time, they begin to let down their defenses.
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By the end, these strangers form a found family, realizing that in a world of chaos, the only way to truly live is to stop running from each other and face the future together.
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That was beautiful.
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When I wrote that, I was like wow, I made this movie sound good.
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Oh, it was beautiful.
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When I wrote that, I was like wow, I made this movie sound good, very true, I think the other like.
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We'll go to our thoughts now of this movie, because I think for me it's not one that I would say is one of my favorites, that's for sure, I think.
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When I watched this initially back in 2009, I thought it was pretty cool.
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It's obviously something that was coming out a lot during that time with zombie movies, which we might get into a bit later but I thought the dialogue was clearly like it was definitely made to be marketed and quoted and that line nut up or shut up it's like that was meant to be on a poster.
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It didn't sound sort of authentic or anything like that For me.
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I think that the zombie rules though that's in this movie is probably what set it apart and that's kind of become part of zombie canon.
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It's become part of every zombie conversation that you have with people now, and there are obviously some found family elements in this that are very appealing, like you mentioned too.
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But what are your thoughts, brash, on this movie when you first watched it way back in the day?
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And spoiler alert to our amazing fans and listeners Brash doesn't like this one.
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No, when I first watched it I thought, oh yeah, fun movie, it's all right, but to be honest, it's probably one of my least favorite zombie movies, like look at any of the dawn of the deads or the 28 days later.
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28 weeks later, the new, 28 years later.
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That's fucking amazing.
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By the way and I just watched that recently even the resident evils I didn't like as much as I hated them because they didn't follow the games.
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They were still pretty decent.
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This one was yeah.
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This one was yeah.
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It was like a whole bunch of quips thrown into a like they run into like, except for the big horde at the end.
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They run into like one or two zombies here and there.
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Yeah, it's definitely a post-apocalyptic setting in that way.
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It's very sparse, and one of the notes that I have for my nitpicks later is that they don't really meet any other survivors.
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I think they do later in Zombieland at Double Tap, but it's just the four that sort of are the main characters here, where they have those found family kind of vibes, and, of course, the cameo from Bill Murray.
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They see Bill Murray, who is not a zombie.
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This one here is directed by Ruben Fleischer and it actually was on a budget of $23 million.
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It grossed $103 million, so it did make some money, but it came out in 2009, and, as we talked about before, there was a plethora of zombie movies that came out during that time.
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So there was obviously Shaun of the Dead in 2004, which is awesome, the better comedy zombie movie, absolutely.
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So this one, as well as shawn of the dead, mash up that comedy, uh, horror genre, which zombies movies do a lot of, because and there's also like warm bodies in 2013, which kind of did the wrong conversion of zombies, and then also there's um.
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Yeah, nicholas Holt is amazing, born to play a zombie.
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Really that guy yeah yeah, and then well yeah, brad Pitt's got his World War Z as well, which?
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and even that that, even that I didn't actually mind World War Z.
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I thought it was pretty good too.
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Yeah, like because it was a bit of a sort of different sort of take on on us, a little bit of this generalized zombie movie.
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They fall on like crawling up, like they used each other to get a lot smarter.
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Yeah, and I think that that movie was Brad Pitt's highest grossing movie until F1 sort of smashed it, so it's definitely a favorite of many, and that zombie sort of genre that we're talking about here was really popular, I think, post 9-11 and that recession era, because it gave everybody a way to cope with social anxieties and survival fears in a fun and sort of flexible way, and they blended it, as we said, with comedies and then action and romance, so it was almost like how they do Westerns or superhero movies.
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It was a phase where the zombie movie was the thing that you're going to go and romance.
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So it was almost like how they do Westerns or superhero movies.
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It was a phase where the zombie movie was the thing that you're going to go and watch.
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This one, however, zombieland is the third highest grossing zombie movie of all time, believe it or not.
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Do you know which one's the highest?
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Yes, I do, it's World War Z.
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Oh, okay, and the second one you might believe is Hotel Transylvania, which I don't know if it's a zombie movie, but it has a zombie in it, does it count?
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Tell us in the comments.
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Hotel Transylvania is like the first one.
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Who's the zombie?
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The guy dresses up as a zombie.
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He pretends to be a zombie to marry Mabel.
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It counts, it counts.
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I mean, I suppose, the director's undead, and so is the mummy it's time?
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I guess absolutely.
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If you disagree with that fandom portal community, feel free to comment.
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I wonder where 28 years is going to watch.
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I would say that's probably taken over it.
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I think I did these stats before that one.
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Yeah, sort of dropped into the streaming that was 20 years later is amazing and like there's, like now there's going to be a second one.
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Like 100%.
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Well, amazing and like there's.
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Like now there's going to be a second one.
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Well, yeah, I think they were talking about making that into a new trilogy.
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A trilogy, yeah, which I think is good, because they did go in a completely different direction from the usual two.
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I will confess, I've not seen any of them, so maybe they'll appear on the podcast in the future.
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We'll see how we go, they're really good.
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The reason we picked this one was because it does play off on those themes of breaking the old habits that do hold you back in our themed arc of becoming your true self.
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So in this movie we'll move into our most valuable takeaway.
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The most valuable takeaway we kind of got from this movie was that often, in order to protect ourselves in situations, we develop habits that then later on they often outlive their usefulness, and real growth begins when we can kind of recognize those patterns and find out that we do have the courage to break them, even if they sort of once kept us safe.
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So sometimes the strongest armor that we can have and the strongest armor that we wear is made from those habits, but then later on they used to hide our pain.
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So obviously we're talking about the character of Columbus played by Jesse Eisenberg here.
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He does develop a series of rules that he uses as a very habitual way to live his life.
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Now, before we get into that, I feel like Brash, you have some things to say about Jesse Eisenberg, so I'm going to give you the floor.
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How do you think he went in this movie?
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What do you think of him just generally as an actor?
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Spoiler alert fandom portals people, he has to be one of the worst actors I've ever had the pleasure of watching.
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The pleasure of watching, pleasure watching.
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Yeah, I kind of agree like he just plays the same character in every role.
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He does just some weedy, know-it-all smart-ass prick who is always jittering, always looks like he's on the gear and just creepy as always.
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Just like has that creepy stare that creepy stare.
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Yes, I absolutely agree.
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Yeah, I think the only thing that I reckon he did really well, or the only character I think he's played really well, was his character in the Social Network.
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Yeah, mark.
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Zuckerberg.
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Mark Zuckerberg, yeah, because Mark Zuckerberg's also a dude.
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Well, it's almost like he plays those characters, because I don't want to make assumptions about his personality because I don't know him, but he seems very good at playing the same type of character and in interviews that I've seen him in he is also showing those kinds of traits.
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So, yeah, in this one he starts off as a loner, as we said in our synopsis and description, and he does this thing that's called experiential avoidance, which is a psychological pattern of evading uncomfortable truths, feelings or memories, and he does that quite rigidly and he sort of sticks himself into these routines that keep him safe.
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But it blocks him from growth and limits his flexibility.
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So obviously some of these rules include beware of bathrooms in the apocalypse, which is kind of logical, I guess, and very survival orientated.
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But then it also goes down from as whimsical as that to something like rule 17 of don't be a hero, which obviously he ends up breaking in the long run.
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But the don't be a hero, which obviously he ends up breaking in the long run.
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But the don't be a hero and check the back seats and all those kinds of things really limit his ability to connect with other people in a world that's gone to hell, and also, as we said in our synopsis, he is a character that seems to yearn for that connection, and you can see that when he meets the character of Tallahassee on the bridge and I do kind of like that scene where he's scared and hiding behind the motorbike and eventually, from the shotgun, he just pulls out the thumb like the hitchhiker's thumb and then he's like, yeah, get in the car.
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But yeah, that was just a really great interaction between those two characters.
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And then as soon as he gets in the car, you know Woody Harrelson's Tallahassee's got.
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He's like you know, I'm sensing that, you know, you're a little bit of a bitch, so here's the rules that we're going to go by.
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Woody Harrelson saved this movie for me.
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Yeah, the only reason why it's like it's I reckon the only reason why it's funny is because of Woody Harrelson and everyone playing off of Woody Harrelson.
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Well, I saw in the director's commentary that the characters well, the actors that decided to come into this movie Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg they were drawn to the script because, apart from it just being like an action smash zombie movie, they felt that the characters and their interactions throughout actually showed that they were having a little bit of growth through that movie.
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Which is kind of what I wanted to talk about in this podcast, through this movie as well, was because they do start off as characters that have experienced a massive trauma in the form of the world going post-apocalyptic and they have both all of the characters the main four have kind of reacted to that post-apocalypse in a very different way, but there are also ways that has presented in people's lives, in the real world.
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So, as we talked about, columbus is very rigid to his routines and he's experiencing that experiential avoidance.
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Tallahassee does something that a lot of men do, I think, is when you experience the trauma and his one is definitely a very substantial trauma he gets very loud and violent and masks in ways that very showboaty you might say, for lack of a better word he's out there trying to do zombie kill of the week and he's very outwardly aggressive and he's firing guns everywhere.
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It's very like masculine in terms of his outward portrayal, as opposed to him showing any kind of vulnerability, which does come later.
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And then, uh, witcher tar and little rock both go through the same thing, where they've got that emotional detachment.
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Whenever you see them getting close to somebody, either rob them and steal their stuff or they take off and they go before they get close to anybody, which is probably the one that I kind of relate to the most, if I'm going to get a bit personal about it.
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But I do think that these characters do go through a particular journey through this movie and, although it's probably not the best one, it does exemplify that long-term suffering that sometimes people go through when they've gone through something hard and they've developed really bad habits that then end up over controlling who they are or stopping them from committing to anything in the future, which can be detrimental and can be very hard to work through as well.
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So I think that these characters do grow.
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Do you see that growth too brash?
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yeah, that's what I was watching, because I tried to make sure I focused on watching them sort of grow, but like, and as much as like they do show those parts and they do get better, like at the very end of the movie, like realistically, all the jesse eisenberg's character does at the end is just add a new rule which is like every now and then enjoy the little things enjoy the little things, that's.
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He just added a rule, so he's already long missed the rules.
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But he also breaks his rules.
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That's the big thing he does as well he does drive with a seatbelt once yeah, and he also becomes a hero.
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That's the big one that he sort of breaks in this one too, when he goes and obviously rescues the girls from the ride and leaves tallahassee basically to go to the theme park and follow them after they've left, at the very end of the movie.
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I mean, yeah, he's one that's like we have to go help them.
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Well, we have to go find them.
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I guess, realistically, they didn't know they were in trouble until they got there and saw zombies.
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And then we're like, oh shit, now we're talking about zombies.
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But realistically I reckon the person who's more heroic is Tallahassee, because he's the one that draws pretty much the almost the entire order of zombies to him.
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And then Jesse just has to fight off a couple and then that clown which is overcoming his own fear too because I fear clowns, but still, like he does, like.
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I don't think he to say that he broke his rule of not being like.
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I don't think he to say that he broke his rule of not being a hero.
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I don't think he did it Like something I would consider like overly heroic, not so much like putting himself in front of a zombie and becoming a zombie or dying on the flat.
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No, I think Taylor Hasse does a lot more than Jesse Eisenberg's character does.
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I would have liked maybe there would have been like another, like another rule that he had, but maybe if he was wearing long sleeves or something like that, a long sleeve shirt or something like that you find out that underneath he's got body armor on or something like that or some sort of padding.
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It could be like a rule where you protect the soft spots or something.
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Yeah, yeah, and he could have pushed which side of the way or something like that and gotten bitten on the arm and someone wanted him on a bitten arm and then when they looked he's got pain there to protect him.
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But he still took that shot for her or something like that, did something a bit overly grandiose, because the whole movie they've been going through killing zombies and at the end for him to be heroic and save the girls, he had to kill some zombies.
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Yeah Well, actually in the commentary for this as well, they tested this movie with test audiences and beforehand they didn't have many of the scenes in where the four main characters were sort of connecting on a personal level.
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And after they did the test screen or they did have them actually, but then the director wanted to remove a couple of the sequences that involved them actually, you know, talking together and building that connection and breaking down the barriers.
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But the audience actually really responded well to the fact that they were becoming closer as a, as a sort of found family that'll make the ending weird too.
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Well, yeah, it would have changed a lot of what sort of happened toward the end and them actually coming back to save the girls as well.
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But with tallahassee, when he actually went and drew those zombies away and shut himself in that box and did that scene, which was very cowboy, like beforehand, he was actually going through and you know, seeking out those zombies and destroying them and very aggressive and sort of what's the word I'm looking for here like macho kind of way, in this sort of anger, workaholic, almost like he had to go out and do it because he didn't want to sit for a moment and reflect on what he'd lost.
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The tracking down of the Twinkie as well can be sort of mirrored in the reflection of him trying to find a sense of normalcy.
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That happened to him before the zombie apocalypse, when his son was with him.
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Gives himself like a motivation or something to keep going forward instead of just giving up.
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Exactly Just like a tangible one.
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But that moment that he drew the zombies away from Columbus, I think it's a bit subtle.
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And in the director's commentary Jesse Eisenberg also says you know, this was the scene when he went and saw the car in the river and Tallahassee drew the zombies away.
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He thought that that scene, jesse Eisenberg thought that scene, wasn't very strong enough to portray the message that Tallahassee was actually performing an element of self-sacrifice there, where he was drawing those zombies away so Jesse could go and save the girls.
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Because in that moment he wasn't actually doing it out of bravado, he was doing it out of sacrifice, and I think that that can get missed.
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It sacrifice, and I think that that can get missed.
00:17:26.884 --> 00:17:40.573
It's not as strong as it should be, but that's a big moment for that character too, because for the first time in forever he'd opened up about the fact that he lost a son before and saying that it was a dog, but then now he's willing to also put it all on the line for these other people that he had brought into the fold as well.
00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:48.692
And one of my favorite moments of the movie between Tallahassee was when he did tell them about his son Buck and how he lost him to the zombies.
00:17:48.692 --> 00:17:54.351
The very next scene after that was him starting to build more of a connection with Little Rock when he was teaching him to shoot.
00:17:54.351 --> 00:17:58.290
That was probably one of the better scenes, and that's just almost really subtle as well.
00:17:58.290 --> 00:18:07.952
It's not like an intimate emotional where they're bonding as father and surrogate daughter, it's just literally a routine or a thing that they're doing together.
00:18:07.952 --> 00:18:17.323
But then there's that slight callback at the end where she learns to exhale and calm herself down and she uses what Tallahassee teaches her to save their lives.
00:18:17.323 --> 00:18:29.866
So there is those small nods of connection which does sort of draw it back to me to the fact that these guys are growing throughout this movie and breaking some of the habits that they had previously had in a very sort of subtle way.
00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:32.181
Actually I was just thinking about it too Honestly.
00:18:32.181 --> 00:18:45.769
You can take Jesse Eisenberg out of this movie and it'll still be probably a better movie if it was just the girls and Woody Harrelson, because he instinct instinct sort of could have kicked in.
00:18:45.769 --> 00:18:48.374
That's why he softened up to let them come with him and then they robbed him.
00:18:48.374 --> 00:19:01.761
So he gets angry, goes back and finds them and then finds them in trouble and helps them out again and they're like look, we can just help each other and then I honestly think he's included in the movie as well for the purposes of Wichita's character.
00:19:01.781 --> 00:19:06.772
Wichita's yeah, when they cast that character it wasn't initially going to be Emma Stone.
00:19:06.819 --> 00:19:44.910
She was actually cast as 406, which was the role that went to Amber Heard in this movie, and because she was so impressive, they were just like, okay, we'll put her in as Wichita instead, because she just blew the guys away and for her and her growth, she obviously had that avoidance through any kind of connection and survival instinct and she ended up opening herself up to Jesse Eisenberg's character and the thing that they said was that his character of Columbus was a hard sell for audiences because they had to believe that he was so nerdy that he would isolate himself to the point of being that reclusive and having these rules and habits that are so regimented.
00:19:45.342 --> 00:19:50.346
But he also had to be smart enough to survive a zombie apocalypse, which he does state he's an unlikely survivor.
00:19:50.346 --> 00:19:56.788
But he also had to be cool enough to be able to charismatically become a character like Emma Stone's Wichita yeah.
00:19:56.788 --> 00:20:00.727
So that was like a big grasp for the audience to sort of get.
00:20:00.727 --> 00:20:08.167
But I think his character definitely played a part in her growth, where she started to become more connected and less distracted.
00:20:08.299 --> 00:20:10.645
Yeah, Do you know who would have been a great Columbus?
00:20:10.645 --> 00:20:11.372
Nicholas Holt?
00:20:11.372 --> 00:20:12.220
See, that would have been good too.
00:20:12.220 --> 00:20:13.663
That would have been good.
00:20:13.663 --> 00:20:17.445
I would have enjoyed that, because I can see him being the dirty guy.
00:20:17.445 --> 00:20:21.627
He's also fairly good looking, or really good looking.
00:20:21.627 --> 00:20:23.287
I reckon he could have pulled it off.
00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:24.542
I think so too.
00:20:24.542 --> 00:20:51.547
No-transcript system trying to do its job and protect the child.
00:20:51.547 --> 00:21:01.428
So when they have to adapt to stress that they can't control, they create coping mechanisms, which is what a lot of these characters have done, and they can persist into adulthood too.
00:21:01.428 --> 00:21:06.693
So, for example, we have Tallahassee, who's mirroring violence through aggression and defiance.
00:21:06.693 --> 00:21:32.582
We have, you know, class clown behavior as well, which sometimes happens in classrooms and schools after a student's gone through any kind of trauma, like they're that distracting behavior which is like the twinkie, the distraction of the twinkie just like I'm hiding trauma behind comedy and yep as well yep, never connecting with anyone, always holding them at a sort of face value because you're, you're the, you're the person that makes everybody laugh, instead of them actually seeing who you really are.
00:21:32.761 --> 00:21:43.692
There's that emotional withdrawal and avoidance which Wichita and Little Rock does, so they don't want to get hurt by anybody, so they don't make any connections or any friends in the schoolyard or with any adults or teachers or anything like that.
00:21:43.692 --> 00:21:46.799
And then there's also like a rigid strictness to habits and routines.
00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:52.988
So if anything changes in a classroom, you can see some eruptions in behavioral episodes that happen from that as well.
00:21:52.988 --> 00:21:55.230
The classroom you can see some eruptions in behavioral episodes that happen from that as well.
00:21:55.230 --> 00:22:04.382
And what they do in this movie is they build a little bit of emotional literacy and they create a really safe environment between each other where everything's predictable towards the end.
00:22:04.382 --> 00:22:11.064
They have some consistent routines through driving with each other, staying up and keeping watch, all that kind of stuff.
00:22:11.284 --> 00:22:26.105
But they also prioritize connecting with one another, as they have that moment of downtime in Bill Murray's mansion and they also build that emotional literacy through being able to talk to each other about the things that they've gone through as well.
00:22:26.105 --> 00:22:36.432
I mean there's a moment between Columbus and Wichita where they get very close about some of the things that have happened in their past and some of the rejection that they've felt from members of the opposite sex before as well.
00:22:36.432 --> 00:22:40.852
And then obviously the big drop of Tallahassee and his son occurs.
00:22:40.852 --> 00:22:53.574
And then the thing that kind of annoyed me about this movie, but also I kind of liked, was the fact that they'd give a deep drop like that and then Tallahassee would sort of say something like I haven't cried this much since Titanic and then wipe his eyes with $100 bills.
00:22:53.574 --> 00:22:58.092
So it balances that traumatic discussion with comedy as well.
00:23:00.063 --> 00:23:09.587
Yeah, it makes it so you can feel the surging issues, but then in a lighter mood, so it doesn't put you just in a downer mood.
00:23:10.200 --> 00:23:12.409
Yeah, it takes the emotional weight off you basically.
00:23:12.409 --> 00:23:17.288
So it's like here's the part you need to connect with these characters and to show that they're kind of growing and getting closer.
00:23:17.339 --> 00:23:20.266
But then also here's the laugh as well, but let's not get down about it.
00:23:20.887 --> 00:23:23.326
Yeah, exactly, let's not linger on that for too long.
00:23:23.326 --> 00:23:39.848
Yeah, I thought that one of the best parts of this movie was any of the time that they were road tripping, basically when they were sitting in the cars and driving, and then it was the smash cuts of them just moving seats, obviously showing the passage of time, and they were just sort of connecting as people.
00:23:39.848 --> 00:23:46.529
And Abigail Breslin I think her name is the one that plays Little Rock just started talking to Woody Harrelson about Hannah Montana.
00:23:46.529 --> 00:23:57.289
Apparently that was completely a genuine conversation as well and they were just sort of connecting in that space, but it worked for those two characters as well sweet, she's that character and that she's two.
00:23:57.309 --> 00:23:57.770
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:57.790 --> 00:24:19.451
So any sort of interaction with woody harrison and any other cast is probably like my favorite interaction, like it's just always genuinely funny and just yeah, I think he's his timing and comedic sort of presence is really good for the movie too, but he also has the range to go into spaces that are pretty emotional as well.
00:24:19.451 --> 00:24:29.127
So with him he's obviously he said let's talk about tahasi in a couple of his scenes because he he kind of serves as that group's muscle, he's, he's the comic relief.
00:24:29.127 --> 00:24:36.032
But he's also ravaged by the loss of his young son and he talks about you, the dog that he lost at first.
00:24:36.032 --> 00:24:49.592
So he wants you can see that it's all sort of on the edge, like he wants to feel that connection, he wants to tell people about it and I'm not sure if Columbus sort of acts as like a best friend or a younger brother towards him, but he kind of fills the role of like a confidant, I guess.
00:24:49.592 --> 00:24:54.211
Yeah, it's kind of hard to pick what that sort of, or friends.
00:24:54.211 --> 00:24:56.688
Basically they just seem like very two unlikely friends.
00:24:56.859 --> 00:24:59.508
Yeah, because I think that's what I would have liked a bit more.
00:24:59.508 --> 00:25:25.429
Because it seems like Little Rock became sort of like a daughter and he sort of like sent some sort of father figure to her and then even with Wichita was like some sort of um, like, maybe like uncle or even like brother sort of sort of vibe between those two and then with but with for columbus it was hard to pick whether it was like.
00:25:25.429 --> 00:25:36.035
Yeah, it was hard to pick whether he was like sort of like a father figure, or if he was sort of like a brother figure, or if he was just a friend or like the weird crazy uncle.
00:25:37.060 --> 00:25:38.507
Yeah, he definitely gave those vibes.
00:25:39.941 --> 00:25:42.942
It's sort of like he gave them all in one, yeah, yeah, like.
00:25:42.942 --> 00:25:45.279
At times he was sort of like acting like the father figure.
00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:52.105
And then there's other times where it was more like a brother, where he'd like make snide comments and make fun of him and shit like that, like a brother would.
00:25:52.105 --> 00:25:57.647
And then there's other times where he's like more of a friend, where he like he was just there to help him out.
00:25:57.920 --> 00:25:59.144
It was an undefined, wasn't it?
00:25:59.144 --> 00:26:13.301
Yeah, yeah, because they talk about like girls and things like that, but then it's not like trying to fill all the roles, yeah, and he'd protect his emotional vulnerabilities as well, because you know vulnerabilities as well.
00:26:13.301 --> 00:26:19.086
Because when Columbus was actually going back to Columbus and Wichita was saying like there's nothing there, tallahassee sort of like tapped her on the shoulder and gave her that look like, come on, what are you doing?
00:26:19.086 --> 00:26:20.990
You're going to actually break his heart here.
00:26:20.990 --> 00:26:32.169
And then they both kind of it almost seemed like Wichita and Tallahassee were emotionally as mature as each other and they were kind of holding the other two together in that space as well.
00:26:32.169 --> 00:26:57.873
And I think that that was part of that connection and that growing connection was a really big moment for them to start to build trust and then break down those barriers and ends up with Tallahassee's first unintentional step towards being vulnerable at least was when he was talking about the dog that he lost with Columbus and then eventually it slips, it slips later that he reveals that it was his son.
00:26:57.873 --> 00:27:11.749
So, yeah, I think that that and the Pacific Playland shootout scene was very big for Tallahassee because he was fighting earlier to just let off steam, basically, and that became one of Columbus's rules as well.
00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:19.469
Sometimes in Zombieland you've got to let off steam and you see him like shooting bullets into the sky or driving massive hummers around and painting big threes on the cars that he finds and things like that.
00:27:20.030 --> 00:27:21.885
But then eventually he ends up fighting to protect.
00:27:22.047 --> 00:27:48.698
And it's because, especially for little rock as well, because he he's protective of that sort of relationship that he has, and in the end Little Rock also reciprocates that by throwing him the Twinkie that he'd been looking for so much and that to me was kind of symbolic of how he was always looking for that Twinkie to get that sense of normalcy again and that sense of what things were like before, whether it was like trying to relive something from the past.
00:27:48.738 --> 00:27:51.586
But he then sort of received something from someone that he cares about.
00:27:51.586 --> 00:27:57.384
After he thought he lost her again as well because she was driving away, and it kind of fulfills that like emotional need that it was.
00:27:57.384 --> 00:28:17.586
It always represented a little bit more for him, like the twinkie represented connection and and memory and sort of family and he got that from her as well, but for her as well it was good for him to get it from her, because she was then sort of thinking about somebody else, yeah, and besides her sister, exactly besides her sister.
00:28:17.586 --> 00:28:28.884
Yeah, perfect, because, yeah, it was just a very nebulous relationship between those two before as well yeah, it was only like she, she was only trusted her sister like didn't trust anyone else.
00:28:29.144 --> 00:28:36.384
And yeah, and now is able to sort of trust and you know, talk, go off with talasi and talk to him and do their own thing.
00:28:36.384 --> 00:28:46.442
Or go to the movies and watch a movie um columbus without her sister there and stuff like that and you know watch, watch columbus fucking shoot bill murray and kill a legend.
00:28:46.784 --> 00:29:06.903
Another reason why hsd eisenberg kills bill murray jesus absolutely you know, side note as well, when Woody Harrelson was in the scenes with Bill Murray like they're obviously very close friends but apparently in the commentary he was saying that he didn't really have to act in the scene where he was like geeking out over Bill Murray, because that's all the things that he feels about him anyway, because he's such a legend in the space.
00:29:06.903 --> 00:29:11.190
So it was one take and he said everything that he wanted to say.
00:29:11.730 --> 00:29:13.133
Just got everything off his chest.
00:29:13.733 --> 00:29:14.835
Yeah, absolutely.
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