State Violence, Complex Grief and PTSD - Also We Talk About 'We Bury The Dead' | Zombie Book Club Ep 133

Zombie Book Club

Chapters
0:00
Cold Open, Calendar Gag, Setup
0:46
Why We Drove Two Hours
2:14
Casual Updates And Sub From Publix
5:18
Patreon Freetreon And Book Club Plans
8:17
Zone One Choice And Themes
11:20
Email Fossils And Past Selves
13:19
Veteran Shame And Moral Reckoning
17:28
Slave Catchers, ICE, And History
21:39
Detention, Kidnapping, And Camps
24:55
Protests, Troops, And Minneapolis
27:13
Coping, PTSD, And Freeze Mode
34:08
Roles In Movements And Past Episodes
38:06
Mutual Aid And Everyday Courage
40:15
Pivot To We Bury The Dead
42:36
Plot Setup And Teeth-Clack Zombies
46:10
Reviews: Love It Or Hate It
49:40
What Kind Of Zombies Are These
52:18
Corpses, Retrieval, And Visceral Work
54:37
Worldbuilding And Fire-Scorched Tasmania
57:55
Compassion, Humanity, And Hope
1:01:03
Complex Grief At The Story’s Core
1:05:17
Moral Dilemmas And Trope Inversions
1:08:12
Plot Holes, Riley, And Believability
Zombie Book Club
State Violence, Complex Grief and PTSD - Also We Talk About 'We Bury The Dead' | Zombie Book Club Ep 133
Jan 25, 2026 Season 4 Episode 133
Zombie Book Club

In this emotionally charged episode of Zombie Book Club, Dan and Leah unpack We Bury The Dead; a quiet, haunting zombie film that prioritizes grief, moral ambiguity, and empathy over action - and use it as a springboard to examine the real-world toll of trauma. We explore how the film’s focus on loss, PTSD, and complex grief resonates with collective experiences of institutional brutality, and why facing sorrow is an act of radical care in a world that often demands we numb ourselves.

A significant portion of our conversation expands into the present moment: the recent fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renée Nicole Good by an ICE agent during immigration enforcement in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, and the nationwide protests, public outcry, and political fallout that followed. We connect these events with PTSD, moral injury, and the psychological impacts of witnessing or surviving state violence, and we offer grounded ways to stay present, support community healing, and take meaningful action when systems (from law enforcement to immigration enforcement) fail those they claim to protect.


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