Information
character name: Tallahassee (real name unknown)
Fandom: Zombieland
Timeline: Post-end of the movie
character's age: 40-ish
powers, skills, pets and equipment: Guns. Lots of guns. Tallahassee comes equipped with several, and for good reason -- how else are you supposed to protect yourself in a post-apocalyptic abandoned world where you and the zombies are the only things left? He's also got half a pack of gum, ammunition, a 40-ounce bottle of whiskey, and a wallet made of duct-tape in his back pocket.
canon history: When we first meet Tallahassee, he's driving a Cadillac Escalade (plow included), drunk, through an abandoned multi-lane highway full of car wrecks. He meets a terrified Columbus, who is pointing a double-barrel shotgun at him and shivering from behind a parked motorcycle. Tallahassee removes his sunglasses and draws his pistol, and they have a staredown, Columbus finally losing when he sticks his thumb out, asking to hitchhike.
They settle into the Escalade, where they establish where they're both going and Tallahassee offers a drink. They agree that they'll travel together, using place names instead of real names to, as Columbus puts it, 'travel light' and keep relationships to shallow ones.
Tallahassee stops along the highway when he notices a Hostess truck. He claims he could use a Twinkie and starts down the hill, with Columbus hanging back to 'limber up'. When they reach the bottom, however, the truck is full of Sno Balls, which enrages Tallahassee, who wants to know "where's the fucking Twinkies". He adds that he hates coconut; "it's not the taste, but the consistency."
Columbus goes on a bit of a reverie then, and when we return to the Escalade, he and Tallahassee are stuck in the highway, having to move a wrecked car from the path. Tallahassee pushes while Columbus steers, and they move it to the side while discussing the possibility of a place untouched by the zombie plague. Tallahassee says it's like penguins on the North Pole shown a picture of the South Pole, because "it's real nice this time of year". Columbus points out that penguins don't live on the North Pole, and Tallahassee asks him if he'd like to feel how hard he can punch.
We next see them driving down the road, discussing sex. Tallahassee wants to know the last time Columbus has done so -- leaving nerdy virgin Columbus to come up with a lie to do with "an abandoned FedEx truck" and a girl named "Beverly Hills". Columbus asks the same question of Tallahassee, but before the elder man can answer, they've come across a zombie woman who is eagerly devouring a dead man's corpse. Columbus seems to feel sympathetic, commenting how "if you could only go back". Tallahassee responds by speeding up and hitting the zombie and her 'manwich' with the drivers' side door of the Cadillac.
Blaine's Grocery is their next destination. Tallahassee pulls out a plethora of weapons, including a garden hoe, a pickaxe, a baseball bat, garden shears and a banjo, and they enter the store in search of Twinkies. The only thing they find is zombies, and on a slightly less macabre note, a pair of sisters.
Wichita and Little Rock have barricaded themselves in the produce room of the grocery store. Little Rock, the younger sister, has received a zombie bite, and it is only a matter of time before the infection will take hold. Little Rock accuses Columbus of being 'gutless', and tells him to give Tallahassee the gun. He levels it at the little girl's head, looking troubled, but Wichita stops him -- she'll do it.
She holds the gun evenly, eyes welling up. Tallahassee asks if she'd like some help, and then -- "We'll take your weapons, your car keys, your ammunition..." They've been swindled, and the sisters leave with their car and all their stuff.
Tallahassee and Columbus have walked all the way to the center of a town, and they're discussing zombie kills. They discover a good-looking van, which Tallahassee promptly destroys, calling the girls "stupid little bitches" and declaring that he "wants his Caddy back", all the while standing on the roof and beating on the windows with his baseball bat.
As they walk through the suburbs, they discover another van, this one bright yellow with a pair of rigor-mortis hands glued to the steering wheel. He tries the ignition while Columbus exercises Rule Number 31 -- check the backseat. They discover a sack full of guns together, and Tallahassee expresses his joy by wasting a clip of automatic ammunition. Columbus sits in the van boredly as Tallahassee rejoices, painting his trademark 3 on either side of the van before driving excitedly off.
Columbus suggests they should forget about the girls and head home. Tallahassee, however, says that home for him was a puppy named Buck. "Cutest dog ever." He says the zombies killed the dog, and since there's no getting him back, he's looking for a new home.
"Knowin' them, it's a trap." They've discovered the Escalade, parked with more paint scrawled on the side -- the 3 that was once there is now the backwards 'E' in H3LP. Tallahassee examines the Cadillac, then signals Columbus to drive down -- it looks like the girls have left. Then, "They're in the back, aren't they?" and Little Rock pops out of the backseat, demanding Tallahassee's gun. When he refuses, she fires a shot out the window, scaring Tallahassee enough to beg her not to kill him with his own gun. Wichita steps out from behind a rolled bale of hay, gun pointed at the two men. The girls take the men hostage, and Tallahassee sits with Little Rock in the back, while Wichita and Columbus get some quality time up front, Columbus riding shotgun.
Tallahassee pulls his gun on Little Rock, and Wichita stops the van abruptly, all three pointing guns at each other. Columbus freaks out, demanding to know why they can't just play I-Spy for the drive like "four normal-ass Americans". When asked where they're going, Little Rock says they're headed to Pacific Playland, and Tallahassee kind of chuckles, saying how "that place totally blows".
In the middle of the night, the group reach a Native American souvenir shop. Tallahassee jangles the bell over the open door, and a zombie comes tearing out from behind some stock, Tallahassee waiting patiently behind the door for it to run out so he can shoot it in the head.
Inside, Columbus is smelling perfumes, and Tallahassee teases him for it, then realizes Columbus has a huge crush on Wichita. He reminds Columbus that she's "spent the last 24 hours fuckin' us both", laughing and moving to walk away. When Columbus sprays him with perfume, Tallahassee throws an ornament at him, which breaks with a satisfying sort of shattering. The group promptly discover that Tallahassee's "destroy things to relieve stress" approach really works, and the group spend some time just destroying everything in the shop.
The group continues on, Tallahassee and Little Rock sleeping for a little while, then arguing over such celebrities such as Willie Nelson and Hannah Montana. Little Rock has never heard of Willie Nelson, to Tallahassee's chagrin, while at the same time he doesn't understand the difference between Hannah and Miley.
By noon the next morning, they've reached Hollywood, and Tallahassee suggests that since they're there, they might as well sleep in style. He knows exactly where to go, though, and pulls into Bill Murray's driveway.
Again, Little Rock doesn't know who Bill Murray is. "You know, I've never hit a kid before. That's like asking who Gandhi is." Little Rock then wants to know who Gandhi is, and Wichita answers Tallahassee's incredulous gaze by reminding him that she's twelve. They search the cupboards, finding no Twinkies. Columbus suggests they check out the house, just in case, and so Tallahassee and Wichita go in one direction, while Columbus and Little Rock go in the other. They go into the bedroom, where Wichita claims the master bed as Tallahassee flops all over it.
The Ghostbusters theme wafts from the home theatre, while the group entertains themselves with menial activities like playing indoor golf and dancing about the house. Then, a zombified Bill Murray shambles out of the next room. Wichita hits him with her golf club, revealing that he is, in fact, human. Tallahassee then reveals his love for the actor, gushing that he loves all his movies, even the dramatic roles.
When Bill decides he wants to scare Columbus, though, Columbus panics and shoots him. They mourn him, Tallahassee kneeling by the comedian as he says his final words and takes his last breath.
Once Bill Murray's funeral is done, in the evening, they play board games, and Tallahassee says the worst thing about Zombieland is losing Buck. He says that the day Buck was born, he lost his mind, and that he'd never loved anything as much as him. "He had my personality, my laugh, my appetite" -- and then narrator Columbus realizes that Buck isn't a dog at all, but a little boy. Tallahassee then ruins his own angsty moment by adding that he's never cried like that since Titanic.
Next scene, we find him in the entranceway, shooting dishes. He teaches Little Rock how to shoot without missing, by exhaling slowly and squeezing the trigger. He goes upstairs to find Columbus and Wichita, who are about to kiss, and promptly, again, ruins the moment, asking for help moving the couch because he and Little Rock are making a fort.
The morning finds Columbus and Tallahassee waking up in the morning to find Wichita and Little Rock leaving with the van, again. The girls are headed to Pacific Playland, leaving the men behind. Columbus begins packing things up in the evening, while Tallahassee talks about how he doesn't let people close because 'you only get burned'. He then rolls straight into a talk about how they call Twinkies 'los Submarinos' in Mexico, and that that's where he's headed now.
Columbus announces he's going after Wichita, and tells Tallahassee to have fun in Mexico. Tallahassee pauses as Columbus mounts a motorcycle in the garage. He's not good at goodbyes, he says, so "That'll do, pig." Columbus adds bitingly that Wichita and Little Rock's pictures were once in someone's wallet too, and drives straight into the bushes. Tallahassee pulls a van up beside him, telling him to get in so they can go 'ride the rollercoaster'.
Tallahassee and Columbus arrive at Pacific Playland a little later, and Tallahassee appraises the situation, suggesting that Wichita and Little Rock may actually need their help this time. Tallahassee admits that his mother used to tell him that someday he'd be good at something. "Who'd've guessed that that somethin'd be zombie-killin'."
The girls get their attention from atop a drop tower ride, and Tallahassee lures the pack of zombies away from under them, using the rides and various game booths as ways to defeat the creatures. He then locks himself inside a shooting range booth while Columbus goes to save the sisters. Tallahassee destroys the remaining zombies as Columbus and Wichita finally share their first kiss.
Tallahassee, the danger finally over, takes five to hunt for Twinkies in a snack bar. The sign says 'deep fried twinkies', but nothing of the sort exists -- until they shoot the door of the storage room, and the box of Twinkies inside is destroyed. Columbus asks whether he can just sort of "pick the buckshot out", but before Tallahassee can answer, they are alerted to the sound of the van they arrived in driving away. Panicking, the men run outside, but Wichita and Little Rock have stopped to get them -- and Little Rock has something for Tallahassee.
She tosses him a Twinkie, which he savours eagerly, and the pair get into the van, leaving Pacific Playland together with the sisters.
personality: Tallahassee is the token badass of the movie. He has no fears, no hangups, and doesn't hesitate. He's inventive, as shown by his willingness to use even musical instruments as weapons. Tallahassee's a bit of a pottymouth, with most sentences carrying some sort of curse word within them. He's a stereotypical Texan -- he loves country music, has a strong accent, and wears a Stetson hat. His favorite phrase is 'nut up or shut up', and he isn't afraid to tell people (mostly Columbus) that they're bitches.
He's got a bit of a sick sense of humor -- for instance, Tallahassee does not see anything sympathetic about zombies. They killed his son, he hates them -- it adds up to him enjoying watching them suffer. He invents new ways to destroy them whenever he can, using whatever he can.
Tallahassee also has a soft side, though. He isn't afraid to break down and cry in some circumstances, especially when involving his son, and he's got a soft spot for younger kids because of it, becoming fast (if a little argumentative) friends with Little Rock. Of course, he also has his Twinkie obsession -- Tallahassee will almost certainly go to the ends of the earth for the little treats. "Believe it or not, Twinkies do have an expiration date."
Fandom: Zombieland
Timeline: Post-end of the movie
character's age: 40-ish
powers, skills, pets and equipment: Guns. Lots of guns. Tallahassee comes equipped with several, and for good reason -- how else are you supposed to protect yourself in a post-apocalyptic abandoned world where you and the zombies are the only things left? He's also got half a pack of gum, ammunition, a 40-ounce bottle of whiskey, and a wallet made of duct-tape in his back pocket.
canon history: When we first meet Tallahassee, he's driving a Cadillac Escalade (plow included), drunk, through an abandoned multi-lane highway full of car wrecks. He meets a terrified Columbus, who is pointing a double-barrel shotgun at him and shivering from behind a parked motorcycle. Tallahassee removes his sunglasses and draws his pistol, and they have a staredown, Columbus finally losing when he sticks his thumb out, asking to hitchhike.
They settle into the Escalade, where they establish where they're both going and Tallahassee offers a drink. They agree that they'll travel together, using place names instead of real names to, as Columbus puts it, 'travel light' and keep relationships to shallow ones.
Tallahassee stops along the highway when he notices a Hostess truck. He claims he could use a Twinkie and starts down the hill, with Columbus hanging back to 'limber up'. When they reach the bottom, however, the truck is full of Sno Balls, which enrages Tallahassee, who wants to know "where's the fucking Twinkies". He adds that he hates coconut; "it's not the taste, but the consistency."
Columbus goes on a bit of a reverie then, and when we return to the Escalade, he and Tallahassee are stuck in the highway, having to move a wrecked car from the path. Tallahassee pushes while Columbus steers, and they move it to the side while discussing the possibility of a place untouched by the zombie plague. Tallahassee says it's like penguins on the North Pole shown a picture of the South Pole, because "it's real nice this time of year". Columbus points out that penguins don't live on the North Pole, and Tallahassee asks him if he'd like to feel how hard he can punch.
We next see them driving down the road, discussing sex. Tallahassee wants to know the last time Columbus has done so -- leaving nerdy virgin Columbus to come up with a lie to do with "an abandoned FedEx truck" and a girl named "Beverly Hills". Columbus asks the same question of Tallahassee, but before the elder man can answer, they've come across a zombie woman who is eagerly devouring a dead man's corpse. Columbus seems to feel sympathetic, commenting how "if you could only go back". Tallahassee responds by speeding up and hitting the zombie and her 'manwich' with the drivers' side door of the Cadillac.
Blaine's Grocery is their next destination. Tallahassee pulls out a plethora of weapons, including a garden hoe, a pickaxe, a baseball bat, garden shears and a banjo, and they enter the store in search of Twinkies. The only thing they find is zombies, and on a slightly less macabre note, a pair of sisters.
Wichita and Little Rock have barricaded themselves in the produce room of the grocery store. Little Rock, the younger sister, has received a zombie bite, and it is only a matter of time before the infection will take hold. Little Rock accuses Columbus of being 'gutless', and tells him to give Tallahassee the gun. He levels it at the little girl's head, looking troubled, but Wichita stops him -- she'll do it.
She holds the gun evenly, eyes welling up. Tallahassee asks if she'd like some help, and then -- "We'll take your weapons, your car keys, your ammunition..." They've been swindled, and the sisters leave with their car and all their stuff.
Tallahassee and Columbus have walked all the way to the center of a town, and they're discussing zombie kills. They discover a good-looking van, which Tallahassee promptly destroys, calling the girls "stupid little bitches" and declaring that he "wants his Caddy back", all the while standing on the roof and beating on the windows with his baseball bat.
As they walk through the suburbs, they discover another van, this one bright yellow with a pair of rigor-mortis hands glued to the steering wheel. He tries the ignition while Columbus exercises Rule Number 31 -- check the backseat. They discover a sack full of guns together, and Tallahassee expresses his joy by wasting a clip of automatic ammunition. Columbus sits in the van boredly as Tallahassee rejoices, painting his trademark 3 on either side of the van before driving excitedly off.
Columbus suggests they should forget about the girls and head home. Tallahassee, however, says that home for him was a puppy named Buck. "Cutest dog ever." He says the zombies killed the dog, and since there's no getting him back, he's looking for a new home.
"Knowin' them, it's a trap." They've discovered the Escalade, parked with more paint scrawled on the side -- the 3 that was once there is now the backwards 'E' in H3LP. Tallahassee examines the Cadillac, then signals Columbus to drive down -- it looks like the girls have left. Then, "They're in the back, aren't they?" and Little Rock pops out of the backseat, demanding Tallahassee's gun. When he refuses, she fires a shot out the window, scaring Tallahassee enough to beg her not to kill him with his own gun. Wichita steps out from behind a rolled bale of hay, gun pointed at the two men. The girls take the men hostage, and Tallahassee sits with Little Rock in the back, while Wichita and Columbus get some quality time up front, Columbus riding shotgun.
Tallahassee pulls his gun on Little Rock, and Wichita stops the van abruptly, all three pointing guns at each other. Columbus freaks out, demanding to know why they can't just play I-Spy for the drive like "four normal-ass Americans". When asked where they're going, Little Rock says they're headed to Pacific Playland, and Tallahassee kind of chuckles, saying how "that place totally blows".
In the middle of the night, the group reach a Native American souvenir shop. Tallahassee jangles the bell over the open door, and a zombie comes tearing out from behind some stock, Tallahassee waiting patiently behind the door for it to run out so he can shoot it in the head.
Inside, Columbus is smelling perfumes, and Tallahassee teases him for it, then realizes Columbus has a huge crush on Wichita. He reminds Columbus that she's "spent the last 24 hours fuckin' us both", laughing and moving to walk away. When Columbus sprays him with perfume, Tallahassee throws an ornament at him, which breaks with a satisfying sort of shattering. The group promptly discover that Tallahassee's "destroy things to relieve stress" approach really works, and the group spend some time just destroying everything in the shop.
The group continues on, Tallahassee and Little Rock sleeping for a little while, then arguing over such celebrities such as Willie Nelson and Hannah Montana. Little Rock has never heard of Willie Nelson, to Tallahassee's chagrin, while at the same time he doesn't understand the difference between Hannah and Miley.
By noon the next morning, they've reached Hollywood, and Tallahassee suggests that since they're there, they might as well sleep in style. He knows exactly where to go, though, and pulls into Bill Murray's driveway.
Again, Little Rock doesn't know who Bill Murray is. "You know, I've never hit a kid before. That's like asking who Gandhi is." Little Rock then wants to know who Gandhi is, and Wichita answers Tallahassee's incredulous gaze by reminding him that she's twelve. They search the cupboards, finding no Twinkies. Columbus suggests they check out the house, just in case, and so Tallahassee and Wichita go in one direction, while Columbus and Little Rock go in the other. They go into the bedroom, where Wichita claims the master bed as Tallahassee flops all over it.
The Ghostbusters theme wafts from the home theatre, while the group entertains themselves with menial activities like playing indoor golf and dancing about the house. Then, a zombified Bill Murray shambles out of the next room. Wichita hits him with her golf club, revealing that he is, in fact, human. Tallahassee then reveals his love for the actor, gushing that he loves all his movies, even the dramatic roles.
When Bill decides he wants to scare Columbus, though, Columbus panics and shoots him. They mourn him, Tallahassee kneeling by the comedian as he says his final words and takes his last breath.
Once Bill Murray's funeral is done, in the evening, they play board games, and Tallahassee says the worst thing about Zombieland is losing Buck. He says that the day Buck was born, he lost his mind, and that he'd never loved anything as much as him. "He had my personality, my laugh, my appetite" -- and then narrator Columbus realizes that Buck isn't a dog at all, but a little boy. Tallahassee then ruins his own angsty moment by adding that he's never cried like that since Titanic.
Next scene, we find him in the entranceway, shooting dishes. He teaches Little Rock how to shoot without missing, by exhaling slowly and squeezing the trigger. He goes upstairs to find Columbus and Wichita, who are about to kiss, and promptly, again, ruins the moment, asking for help moving the couch because he and Little Rock are making a fort.
The morning finds Columbus and Tallahassee waking up in the morning to find Wichita and Little Rock leaving with the van, again. The girls are headed to Pacific Playland, leaving the men behind. Columbus begins packing things up in the evening, while Tallahassee talks about how he doesn't let people close because 'you only get burned'. He then rolls straight into a talk about how they call Twinkies 'los Submarinos' in Mexico, and that that's where he's headed now.
Columbus announces he's going after Wichita, and tells Tallahassee to have fun in Mexico. Tallahassee pauses as Columbus mounts a motorcycle in the garage. He's not good at goodbyes, he says, so "That'll do, pig." Columbus adds bitingly that Wichita and Little Rock's pictures were once in someone's wallet too, and drives straight into the bushes. Tallahassee pulls a van up beside him, telling him to get in so they can go 'ride the rollercoaster'.
Tallahassee and Columbus arrive at Pacific Playland a little later, and Tallahassee appraises the situation, suggesting that Wichita and Little Rock may actually need their help this time. Tallahassee admits that his mother used to tell him that someday he'd be good at something. "Who'd've guessed that that somethin'd be zombie-killin'."
The girls get their attention from atop a drop tower ride, and Tallahassee lures the pack of zombies away from under them, using the rides and various game booths as ways to defeat the creatures. He then locks himself inside a shooting range booth while Columbus goes to save the sisters. Tallahassee destroys the remaining zombies as Columbus and Wichita finally share their first kiss.
Tallahassee, the danger finally over, takes five to hunt for Twinkies in a snack bar. The sign says 'deep fried twinkies', but nothing of the sort exists -- until they shoot the door of the storage room, and the box of Twinkies inside is destroyed. Columbus asks whether he can just sort of "pick the buckshot out", but before Tallahassee can answer, they are alerted to the sound of the van they arrived in driving away. Panicking, the men run outside, but Wichita and Little Rock have stopped to get them -- and Little Rock has something for Tallahassee.
She tosses him a Twinkie, which he savours eagerly, and the pair get into the van, leaving Pacific Playland together with the sisters.
personality: Tallahassee is the token badass of the movie. He has no fears, no hangups, and doesn't hesitate. He's inventive, as shown by his willingness to use even musical instruments as weapons. Tallahassee's a bit of a pottymouth, with most sentences carrying some sort of curse word within them. He's a stereotypical Texan -- he loves country music, has a strong accent, and wears a Stetson hat. His favorite phrase is 'nut up or shut up', and he isn't afraid to tell people (mostly Columbus) that they're bitches.
He's got a bit of a sick sense of humor -- for instance, Tallahassee does not see anything sympathetic about zombies. They killed his son, he hates them -- it adds up to him enjoying watching them suffer. He invents new ways to destroy them whenever he can, using whatever he can.
Tallahassee also has a soft side, though. He isn't afraid to break down and cry in some circumstances, especially when involving his son, and he's got a soft spot for younger kids because of it, becoming fast (if a little argumentative) friends with Little Rock. Of course, he also has his Twinkie obsession -- Tallahassee will almost certainly go to the ends of the earth for the little treats. "Believe it or not, Twinkies do have an expiration date."