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twdmusicboxmystery · 7 years

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Thoughts on Terminus and the MSF

Okay, so if you haven't read my Morgan/Beth/Terminus post yet, go read it HERE. I just think that keeping Morgan and Zeke entanglements in mind might help give what I say here more depth.

***Also, I will be revealing some spoilers here. They're not script spoilers but rather location spoilers. So not super-specific. Still, if you don't like spoilers, stop reading now.***

I know others have posted metas about the MSF, specifically about how it's going to be 88 minutes long. Let me start by seconding what they've all said and reiterating that there's no way that's an accident. As someone who has done a lot of both writer's editing and video editing, you can make something any length you want. You can cut it down or beef it up and somehow get it to the time you're shooting for. When TWD has longer-than-normal episodes, it's because the content trumps the time limit, and the show gets special permission from AMC to have a longer episode. We've seen them do this MANY times in the past few seasons. So what it boils down to is that Gimple can make an episode pretty much any length he wants and AMC will back him.

So could this be a coincidence? Sure, but no. Nothing will convince me that episode 8x08 being 88 minutes long is accidental. Why not an even 90? And how many 8s have we found re-watching the past few seasons? Um...about a billion? Yeah.

I suppose I ought to officially throw out there that I kinda doubt we’ll Beth before the MSF now. You all know I was super-hoping for 8x04 to be the one. Now that it wasn’t, I’m kinda not thinking we’ll see her until 8x08. Arguments could be made for 8x06 (to line up with 6x06) and 8x07 (because that’s when Glenn was revealed alive in S6) but overall, I’m kinda thinking MSF now. Obviously I would be happy to be wrong, but I won’t be holding my breath for these next two episodes.

So some time ago, the spoiler site posted this pic:

It's quite obviously Terminus. Although it's blocked, the brick front is the same. Even the foliage looks identical. Here are some pics for comparison:

And could they be using this location to film, but it will be some other place in the show? It's possible and we have to acknowledge that, but I REALLY doubt it. Think of it this way. Every so often, the show will tell us (usually on TTD) that a location was used that has been used before. I remember in 8x02, they talked about a location in the woods being close to where Dale hid the guns from Shane in S2. That's an awesome little factoid, but everything in those scenes looked so much the same (and also so different) that we'd have never known that if they hadn't told us.

Terminus is VERY visually recognizable. I don't see the show using the exact same brick building and trying to call it something else. The fans would all take one look and go, "yeah, nice try. That's Terminus." And from this picture, they don't seem to have changed much about it. So I'm thinking this is actually supposed to be Terminus.

Also, the same week this was posted, Daniel Newman, who plays a Kingdom solider, posted on his IG instastory about filming at Terminus. His words. (Sorry, while people in my group saw the story, no one thought to save it, and those things disappear after 24 hours, so I don't have it for proof.)

Then there's the fact that it's...Terminus. All the buildup around it had most people (yours truly included) believing that Terminus would be a big deal in S5. That maybe they'd even spend a lot of the season there. Obviously that wasn't the case. It was there and gone in two episodes. Kind of weird given all the buildup to it. Many of us have predicted that Terminus would eventually be relevant again and that Beth will probably pass through there at some point (X). Even though those are just theories, them filming at Terminus again definitely catches our eyes.

Then there's all the stuff I talked about on Wednesday, with the weirdness of Morgan around Terminus, and the fact that we saw train tracks near Ezekiel in 8x04. Let's talk about that for a second.

In S4, they established very heavily through the maps and signs that all train tracks led to Terminus. It was the termination point, or convergence of all the paths/train tracks, right? We're starting to think that was a much more important symbolism than anyone, even TD, realized.

We're thinking that a lot more happened at Terminus than we saw, and all paths will eventually lead back there. I'll come back to that, but here we are seeing train tracks in S8. That alone I might point to as a foreshadow of the story heading back to Terminus soon.

But remember what I said on Wednesday: that a juxtaposition is being set up between Morgan as the weak character, and Ezekiel as the meek or emotionally strong one. Well, here, we see very obviously that Zeke, Carol, and Jerry do NOT follow the tracks. They cross them. And who's the only other character who crossed over the tracks rather than following them to Terminus?

Beth.

So Ezekiel is being paralleled with Beth here. (Clarification: Daryl did cross the tracks with Beth at first, but he later followed them with Rick and Michonne to Terminus, so she remains the only one in S4 who NEVER followed the tracks into Terminus.)

Also remember that there were a lot of A’s around Terminus. First the train car, then Gareth painted one on FG's church. If A= Atlanta, well, Terminus isn't far from Atlanta. All the A’s could point back to stuff that happened in Atlanta that we've haven't seen yet. And as we said in these two posts (X, X), Beth would have to pass through the Terminus area to get to the coast, and we still think she'll probably come up the coast and through Oceanside.

@thegloriouscollectorlady had some interesting thoughts about this. She pointed out that while Beth wasn't at Terminus, when RIck and Daryl arrived, the others were. Glenn and Maggie's group came into Terminus very peacefully. Obviously it didn't stay that way, as they ended up in the A car too, but they didn't show us what happened with them. Just told us later. So maybe Rick and Daryl's stories are the ones most connected to Terminus.

And that's interesting given what happened in last week's episode. We're just seeing more and more stuff come full circle from 4x16. In 4x16, entitled A, Rick and Daryl became brothers.

Now we're seeing the first real rift between them since then.

In 4x16, they entered Terminus. Now, for S8, they seem to have filmed stuff at the Terminus location again. In 4x16, the sheriff's hat fell off Carl and was put on Beth, proclaiming her the new sheriff in town. In 8x08, who knows? But do you see how the narrative is coming full circle?

I've also always thought the weirdness of Sasha probably started at Terminus. (Sasha/Tyreese Theory) That's mostly because of her weirdo convo with Father Gabriel in 5x16. He mentions the Termites and that Bob was consumed because of Sasha's sins, which makes no sense whatsoever based on what we saw in S5. So I've always thought there was more that happened at Terminus, specifically concerning Sasha, that we didn't see. I have no idea what it was, but it was something that contributed to her guilt and that FG seemed to want to use to blame Bob's death on her. Still no explanation for that convo in 5x16.

And why do I think Terminus might show up in 8x08 specifically? Well, I don't think we know for sure that this filming at the Terminus location was specifically for the MSF. And it wouldn't really matter anyway, because they've already told us they filmed things out of sequence for S8, and were often working on multiple episodes at once. So there's no way to pin down which episode it was for.

However, let's return to Crazy Tattoo Guy. Remember him? Two things that make me think we might be returning to Terminus in the MSF.

First, there was a dialogue parallel to him between Rick and Morales in 8x03. I posted this edit: Exact same wording, but opposite words. Once again, we've come 180 degrees from where we were. Mirror theory.

Check out this guy's face: He has an 88 tattooed there. And yes, I know 88 can mean lots of things. It can mean nazi, which is fitting given what he was doing to the Termites. But what if it also means that in 8x08 (which is 88 minutes long) we'll finally understand what the hell was going on with Terminus?

Remember that Gimple said Crazy Tattoo Guy was connected to bigger group of baddies, who I believe to be the saviors. (Source) So there is definitely some back story/connections there that have yet to be revealed in the show.

In that same interview (linked above) Gimple also said there was “a lot to that character.” Really? Because we saw him torturing the Termites, then be let out of the C train car by Glenn, then die. How is that “a lot to that character?” It’s obvious to me that they’re planning to return to him and explain more.

It’s yet another loose end from S5 that Gimple promised would be explained, but still hasn’t been. And per what we’ve been shown in the show, this one has little directly to do with Beth. (Only TD believes otherwise.)

Even if you look up the dictionary definition of the word Terminus, things are kind of interesting:

Notice how it mentions time. What if Gimple always meant to go back to Terminus. What if it’s the termination point for this crazy time arc that started in S4/S5? I don’t mean that in a negative, she’s-gonna-die-there way. But all tracks lead to Terminus, right?

We also learned this past episode that before Negan took over leadership of the Saviors, they were a band of wild animals, more or less. And we know because of Morales that they roved down into the Georgia area. So it’s very possible that Crazy Tattoo guy and those with him were a part of the Saviors, but that was before Negan took over.

And because there were defunct cop cars at Terminus, many of us believe there are connections between Grady and Terminus. And then there's the fact that the red car seen at Terminus was also spotted in front of the white cabin Emily filmed at in S5, which scenes we have yet to see.

See how it all works together?

So there's no way to tell if we're interpreting the details correctly. It may not play out exactly as I've laid out here. (Probably won't, in fact.) But we have a lot of loose ends that need to be tied (and per Morales', we know Gimple always ties up his loose ends) plus some evidence that we might be revisiting Terminus sometime soon.

Now we just gotta sit back and watch how it all plays out.

Oh, one more great point by @thegloriouscollectorlady: they're doing this Red Machete story now, right? (X, X). The red machete had it's significance in TWD because of Gareth and Terminus. Now they're calling their mini episodes that. Coincidence? Just saying. ;D

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #beth is almost here #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance

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