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twdmusicboxmystery · 2 years

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ToTWD 1x02: Blair/Evie - Part 4

Sixth Cycle:

In the cycle, Blair immediately tells everyone to go home and then grabs the mug and goes into the kitchen. This is what I mean about her changing. This is the first time we actually see her pick up the mug and wash it. She's being more considerate of Gina, by not leaving it on her desk. And she tells her employees to go right away, rather than hesitating. She's learning what's important, and letting go of her ego in order to figure out how to survive.

This is also where Blair and Gina family have a heart-to-heart and admit their feelings for each other and themselves. Blair was insanely angry after her father died. Gina was allowing people to use her as a doormat, etc. Blaire says they need to find something new, which ends up being working together.

So once again, this is true at all levels. TF will need to work together to beat the CRM. Beth and Daryl will need to be together in order to find happiness and help TF beat the CRM. About an individual level, Blair and Gina need to work together to balance both sides of the personality, to be able to find freedom and also be able to survive.

I don't think I really need to say much more about this cycle. It works. They survive. This is where they talk about route 85 and 29. And of course this is where they stop in the bridge and Gina pulls a 6x09 Daryl.

I’d love everyone’s insight on how to interpret this particular bridge. We generally say that falling off a bridge represents the death fake out. People thinking the character is dead, but those people not only live but also discover new communities that will help TF survive in the long run. The ultimate example of course is Tara falling off the bridge in S7 and discovering Oceanside, which helped TF against the Saviors.

In S5, Beth didn't literally fall off a bridge, we saw Daryl and Carol fell off long when they're looking for her. In a very broad, go-long sort of way, her finding Grady and the CRM will help them survive the coming war.

But in this case with Blair and Gina, no one actually fell off the bridge. They were looking over the side and it reminded me of the bridge both Tara and Carol were on during AOW. There were walkers staggering along beneath it and there was a flower drawn in chalk next to Carol. This felt similar to that, and I think it's slightly different than the symbolism of someone falling off a bridge, and I'm not entirely sure how to interpret it.

They use the gasoline to light up the walkers and save people. I've already talked about what I think that foreshadows. When it doesn’t work at first, they use Blair's pink thing. As you said, @wdway, pink = Beth. I also noticed that she says, "it's my lucky thing." So, the luck theory, which is always around Beth, is present as well.

After the truck blows up and they land in the road, Blair once again says, "do you think we’re dead?" It sort of bookends this entire cycle. Gina says, "none of this is real. Never sharing a delusion." It's interesting that it ends that way. “None of this is real” reminds me of Maggie’s line from 5x10 where she says, "none of it was really there." She was talking about Beth. I also noticed that Gina hurt her wrist. Several times she says, "ow, my wrist." It’s line one final way of saying this represents Beth.

Whew! That was a lot. I hope it made sense. But I would love to hear all of your thoughts on any part of it.

@wdway:

This was confusing and long and you’re brilliant! Thank you for explaining it. It truly helps. Emily! Wow! Did I miss it but did you talk about Leo bite? I was thinking the other day that Leo is the symbol of a lion and how Emily had that little lion on her note that had 2021 crossed out and replaced with 2022. In one of the conversations with Leo he said, two roads open, Route 122 and the Armuchee Byway. I Googled NSA. National Security Agency. You left me with a lot to think about.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

No, I didn’t say much about Leo’s bite. If he represents the CR, I’m not entirely sure how to incorporate that. Good call on his name meaning Lion!

@wdway:

I tried to find the part about coffee above and to tell you the truth it was a bit overwhelming, haha. I never really found it. I appreciate you talking about the coffee, the coffee cups and a reminder of the story from Same Boat, about the egg, the carrot and the coffee beans. I have been taking note of coffee cups for a while and I've spoken about them before but for some reason I just didn't connect them to the story and because of the story it could be a reference that a coffee cup infers strength and how the coffee beans change the water. Beth=water, water+coffee beans=Beth.

We've seen Daryl around coffee cups although we've never really seen him drinking from a cup, that I can remember. There was a cup on the table between him and Leah during their last supper. We also saw this season e10 New Haunts, Daryl with the kids and 3 cups. A black, a white with a black ring and a yellow cup. All colors connected to Beth.

A few more things about coffee and then I'll let it go. In episode 1 of Tales, Joe/Evie, we have a character name Joe, a name that is used to describe the common man and during WWII an American Soldier, GI Joe.

Another reference to Joe is a cup of joe, meaning a cup of coffee. The expression started when alcohol was outlawed on all Naval bases and coffee was the strongest drink available to a sailor and eventually became known as a cup of joe.

@galadrieljones:

@twdmusicboxmystery, I loved reading your epic notes above! I'm going to try to respond to a couple of things you asked about, and that jumped out to me, just based on your discussion.

First, your note on how, once Blair and Gina start fighting (your description of them literally rolling around on the ground made me laugh out loud), everybody around them starts fighting, too, was intriguing because it fits the definition of morphic resonance. I have been reading a lot about it and hopefully will have time to share my notes today or tomorrow.

Morphic resonance broadly refers to a shared memory or consciousness between people/members of a species/culture/etc., and it is also a new model of causality that attempts to answer the question: Why, once something happens for the first time, no matter how improbable, does it suddenly seem to happen again and again, often in rapid succession, and all at once?

The answer to why everybody starts fighting once Blair and Gina start fighting isn't so much that Blair and Gina are causing the phenomenon, but that some sort of unseen causal structure, ie: resonance, is causing everyone to start fighting around this time, and it's just that Blair and Gina happen to go first. Whatever violent tendencies are causing this outbreak are manifesting due to some shared ancestral memory or instinct. The whole concept of morphic resonance is really interesting and I have a LOT to say about how it relates to TWD.

You also had a question about Wendell and Leo. I am very intrigued by the names. I've been trying to break down the characters to their most basic archetypes to see if I can understand the intention.

Leo is a law-and-order guy with secrets, working for a government three-letter agency, but he doesn't seem to hold any power within the situation. The Department of Homeland Security, one would think, might have some knowledge on the situation; however, he's most likely a low-level field agent. Or even a desk jockey. He seems to have some intel about road closures but that's it. He's still trying to escape like everyone else.

This reminds me of Leo Bennett, who at first seems to hold a LOT of power when we're learning about him through the lens of his daughters and the Campus Colony, where he was a big fish in a small pond, but at the CRM, he's basically a mid-level scientific researcher, a lab squint. He has no intel on Project V and is being actively deceived by his girlfriend. In some ways, he's even just a pawn to lure Hope to Ithaca.

Meanwhile, Wendell, his son, is a scared, helpless child who, at the outset, is seen smiling through the window with his toy garbage truck, wearing glasses and completely innocent to what's going on around him. His life, however, is perpetually in danger and he holds little agency throughout the cycles. In the cycle with him in the truck, he's even sitting in the passenger seat, unable to move or think or act or do anything at all.

This did make me think about Wendell and Sarah [FTWD], how Wendell is in a wheelchair. He is far from helpless; however, Sarah has an entire episode where she is searching for him and growing more and more hopeless that he could not have survived on his own after the bombs. Wendell is a minor character, but much of his arc is about taking up agency and proving those wrong around him, taking people by surprise when it turns out he is stronger and far more capable than they think he is. Sarah and Wendell are also truck drivers and hijackers, which fits the situation in Blair/Gina as revolving around a stolen oil tanker.

Ultimately, my immediate interpretation here is that tptb want us to understand the connectivity between all of the shows, that the universe we ought to be exploring and thinking about goes beyond just the flagship, that both World Beyond and Fear have great bearing on the outcomes and explanations for "what happened and what's going on."

Leo's mysterious wrist bite is another piece of that puzzle, as it links us to Alicia's wrist bite in Fear. I wondered if, perhaps, the wrist bite was a bad omen for Leo Bennett, a sign that he's going to die. I think that it's possible, and that Hope will need to go on without him to solve Wildfire. Part of me does kind of think she might show up in the Daryl spin-off. I actually have more to say about that, as I recently rewatched and analyzed the WB coda, and I'll try to add it to my notes later.

Okay, and now JOEL. I love your notes on Joel! I have him in my notes but for a different reason. Joel is the main character's name from the zombie survival video game The Last of Us, which I have referenced before when talking about the cure theory, as it features an immune character and corrupt institutions and scientific researchers. In the game, Joel is escorting a 14yo girl name ELLIE, who becomes like his surrogate daughter. In Blair/Gina, I think it's Blair who mistakes Joel's daughter's name for EMMY, and that made me wonder if it wasn't a reference to TLOU. I totally missed the Emily reference, however, and now find the whole thing even more intriguing. Joel sneaking in and out of the "backdoor" to go see his daughter Emily could mean a lot of different things. Like that Daryl will find Beth through a "backdoor," or even more literally that Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl (a character who is a lot like Joel in TLOU, right down to the surrogate dad thing) is sneaking in and out of a "backdoor," filming with Emily. Lots of really interesting possibilities there.

Finally, I took down some notes about the bridge. I did have the bridge in my notes and wanted to see what you guys thought first. For some reason, when I think of bridges, beyond Rick's bridge, the first bridge I think about is John Dorie's bridge. John Dorie's bridge feels like a liminal space between the living and dead. When he's on the bridge, he is alive, but then he falls off the bridge, and when he emerges, he's dead.

Morgan has a similar experience on a bridge in season 4 after he's accidentally transported to Mississippi during a storm. He is going to head back to Texas, but then when he gets to the bridge, he starts thinking about Rick, and then he turns back around to continue back to Virginia. He lies to Wendell and Sarah and tells them that the bridge is out, so he can't get back. Eventually, however, he does go back to Texas to his "family," who he feels he can still save (land of the living), whereas going back to Virginia is as good as going back to a bunch of ghosts (land of the dead).

Idk really where I'm going with this. But the bridge is where Blair and Gina solve their endless causal loop and make it past 5 o'clock.

You mentioned that after the explosion, Blair once again asks if they're "dead." They could be. This whole thing could just be a meditation on what happens when we die, ie: our consciousness cycles through some elaborate problem scheme, some sort of unfinished business, until we solve it, and then our souls are able to move on. The end walking back toward Atlanta, which is essentially the land of the dead. I think we've probably talked about this before, but I feel like bridges are links between worlds. Rick has to destroy the bridge he built in order to save his people. He sacrifices his life and his achievement, and then he ends up traveling to another world. Just some thoughts, Idk if it helps at all.

I did go back to the pilot though because I thought I remembered a similar sign in the opening scene. The gas shortage is definitely a callback here. I don't think we know why there is a gas shortage, but it's interesting to me, as the very first scene of the show is of Rick trying to find gas. I think the beginning of the causal loop here with Blair and Gina is definitely trying to show us back to the beginning of it ALL, suggesting once again that everything is greatly connected in twdu.

These are obviously not the same gas stations. Rick's gas station is on Cascade Palmetto Drive and pretty far outside the city, but it's interesting that his gas station is red, and Blair/Gina's is green.

Also, Idk what the deal is but also per the issue of connectivity across the universe, the I-85 is an interesting freeway. Its southern terminus is in Montgomery, Alabama, which is where Madison Clark is from. Its northern terminus is in Richmond.

(Richmond, VA)

@twdmusicboxmystery:

I agree about the gas. Gas is what makes cars go. Obviously. So, there's a transportation thing there. And Beth was most likely left in a car. Probably one that was abandoned for lack of gas. In fact, at the beginning of 5x10, they say something about leaving the "other one" meaning the other vehicle behind because it ran out of gas. So, there's a tie there. But the name Wendel, as we established, also means traveler. And it's hard to travel in this world without gas. So yeah. It's all interesting and connected! There's also the gas station in 4a that Daryl and co go to. It says, "welcome to hell," so gas stations might be some sort of purgatory symbol. But I think there were "no gas" signs there too. I'll have to double check.

And I think you're really onto something with your interpretation of bridges. I really like that. Much like rivers or ladders, they represent doors between worlds. And I guess the idea is that the character is hovering between life and death, and it can go either way. So Rick and Tarah survived when they fell from their bridges. Madison was underneath one, filming the bird story before she disappeared. Daryl and Carol fell from one in 5x06, but survived. And that might have been more about Beth, symbolically, than them. But as you say, John Dorie didn't survive his bridge fall. Very interesting! I'll think on this more. ;D

I skimmed through indifference to watch the gas station scene. REALLY didn't look in great detail, but I actually didn't see a No Gas sign. There is a tree that has fallen onto the station, though. It’s why they had to cut through all the foliage to get in, and there are walkers inside the foliage. Including a blond female one Daryl stabs in the head. Just making some observations. All these things are symbolically significant.

@galadrieljones:

I'm so glad you checked that, as I was also wondering if there might be a "NO GAS" sign in Indifference! I have always loved that HELL sign. I like sometimes when they just put the symbolism in your face like that lol. Also feels like maybe these gas stations are being linked with some sort of afterlife or liminal space. There's no fuel, so you can't get anywhere, it's just a bunch of people sitting around, waiting to die. That's the case in both Days Gone By and Blair/Gina, and in Indifference it's just blatantly called "Hell"

Also, Blair wonders if they're "dead" after the second cycle. The gas station is the common denominator.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

After reading this with fresh eyes, I have a few more thoughts about the gas station. You said it’s just people sitting around waiting to die. That’s actually true of the situation in Indifference. Daryl and Bob have a minor disagreement about the fact that the people in the gas station killed themselves. Daryl is kind of flippant about it and Bob calls him on it. Obviously Bob has more sympathy for the dead people and thinks it’s disrespectful.

But Daryl defends his position, basically saying that they could have survived and chose to kill themselves instead. He didn’t have any respect for that, because Daryl is a survivor.

The next thing this puts me in mind of is Grady. Noah said they were trapped, to which Beth responded, “we’re not trapped.” And it was her that spurred him into his first escape attempt. He hadn’t even tried prior to that, as far as we can tell. And of course we see this theme in other ways and other arcs. Rick escaping the Claimer house. Daryl escaping the Sanctuary. More recently, Connie and Virgil escaping the Bender house, or whatever you want to call it.

So, it’s possible the gas station represents anywhere someone becomes *apparently* imprisoned. But the message is that if you’re just willing to try, to do the work and figure it out, you’re very likely to live. Those who sit around waiting or flat out refusing to try end up dying eventually.

After all, while the loop in this episode was kind of forced on them, it represented Blair and Gina trying, over and over again, to figure out how to survive it. “Trying” is a word they use a lot in the show, and usually apply it to our characters taking imperfect, messy action, but at least they’re attempting to figure it out. Daryl said this to Carol in 5x06 in the parking garage when they were trying to get to Beth. I think it was after Noah robbed them. I don’t remember the exact line, but he kind of yelled it at her. Something like, “you’re not out there. You’re here! Trying.” It’s right before he drops the bag and she sees the survivors of abuse book.

Anyway, just some things your words made me think of. And little Wendell in the sequence, often seems to walk into his own demise, even if he doesn’t do it purposely. He gets out of the car after his dad tells him to stay put. He goes and gets in the tankers. At least once, it was because his dad told him to, but other times, he did it totally, randomly, on his own. And that last time, he walked toward the walker and apparently got killed.

So, Wendell may represent the person who walks, eyes wide open, into their own deaths. It’s often done in ignorance, so it may not always be a question of morality. But in TWD world, that doesn’t matter much. The point is, this kind of person always dies.

Anyway, that’s the end of the Gina/Blair episode. Super interesting and abstract. We had fun dissecting it. :D

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

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