#I know I'm hyperfixating with this show but otherwise it's doomscrolling on twitter for me and my mental state just can't take it

[forsakenwitchery]

So since the synopsis for 1x13 has a lot of people worried (me included) I wanted to point out some things that hopefully indicate they aren't backtracking with Tom?.. Tagging @walker-extended-universe and @laf-outloud ‘cause I’m quietly reading you guys and I don’t think I’ve seen people mention this.

Pic 1: I've spent the last week editing a vid with guys of WIndy and I've started paying A LOT of attention to their hats since I had to combine scenes, and I've noticed that in the flashbacks when Abby starts suspecting Shane, the killer wears a pretty specific hat with a textured/braided band (I believe it’s called band, not ribbon?). Know who else wears it? Shane when Abby first sees him in Independence. Granted, in all the scenes after that he wears a different one with a plain smooth one. But still, he IS the owner of the killer's hat. :D And by this time, I've spent enough time editing WIndy to know I've never seen such a hat on Tom (he appears to own one hat with like a smooth two-layered band of sorts). Plus, the killer as of 1x09 has those mimic wrinkles near the lips that Shane has and Tom doesn't (unless he's smiling, and the killer wasn't smiling).

Pic 2: Another interesting thing that I've noticed is that they've reshot this scene because the angle and the face under the hat look a bit different in the pilot and in 1x09. Notice how in the pilot we got more of a closeup shot where you can’t see much of the hat and the killer doesn’t look like Shane + in 1x09 there’s more blood on the hand (and I think the blood pattern on the sleeve is a bit different as well?). It’s a bit of a prof deformation as a cosplayer, but I just tend to look very closely at makeup, costumes, all that. I think this means two things:

1) When they were shooting the pilot, they didn't know if the show would be picked up and haven't cast anyone as Shane. 2) For them to go and reshoot part of that scene with Timothy to show it for all but 2 seconds seems like a hell of a lot of extra hassle if they planned on going back to "yeah, Tom did it, Shane is a red herring". What seems more likely to you guys, that they had spent all that extra time recreating the killing scene because they had nothing better to do or because they maaaaaybe plan on showing it with the killer’s face fully visible, so they had to reshoot it with the actual culprit’s face? I’m betting on the second one.

And now my two cents on some theories and discussions I’ve already seen flying around, putting them under the cut.

Someone left a comment on my latest Tabby vid the other day saying they think that even if Shane killed Liam, Tom should have still known Shane did it from the start, and ummmm no, that's easily debunked by Tom being surprised when he sees Shane has a gun now and literally asking him, “what is this, you carry a gun now?”. In a room with just the two of them, so there was no potential audience for him to play to & it makes no sense for Tom to know Shane is a killer before Abby came to tell him.

The thing I've also noticed with WIndy is how the writers love to plant small details early on and then building upon them later on. I was genuinely surprised by the sheer amount of those small details while editing, almost nothing in WIndy comes out of nowhere just because the plot suddenly demands it. Like for example when Kate jokingly guessed that Hoyt bunked at the undertaker, and then when they needed a Jane Doe, Hoyt knew the undertaker always had an unknown body to sell. Or how Kai saw Kate receive a telegram early on, and many more things like that. With that in mind, they've told us at least twice this season that Tom repeatedly got blamed for things Shane did, so to me that seems like a setup for something similar with Gus' attack/Liam's murder.

Plus at this point... it would make zero sense for Tom to end up being this big bad. He was willing to get beaten up to "make something" of the town, he stopped Calian's execution, he went into the dust storm to save a stranger etc etc. Those are all acts of someone who CARES. Like who's capable of caring, not a cold-blooded killer. Not some sociopathic mastermind, and Tom would freaking have to be a total sociopath to kill Liam, shoot Abby and all of the sudden hurt Gus. Time and time again he tried to help others and was reluctant to hurt others (even indirectly with forbidding the opium den) unless they hurt him (then straight to the torture barn they go). Still, in no universe him ending up as THE antagonist makes sense. He's not the good guy, he's got a long way to go, but THE bad guy? Doesn't sit well with me. I hope they don’t ruin all the amazing buildup they’ve done.

The episode title also bothers me a lot, idkkkk hopefully they're aware Tom is a fan favorite, so killing him off would be like shooting themselves in the foot. Even with fanvids I see how much people are interested in content with Tom specifically, so he's really THE character that can potentially get more people interested in watching the show. I love the whole cast and all the characters dearly, but Tom and Kate became my two absolute favorites, with Tom specifically we got this amazing morally grey character and I just can't imagine WIndy without him, pretty sure I'm not the only one. Backtracking with him at this point for pure shock value would just ruin... well, not everything, but a lot.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. :D