#I watched the first 3 of those before watching past episode 1 of twd because I honestly found it more interesting

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

I kinda feel bad for the original ftwd stars, I mean it really became The Morgan Show as soon as he dropped in. But. At the same time. The Morgan Show is really fucking good.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

99% Sure Leah is a Hallucination

Okay, I REALLY wasn’t going to post anything else. I know the two template posts I gave you yesterday were a lot to chew through. But something happened last night that made this come together for me and my buddies, and I just couldn’t sit on it. I promise I’ll keep this brief, though.

After watching the episode yet again last night, @frangipanilove found an article in which Norman says something interesting about this episode. Well, maybe interesting isn’t the right word. More like BOMBSHELL.

Remember how we at first thought she might be a hallucination? Well, we moved away from it because we learned that Carol knew about her. That, and I thought it was safer for us all to make our peace with the idea of Daryl having a relationship with this woman. Just accept it and move forward, you know?

But after watching the episode, yes, Carol knew about her, but only what Daryl seemingly told her. She never met Leah. Not a single soul in the world other than Daryl ever saw her. Hmm.

So, here’s the article @frangipanilove found:

I honestly wouldn’t have gone back to the hallucination theory, if not for reading this. But now Norman is saying that nothing in this episode is what it seems. And he’s specifically referencing Daryl’s relationship with Leah.

(P.S. I have to laugh that fans are asking him what’s wrong with him. Um...he’s not Daryl? He’s Norman. And he doesn’t write the show. The writers do. Lol. But also notice that he talks about staying true to Daryl, and we all know that this Leah thing is the opposite of that. Unless....)

So, let’s look at some weirdnesses in the episode. And @wdway deserves most of the credit for this. Once we started discussing the article and brainstorming, she came up with most of this.

1.  When he meets Leah. My fellow theorists and I were actually talking about this before the episode aired yesterday. Why does he just run into her cabin? He follows Dog, but the funny thing is, Dog doesn’t run into the cabin. Only Daryl does. How does he know there’s not 47 walkers in there? How does he know there aren’t a dozen armed people? You’d think he would stop and observe and evaluate. But he doesn’t. He just charges in. And that’s very unlike Daryl.

And of course we could come up with some sort of explanation. Like maybe he heard Leah yelling while fighting the walker in the back bedroom and thought she needed help. Maybe, but the show doesn’t actually suggest this. There aren’t any subtitles or anything that give us any clue as to what his thought process was for just charging in.

2.  When he brings Dog back to her, when his eye scar has appeared, if you listen to the dialogue between him and Leah, it’s a little bit odd. Maybe not quite as odd as him charging into her house at first, but still it leaves some questions. About the eye scar, she says, “looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” He just says, “yeah.” Well, that scar isn’t jagged or shaky at all. It’s very straight. Clearly made by a knife, not a walker. So, it’s a little strange that she doesn’t ask what happened. If she wants to be left alone, wouldn’t she be concerned that there might be someone else out there. Why doesn’t she just ask about it? Why doesn’t he just tell her about it? In a way, it almost sounds as if Leah knows more than she’s saying in this scene.

3. When she opens up to him about her family and her past, all the stories she tells are almost like amalgamations of Daryl and the characters on TWD. Obviously everyone noticed the similarities to Carol. That’s a big one. But the story of the blood and the running could be them running from the prison, or the deaths of a lot of different people Daryl has had to say goodbye to. When she talks about meeting and fighting with her squad and how they gave her hope? TF in a nutshell. And even that she hints at having an abusive family. Daryl. Carol, too. But mostly Daryl.

4. It’s still odd that no one else ever met Leah. Yeah, she said she wanted to live out there alone. And we talked about how this makes it an unhealthy relationship, because if she really loved him, she would want to go meet his friends and family and know about every part of his life. Into this, I’m going to lump the fact that she never seems to have gone with him to search for Rick. Once again, if you love someone, you participate in their lives. And she’s just alone at the cabin anyway. Why not go with him?

5. Outside the show Weirdness: Look at that top pic I used for when he met Leah. Remember when we discussed that there is someone kneeling behind her? I assumed it was her son, because spoilers didn’t reveal when or how he would die. But that’s not the case. This person looks to be a teenager or an adult (much older than Matthew was) and we never learn who it is. 

People have said it might be a set person or a mic guy who accidentally made it into the shot, but I don’t buy that. They scrutinize these pictures and could easily have fixed that with the computer if they’d wanted to. I don’t know if we’ll ever find who it is. It might just be a hint that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

But then I found this pic:

There’s someone lying dead on the ground behind them, and we didn’t see this in the episode. @wdway thinks it’s just Leah. That she was dead when he arrived, but he made up this story about how she was this strong, survivor woman and could have become his companion. I think that’s a super-viable theory, but of course we won’t know the details until they actually show us.

There are more weirdnesses than this, but I’m sure you get the idea. The more we think about it, the more sure we are that she’s a hallucination. And obviously that would make more sense anyway from the “why would the writers handle Daryl’s love life this way and piss off the entire fandom” perspective.

One thing we also noticed was that on TTD, the writer emphasized that this story is told from Daryl’s perspective. We’re seeing his PERCEPTION of it, and that’s important. I heard her say that, and wasn’t quite sure of what to make of it. Before realizing the hallucination thing, I thought she might be hinting that there was more we hadn’t see, or Leah might not be who he thought she was. Something like that. But if she’s not real, that makes way more sense, doesn’t it.

So, some things to consider. The strong parallels to Carol. The exact ones, actually, like spear fishing and all the identical dialogue. That’s because he’s taking those things from his time with Carol and incorporating them directly into Leah’s story.

Everything I said yesterday still applies. Mostly because that’s the symbolic template and here, we’re talking about the reality of what’s happening, so the two don’t affect each other directly. But while Leah’s personality is based on Carol’s (probably because that’s who he spends the most time with these days) the romance element is definitely molded out of his time with Beth.

Real:

Hallucination:

The cross that represents the grave? The one Chris Hardwick said would make some people think Leah is dead? Yeah, we think that really is her grave. We do think she probably really existed, and he met her, but she died relatively quickly, and the rest of the relationship didn’t happen. It’s all in his head. I’ll give you some more possibilities on that in a minute.

We think she’s the one who gave him the eye scar. If we’re right about that, I’m sure they’ll show it to us eventually. I mean, if she’s a hallucination, they’ll have to tell us that eventually, but probably not until S11. Think about the dialogue. “Looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” Daryl: “Yeah.”

This is also why the ending makes little sense. His argument with her about where he belongs is really him arguing with himself. That’s why he cries when she asks where he belongs, and he says he doesn’t know. But then later, we see him charging off to look for Rick, and not seeming at all sad or conflicted about anything. It’s because there is Leah. There never was. He’s just looking for Rick.

@frangipanilove also said something insightful about Carol. I think I took most of my mentions of the Carol flashback scenes out of my meta yesterday. Only because it was already so long and I wanted to focus on laying out the symbolic template for you. But while watching the episode, I actually felt kinda bad for Carol. Every time she came to see him, she seemed so upset. Like she felt as abandoned by him as he does by her. And I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve a taste of her own medicine, but I guess that sadness from her kind of surprised me.

But what @frangipanilove said is that maybe her worry for him really was warranted. Because he’d been out there on his own so long, it started to mess with his head and he really was losing his sanity. Carol might have been starting to see that, and she really was terrified for his mental health, which is why she kept trying to get him to come back.

And you know, it creates an interesting sort of irony for Daryl and Carol’s fight at the end in present day. He says that when things get tough, she runs, and he’s sick of dragging her back. And that’s true. We’ve seen that he’s right and Carol does do this, so I was 100% behind what he said to her. Was it harsh? Sure. But it still needed to be said.

But the irony is that during these 6 years after Rick, Daryl was doing exactly the same thing. Him staying out there to look for Rick, when after years, it would have become clear that he wouldn’t find the body, was him running away from the pain of what happened. Carol kept trying to drag him back, but he wouldn’t go with her.

Also, the two of them on opposite sides of the river here could represent the divide between reality and Daryl’s hallucinations.

The note. It’s a little hard to know exactly how to interpret the note from a PTSD perspective. Symbolically, I’d say the note he left was for Beth. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that in the episode, but with all the Beth parallels, it’s just about him wanting to belong somewhere. He wants to belong with someone who loves and needs him.

But I talked yesterday about how the cabin was trashed, and the picture was gone, right? By the time he wrote that note, Leah was long gone. Dead, I mean. The fact that the picture wasn’t there is especially significant. Why would the picture have disappeared, unless it wasn’t real to begin with.

Another thing I noted was Carol’s somewhat bizarre reaction when Daryl suggested they go down toward the river to hunt. She looked worried about that, but agreed. At the time, I was thinking she was worried because he’d spent so much time down there before looking for Rick, and she didn’t want the obsession to resurface. And that’s probably still true, but it’s even more interesting now, isn’t it? And maybe that’s why she’s always wanting to go out with him when he goes hunting or looking for supplies or whatever. She just doesn’t want him falling back into that mindset and disappearing again.

And it will make what I said yesterday about what will happen in the spinoff—her wanting him to stop looking for Rick and come with her—make more sense, too, won’t it?

Okay, I’ll stop now. I really haven’t covered everything we could possibly talk about with this. I’m sure you’ll all think of tons more. But you get the idea. And remember, this isn’t just my theory or our theory. I wouldn’t have come back to this at all if I hadn’t read that article where Norman hinted at it. And he would know, right?

And hey, if this turns out to be incorrect, I’ll be okay with that. I’ll eat my words (not literally 😉). But Norman is referring to SOMETHING here, and given how few characters were in this episode, and that he was directly talking about Leah in that quote, there really aren’t many things he could actually mean.

Special thanks to both @frangipanilove​ and @wdway​. Honestly, they did way more work on this one than I did.

Thoughts?

[shimmershae]

Just watched the episode and I’m going to have a lot of thoughts for you, most of them probably bordering on incoherence (LOL) so this is your last chance to nope on out of this post because I’m going to go ahead and put everything else behind a cut to save the eyes that do not want to see any  spoilers at all.  Unlike mine, that very much wanted to see but in a lot of cases?  Could not see shit, but I digress.

Shae’s stream of consciousness coming at you in 3-2-1.  

First of all, can I saw how good it is to have my show back again?  Like, no.  I don’t quite have Season 5 levels of excitement about the new/last season, but it is definitely nice to have all these characters back.  

So all these thoughts of mine.  Okay.  Bear with me because there be a whole lot of them, lol.  

My immediate impression as the episode opened was WHOA.  Such a cool shot of Daryl with one light wing, one dark wing (representing the two sides to Daryl maybe--the man of honor versus the man he was raised to be, hmm?) looking out over some dark vista of something.  Seriously.  It’s dark.  My room is also dark at the moment and still I was squinting to see.  To make out what I’m “looking” at.  I really, really hope the rest of this season isn’t this hard to make out.  

Is that a tank?  Kinda sorta a callback to Rick’s first episode?  If so, cool.  If not, well.  Us fans have always put way more thought into things.  For real.  Change my mind.  

Holy intense eye contact, Batman!  Daryl Dixon has literally never looked at anyone--not BethusConLeah--in quite the same smoldering way as he looks at Carol.  It’s next level.  I don’t know why people be fooling themselves into thinking different.  

Let’s see.  I can make out--besides Daryl, Maggie, and that face mask dude I already forgot the name of--Kelly, Magna, Jerry (who’s that with him?), and Carol.  Sorry.  My world, like Daryl’s, inevitably narrows to Carol.  She’s loking fierce and fine AF per usual.  

Was that Rosita I noticed rewinding to relive Daryl eye-fucking Carol?  

I’m guessing this is the army base they talked about in 10C.  

That Walker perking up like “I smell food--pancakes and bacon and oohhhh” has me giggling inappropriately right off the bat.  WTF.  

Look at all my fabulous ladies tiptoeing through that Walker minefield.  And Carol spotting that gun that might be useful right away.  Listen, if you don’t think her mind ain’t always ten steps ahead of everybody else’s, you’d be wrong.  

So.  Are these Walkers just so old and feeble not even the call of fresh meat attracts them?  Because just tiptoeing through their midst without the knockoff Lady Gaga meatsuits or skin masks has never really worked before that I can remember.  

I just want to see most of this season.  Is that really too much to ask?  Don’t X-Files and Game of Thrones us, Angela.  Please and thank you very fucking much.  

Okay.  Is the one drop of blood thing making anybody else have 28 Days Later vibes?  Kinda?  Sorta?  No?  Just me?  Okay then.  Carry on.  

Wait a minute, though.  How they be explaining how Daryl keeeps acquiring all these new tats all the time?  Hmm?  It’s like they just quit giving a shit about continuity in these latter seasons.  

I mean.  Do Walkers sleep now?  LMAO.  What is this?  I guess they’re constantly evolving?  

There’s my baby Lydia.  Love my smol bean.  

Alright though.  I love to see the ladies of TWD kick some ass.  It’s very gratifying.  Gimps would never.  Thank you, Angela.  

Clever, resourceful, calm and collected, quick thinking Carol to the rescue!  Seriously.  Her haters must be withering away inside with absolute envy.  

Hey, ya’ll.  Remember when Carol was still mastering her sharpshooting skills at the Prison yard and shot at Rick’s feet?  Her little “sorry, sorry”?  LOL.  If Rick could only see her now.  Wait.  He already knew what so many of his stans refuse to acknowledge--Carol=ultimate survivor and true savior to the group many times over.  

Maggie’s got herself a gun, too.  Go my badass girls.  

Of course, Carol’s got everybody’s back.  Of fucking course, Daryl’s got hers even when everybody else seem frozen in some kind of awe or stupification or something.  Microcosm of the whole damn show right there.  

Carol’s like “here’s your knives, love of my life.”   

Eh.  Maybe that’s just me.  

Nah.  She’s totally thinking it, too.  

YAS!  YAS!  Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride with the top billing.  How very far my babies have come.  

Listen.  I miss all the characters we’ve lost.  Absolutely.  But I love the ones that are still with us, that have been with us for so very long so hard.  Whether I love their stories or decisions or not.  

Is that THE Alexandria sign?  That sign’s been through some shit.  

DOG!  Daryl kneeling to embrace our Grimes babies has me all up in my feels.  And how cute is Dog getting all excited and making sure he’s the first one there to welcome back, Daddy?  

Hershel is literally just as puppy dog cute as Glenn ever was.  Really some Grade A casting.  

What did Maggie call Mr. T?  Ducky?  Dougie?  Sometimes with Maggie?  I really cannot tell.  Anyway.  He’s Mr. T. for me until I find out differently, probably through rewatching with close captioning, lol.  

Maggie’s got more people.  So.  Some new redshirts to sacrifice for plot purposes.  I don’t know if I should bother learning their names or not. 

I seem to remember Meridian being mentioned in one of the episode synopses.  

Sophia’s hair tie around Carol’s neck will never fail to be an emotional throat punch.  My heart.  

“They come at night and by the time you see them, you’re already dead.”  Welp.  Guess that means we ain’t seeing shit for at least this first third of the season, lol.  Very horror-eque though.  

“You’re leaving to fight ghosts.”  Aaron, to Maggie.  So I see Aaron’s the type to get the hell outta Dodge when the Boogeyman comes calling, hahaha.  Least he was.  In the old world.  

Rosita’s pissed off expression at Gabe’s decision to volunteer for the so-called suicide mission gives me life.  

My baby Carol is tired AF of suicide missions.  You can tell.  Also?  Methinks she has something to prove to Daryl here.  Or at least feels like she does.  

Dog with his little tactical vest.  I love it.  

I guess I get why they had Carol and Rosita stay behind.  They had to more evenly split up the badassery to make things more fair and balanced, lol.  

Okay.  So Negan’s definitely earned everybody’s disdain.  But they’re being woefully short-sighted by not at least hearing the dude out.  Isn’t he at least native to the area?  

“That is God telling us to turn around.”  I’m actually on Negan’s side with this one, but Gabe answering him with “I’m pretty sure he would have run that past me first” has me howling with laughter.  Father Gabe has gone straight up savage in these last couple of seasons.  Rosita’s influence, perhaps?  

I see what Angela is doing.  Trying to make Negan the voice of reason.  In this particular case?  It’s kind of working.  I’m still ultimately on Maggie’s side with this though BECAUSE GLENN.  

Imagine showing up to work and unironically dressing like a storm trooper every day.  Excuse me while I LOL.  

Even in the ZA, there’s bullshit paperwork.  

“Pumpkin colored spacesuit.”  Good one, Ezekiel.  

LOL forever.  I love Princess.  

“Michonne.  Our Michonne shut people out of Alexandria for years.”  Timely reminder that choices aren’t always perfect.  Neither are people.  

WTF is reprocessing?  Sounds ominous.  LMAO at Eugene’s “Okay.  We gotta go.”  

What in the actual hell with all those bagged, squirming undead?  Creepy AF in that subway tunnel.  

Should I just go ahead and call that the Easter bunny?  We’ve had some version of it pop up since Season 1.  

Is it stubborn pride with Maggie or what?  Why go through with something when all signs point toward the wisdom of stopping?  You can argue that she’s acting similarly to Carol last season, but there’s a huge difference here folks.  Carol did her damndest to Lone Wolf that shit and minimize the danger to those she loved.  Maggie’s straight up enlisting those she “cares about” to carry out her mission of revenge or vengeance, what have you. Let’s see if she gets near the amount of hate for it.  Personally, I don’t blame her for her feelings one bit.  They are valid.  But her knowingly drawing the others into the game?  That’s my sticking point.  That’s how she and Carol differ, even if some people refuse to see or accept it.  Anyway.  Hopping right on off my soapbox.  

“Why don’t you get up on your little tippy toes and try?”  Omigosh, I’d dying.  When I tell you I about passed out with laughter, I do not exaggerate.  I should hate Negan forever and I do.  Really.  But I adore JDM and he frequently makes me LOL.  He’s made Negan entertaining if not completely redeemable since Angela took over and more layered so I say kudos.  

He has a point about Maggie playing dictator.  Damn you, show, for slanting the writing just that smidgen that makes Negan make sense over his victim.  I guess, though, it’s better this way.  Gives both characters more shades of gray.  

“He’s a dick but he makes sense.”  I feel like this is Angela calling us all out when we dare to harbor any lasting resentment toward Negan for what he did to Glenn.  

Speaking of--Negan.  You deserved Daryl’s punch to the mouth.  You just went a bridge too damn far.  

“Keep pushing me, Negan.  Please.”  Warning shots fired, Asshole.  You better watch yourself around the Widow Rhee.  

Have I mentioned how much I love Princess?  Her shipping the Commonwealth guards is killing me, lol.  I can’t wait ‘til she meets Carol and Daryl.  She’s going to have their number in two seconds flat.  

I like Ezekiel and Princess as a duo.  I’m not saying romantically necessarily.  I just like them in scenes together because they’re fun.  There’s sort of a protective indulgence Ezekiel seems to telegraph whenever they’re in scenes together.  Like he’s like don’t hurt this one.  I don’t know.  For all these words I’ve written, I can’t quite find the ones to adequately describe what I mean.  

The wall of the lost gives me such Battlestar Galactica feels.  What sad thoughts it inspires.  

Eugene in that Commonwealth gear.  Omigosh, lol.  So did they just sneak up and take Princess’s little Commonwealth ship’s gear when they were sneaking off on their own to have a quickie?  

Princess finding that note for Yumiko on the wall actually gave me chills.  Yeah.  I’m easy.  Just the suggestion of someone getting reunited with lost family gets me all up in my feels.  Yumiko saying “I have to stay”?  I felt that.  

Oh no.  Dog ran off!  Somebody protect my favorite fictional puppy.  Of course, Daryl goes after him.  He’s always been the sweet one.  Merle said it.  

Eh.  Negan taking Maggie’s hand at the end there would have smacked too much of Negan Sue and Maggie’s biggest plot of the season would have been prematurely dealt with so I get why they did what they did.  But c’mon.  It’s not really that big of a cliffhanger, is it?  

Okay, so Angela calls those sleeping beauty Walkers “Lurkers” and I get it.  Apparently they’re a bigger deal in the comics, but I really don’t remember seeing them all that much on the actual show.  Somebody jog my memory.  

Of fucking course, you can actually see what’s happening in the inside the episode clips.  I wish we could choose to view the episode with that lighting because some of us be blind.  And this time I mean in the more literal sense.  Not the figurative one.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop trying to write a novel for ya’ll and move on to better things.  Like maybe a nap.  Maybe some early dinner.  I don’t know.  I’m tired AF and need a little recharge.    

Before I go, though?  Overall impression of the episode?  I liked it.  There were parts that I loved (all the ladies being badass, every second of Carol, Daryl reuniting with the Grimes babies and Dog, all things Princess, some of Negan’s one-liners about had me busting a gut, Rosita serving looks, Kelly and Lydia getting to be badass too) and parts I didn’t love (not being able to see a damn thing, Angela trying to tip the scales in Negan’s favor, not enough Carol or Aaron or Rosita, no reunion between Aunt Carol and the Grimes babies even though that picture floating around suggests it was at least shot, not being able to see a damn thing, all the Alexandria people playing follow the leader for Maggie when she’s been gone 6 years and Daryl’s right there--hell, even Father G deserves the honor over her because it’s obvious they’re not exactly on the same wavelength anymore).  

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just glad to have our show back.    

Later, lovelies.  

[twdmusicboxmystery]

FTWD 6x08: First Analysis

Okay, let’s talk about this episode. 1) It SUCKED. 2) It also SUCKED. Anyone want to take a stab at what I’ll list for #3?

Why? Character death.

I’ll put all spoilers beneath the READ MORE. If this makes you at all worried about Beth’s return, read what I’ve written below. It will make you feel better.

***As always, spoilers abound for 6x08 below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

Okay, so I’m sure you already figured this out, but John is probably my favorite character currently on FEAR, so I’m super-bummed that they decided to kill him off. And I totally didn’t see it coming. The screeners talked about something big happening in Fear, but I didn’t think it would be this. Yeah. SUCKS.

But let’s discuss, shall we?

Because there was and still is a lot of Beth symbolism around John, I know that’s going to unsettle people. I don’t want this to come across as me being worried in any way, but I’ve already gotten quite a few Asks and messages, so clearly others in the fandom are worried that because John dies here, it might mean Beth really did die, too.

Let me assure you, there’s nothing further from the truth. 

I’d like you to keep the following 6 points:

1.       It’s all about the attitude of the character in that moment. (A.k.a. the symbolism can change.)

2.       His death will spur on the current storyline and affect other characters.

3.       There is plenty of precedent for killing off true love couples. Unfortunately.

4.       This was a replay of Grady.

5.       John does not = Beth in this season. Morgan does.

6.       Major clarity on the Door symbol, and that’s freaking huge!

It’s all about the character’s attitude in the moment.

This is something I’ve addressed before when looking at the dialogue various characters have before their deaths. In most cases, they accept their deaths or become negative in some way. And that’s not to say that they all want to die or try to commit suicide. For example, Dale. He didn’t want to die and he wasn’t suicidal. But before his death, he said he no longer wanted to live in a world where they killed Randal. That’s basically, through symbolic dialogue, announcing his own death.

Another good example is Glenn. There was tons of Beth symbolism and even a lot of her dialogue around Glenn in S6, just before his death fake out. Now, clearly he didn’t want to die in 7x01, and he didn’t really say anything to that effect. But the point is, the hopeful, Beth symbols around him wasn’t present in 6x16/7x01 as it was in 6x03. So, the symbolism around a character can change if their attitude has changed and their heading toward their own death.

Do you see what I mean? While there has been lots of Beth symbolism around John and June in the past, in this episode and even a few previous to this, he became very hopeless and dark. You could say he parallels to S2 Beth who also tried to commit suicide. Not to S4/S5 Beth who was hopeful and determined to live.

Throughout the episode, Morgan gives John tons of chances to change his mind, and he refuses.

One more example and I’ll move on. Heath and Tara.

I’ll admit this symbolism is a little confusing, and I had to think through it several times to square it in my head. In 7x06, Tara fell off a bridge into a river, and washed up in a new community. She lived. Here, John falls off a bridge into a river and washes up in front of his own cabin. But he dies.

We’ve always attributed the Tara symbolism to Beth, yet John died here. But Tara DID live, so which is it?

Again, it just depends on the attitude. Before Tara went off the bridge, we saw her being positive and hopeful, while Heath was being super negative and hopeless. Tara lived. She found herself in captivity, but eventually escaped and made it home. Heath didn’t die in that case, but disappeared into the CRM. The point is, something bad happened to him because he was being negative and hopeless. And to this day, he’s never made it home. See what I mean? So, it’s all about where the character’s head is at. Unfortunately, John had given up.

And the other confusing thing is that he seems to get his hope back right at the end. The last thing we see him say is “It’s not too late.” But I think the idea is that it’s just too little too late at that point. If you follow the sequence of events back, it’s clear that if he hadn’t gone back to the cabin and tried to kill himself, he wouldn’t have been on that bridge and Lizzie—I mean Dakota—wouldn’t have killed him. So his death was the result of his own actions.

His death will spur on the current storyline and affect other characters.

This is something the showrunners really emphasize on TTD. And I won’t say I’m a fan of it, but we do have a precedent for it in the show. Glenn’s death kicked off AOW. Jesus’s death happened at the start of the Whisper War. The death of the pike victims spurred Carol to let Negan out to kill Alpha. So, while I wish they’d used someone other than John for this (cuz I heart him), this is something we’ve seen in other story lines before.

Will it happen with Beth? Well, I don’t think Beth will die at the beginning of the CRM war, if that’s what anyone is thinking. But I think someone will. I’ll talk more about this below, but for now, know that there probably will be a sacrifice of some kind. I actually kind of wonder if it will be Eugene. Only because of the Sampson template. I’ve said before that I think, like Sampson, he might do something to save TF, kill their enemies, and give them a fighting chance. But that remains to be seen, of course.

There’s even a line in this episode where John says, “this river has a way of bringing people back to life.” Clearly, that doesn’t apply to him. But I think it applies to the rest of his group who will “come alive” and finally fight off Virginia’s evil yoke.

There is plenty of precedent for killing off true love couples. Unfortunately.

Another reason I know this makes people nervous is because this is a true love couple with major symbolic ties to Bethyl. I get it. But actually, we’ve seen similar things with lots of other Bethyl proxy couples.

The one that first comes to mind is Sasha and Abraham. They had TONS of Bethyl parallels. They did get together and get some time together, though not much. Then Abe was killed off, and Sasha followed him a season later.

There’s also David and Betsy from S6. Admittedly, there were SUPER minor characters, but still.

The other big one is Glaggie. I’m not saying there were tons of Bethyl parallels there, except in the fact that they’re both soulmate couples and both have death fake outs. But the point is, TWD hasn’t exactly shied away from killing off soulmate couples.

So what does that mean for Beth and Daryl?

I’m really not trying to scare or depress anyone. I’m not saying they’re going to kill off either Beth or Daryl after she returns. My point is that pointing at John and June as a soulmate couple and trying to extend this death to Beth and Daryl doesn’t really work. This is just another beloved character fatality, and TWD has given us a LOT of those.

So might they kill Beth or Daryl down the line? I mean, anything’s possible, but I really doubt it. I’ve said this before, but they wouldn’t do all this epic foreshadowing just to pull a Morales, or make them “just another” tragic couple.

Plus, it’s Daryl. His romance was always meant to be epic and I really think they’ll both be standing at the end of the series (including the spinoff) whenever that is. So, it’s not something I worry about.

This was a replay of Grady.

I’ll go into this more tomorrow in my Details post, but there are specific things here that make it clear to me that this is something of a replay of Grady. For today, just look at it this way: we have someone falling off a bridge (Daryl and Carol did so in 5x06) and someone being shot (John and Beth). Walkers are also involved in a big way. The difference is that John dies while we think Beth lived. And we can be confident in that because, as I explained above, her attitude was exactly the opposite of John’s.

John does not = Beth in this season. Morgan does.

Keep in mind that, as I said above, John because S2 Beth here. He sort of retrogressed into hopelessness, and that’s why he died.

If anyone is a Beth proxy in this season of Fear, it’s Morgan. He’s sort of “come back from the dead,” reinvented himself, is searching for his lost love (Grace) who happens to be pregnant (child/baby symbolism) and in this episode, John even calls him a ghost.

I’m just saying.

Major clarity on the Door symbol, and that’s freaking huge!

Okay, this is the big one for me, and about the only real silver lining of this episode. This is something we’ve been stumped over for a LONG time. Specifically, since they were filming S5.

Review: while filming the lost ‘white cabin’ scenes we know Emily was in for S5, and which we still haven’t seen yet, Steven Yeun posted this.

It’s a picture from inside that white cabin, and he captioned it with, “Open the door!” but then deleted it. We never understood exactly what that meant. I think most people assumed it was a tease about what might be or what might have happened in that cabin.

But this episode with John is called “The Door.”

They have this whole theme in the episode about how John wants to close himself in his cabin and commit suicide. So, closing the door = death. Opening the door = life. 

My fellow theorists and I have been talking a lot about the cabin symbol as a tomb, since 10x18. We think Leah’s entire cabin represents a tomb. Which not only shows that she might be dead/a hallucination, but it represents Daryl being emotionally dead. Closing himself off to the living and indulging things that aren’t even real.

We’ve seen other examples of this theme as well. In S4, Carol and Ty tried to stay in the little cabin, rather than moving forward to find the others, and it resulted in death (Lizzie killing Mica).

Also in S4, Sasha tried to stop rather than pushing forward. It probably would have resulted in her death. Thankfully, she came around, and that led to her not only living, but reuniting with Tyreese.

@wdway also pointed out that we just recently saw Lucille this. She entombed herself in the basement, shutting the door and leaving a note. And while she was dying of cancer anyway, she didn’t wait for cancer to kill her. She took her own life. So she entombed herself and chose death.

John wanted to do the same thing in this episode. He didn’t get a chance to, but as I discussed above, that’s why he died.

But do you see why this is so significant. Steven posting the cabin with the “open the door!” caption is his way of showing that something about the cabin in how Beth lived.

Opening the door = life.

So while I kind of hated this episode and am super bummed about John, it does shed some light on a lot of the symbolism.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about the episode details.

Thoughts?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

How 6a Foreshadowed Beth’s Return in S10/S11

Okay Everyone! This will be long and sprawling. In other words, very typical me. ;D

Let me preface it by saying that there are three things that have been floating around in my mind over the past week: the Phantom of the Opera template, the Pied Piper Template, and then I kept having the thought that maybe I should go back to 6a and look at Operation Lead the Walkers Away again. I’m not even sure why I kept thinking that. Maybe it’s just the obvious fact that we’re dealing with TF being surrounded by a huge horde in S10, so there could possibly be some parallels there. But I didn’t know for sure, beyond what we’ve already seen in the past.

I finally went back and watched a bunch of 6a episodes this past week. Boy was I in for a treat. ;D

Pied Piper Template:

Let’s start with the Pied Piper. My fellow theorists and I had discussed this briefly, though not in great detail. The reason we came up with it at all is because we’ve seen so many rats this season. I think we saw them 3 times, but I’m already forgetting where one of them was.

We saw a bunch of rats running ahead of the walker horde near Yumiko and Kelly. Then we had Negan equating rats with possums. Which is super important because that links Beth to the rat symbolism through the possum, in a 6-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon sort of way. ;D 

And I think we saw a dead rat in a cage. Originally, I couldn’t remember when. I remember thinking the cage looked a lot like the ones in the pet shop in 6a, and I was hoping we would see a dead dog inside (twisted as that sounds) because it would've been more Sirius symbolism. But it wasn't a dog, it was a rat. And I was disappointed. Looking through screenshots, I found it. It was during the Michonne/Virgil episode. She found a dead rat in a cage when she was snooping around his compound.

The conundrum I have with the Pied Piper symbolism is that I'm not sure exactly how we’re meant to interpret it. Obviously, there is a major musical theme in that legend, and that's good. But at the same time, the Pied Piper (the one who played music and therefore the one who would probably be equated with Beth) was kind of an evil character. He led the children away (and Beth does have a child and baby theme around her) but he basically led them to their deaths and separated them from their parents. Really doesn't sound like a very Beth-ish thing to do. So again, it's not that I doubt the template being used. I just wasn't sure exactly how to interpret it.

Then I got this ask in my inbox. It totally kicked me in the butt and sent me somersaulting down a tunnel. Check it out.

So, to answer the Nonny who asked it, I really don’t think Carol will figure very heavily in the actual “leading away” of the walkers. She’s around, of course. She and Kelly were seen filming separately from others in part of the city, so I think they’re going to have their own arc, separate from Daryl’s. I have some evidence for this belief based on foreshadows we saw in 6a. I’ll get to that in a minute. That said, thank you SO MUCH for this ask. I really led to a lot of clarity for me, which I’m about to explain in the rest of this post.

6x01: Operation Lead the Walkers Away commences

I've totally never thought to equate the Pied Piper template with Operation Lead the Walkers Away. Maybe I should have. Why haven't I? Probably because they didn't actually use music to lead the walkers in 6a. There was some noise, such as the noise the flare guns made, but for the most part they used flashing lights and the motion of the cars. Not music. So. it just didn't occur to me.

But I think this Nonny is completely right and onto something. It's what made me go back and watch a good portion of 6A.

My mind started spinning with all these possibilities.

The basic premise of what I’m about to say here is that Operation Lead the Walkers away in 6a was a foreshadow what's happening now with Alpha’s/Beta’s horde. And that's super important because in my mind, it shows the Beth is about to be back.

Like, right now.

With all the social media stuff they're doing, I think it's pretty obvious that Beth will show up in the finale, but this cements it for me.

So, Nonny suggests that Beth and Carol will lead the walkers away, but I don’t think so. Carol was nowhere around the horde in S6. She was back at Alexandria fighting the wolves. But remember this decomposing chica?

Everyone on TD equated her with Beth and she’s not only leading the horde, but is directly behind Daryl most of the way. So, I don’t think Daryl and Carol will lead the walker horde away from the hospital in S11.

I think Beth and Daryl will.

Think about it. That’s how Beth fits into the Pied Piper template. She won’t be leading children away (who knows if they’ll even use that part of the template at all?), she’ll be leading rats away, and in TWD world, rats = walkers. This entire sequence in 6a was one big foreshadow of what would be going on when Beth returns. There will be a walker horde storyline, and she and Daryl will be leading them away from Alexandria/TF.

Hence, why this blond, female, Beth-ish walker is so front and center during the entire sequence. Also, just for the record, this walker ends up front and center just before Glenn falls off the dumpster, which also equates her with the death fake out. Just saying.

Next up: the Sasha/Abraham dynamic. This is an edit I made and have reposted several times. 

There are some significant shots where it shows a lineup of Sasha, Abraham, and Daryl from the side. We also hear Glenn was counting 1, 2, 3 at the tractor place. I think the “1, 2, 3” could represent the three parts of the 15-season arc. One is Bethyl being together (Sashraham). Two is Daryl alone. Three is Beth’s return (Blond walker).

After 6x06, I came to realize that Sasha and Abraham were a Bethyl proxy. Once I realized that, I took Daryl being beside them as a way to associate him with them or them with him. To show that they were proxies of Beth and Daryl. But it's a lot more than that. It not only shows that there were proxies of Beth and Daryl, but it's a way to show that Beth and Daryl together (i.e. Sasha and Abraham) will end up leading the walker horde together.

(By the way, not all of this will probably happen in the finale. I'm thinking this can be a big part of the story line 11 A.)

So, here's the thing that really killed me about 601. Just as the horn goes off and the walkers start leaving the road and heading toward Alexandria, we see a sign advertising the mansions of Alexandria. 

There's an eight on it. It says they started 800K. And then at the top of the sign is the phrase, "You're almost home." For me, that shows that this is a foreshadow of something that will happen eight years later, and will bring the Sirius character home.

6x02: Enid’s Backstory and the Wolves

We’ve always seen a lot of Beth parallels in Enid’s backstory. And we’ve never known exactly why they used her for those parallels, though there have been plenty of theories over the years.

We have to look at 6a as a whole rather than at each episode in a vacuum. If you do away with the episode break between 6x01 and 6x02, we have is a situation where they showed that sign (800 K/“you're almost home”) and the very next thing we see is this girl on the outside alone who survives and ends up at the gates of Alexandria.

That's why there's so much that symbolism around Enid in this sequence. We were spot on back then. She is most definitely a proxy for Beth, but she wasn't a proxy for Beth back in S6. She's a proxy for Beth coming up in season 10/11. Also, that red jacket she's wearing? Red equals resurrection, right? So the point is, they're telling us that in conjunction with a great big walker horde, the Sirius character will return, it will happen eight years after the time period of 6A, and that a female character who's been out on her own for a while will show up at the gates of Alexandria. Oh, and she’ll be a resurrected character. 

The Wolves

Let’s talk about the wolves, who we’ve long equated with the Whisperers. There's been a lot of conjecture about the gray ninja being from a new group. So, in the middle of Operation Lead the Walkers Away, a new group shows up at Alexandria (the wolves). Now, we have another huge walker horde storyline, and a new group (the gray ninja) has shown up. My point is just that the parallels are there.

Carl and Enid in 6x02. This is SO great, guys, and something we never could have recognized back in S6.

When the Wolves first show up, Carol sees them out the window. Carl comes running down the stairs holding a gun and says that he saw them from upstairs and they’re coming in from everywhere. Carol then tells him to STAY THERE AND PROTECT JUDITH.

This jumped out at me because, in terms of what this foreshadows in S10, who is the one who is protecting Judith right now? It's Daryl. Rick is gone, Carl is gone, and even Michonne is gone. So, Daryl is Judith's protector and mentor right now.

Long story short, Enid and Carl represent Beth and Daryl in the sequence. It's a foreshadow for things that will happen when Beth returns in S10/S11.

So, Enid gets into the house of a set of KEYS. Obviously, that's a huge symbol because, Key Theory. Carl almost shoots her before realizing that it's her. Random aside: I wonder if this will end up happening in some way with Beth and Daryl. He’ll think she's whisperer or something and almost shoots her before she reveals herself.

Enid says she's leaving, and Carl says she isn't. He says she needs to stay there and help him protect Judith. (Again, obviously with Rick and Michonne and Carl gone, Beth would stay with Daryl and help protect Judith.) Also, keep in mind that Enid and Carl were Bethyl proxies in terms of their romance and they did the intertwined fingers hand hold in S7. Just saying.

Then we have lots of interesting Beth dialogue. Carl (Daryl) says, "Don't tell me goodbye." Enid replies, "Okay. I won't tell you goodbye." I think we could interpret this a couple of different ways. On the one hand, perhaps it shows that once Beth returns, there will be no more goodbyes between her and Daryl. That's definitely my favorite interpretation.

But to be fair, Enid was being sneaky here and using a play on words. She didn't tell him goodbye, but she still left. She snuck out when he wasn't looking. That may just equate to Beth not saying goodbye to Daryl when they were first separated in S4/S5. So, another way to equate Enid with Beth. Maybe we should be reading other things into this as well, but if so, we probably won’t know what they are until they play out in the show.

During the Enid/Carl/Don’t-tell-me-goodbye scene, Enid said something interesting. She was saying that Alexandria was too big to protect. Too many blind spots (so, a Beth proxy talking about blindness). And then she said, “That’s how we—” and Carl cut her off.

I don’t know if everyone remembers this, but when it aired, there was a lot of conjecture about Enid being part of the Wolves group. Like maybe they sent her in ahead of time as a scout. Obviously. that wasn’t the case, but it’s because of this line that people thought it. I still have no idea what the end of this sentence would have been, but I’m wondering now if it was merely symbolic. Maybe it will make sense the second time around? Thought that was worth mentioning.

We definitely several bicycles when the wolves attacked. And at one point, Carl leaves the house to help Ron. When they focus on Enid, standing on the porch, she's framed by a yellow doorway. I thought that was interesting. And remember that, after Enid leaves and meets up with Glenn in 6x07, we see her playing with a little red firetruck in the café.

I’m also wondering how far the Carl/Enid = Beth/Daryl metaphor will extend. In 6x05, we had the slap fight between Ron and Carl,

and it occurred to me that Ron represents a second love interest for Beth. I know, I know. We don’t like to think of her having any love interest except Daryl.

For me, I always think that maybe there will be someone in her group that is interested in her, but she doesn’t really reciprocate. (You could argue that this was true of Enid, as she often lied to Ron about leaving Alexandria and was ALWAYS looking at Carl.) So, I’m wondering if this foreshadows circumstances when Beth shows up, or if it doesn’t extend that far and is JUST meant to be a Carl/Enid thing. That could be the case, too.

Morgan:

Okay, let me deviate for a minute and talk about Morgan. At some point, I had the random thought that Morgan was one person who would not be part of the sequence in S10. In the same way a lot of the characters that were alive in S6 are now dead, he was there in S6, but now he's gone to FTWD, so I don't expect to see him when what S6 foreshadowed comes to pass in S10.

Or should we expect to see him?

As soon as I had that thought, things started jumping out at me about Morgan. For one, there's the conversation with Michonne about the peanut butter protein bar. A lot of people commented on that back then and how it was discontinuous. Because if you go back and watch Clear, Michonne is clearly not eating a protein or granola bar. It looks and crunches like potato chips. Back when S6 first aired, I also didn't understand peanut butter symbolism. It’s still a discontinuity, but if they’re changing something like that, in a way that fans can easily figure out and scorn them for, there's got to be a good reason for it. In short, they probably changed it specifically to put in the peanut butter symbolism.

Now, the peanut butter is definitely a Beth symbol. It also strikes me that we have Rick, Michonne, and Morgan together in the shot. As of right now, Rick is with the helicopter people in Michonne is going there to get him. So, it could be that Morgan will run into them inside the helicopter group in some way. (Just as a reminder, all these characters have their own arcs and while we focus on Beth symbolism, each character’s arc is probably foreshadowed in much the same way, and we just don’t realize it because we don’t focus on anyone else.)

We definitely have hints that the FTWD characters will run into the helicopter group at some, right? So many the peanut butter symbolism is more about Rick than anything else. I'm not sure, but it's interesting.

Then, we have the part when Morgan holds Judith on the porch while he's talking to Rick. It’s interesting because Judith is such a huge part of the storyline right now, and maybe this foreshadows that Morgan might have something to do with her storyline when this sequence comes back around in S10.

He’s also the one who reaches the wolf truck with Spencer and silences the horn.

Yes, I know he's on FTWD and that would constitute a major time jump for his arc, but I always think it would be cool if anybody from Fear suddenly popped up on TWD. It doesn't even have to be Morgan. I'd be super happy to suddenly see John Dorie show up in the woods or something. (I answered an ask mentioning this yesterday, btw.) But I digress.

Here’s the next thing that’s super crazy. I…well, didn't exactly forget, but I wasn't thinking about this at all until I did my re-watch. The truck that hit the church, that was driven by the wolves, the one whose horn began to blare and pull the walkers off the road? Do you remember what kind of truck it was? It was one of those Dell Arno trucks. The one that says, “how the harvest gets home” on one side.

Back in 5x16, when Daryl and Aaron first triggered the wolf trap, EVERYONE equated this with Beth. I don’t want to go into the specific symbolism now, but it has to do with life and growth and coming home. So, in short, the harvest = Beth. Yet another reason we thought she would “come home” in conjunction with the wolves.

But do you see? This may be the best thing I found in the episode. It means the "new group" that shows up during the S10 walker horde storyline is going to be how the harvest (Beth) gets home. Boom! Confirmation. Right there. She’s got to either be this ninja, or with this ninja’s group.

6x03: Pet Shop, Glenn’s Death Fake Out, Rick’s Epic Marathon, and the Weirdness of Daryl

Onto episode 603. There’s definitely some interesting stuff having to do with Rick and his storyline. Episode 3 is Glenn’s death fake out, of course, but also had the parts where we saw Rick running along the road for long stretches of time. He ran on foot back around the route and got into the RV, right?

Well, the RV had yellow balloons tied to it. Rick got into the vehicle with the yellow balloons tied to it and drove away. I'm thinking that's pretty much the same thing as him escaping through the yellow carnival ride in 7x12. This is a very early foreshadow of him having a death take out and escaping death. (Which could also be why they included Glenn's line of "good luck, dumbass" from S1.) Then we have the RV not starting for him near the end of the episode and at the beginning of 6x05, he comes running up to the gates on foot. Not sure exactly how to interpret that but I think it's interesting and probably a foreshadow.

(A note on 604: Morgan’s Big Episode. I didn't rewatch it. I don't think I need to go over the specific symbolism in it. While it’s important (remember it has a goat named Tabitha, who was resurrected in the bible) it’s not terribly applicable here except to say that, like Enid’s backstory squence, it's once again important that they interrupted this whole sequence to show us Morgan's back story and the massive Beth parallels in it.)

Remember the weirdness of Daryl? I’ve posted about this more than once. (HERE) His behavior in 603 was just really strange. First, he abandoned Sasha and Abraham to go back and help Rick, but he couldn't find him. Then he heard gunshots on the radio and started to freak out because he didn't know where Rick was or if he needed help. Then, with no explanation and without telling anyone, he simply met up with Sasha and Abraham again and stayed with them. I just thought it was weird that he suddenly changed his mind and it didn't explain what his thought process was.

Meanwhile, on a panel after that episode aired, someone asked Norman about it. He was obviously very reluctant to answer, because he didn't want to give spoilers, and all he said was that Daryl did it for more than Rick. There was more of a reason for it than just that. Once again, that's never been explained. I think I know what it means now. 

What I'm thinking here is that this foreshadows Daryl finding out Rick is still alive. Warning: this may not be anybody's favorite idea, but I’m just putting out there what I’m seeing. If Sasha and Abraham represent Bethyl. and we have Daryl leaving and them getting mad at him, maybe we’ll reach a point in the story where Daryl finds out Rick is alive and leaves to go find him.

While I'm obviously not in favor of Beth and Daryl splitting up ever again, right about this time, rumors of this Daryl Dixon movie started circulating. I know it's not official. It hasn't been greenlighted. So, it's not something we can really count on. But people are really misinterpreting what's being said as well. If they do the Daryl Dixon movie, it will be between seasons. Which means he would probably be the finale of one season, they’ll do this at this to the movie in the off-season, and then he would be there again for next season. I really don't see Norman not being on the show for any stretch of time. But this opens up some interesting possibilities.

Understand, I'm assuming Beth would be back in 10×16. And there will probably be another Operation Lead the Walkers Away/Pied Piper template in 11a. Probably not much time will pass during that. Maybe only a few days. So, let's say hypothetically after that, Daryl learns that Rick is alive. I'm thinking of the sequence in 6a where he leaves Sashraham to go find Rick. Neither of them were very happy about that. Plus, there were major Beth vibes, both in Daryl saying, “Nah. I have faith in ya.” And in Rick’s walkie-talkie speech, where he said, “This…is for them.”

So, if Daryl goes, maybe Beth will be angry at him for leaving. But think about that. If he leaves, he would leave her in charge, and she would be the sheriff.

Again, these are just possibilities. It may be much more symbolic than this. And you could also interpret it as that he THOUGHT about leaving Sashraham, but didn’t really. I mean, he did for a few minutes, but he didn’t REALLY go back and help Rick. So maybe it will just be a small part of things rather than something he actually does. I can see someone saying that Rick would want him to stay and watch over Rick and Michonne’s kids, and that convinces him to stay. And incidentally, that would parallel well with Rick’s speech over the walkie in 6a about staying the course and seeing things through. (“This is for them. If we go back now, it will be for us.”)

Phantom of the Opera Template

Full Disclosure: I’ve been mildly obsessed with the idea of the Phantom of the Opera template lately. There are really two reasons I keep fixating on this. One is just because I think it would be awesome. I’m totally rooting for it. ;D

From a more symbolic standpoint, it's because of Daryl's, "I never sung out in public before," line. I can just see that coming to pass in the Phantom of the Opera template storyline.

I will say that I can also see it happening in this Pied Piper storyline. Because I'm assuming that Beth and Daryl lead the walker away together, they will probably use music to do it.

I'm not saying Daryl will embrace his inner Miley Cyrus and suddenly belt out pop music, but if Beth is singing, and he's helping her in any way—perhaps if he holds a radio or something to contribute to the music and bring walkers toward them—I think that would qualify as satisfying the foreshadow. They’ll be out in front of people and sort of on display with something musical going on.

It’s too bad juke boxes are huge and need to be plugged in. I’d be all for Daryl holding one up over his head like John Cusack in…whatever that 80s film was. ;D

So with that in mind, maybe I don't need the Phantom of the Opera template, right? It's much more likely that it will happen somewhere in the Pied Piper template. I could get behind that 100% and accept that the rest is just my head canon.

Except for one thing.

Do you remember Denise’s storyline in 608/609? Obviously, she's a proxy for Beth. Remember that Creepy Wolf Dude took her captive for a short time, and Greg Nicotero said that he kinda fell in love with her?

Yeah, sounds like the Phantom of the Opera template to me. At the very least, it shows that someone — probably someone foreshadowed by the wolves, which would be a whisperer—will take Beth captive for time and probably fall in love with her.

I don't know how familiar everyone is with Phantom of the Opera, so let me give you a quick rundown. In the play, the Phantom (that would be Beta because he wore the mask) falls in love with Christine (that would be Beth) who is a singer. At one point in the story, he kidnaps her and her love interest Raoul (obviously Daryl) follows to get her.

The interesting thing is that he doesn't really save her. Don't get me wrong, he shows up and they get away together, but the Phantom gets the better of him and it gets to a point where the Phantom demands that Christine do what he wants, or he’ll kill her lover. I can see something like that happening between Bethyl and Beta. (I mean, we’ve all had the sense that at some point, Beth will save Daryl, right? I’m also thinking of the symbolism of Lydia showing up in a pillar of light to save him from Alpha earlier this season.)

But what really works in terms of Beth's arc is that Christine pretty much saved herself. She agrees to do with the Phantom wants in order to save Raoul, but really, by bringing across harsh truths to him, she basically talks him into letting them go. Which he does.

Now, the Phantom ends up living in the play. He just doesn't end up with Christine. I don't really see the happening with Beta. Because this is TWD, I'm sure they'll kill off Beta at some point. That’s just how they’ll deviate from the template. And remember that Creepy Wolf Dude with Denise was bitten and died.

The other thing I want to talk about is the idea of sexuality in Phantom of the Opera. So, in the story, the Phantom isn’t a rapist. At least, not in a classical sense. Not in a throw-her-down-and-attack-her sort of way. He talks openly of marrying her and even puts her in a wedding dress at some point. BUT he also makes no secret of the fact that he wants to have physical relations with her. And then there’s the fact that he’s forcing her to be with him and she has no choice in the matter. So, it’s a form of rape, but again, not an attack rape so much as a manipulative, Weinstein kind of rape. *shudders* So anyway, obviously I don’t think Beth will be raped or anything (for the record, Christine wasn’t; she and the Phantom never had sex). But I was thinking that if the threat is there with Beta, it could fulfill something I’ve been harping on forever: the idea of Gorman having been a foreshadow of something else to come. I always said the next threat would be bigger and, even just in terms of stature and shoulder width, Beta is definitely a bigger threat than Gorman.

The rest is more general. (I’m almost done; I promise.) In 605, we have Maggie and Aaron in the sewer. And this is more that isn’t very well explained. I know the two walkers they find in there are supposed to be the people Deanna banished, but it still wasn’t explained to my satisfaction.

There’s also a ladder in there that hits Aaron (Beth proxy) in the forehead and bloodies him. The ladder is usually about people saving themselves or being rescued, so it’s not clear why one was included here, other than symbolically. As this is literally a dark tunnel and in conjunction with Glenn’s death fake out, I’m sure you can see the symbolism. But even so. I’m sure this points to something in S10.

Remember that they showed the sewer grate below Beta’s horde at the hospital, and we’ve seen the sewer at Alexandria be used many times to hide, escape, or sneak around. So, if Aaron = Beth, I’m wondering if Beth and Maggie will use that sewer beneath the hospital in S10 to either get into the hospital, or get people out of the hospital.

When Rick is attacked in the RV by wolves, he finds that jar of baby carrots, right? For the first time, that is making sense beyond just the carrot symbol. Because the carrot symbol is a thing, but why have it in this sequence? Again, to show that when this happens again with the horde, we’ll reach the second phase of Beth’s story, and the carrot doesn’t mature until its second season of growth. The second time around, if you will.

The last thing I’ll talk about briefly is episode 6x06. I actually didn’t rewatch it for this post, but that’s because I know that episode backwards, forward, and inside out. The short of it is that 6x06 is chalk-full of Beth symbolism that points to Daryl meeting Beth out in the woods.

So without getting into the nitty-gritties, much like Enid’s backstory and Morgan’s backstory, it’s just significant that they put this episode here, in conjunction with the walker horde storyline. Everything about 6a was hinting at Beth’s return. It just wasn’t going to actually happen until 8 years later.

I will say that the events of 6x06 do muddle the chronology a bit for me. Everything else points to Beth leading the walker horde away with Daryl, but 6x06 happens AFTER they’ve led the horde away.

So, there’s a good chance I’m interpreting at least some of this a little incorrectly. In fact, just let me reiterate that. I’m sure I’ll have lots of people who disagree at least with parts of this. A lot of this is just me brainstorming and I could turn out to be wrong. That’s totally fine. 

But the rock-bottom line? Who cares! Everything points to Beth’s return in conjunction with the walker horde story line. So if I’m a little off about some or all of this, I’m cool with that. As always, it will make more sense as it unfolds in the show.

Thoughts?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x14: Details

Okay, let’s talk details! I’ll try to cluster these by character:

Negan/Daryl:

When Carol goes to see Negan and make a deal with him, he says he wants, “a T-bone, a beer, and a scoop of Rocky Road. 

Naturally, the beer reference caught my attention. But it also occurred to me that Rocky Road is ice cream. So, we can obviously link the beer to Beth, and the rocky road could be a reference to Daryl’s frozen yogurt “I never.” I don’t know how to work the T-bone in. Maybe it’s less about the meat and more about the T. As in, a cross. (@frangipanilove​ also pointed out that as ice cream is frozen it goes with the coolers/frosty cola theory)

Negan says, “I get it,“ at one point. Kind of small potatoes, but Beth dialogue always jumps out at me. During the “I don’t think she’s coming back conversation, Negan gives Daryl a canteen of water. Just the fact that water is involved in the scene is more evidence that this is meant to be a Beth reference. Negan also says, “I’m not bullshitting you.”

I also noted that when the three whispers (rule of threes) kneel to Negan, and he ends up shooting them, there’s only one bullet in the shotgun. I’m not trying to say anything in particular about that. But we can have the “I get it now,“ line, and then there’s one bullet in the shotgun (dude is shot pretty brutally in the face) and then of course there’s everything I talked about yesterday with him saying, “I don’t think she’s coming back.“ Just lots of Beth related details around Negan and Daryl here.

And as I said yesterday, I hope that’s a hint that both of their future arcs will intersect with Beth in some way.

Eugene/Ezekiel/Yumiko:

There’s definitely a fool/foolish theme going on here. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it yet, but it definitely is linked to faith. You often hear phrases about “a fool’s hope.” It just means believing when there’s nothing left to believe it anymore. So, you’re a fool to believe it. But that’s also the strongest form of faith. And we heard this theme over and over again this episode, both from Eugene and from Zeke.

Eugene and the bunnies. Actually lots of interesting symbols in this conversation. He says his mother grew up next to some train tracks, like the ones they’re currently passing. We saw train tracks not only leading to Terminus in S4, but also associated with Beth in Ty’s hallucination in 5x09.

Then he says his mother was a “pistol,” but she used to buy the bunnies for Easter, so he’s come to associate the chocolate bunnies with “family.” Beth, anyone?

Then Yumiko says, “we’re not really on a journey to find chocolate bunnies, are we?” He answers, “No. We’re on a journey for the future hope of mankind.” Yeah, seeing all kinds of Beth symbolism there.

There is that cage full of walkers that Eugene’s group sees. So, we have two walkers in cages and then a bird in the third compartment. I think we could interpret that several ways.

I think this Stephanie thing will lead to Beth and the helicopter group in some way. We just don’t know how, yet. So, the two imprisoned walkers could represent the two sheriffs (Beth and Rick). Then again, perhaps the bird represents Beth. In which case, the two walkers might represent Rick and Zeke, since I think I’ll three of them will be part of the helicopter group and have death fake-outs at some point.

The yellow rope is also interesting. Perhaps it suggests the three of them escaping imprisonment together?

Let’s talk in a little more detail about how they are foreshadowing Zeke’s death fake out. His horse collapses suddenly and Zeke sees a bite on it. I went back and watched the scene where Zeke was fighting the walkers. We don’t actually see the horse get bitten, but at one point, one of the walkers staggers toward Zeke from near where the horse is standing. So, I’m kind of thinking that’s where it happened.

And it’s similar to how they showed Carl getting bitten. As in, they didn’t really show it, but if you know to look for it then you can see where it happened. Zeke is very emotional and sweet with the horse. He keeps telling it, “it’s okay, it’s okay.“ Also Beth dialogue. And then he puts it down.

Another thing that occurred to me is that it’s almost as a parallel to Carol killing Lizzie. I say that because 1) he “puts it down,” obviously feeling heartbroken about it. 2) There’s a flower graffiti on the bridge pillar behind him. And 3) this episode is called, “Look at the Flowers.” Then, as I mentioned yesterday, he tries to get Yumiko to promise to leave him behind if he’s too weak and falls. She says no, but it still feels like something exactly like that might happen.

Yumiko has a cool line. She says, “I don’t know what lies ahead. Probably things none of us can predict. Or imagine.” Yeah, that still make me think we’re looking at a cure arc pretty soon. But it’s just a cool, very hopeful thing to say.

And let’s not underplay the fact that they’re camping under a bridge. We don’t see anyone fall off it or anything, but keep in mind that in Fear, Madison was kind of under/beside a bridge just before she disappeared. And I believe her “death” is a fake out as well.

Let’s address the Princess stuff. Look at the stuff in this picture with this walker. The first thing that struck me was that it’s sitting in a rocking chair. When the Governor went into the retirement home in 4x06, there was a walker tied into a wheelchair. So, different kind of chair, but visually it looks similar.

As I said yesterday, these walkers look a lot like the Rich Bitch walker from the golf club. If you zoom in on the table, there’s actually a mannequin abdomen, just like we saw with the Rich Bitch walker. There are also pink shoes, lanterns, a blue umbrella. Plenty of pink. The two at the table are holding cocktail glasses. Not sure what to make of the guy on the motorized scooter.

Upon seeing all the purple @wdway​ pointed out that purple is an important color where Advent is concerned. Here’s what she found:

So, purple actually heralds the coming of Christ. And blue, well…..

They walk past a food truck. It’s actually a burrito truck in this case, but in Alone, Maggie laid down next to an ice cream truck when she was waiting for Sasha. Because of the water and freeze symbolism around that (think blue coolers and frosty cola) we’ve always seen that as part of the Sirius symbolism.

Beta:

We definitely heard a lot of the hear/see/speak no evil theme. Beta keeps asking the Whisperers around him if they can hear Alpha speaking to him.

(When he takes her head off the pike, he cradles it like a baby. Yikes!)

When he gets to the western saloon place, he finds a note that says these two eyes see one truth.

And let’s talk about this western theme. We’ve seen it a lot in FTWD, and there are hints to it earlier on during S7/8, such as with the Smokey and the Bandit trailer and the Highwaymen. 

@frangipanilove​ found THIS ARTICLE for us in which AK talks about how S11 will have a huge western theme. So, this is all foreshadowing that will be paid off at some point. And let’s also appreciate that the word ‘sheriff’ has its origins in the old west. So while we’re still hoping we’ll see Beth alive before the end of the season, and not face another long hiatus not knowing, this may suggest that S11 will deal with old west things, including, you know, sheriffs. ;D

Inside the saloon, we see tons of interesting symbols. The semi-circular bar looks just like the one Beth looked for booze behind (where she found the peach schnapps) in Still. There is alcohol, spoons, musical instruments and equipment, a music stand, candles, a mini fridge, records, plenty of interesting colors. You name it, it’s a Beth symbol.

 We’re also wondering what he’s called Half Moon. It’s obviously symbolic, and the moon is linked to the Sirius symbolism, both because we saw the moon in Still and because of this picture from 4B of a dog chasing moon. We’re just not exactly sure how to interpret the half-moon thing yet. @wdway did some research I won’t go into here that also links it to Easter and resurrection. Just saying. ;D

There’s a battery next to his record player. And he uses the music to call the walkers. We’ve seen that theme lots of times before, and often associated with Beth stuff. In 4x01 at the Big Spot. With the green Gremlin car at Hilltop in S7, to name a few.

Beta says to Alpha’s head, “Thank you. I see now. Thank you.” Then he fixes half of his broken mask with skin from Alpha’s face. 

Carol:

It struck me that Carol hallucinating Alpha was actually a lot like Daryl hallucinating Merle in S2. Not just because of the hallucination, but also because the hallucination was razzing them, calling them names, and was obviously a representation of their own mind and the worst things to think about themselves.

One detail that jumped out at me is that when Carol is trying to get the boat down, there’s a pink blanket or tarp next to it. I thought of the Pink Theory, of course. Then Alpha says something interesting. She said that Carol even sent a letter to Maggie about Alpha. It’s kind of an interesting detail to throw in, especially because they don’t go into detail about it. It could foreshadow Maggie’s return, but I also think there must be a specific reason they mentioned this. I’m interested to see how that plays out.

The walker that tried to buy Carol crawls out of the river. And when it’s trying to get her, Alpha accounts, one, two, three.

Alpha also says, “My mother used to say everything works out the way it supposed to.” Yeah, that was something Mica said in 4x14, The Grove. Like, those exact words. So it’s kind of disturbing to hear Alpha say them. And that made me realize that her earlier, whiny apology, when she was saying, “I’m sorry you’re mad at me,” was supposed to emulate Lizzie in a super-twisted way. Remember, Lizzie got upset and started crying because she thought Carol was mad at her? Yeah, seriously traumatic, twisted stuff.  

Oh, and there’s another one of those. I caught that Alpha counted after telling Carol to the let the walker bite her. She says, “One…two…three.” I wasn’t sure what that was at first. I was just thinking Rule of Threes. But then I realized. If you go back to episode 4x02, where Lizzie and Mica’s father died, they counted too. They would say, “look at the flowers. One, two, three,” like they were counting breaths to calm themselves. So once again, hearing old lines in Alpha’s twisted voice.

 And one way I could kind of obliquely relate this to Beth is simply to point out that, while a lot of people in the fandom may think this stuff is ancient history, it’s truly not. The characters are still dealing with events from S4 and S5 in a big way. So why would we discount Beth from that? Well, TD definitely wouldn’t. ;D

Okay, Alpha says some really interesting things to Carol (all equally messed up). At one point, she says, “And now you can’t go back. They won’t accept what you’ve done.” So, the Can’t-Go-Back theme. We heard that a lot in S5.

Then she says, “Being out on your own, you’ve tried it before. They always pull you back. Wanting more. Love Motherhood. Death. But they don’t know what you truly want. Admit it. What do you want? What do you want? Say it. Say it.” Carol doesn’t admit to anything. 

And I had to sit and think what it is Alpha’s referring to that Carol wants. At first, I thought maybe it was forgiveness, and really, she needs to forgive herself. But looking at the intersection of the other character journeys, especially Zeke’s, I realized I was wrong. What Carol wants is death. She’d never admit that, even to herself, but she wants it to be overwith. 

And we’ve seen this from her before. She’s not one that would take her own life, but back in 6x16, when the Savior shot her, she was literally begging Morgan to either let her die or kill her. She won’t do it herself, but her world and the things she’s done have become too dark and too much for her to bear, and she longs for death.

Just then, a walker bursts from trees and grabs her. She kills it easily enough, but it reminded me of the walkers coming out of the trees at the gas station in 4x04. And that makes sense because Tyreese was going through much the same thing then as Carol is now, after losing Karen/Henry. And, okay, this is a total side-tangent, but I almost wonder if that was the rationale for putting Tyreese and Carol together in 4b. I mean, they were connected anyone because she was the one who killed Karen. But him transcending what happened and forgiving Carol was kind of a foreshadow of Carol’s much more protracted arc to try and transcend the things she’s done and the things that have happened to people she loves.  

It’s also important to note that this mirrors what I’ve always said about Carol in the Grove. She was talking about Lizzie when she said, “she’s too dangerous to be around people” and that whole speech, but she was also talking about herself. And this is another version of that. Alpha is saying it but that’s Carol’s own inner voice saying everything. So look at some of this dialogue in that light.

“It’s finally time... You always knew how this would end. No one’s coming to save you. Not Ezekiel. And certainly not Daryl. Not after what you did to Connie. Stop fighting. No matter what you do, you lose people. Sophia, Lizzie, Mica, Henry, Ezekiel… And if you go back, Daryl could be next.”

“I could never let that happen.”

“Your track record does not inspire confidence. Just look at the flowers, like you’re supposed to. One…two…three…

Just really interesting.

Okay, I’ll stop there. There’s probably more but you can all study the episode and find it. This is the kind of stuff that’s sprinkled throughout the entire thing and it’s all really interesting.

Thoughts?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x05: What It Always Is - Details

Okay, how did everyone like the episode? Let’s dive in.

***As always, spoilers abound below for episode 10x05. Don’t read until you’ve watched!!!***

Opening sequence:

This was the part with Kelly. There were quite a few Beth symbols here. It starts out with her hearing lots of birds chirping. 

There’s the dragonfly (think The Deer and the Bug Theory), the banner which had red, blue, green, and yellow on it, 

and of course the yellow and black pig, which she kills. 

The pigs pretty much always die. It’s also kind of a callback to 4x01 when Clara (Creepy Walker Chick) wanted to eat the dead pig Rick found in the woods.

I started thinking about the pigs and trying to define them, much as I did the bus. Here’s what I came up with. In 4a, Rick literally kills the piglets to lead the walkers away from the walls, so they can fix the fences and keep the people at the prison safe. So I think the pigs represent a “sacrifice” to keep the living safe. And it often involves a walker horde. You could say the same of the pigs in S7. Ezekiel was giving them to Negan so Negan wouldn’t attack the Kingdom. So by fulfilling the deal, he was sacrificing the pigs to keep the Kingdom safe. Here, Kelly allowed the walkers to have the pig to save herself. Just some thoughts I had on the pig theme.

When Kelly falls down, sitting by the rock, it reminded me of the dead guy Daryl saw by the deer in Them. She’s just sitting exactly the same way.

Here’s the thing about Kelly in this sequence. I felt like she was a representation of Beth, but it was hard for me, at first, to put my finger on why. As always, hashing things out with my fellow theorists helped. The best we can say right now is that she was, for a short time, a missing girl. And eventually, she was found. It even focused on her forehead injury. (Opposite side as Beth’s, but still.)

Even more interesting, she was found by her sister and, um…Daryl. Well, if Kelly = Beth, Beth’s sister and Beth’s Daryl are alive and well in this world, aren’t they? Just saying. There are more symbols that play into this (such as the colored flags we saw) but I’ll talk about them in more detail later in the week.

Negan and Brandon:

I definitely saw some Bethyl callbacks around Negan this episode. When they’re near the barbed wire—which apparently marks some of the Whisperers’ boundaries—a walker attacks him. He manages to kill it, but only after quite a fight. Brandon doesn’t lift a finger to help him. Once Negan puts the walker down, he says, “Thanks for the help.” That’s exactly what Beth said to Daryl in the golf club in Still. He also fights like both Beth and Daryl did, by using his heel to smash the walker’s face.

When Brandon gives him his coat and “new Lucille,” he asks if Negan likes them. Negan answers, “does pig shit stink?” So, another pig reference.

At one point, Brandon and Negan are rating walkers for “hotness,” which was kind of funny. But the numbers they mentioned were important. Brandon said one was a 7. Negan then says she’s clearly a 3. I was happy to hear both those numbers. Just recently, Emily posted the tarot card with the 7 stars on it, and of course there’s the rule of threes.

Amelia said she and Milo used to have a camp, but it got scattered and now it was just her and her son. That’s actually a lot like what happened in S4 with the prison. And when Brandon wants to follow Amelia and take her stuff, Negan says, “It’s best I go on alone and you go home.” That stood out to me because it has “Alone” and also the “home” theme in it.

Brandon also says, “I get it.”

Later when Negan talks to Milo, the kid is playing with an airplane. That’s super-significant. It’s been a much bigger symbol on FTWD than TWD, but I immediately thought of the plane crash on this past season of FTWD. 

I said that I thought the plane crash represented some major disaster, and maybe was even symbolic of Beth getting shot. Here, Milo is playing with the plane and Negan even says, “oh no, we’re gonna crash.” So, I think this could have foreshadowed Milo’s death later in the episode. Which would just back up my theory about what it meant in FTWD.

Negan planned to take Milo and Amelia to Hilltop, but of course Brandon killed them. So, Negan killed him with a rock. (Ew. Seriously gnarly. *shudders*) Which, again, I think represents Negan killing his former self or his former way of life. This is him rejecting that and choosing a different path.

And then Negan goes to seek out the Whisperers. Which is pretty much what happens in the CBs. But I am glad to see this happening because I still think we’re right on track for what they’ve foreshadowed and this chain of events, no matter how long it goes, will lead to running into Beth.

When he crosses the barbed wire border, he’s wearing his Negan coat and carrying Lucille. He also calls himself the Big Bad Wolf again and says his “little pig, little pig” line. So he seems to be his old, Negan self, but I think it’s all an act to get the Whisperers to trust him. I also can’t help but wonder about that “little pig” reference. Yes, I know it’s something Negan says in the CBs, so it’s not specific to the show. But we’ve looked at it as part of the pig symbolism since Negan first appeared, which was one reason—of many—we thought Beth might show up with him. She obviously didn’t, but now this symbolism is back and I think this sequence will lead to her. Kind of interesting.

Alpha and Gamma:

I don’t have a lot to add here to what I already said yesterday. One thing I did notice was Alpha’s line to the male whisperer who was skinning the face off the walker. She said ears were the trickiest part. I’m not going to explain why that’s significant right now, as I’ll do a post about it later in the week. But just remember it for now. Also, there was a big emphasis on Kelly’s hearing loss in this episode, so it was kind of a theme.

Also, they said on TTD that the walker they were skinning in this scene was one Kelly killed in the opening sequence. That’s interesting to me. Not only did they make sure we caught it via TTD (I for one wouldn’t have otherwise) but think about that. If Kelly was a proxy for Beth, a walker she fought with ended up with the Whisperers. I just feel like it’s another hint at the tie between Beth’s arc and the Whisperers.

In terms of Aaron, I wanted to add that I’m seeing a callback to Them. When Gamma hurts her hand, he shows up with supplies to help her and introduces himself. That’s what he did in Them when TF was in need of water and a home. And of course, that’s when the music box woke up.

Ezekiel:

One thing I forgot to discuss yesterday is, assuming Zeke survives his cancer—which I think he will—how much of a parallel this is to Beth. Obviously, it’s cancer rather than being shot in the head, but the situation is similar. How often do non-believers tell us that because it’s the apocalypse, Grady wouldn’t be able to save her from her wound? Even being near a hospital, they still don’t have the resources they used to have and so won’t be able to save her. This is kind of similar. It’s something that would have been fine in the old world, but given how little they have in the way of medical treatment, they SHOULDN’T be able to save him. Especially if he goes to Grady or somewhere a lot like it for treatment, that will be a huge parallel.

At one point, Siddiq said that Zeke’s lump looked bad. Zeke answered, “No. It’s just the slings and arrows.” That’s a line from Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” speech. He talks about the “slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.” I’m reading this about three different ways.

1.       Hamlet’s speech, at its core, is about suicide, and why the majority of people are too cowardly to commit suicide. And while A) that may be in line with Zeke contemplating suicide last episode, it also B) ties him more heavily to Beth and realizing that, overall, he wants to live.

2.       Everyone who dies at the end of Hamlet dies because of poison. So, I think this links Zeke to the poison (and possibly by extension, the radiation) arc.

3.       There’s the “outrageous misfortune” line. In terms of the tarot cards, that wheel we keep seeing is the Wheel of Fortune. It represents life cycles, good and bad fortune, and fate. I might do more detail on this at a later point, but I think for Zeke, this foreshadows his death fake out. His happiness with Carol is over for the time being. And unfortunately, things are about to get worse for him. He’s about to have “outrageous misfortune.”

Near the end, he almost tells Carol over the radio, but doesn’t. Probably a mistake. Maybe to foreshadow that they don’t speak again (or say goodbye) before everything goes really bad?

During this part, Siddiq talks to Dante on the radio. We learn that Rosita is sick. Not sure what’s up with that, but they went out of their way to tell us that. 

Also, apparently Gabriel isn’t at Alexandria. He left for some unknown reason and hasn’t returned. Thanks to @wdway​ for catching that. Why is it important?

Because Gabriel is the embodiment of the Sirius symbolism. And right now, they’re literally waiting for him to return.

Then Siddiq says, “I’m still here.” (Beth line.) And Dante has an interesting line where he says, “The universe is on pause until God returns.” He’s saying that not much is going on there medically and he’s referring to Siddiq as “god.” But it’s still an interesting line about God returning, no?

Connie, Magna, and Daryl:

Of course there’s the fact that they’re looking for the missing girl with all the Beth symbolism around her. Lt’s talk about Daryl’s story about Merle. Obviously it’s a callback to Still, where he talked to Beth about Merle and told a story about him. Beer is mentioned. And it all takes place on a lake. So, a body of water. Also, when he did the motion to tell how he’d hauled Merle alone, he put her arm around his neck. It looked exactly like the way he helped Beth in Alone, after she hurt her ankle.

I don’t have a whole lot more detail than that, other than what I’ve already said. Daryl does say, “I get it,” in that final scene when he’s talking to Connie.

I did notice one other random theme, here. It was a magic theme, of all things. First, Ezekiel, talking about the old world, said it had been a time of sorcery and witchcraft. (In other words, they could do awesome things to fight cancer.) Later, when Negan was talking to Milo, he used the term “voodoo magic” to describe flying. I just thought it was a weird theme. No idea what it means.

Emily’s song:

So I wrote yesterday’s post long before TTD aired, and I totally didn’t catch that they used Emily’s song in the show. By then, I didn’t want to add it to my post. But it’s AWESOME!

So there’s what @angelthefirst1​ said: in 5x10 the music box awoke, an din 10x5, Emily’s song was used. Coincidence? No. Really not, my friends. Plus, just a few days before this episode aired, Emily shared some Bethyl artwork in her story. And a few days before that, she posted the tarot card picture. Yeah, I feel like she’s super close.

I have more to say about the song and how I’m interpreting the symbols in it, but that will be a post all its own later in the week. Overall, I think this is an awesome win for us. It’s music, it’s happening in this episode. It’s played over the scene when Yumiko mentions to Magna that the supplies are missing. That became part of Daryl and Connie’s arc when they were searching for a lost girl. I don’t think any of that is a coincidence, y’all. And I’m super excited to see it.

Also, Magna is reading a book called The Promised Land in this scene. I need to look into it more, as there are many books with that title. Most of them are about Israel or things related to the Old Testament. Given all the Moses symbolism around Beth, that’s not a coincidence either. One in particular was about the Exodus. So I’m wondering if that is a foreshadow about something to do with Magna or, better yet, something to do with Beth. 😉

Thoughts?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x04: Silence the Whisperers - Analysis

How did everyone like the episode? As always, I thought it was really good. The first thing I’ll say is that there isn’t nearly as much symbolism in it as there has been in the past few episodes. Not that there isn’t any, but you know how the past few have just been ridiculously overflowing with it? This one just has less. It’s one of those episodes that’s more action-oriented and setting up for what comes next.

***As always, spoilers abound below for episode 10x04. Don’t read until you’ve watched!!!***

Opening Sequence:

So the song playing in this sequence whispers “1, 2, 3” over and over again, which I think it significant. I already talked in an Ask about the wheel decoration behind Daryl, and how I think it represents the death fake out arc, and may show that Beth’s arc is about to come back around. Beyond that, Ezekiel is sad, Magna is having some issues, and a tree comes through Hilltop’s wall.

Hilltop:

We learn that 9 people got trapped in a building when the tree hit the roof and it caved in. They got all the people out, but this could be part of the Hole in the Roof theory. As the episode proceeds, the noise from the tree brings walkers and they’re afraid the whole wall will collapse. It’s already been weakened by the tree and now all the walkers are pushing in on it.

This hearkens back to two things for me. The first is the fallen trees in Them, which I always saw as significant. The second is, of course, when the church fell in S6, bringing down Alexandria’s walls and letting walkers in in 6x08/09.

Why would that be significant? Well, I think it’s obvious why Them would be significant, yeah? I mean, it’s after the storm and the fallen trees that the music box woke up. So if you want to draw a direct parallel, you might argue Beth will arrive after the tree falls. Honestly, I don’t see this as a big enough event to herald that, but it might be one of many small events that lead to her. More on that in a minute.

And how about paralleling it to S6? The biggest thing for me there is that that was smack in the middle of Glenn’s death fake out. After the church fell and let the walkers in, Glenn showed up, miraculously alive, and reunited with Maggie. Just saying.

In terms of the plot, I’m wondering (and this is pure conjecture) if Hilltop will eventually fall too. The Kingdom has already gone down, and I wonder if HT will too, forcing the entire group together at Alexandria. I’m not at all positive that’s where they’re going, but it crossed my mind.

Because the wall actually does collapse, but Michonne’s group shows up to help fight the walkers, and they do talk about fixing it. So we’ll see.

Ezekiel:

Given all the messages and Asks I’ve gotten about this, I doubt I need to explain it in great detail. Zeke has always had heavy parallels with Beth. Just as Daryl and Carol are very similar, so Beth and Ezekiel are too. Here, we have him contemplating suicide, much as Beth did in S2. Much like her, he realized he wants to live. 

As I mentioned in an Ask, this happened on one side of the now-broken bridge Rick was blown off of. So that connects him to Rick. And he wore a green shirt (Beth). So I think that connects him to the death fake outs and this functions as a foreshadow of Zeke’s own coming death fake out.

He also rode a black horse. It ran by Michonne after he let it go. That made me realize something. It’s not anything groundbreaking, but just a detail I hadn’t really thought of before. We’ve always seen as white horse = Beth and black horse = Daryl. The white horse also = life or being alive. But I realized the black horse also = death, despair, lack of hope. That’s how Zeke felt here, and how Daryl felt around the time Buttons died. Again, nothing we didn’t already know, but I just hadn’t thought of it that way before.

When Michonne and Ezekiel talk, she says, “it never would have worked between us anyway. We’re both too stubborn.” He says, “maybe in another universe.” I laughed at that. As in, the comic book universe? It’s obviously the writers’ way of acknowledging that this is a nod to their comic book romance, but it’s not going to happen in the show. (Add that to the list of things TD has been correct about.)

Daryl/Lydia/Alexandria:

This was obviously the biggest story thread in the episode. And I gotta say, I loved it! Gauge and his friends are mean to Lydia and bully her. She talks to Negan about it more and more, which Daryl isn’t happy about.

I was laughing hysterically when Lydia butchered the squirrel in front of them. How much like Daryl is that? Like father, like daughter, I guess. She’s rebellious just like he is. Which isn’t surprising since they come from similar, abusive backgrounds.

Daryl is older and wiser now and advises her not to provoke them, but he himself would have done much the same only a few years ago.

The three bullies attack Lydia and Negan saves her. I gotta say, while I was one who thought it would have been more just for them to execute Negan at the end of AOW, it’s really hard to hate him when he’s being sweet to Lydia. While rescuing her, he accidentally kills the woman who used to be with the highwaymen.

So, remember in episode 1 when I talked about how Negan told FG he didn’t want people’s fear of the Whisperers to blow up in his face so that they blamed him and wanted to string him up? I said that was setting something up and this would happen eventually. So this episode is the fulfillment of that. It truly was an accident and he didn’t mean to kill her, but no way people are going to let it go, now. So Negan takes off.

In truth, I’ve been waiting for him to take off. I’m actually really excited about this story line. Remember last season when Negan escaped and left Alexandria for a while? Judith tried to stop him, and he took her compass? Well, he was only gone a short time, but during that time we saw tons of callbacks to Still, saw him run from dogs, and saw tons of other Beth-ish symbolism. We weren’t exactly sure what it meant at the time, but now I think we do.

That small excursion from Alexandria was a foreshadow of this one. He’ll probably be gone much longer this time and the arc will be much bigger. It’s important to note that we saw not only Beth symbolism, but also saw Negan drink bad water and throw it up. That hints at the radiation/helicopter group stuff.

So I’m not saying Negan will meet Beth in the woods next episode—obviously I’d be great with that, but I’m sure it will be much more complicated and protracted—but just that something about him leaving will lead to Beth. I’m excited to see how it all plays out.

When Daryl talks to Carol, she says all the drama in the communities—both the stuff with Negan and Lydia, as well as the tree situation at Hilltop—are distractions from the true enemy: Alpha. I know there are lots of theories floating around about Carol being the one to have let Negan out. 

While I don’t think we have much evidence of that either way, I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it. It would mirror her killing Karen and David at the prison in 4a. Not that the action is the same, but this wouldn’t be the first time Carol took it on herself to solve a problem in a less than ethical way, because she thinks it’s for the greater good. But no one knows for sure what happened yet. They didn’t tell us in this episode. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, when Michonne and Daryl talk on the radio, she tells him to protect Lydia. She’s afraid that if anything happens to Lydia, or if she leaves Alexandria, Alpha will attack them. Yeah, once again, that’s a setup. Something along these lines will happen eventually and bring Alpha’s wrath.

Near the end, Michonne, Judith and Luke head back to Oceanside because Rachel radioed to say they thought they saw some Whisperers near where the mask washed up in 10x01. So Michonne is going to investigate. She takes Judith and Luke with her. Where Luke is concerned, I kinda feel like he might die. I hope not, but they sure focused a lot on him saying heartfelt goodbyes to his group (Magna, Connie, Kelly, and Yumiko). That struck me as suspicious. Like that group might not all be together again.

Details:

I won’t do a full details post because there were only a handful I saw worth mentioning.

When Lydia said Gauge and his pals deserved what she did (with the squirrel), Daryl said, “I get it.” Obvious Beth line.

When Siddiq had another freak out, he put his face in ice water. Not a huge deal, but another example of water helping to (temporarily at least) heal him.

When Lydia was in medical, talking to Daryl, we see a bunch of IV bags behind her. Just reminded me of Grady.

Oh, and Lydia played around with a worm when she was talking to Negan. (Worm Theory.)

When Michonne talked to Daryl on the radio, she told him to be her proxy for the vote. This really isn’t anything official, but that word caught my ear. It had nothing to do with Beth in the plot, but how often does TD, in our theories, talk about Beth proxies? And I don’t think I’ve ever heard them use that actual word on the show before. So it just got my attention. ;D

When Negan disappeared, FG said the guards reported that the keys were missing. Key Theory. And reminds me a lot of all the keys we saw at Grady.

When Daryl and Carol talked on the steps, Carol had an interesting line. She said, “it’s like time never moves.” I wondered if that might be a reference to the clocks without hands. She also mentions New Mexico yet again.

We see Michonne and Judith fighting walkers side by side. Just look at this. I think it might be a callback to when Rick and Carl fought walkers together (with guns in that case) at the prison in 4a.

Finally, this isn’t really a TD detail, but they’re definitely setting something up with Magna and Yumiko. Their relationship is in a rocky place, but I feel like it’s mostly because Magna is kind of spiraling. She seems angry and like she just wants to kill everything. I don’t know what they’re setting up there, but something.

When Lydia butchered the squirrel, which I already said was very Daryl-like, it specifically showed that Father Gabriel (embodiment of the Sirius symbolism/Beth) was watching her. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that, but I found it interesting.

I loved seeing Daddy Daryl taking care of Lydia. It’s really sweet and compelling. I’m enjoying his interactions with Lydia. I always feel like he’s on the verge of telling her about Beth. But alas, he doesn’t. At least, not in this episode.

Lydia said she let Negan out, though when Daryl confronted her, she admitted she didn’t. But she ultimately wanted to stay in Negan’s cell because she felt safer in there. It just occurred to me that she currently has a Morgan mindset (from 6x06) where she actually feels more comfortable in a cage. Just kind of interesting.

Ending:

At the end, they repeat the “1, 2, 3” song again. We see Luke saying goodbye to everyone, which I already talked about. Then we see Carol on the roof, looking at a map. (Maybe evidence that she’s systematically looking for Alpha?) Then we see Daryl scrubbing the graffiti off his front door.

Guess what? The vest is back! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

That’s super important, guys. We really haven’t seen his vest in a LONG time. It’s return now, with the missing wing on obvious display, feels really important. Like Beth’s return (the return of his missing wing, perhaps?) is just around the corner.

The camera pans around, showing all the graffiti (there was more than just the stuff on Daryl’s door). It stops on one particular instance of it. And, this might be hard to hear, but if you put on the subtitles, the song ends, followed by the sounds of walkers. Then the subtitles say that a Whisperer is saying, “Shhhhh.”

Yeah, that feels like a very significant setup. I feel like these first three episodes were really intros or setups for the season. Now we’re going to get into the meat and potatoes of things. You know, either really get into the Whisper War, or else something else huge is going to happen. And whatever it is, I think it will lead to Beth. I saw the last sequence of this episode as evidence that the arc where Beth returns is about to ensue. That makes me happy.

Okay. Gonna stop there for today. As I said, I won’t do a details post for this episode. Either tomorrow or Wednesday, I’ll do a post talking about where I’m thinking the events of this episode (such as Negan leaving, Michonne going to Oceanside, seeing Daryl smoke last episode, etc) might be heading. So it will mostly be a predictions post. Sort of. Stay tuned. ;D

[twdmusicboxmystery]

FTWD 5x14: Analysis

Morning everyone! What did everyone think of last night’s episode? I liked it. It ended on a sad mote, though. 

***As always, spoilers abound for this episode below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

There were two basic story lines. First, Morgan and Al, who found a place where Ginny and her group was holed up.

Secondly, there was Grace and Daniel who are on a supply run, but starting to head back toward the convoy.

Daniel and Grace:

At the beginning, Grace tries to get a hold of some solar panels to take back to the convoy for the future. Solar panels = sun and sun/ABIBEL = Beth reference.

Also, Grace is listening to the audio version of Don Quixote. So I’m not going to do a major explanation of how this could be yet another Beth template. Maybe I will at some point, especially if they feature it more than once, but probably not this week. If you want to know, just check out Wikipedia and read the plot summary for Don Quixote. For now, I’ll just say that it’s kind of on par with The Wizard of Oz, because Dorothy is in a dream work of not-quite-true things, and there are things both in plot and in theme that can tie in well with TWD. The actual part Grace listens to talks about making war on those who are less chivalrous. So once again, I think they’re foreshadowing a major war here. Most likely with the helicopter people.

Then, Grace gets word from the convoy that the oil fields have been lost. She and Daniel decide to head back to the convoy. Before they leave, Daniel goes into a music shop and grabs a bunch of vinyl records. (“I can’t remember the last time I heard a record.” Edwards had vinyls at Grady.)

On their way to the convoy, their truck breaks down. Daniel has an interesting line. He says he has a cat “with serious behavioral issues." It was a joke, but it was the “serious” that caught my attention. Obligatory serious/Sirius reference for this episode. Then Grace says there’s a bar nearby (alcohol reference) and they start walking toward it.

Grace also says the moon is bright enough for them to go on foot. Just reminded me of both the moon we saw in Still, as well as this picture from 4b:

As they walk, Daniel talks about Skidmark (his cat). He says Skidmark was all he had for a while. They would eat together, listen to music together, and for a while, it seemed like that's the way it would stay. Then Grace asks, "what changed?"

Daniel doesn't get a chance to answer because a bunch of walkers show up. Trying to fight them, he accidentally drops the records all over the ground. The walkers stomp on them, breaking a bunch of them.

What he said about him and the cat could easily have applied to Beth and Daryl at the funeral home. They were all one another had. They ate together, 

listened to music together, 

and for a while, it seemed like that's the way it would stay. 

Daniel didn't say what changed, it was walkers that cut him off. With Beth and Daryl, what changed was that walkers got in, forcing them out of the house.

And all this is being said while Daniel and Grace walk down a dark, forest road. Not unlike the one Daryl chased Beth and the Grady car down.

I think the records being broken represent Beth being shot. Because Beth = music. The records are broken and left behind in the road. (In fact, even them leaving the truck behind might have been indicative of this. The transmission broke and they left it behind, planning to come back for it later.)

Then they go to the bar. It actually looks a lot like the bar from the country club. Take a look:

And it gets better. Grace actually picks up a guitar and she Daniel sing together.

This is interesting for a lot of reasons. 

1) Beth played a guitar in 5x09, right after Coda. And they did this right after the records were broken. 

2) The fact that they sing together. I thought it was kind of funny that Daniel said, "what makes you think I can sing?" And then he and grace harmonize together beautifully. Yeah, Daniel can totally sing. Ruben Blades is actually a grammy award-winning musician, lol.

3) It’s in a BAR.

Then, suddenly, at the end, Grace got sick. She's been worried about getting sick from radiation poisoning and now it seems like it's happening.

Here's the thing, guys, I'm not sure I believe what they’re actually preparing us for here. My first thought when I saw she was sick was, "oh no! She's going to die. Poor Morgan." But I was surprised because I thought, after so long, that’s not where they would go with it. Grace feared she would die, but she has hope and I didn’t think she actually would. But, of course, now she's sick. So maybe they'll kill her off and that will suck for Morgan.

But…

What if they aren’t going this way at all? When Daniel talked to Grace in the bar, he said, "there's no way any of the records would have survived, right?"

I hoped that at the end of the episode, they would go back to look for the records and we would find that one of two of them survived. Because if they represent Beth being shot, and Daniel specifically says that there's no way she could've survived, then it follows that some of those records should have survived because Beth survived.

So I'm thinking at some point Daniel will probably return and find some of the records were broken, but others of them aren't. Probably the one he specifically wanted to get for Charlie survived and he'll go back and get it for her. But we didn’t see that in this episode.

This whole thing about Grace being sick has a lot of callbacks to things we’ve theorized in earlier seasons of TWD. There was the virus arc in 4a. While people died at the prison, none of the main characters did. Sasha and Glenn were both very sick, but neither of them actually died from the virus. Something similar could be the case with Grace here.

And then there's the fact that they paralleled her and Morgan very heavily with Beth and Daryl at the mall. If this is going to follow Beth and Daryl’s template, but on a smaller scale, then since he left to be with Al, and she's been traveling with Daniel, this represents their trial separation. Now she's very sick and she may come very close to dying, but I’m willing to bet she won't. I could be wrong about that. Maybe that's not where they're going with it, but I'm just a little bit suspicious about what they're showing is here, given previous symbolism and parallels.

More evidence this is a Beth analogy? I looked up the song Daniel and Grace sing together. It’s called End of the Line. It’s sung by the Traveling Wilburys, which was the group Daniel specifically wanted Charlie to hear. The singers include Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and (wait for it..) Roy Orbison.

He’s the same guy that sang the song Cry in The Cell, which was obviously about Beth and made Daryl, um, cry. They also featured one of his songs in S4 of TWD around Luciana. The fact that they’re using his music here again, and in a situation that’s so obviously a Beth analogy, is no coincidence.

Grace tells Morgan they were out of bar just past the 290 Junction. I won’t go into the details of why, but both 2x09, Triggerfinger, and episode 29, Home, have a lot of TD symbolism in them.

That's pretty much where we ended with Grace and Daniel.

Al and Morgan:

At the beginning, Morgan talked about his wife and Duane. He said some really interesting things. He said his wife hated the water. (Beth = water). While he talked about the wedding, he was changing a tire. I don't know if you guys remember this, but we've seen some major tire-coming-off-a-car symbolism tied up with Beth symbolism before.

Then he started talking about Duane, saying that he wanted a dog (serious/Dog Star symbolism) and played baseball. That jumped out at me because remember the baseball bats we saw around Beth? I think that's significant.

They meet a guy named Tom who was part of the place that Ginny's group is occupying. He’ hiding from them.

Tom has cuts on his forehead that look like Beth’s scars. This isn’t super compelling because they're smaller and are not scars, and on the opposite side, but they do look similar.

The caps for the gas cans are green and yellow (with red gas cans). And when one of them gets left out and Al has to retrieve it, trying not to be seen by the horsemen, the one that’s dropped is yellow. Having it dropped outside a car and her reaching for it feels like a Beth parallel to me.

It was very interesting to hear some of the things Tom had to say. He claimed Ginny’s group tried to kill him, saying it was his fault that things got so bad in the condo complex. He didn't know exactly what they wanted with his condo complex, but whatever it was, they didn't want him to know.

So obviously Ginny and her people are keeping secrets. You have to wonder why they kicked them out. What don’t they want him to see? Keep this in mind as we move forward, because I don't think we can trust anything that Ginny says to Morgan and Al the end of the episode.

When they film Tom, he's drinking water bottle, which are major Beth symbols. He said, "I got lucky.” He said that about three times. He also said that when things first went bad, they used the pool in the condo complex to filter water (water reference; plus, Isabel said filtering water was exactly what helicopter group is doing), and they used a rooftop garden to grow vegetables (sounds a lot like Grady to me). But then he said eventually things went bad.

This part was especially interesting to me. He said the water went bad, they couldn't grow food, the fences failed, and the roof started leaking. It was then that Ginny's group showed up to “help” and take charge of things.

The first thing I thought of when he said the water went bad was last season when Negan escaped and drank bad water and started throwing it up. This seems to be a major symbol, and given that the helicopter group is filtering water, I feel like they’re foreshadowing that at some point, there isn't going to be any water. Either it will go bad, or there will just be a drought. Also, remember I said this morning I THIS ASK that TF running out of water in Them might have been a foreshadow. I think that's very true and I need to go back and explore that more, but the point is, this is the dominant theme.

The fence failing is reminiscent of times that’s happened at the prison and also in Alexandria. The roof leaking could point to the Hole in the Roof symbolism.

He said Ginny’s people told him, it wasn't about today. It's about tomorrow. We actually haven't seen today/tomorrow symbolism in a while. It was very prevalent during AOW in S8. We kept noticing people in S8 about “tomorrow” during that. I think that could tie into this, especially as both Morgan and Dwight, who were involved in AOW, are now in Fear.

Tom tells them that he got away and the people are looking for him, but he was forced to leave his sister, Janis behind. He wants to go back and get her because he's afraid Ginny's group will kill her. Morgan and Al decide to help him.

It's obvious Al wants to go into the complex to see if Isabel is there. Eventually Morgan gets her to admit this, and they sneak in to search for Isabel and Tom’s sister, Janis.

I noticed an infinity sign above the Paradise Ridge sign.

When Al and Morgan sneaked into the condo complex, Morgan stood next to a horse. It looked to be a brown horse, rather than black or white, but even so, if the horse represents him finding Beth alive, I think this is a significant symbol.

You could also look at it as a confirmation by itself. Maybe they focused on this here because it was trying to tell us that this group is what the horse he found in 6x16 symbolized. And the interesting thing about that is that he also found the sign that said, “you are still alive.” We’ve always thought that foreshadowed him finding Beth. So, maybe a hint that this group will lead to her.

There was also a blue cord that ran into the pool. I'm sure that probably has to do with the water purification. Being blue, it fits in well with @frangipanilove’s blue cooler theories.

Al films a board that has a list of their supplies on it. I'll just leave these pictures here and let you look at it. There's lots of things we seen before like tomatoes, baby food, peanut butter, etc. 

She also saw a map with keys that showed were some of the settlements were. 

Morgan goes into Janis's apartment (I'm assuming Tom told him where to go). All he finds is a dead guy in the close who’s turned into a walker. I didn’t know what to make of that until Morgan said Janis had taken care of the man who came after her.

They’re saying that after Tom left his sister behind in the condominium complex, Ginny’s people did try to kill her. She's obviously enough of a badass to have taken care of herself. She killed the guy who came after her and put them in the closet. Subsequently, he turned into a walker. She was nowhere to be found. Ginny later said that Janis must've run off after Tom did.

So, we now have another missing character: Janis. We’re missing Sherry, Beth, Isabel, Heath, Rick, and now Janis.

@wdway​ pointed out something super obvious that I totally didn’t connect. Remember last week, they saved the girl at the gas station? She almost died but Wes saved the day at the last minute? Well, we never got her name, but I think there’s a good chance that is Janis. Just too much of a coincidence not to tie into this story line.

One other thing I wanted to point out about this situation. There was some weird camera angles, as though someone was watching Morgan in the room. I don’t think they were, but the way the camera almost seemed to be looking through the curtains at him reminded me of certain similar angles in The Red Machete.

Then there was the walker that came out of the closet when he opened the door. It reminded me, visually, of the walker that came through the door of the pet shop in 6x03 when Michonne opened it. It was kind of an identical situation. In both cases, they heard the walker banging on the side of the door, opened it, the walker came through, and they fought/killed them. In 6x03, Michonne ripped down a dog poster to let the walker out, so I’ve always seen that as a Beth/Sirius reference. The dog thing wasn’t present here with Morgan, but given all the other parallels in this episode, I feel like we should be associating the two. Not entirely sure what it means, but just wanted to point out the parallels.

Al fell into the pool when the walker attacked her. Morgan jumped in to help. I'm not really sure what to make of this part. The fact that there was water involved in a massive way jumps out at me as important, but I'm just not sure how to interpret yet.

They killed the walker and came to the surface to find Ginny and her people surrounding them.

They were taken indoors, and Ginny tries to convince them she’s super kind and forward thinking and “an open book.”

When and Morgan are sitting on the couch, was a pink blanket behind them. Pink theory.

Also, Ginny offers them strawberry and apricot jam. Obviously, strawberries are Beth symbol. Apricot exactly the same as peaches but they're very similar. Also notice that Ginny eats it exactly like Daryl did in Alone, with her fingers.

Another food analogy Ginny has is when she says, "spaghetti ain’t simple. It's usually messy." I’ve probably said this before, but I think spaghetti represents civilization. People living in a positive and civilized manner. That's why Herschel mentioned it during virus. It was his way of having hope for them making it through virus and going back to some semblance of normalcy.

Daryl ate it with Aaron and Eric because he was “trying” to be civil. Ginny's point here is that re-creating society is not going to be easy and it's probably going to be messy. Which is probably code for, she's killing people and doing all sorts of immoral things.

When Al asks about helicopters, Ginny laughs at her. She says that before taking the oil fields, they didn't have any gas. (I notice she doesn’t actually say “no,” however. Just implies it.)

To Al and Morgan’s surprise, she says she will let them go. She returns their stuff and walks them to the entrance and even lets Al keep her film.

They also fix Morgan’s stick for him, which I thought was pretty cool. In a way, that might've been an analogy for Morgan finally being able to move on with Grace. He broke his stick and up till now he's been running from his feelings for her and holding onto the past. His stick is whole again, and he finally decides he doesn't need to do that anymore and contacts Grace.

So Ginny reacts in a way that’s the opposite of what they expected, and it seems to be that she's not part of the helicopter group.

Let's go back to what I said at beginning. Tom said they tried to kill him and that whatever they wanted with his condo complex, they wouldn't tell him what it was. They didn't want him to see it. Notice the Ginny didn't say anything about this or why they were looking for Tom after he ran off. If she's totally cool with people coming and going and her doors are open to Morgan's group all the time, as she claims, then why would her guys have been chasing Tom when he ran off? Why would there be a dead walker in the closet at Janis's place?

Also recall that Tom said when Ginny’s group showed up, they offered to purify the condo’s water for them. That’s EXACTLY what Isabel said her helicopter group was doing. No way that’s a coincidence.

So I don’t think we can trust anything Ginny says here. I think she's lying through her teeth, which means they may have helicopters. There must be some reason she's letting Al and Morgan go. Maybe she's hoping they’ll lead her back to their convoy so that she can attack them or something. I don't know. I also think it’s possible that at the beginning, the guys on horseback DID see Al and Morgan in the van (even though it seemed like they didn’t) and reported back to Ginny. It just felt an awful lot like she was waiting for them to me.

We'll just have to wait and see what comes of this, but I definitely don't trust what Ginny is saying and doing. It's all too easy and she has a sinister air about her.

Near the end, Al and Morgan take Tom with them and head back toward the convoy. Morgan comes to realize that, where he accused Ginny of living in the past and holding onto the past, he was doing the same thing by avoiding Grace. He decides he doesn't need to run away from her anymore and radios her. That's when he finds out she’s sick from Daniel.

I really hope Grace survives for Morgan sake. It would be nice for him to have a love interest.

At this part, Al wears a red, blue, and green shirt. I just thought the colors were interesting.

Opening Credits Details:

The opening credits sequence was kind of interesting. First of all, it was at night and you could see the stars in the sky. (Sirius/North Star). The words saying “Fear the Walking Dead” were black instead of white. I think that could point to a couple of things. It could be black to show that Grace's radiation sickness is taking hold. I know sometimes when they test for radiation, they have little strips the turn black if radiation is present. I also wonder if the metaphor extends to the fact that they’ve come into contact with Ginny, and some things being set into motion here are going to end very badly.

Finally, I couldn’t tell what was on the ground in the opening credits shot. It looked like little papers torn up on the ground. Actually, it’s the broken records. So obviously that was an important symbol for this episode. And, what do they represent? Beth.

That's about all I have for today. Definitely an interesting episode. I'm excited to see where it goes from here. What did everyone else think?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

AMC/ABC Actor Patterns

Okay, I said I’d get this posted this week. Let me first say that this won’t be terribly ground-breaking. It’s actually just more evidence for something I and many others have pointed out before. But I’ve been thinking about it off and on since Michael Cudlitz’s show—The Kids are Alright—was cancelled.

Quick recap: Many of us thought that the show Emily did a few years ago—Conviction—was kind of suspicious. It was small, produced by ABC (a partner/sister-network of AMC), promoted by AMC and TWD, and only lasted one season. We had lots of reasons it was strange. It seemed like Emily just took a small potatoes roll she and the network knew wouldn’t last, which adds to our theories of her return to TWD.

I most recently talked about this HERE when I pointed out that, just this past season, Lauren Cohen followed a similar pattern. The major difference is that they didn’t try to make us think Maggie was dead. They wrote her out of the show from the second half of the season (Ep 6-16), but just said she’d left, going to another place. So everyone assumed she’d be back.

But in the mean time, Lauren did Whiskey Cavalier. Other than Maggie’s character not having a death fakeout, it followed the exact same template. Lauren did a show that was produced by ABC, promoted by AMC and TWD, and only lasted one season. I thought WC had a better chance of getting picked up for additional seasons than Conviction ever did…but it wasn’t. So it ended up being the same. I saw that as simply being more proof that Emily will return to TWD at some point. And granted, we haven’t technically seen Lauren return yet, but it’s been confirmed that we’ll see her again in S10.

When Michael Cudlitz’s show got cancelled, that was the first time it occurred to me that his show followed this same pattern. Let’s examine the evidence, shall we?

First, let me say that this isn’t a team delusional/he’s really alive theory where Abraham’s character is concerned. I don’t think he survived Negan at all. How could he have? His injury was far and away more deadly and final than Beth’s was. So while I think Beth is alive, Abraham, not so much.

1.  During S4 of FTWD, we were introduced to Althea, who used to be an investigative journalist. She takes video of people she meets in the apocalypse. In her collection of tapes, one of them was labelled in a way that suggested it might possibly be of Abraham and Eugene. Michael Cudlitz even commented on this on Twitter.

2.  There’s a humorous commercial I remember seeing that features Abraham and Eugene. It’s for one of the TWD games. I haven’t seen it on TV in a while, but it aired long after Abraham’s death. Kinda suspicious. I mean, if we’re suspicious that they still use Beth and Daryl to promote the show, thinking it means that relationship will return at some point, then we have to apply the same thing to Abraham and Eugene. Check it out on YouTube.

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I also think it’s important to point out that most of the deceased characters from TWD are not used this way to promote the show. We don’t see commercials including Bob, Tyrese, or Sasha that are used to promote the show. And similarly, there have been absolutely no whispers or rumors of their return to the show or the spinoff. So we can count on these kinds of promos as being hints of some sort.

3. It’s been said (X) that the new TWD spinoff, which we don’t have a title for yet, may feature the backstories of deceased TWD characters. Of course that could be any deceased character, but the fact is that this makes the idea of Abraham returning—showing his backstory BEFORE he met Glenn in S4—a real possibility.

4.  On this last episode of FTWD, Daniel had a cigar very reminiscent of the ones we saw around Abraham, and said a friend told him to save it for when things got better. I thought of Abraham, and given this edit I reposted from @theinfectedtwd (IG) obviously I wasn’t the only one. 

Even more “coincidental” (that’s sarcasm) is the fact that the FTWD crew is currently hanging out in Texas. Remember that Abraham and Eugene met and started out in Texas. Houston, if I remember correctly. So the idea of them having once run into Daniel and/or Althea really isn’t far fetched at all.

5. MC just finished up one season of The Kids are Alright, also produced by ABC, also promoted by AMC and TWD, and also only lasting one season. (I was thinking he’d done two seasons of this show. Maybe it’s just because ABC shows have longer seasons of 22-24 episodes, but I thought he’d done 2 seasons. Nope. Only one. Cancelled after that.)

So we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. But assuming we see a lot of Maggie in TWD S10, and assuming Abraham and Eugene’s backstory shows up in the spinoff, that will now be three mainstream, TWD characters who left the show for a time, did a small-potatoes ABC series that lasted one season, and then returned. Well, I guess two. Beth hasn’t returned yet. But my point is that this is simply more evidence that she will. This is becoming an undeniable pattern.

In fact, if you google this, there’s a LOT of people talking about Abraham’s possible return to the show. Some even claim it’s been concerned, though most of those are clickbait articles, so I wouldn’t take their word until and unless AMC officially confirms it. But at this point, his return is almost a foregone conclusion.

In closing, let me throw one more thing out there. This is 100% my own opinion, based on all my years of research into this stuff, and not something I can prove, but I thought I’d share anyway. In each of these cases, the networks (both ABC and AMC) and the actors and everyone else involved goes into these short-lived ABC series acting like they genuinely believe/hope the series will succeed and be on the air for many seasons.

And of course they do. That’s their job. It’s the actors’ job to promote their shows and the everyone else’s job to be optimistic and gush about how great this series is. Otherwise, no one would watch.

But again, in my humble opinion, I think that’s a little deceptive on their part. I think each of these actors has gone into these ABC series knowing full well that the series won’t last long. Because ABC and AMC are sister companies, they can collaborate and choose to put the actors in the series that are least likely to run for the long term.

That may sound weird, but most networks start a number of new series each season. They use a lot of different variables to determine which ones are more likely to succeed and sink most of their advertising dollars into those ones, more or less ignoring the others. So why do these series if they’re not going to succeed? Because they have to put something on the air and you never know when you might get a runaway hit (like TWD).

So they may ask ABC to cast their actors in the series most likely to only run one season. They may also put into their contracts that, for example, Lauren will be returning to TWD in S10, so if ABC wants to continue Whiskey Cavalier, they’ll have to replace her with another actress.

But I digress.

The details really aren’t terribly important, and I don’t pretend to know the detailed ins and outs of this industry. Truly, I don’t. But I have a basic understanding of how big business works and I’ve been following this franchise closely for more than 4 years now.

I just find it suspicious that, despite how many people loved WC and how critically acclaimed it was, it was still cancelled after one season, and now we’re hearing that Lauren will definitely be in S10 a lot more than she was in S9.

Similarly, we have a lot of hints that Abraham might show up in a new TWD spinoff. It’s in the works and they’re casting for it now. I’m assuming they’ll start filming before too much longer. And suddenly, his show is ending. Which means he’ll be available for filming. Just saying.

One other thing I thought of while writing this. I was going to say that while, yes, we saw several deceased characters in Rick’s hallucination in 9x05, those were small, 5-minute roles. Not the characters returning to some branch of the franchise for an extended amount of time. And that’s true. But it occurred to me that we DO think Beth will return, and we heard her voice, but didn’t see her face. Who else’s voice did we hear? Abraham’s. An interesting parallel, if both of them return to the show in some way. I don’t know if this will end up being a thing—we’ll have to wait and see—but the other voices we heard were Morgan’s (already in another branch of the franchise) and...Lori’s. Interesting.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 9x10: Omega - First Thoughts

Wow! I really loved that episode. Lots of good stuff to talk about. It was one of those episodes where I noticed fewer background details and such, and more things that were character and arc parallels. This first post will be short. I’ll just talk about the biggest parallels I saw in three areas: Henry/Beth parallels, Lydia/Daryl parallels, and Henry/Lydia vs. Bethyl parallels.

***As always, this post contains rampant spoilers for 9x10. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Henry/Beth Parallels:

So once again, Henry is acting very much like Beth did while interacting with Daryl.

1.       Calls him an ass. 

2.       He figures Daryl out. He asks about Daryl’s abusive past and he simply figures him out based on what he sees, realizing he’s not a bad guy, even though he sometimes acts like he is. That’s very much what Beth did: had insight into who Daryl really is rather than being intimidated by what he often shows on the surface.

3.       Henry vs. Daryl. When Daryl yells at Henry, he first is somewhat intimidated and backs down, but then he gets angry and gets in Daryl’s face. Much like Beth, Henry is sweet and his first instinct isn’t rebellion, but he won’t let Daryl push him around or intimidate him either. He stands up to him and they end up coming to a very deep understanding because of that.

Lydia/Daryl Parallels

1.       She has an abused past. When I first saw the cuts on her arms, my first thought (of course) were the scars on Beth’s arms. That had to remind Daryl of Beth because he even razzed her about her scars in Still. Admittedly, that was less where they were going with it than in establishing that she’s been abused too and Daryl immediately recognized it.

I actually loved the way they did this. Daryl deduced that Lydia was abused and, even with her blatant lies, he figured out the truth. He knew her story couldn’t be true because dads who sing to their kids don’t generally turn around and abuse them too. So it had to be her mom. And he was right.

But you can see that Lydia is being heavily paralleled with Daryl here. They have a lot in common and you can already see Daryl becoming protective of her in a fatherly sort of way.

2.       She has a wild streak and sees it in him. She understands him—that he doesn’t entirely belong to the communities anymore—and she can relate to that. It’s important to note that on TTD, Norman said Lydia was right and struck a nerve with Daryl. In a way, she was right about him not belonging, and it kinda pissed him off.

This is especially important because the last time anyone said this to Daryl (it was Joe Claimer in S4) was when Beth was missing and he was still looking for her. Maybe it pissed him off because he remembered Joe Claimer saying it and how that turned out. Daryl wants to belong, but he just has a hard time doing it sometimes. Hmm. I wonder who could come along that would help him find his place again.

3.       Eating of the worms. Lydia, rather than Henry, initiated that, which is a clear parallel to Daryl eating the worm in 5x10, Them. You know, the episode where the music box wakes up? 

Remember that in 5x06, Daryl watched a bird pull a worm from a walker’s ear. So some of the people in my group are theorizing that it foreshadowed Daryl’s relationship with Lydia and him becoming a protector/parent figure for her. 

I think that’s a good theory, but I’m reserving judgement overall. We still don’t know exactly where this is going and I’d rather wait and see before trying to interpret any father. But I definitely think it’s all related. Lydia also had an ear issue, and that’s no accident either. It all works together and means something.

It’s also important to note that on TTD, Gale Anne Hurd said Lydia is meant to be a sympathetic character. She’s not purposely lying. She just kinda brainwashed by her mom and probably didn’t even realize how much of what she believed was a lie until she started telling Daryl and Henry about it. 

Henry/Lydia vs. Bethyl

1.       Eating of the worms. Yes, I know Beth never ate worms, but the episode where Daryl did was where the music box woke up and was very much about him mourning her. When I watched the scene of Lydia and Henry eating them, I just kept thinking that if Henry/Lydia = Bethyl, it foreshadows that Beth and Daryl will eat worms together at some point. Though admittedly, that may be more symbolic than literal.

2.       Hand holding. They didn’t entirely entwine fingers, but it still felt like a Bethyl moment.

3.       Henry taking care of Lydia. She had this sort of meltdown/flashback moment before asking Henry to put her back in the cell. It just felt a lot like when Daryl cried at the moonshine shack and Beth hugged him.

Okay, that’s it for today. Like I said, short and just with the most important parallels. On Tuesday, I’ll talk details and foreshadows, and then after that I’m going to donate an entire post to how music functioned in the episode. Because it’s pretty huge. The musical aspects of this episode made me super-happy! Stay tuned!

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x12: Guardians - Details

Okay, let's get down to details. This is gonna be long, so settle in.

***As always, spoilers abound for 9x12 in this post. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Michonne/Negan/Alexandria:

I thought it was interesting that Father Gabriel, the Sirius character because of his eye, is the one pushing for the relay. I mentioned this at the beginning of the arc when he and Rosita were putting the relay together, but here we heard more talk about finding new people and how they shouldn't cut themselves off from the world. Again, it wouldn't say that if it weren't a foreshadow of them finding new people on the outside.

A big thing that was brought across to me in this episode is that Michonne is acting a lot like Rick used to. Not in a good way. She's being too protective and close minded and not willing to help other people. We saw Rick acting like that a lot in the past, and it was usually Michonne and Carl who convinced him that wasn't the right way to be. Now Michonne is being that way.

Siddique says, "Carol wouldn't ask for help a second time if it wasn't serious." Not only is that a serious/Sirius reference, but even the "the second time" bit plays into it. Sirius always returns for a second time, right? And it occurs to me that this is probably more about Carol than Michonne, but I think something about the fair will lead to Carol losing Ezekiel in the whole death fake out thing I talked about before. And hopefully that will lead to Beth as well. ;D

Something I think it's important to point out: A lot of people are really frustrated with Michonne and her attitude right now, but I thought it was important that she said she was willing to let the Kingdomers come live at Alexandria if they needed to. She said she’d open the doors to them, the same as they did to their friends at the Sanctuary. So, her only real hang-up is making the journey on the roads. She says the roads are broken and full of walkers. Honestly, I do understand her point of view. It’s still flawed of course. The communities really ought to be working together to clear those roads and make safe trade routes. But I don't think Michonne’s  point of view is quite as closed-minded as many in the fandom are making it out to be.

Later on, Michonne talks to Negan. He wants to help her with her leadership. We had callbacks to the "merciful Rick Grimes," which to me just points toward Carl's vision of the future. The last episode of S8 was called Mercy, after all.

I thought it was interesting that the Negan was referred to as a dog several times. He referred to himself that way and Michonne did as well. I'm not really sure what to make of this. I mean, obviously it's another Sirius reference, but I don't think Negan is going to leave and come back. I could be wrong about that, but I've never felt like that's where they're going with his arc.

Remember that a few weeks ago, smack in the middle of some heavy Still parallels, we saw dogs around him. So this could simply be yet another way of entangling him with Beth’s arc. Dogs = Sirius = Beth, and we’re seeing them around Negan because he’ll be involved in her return somehow.

Michonne realizes Judith is listening and confronts her about it later on. Judith once again gets in a decent verbal sucker punch by saying, "He listens to me. Not everyone does." Guilt trip much?

And then, again, we see how much Michonne has become like negative Rick. She says people don't really change, and then Judith says, "You did."

Talking about change can be a callback to Still and Beth talking about how she wishes she could just change. But in truth, this is been a show-wide theme for a while now. Back at the prison, Rick gave the speech about how he knew, “We can all change.” But then everything went wrong, Herschel died, and Rick didn't believe that for really long time. Michonne and Carl were the ones who always tried to get him to be more positive and have more faith.

Now, Michonne has sort of taken on Rick's pessimistic role, and Judith has taken on Carl's role of trying to convert her back to believing in people and having faith in the future. Kind of an interesting turning of the tables.

Later Michonne tells Aaron she won’t veto the Council’s vote. At this part, Aaron says, "I hope we don't regret this." Michonnee answers, "yeah. Me too." That’s a callback to S5 when TF first came to Alexandria. Michonne talked to Rick about how she thought they'd found a good place and Rick said, "I hope you're right about this." Michonne answered, "yeah. Me too."

We see the Alexandrians loading up wagons with things they are presumably taking to the fair. We saw lots of familiar symbols here, including pigs. Remember Beth and Daryl talked about pigs feet Alone. I don't know if I've actually posted about this, but @frangipanilove has an entire theory about how the pigs feet are actually part of the Sirius/Dog Star theme. That’s why I always point them out.

Rosita/FG/Siddiq/Eugene:

in this episode, Father Gabriel already knows about the baby. As I told my group Sunday night, I'm impressed with Rosita. To be honest, she's never been my favorite character. I certainly don't hate her or anything, but she's never struck me as the most emotionally mature person on the show. But I have to say, the way she's handling this whole baby quadrangle situation is very mature and I'm very impressed with her growth.

And I think that growth is legit because there was a part where she said to FG, “Me and Siddiq will figure out our shit…” That’s a direct callback to when Denise yelled at Rosita and Daryl about just before her death about figuring out their shit. So I think this is evidence that Rosita has grown a lot since then.

We had that funny scene where Eugene "helps" FG. This was obviously meant to be humorous with all of Eugene's technical charts and such, but we did see some interesting thematic things here as well. Eugene brought across the theme that all we have is time and love and the whole point of life is trying to bring about happiness. I thought it was interesting, given how often we lose characters in the show. We need to love people in the time that we have, because tomorrow is not promised. Eugene was very sweet in this episode.

In this scene, we also saw a callback to Grady in the form of some scissors. 

He also said the line about how "even with bad peepers you saw things I didn’t.” Because he's lost an eye, just like the dog in Alone, FG is the physical embodiment of the Sirius character. So referencing bad peepers (eyes) is kind of a blindness reference, but he also means seeing things with your heart, or in other ways than with your eyes. I'm not sure how or if that will pertain to Beth at all, but I thought it was an interesting theme.

This is kind of off-topic topic, but I also want to say how impressed I am with the way the show is handling this love quadrangle. I’ve wished before that they would do more jealousy story lines. Nothing huge that would be conflicts between main characters. Not even anything like the Rick/Shane/Lori situation. I just think it would be fun if every once in a while, some random new character came into Alexandria and thought Michonne was hot or something. Not that she would return it at all, but would be nice to see Rick punch someone in the face for that reason. I think most of us have had head canons about things like that with Beth and Daryl. And I've always thought the reason they didn't do this on the show is because that can very easily degrade into daytime soap opera level drama. TWD just isn’t that kind of show. It's about survival and much deeper and more transcendent themes than that.

Here, they’re doing not even just a triangle, but a quadrangle. But the way they’re handling it is really great. It doesn't feel way campy or like high school drama. I’m actually really enjoying this story line.

At the end, Rosita, Father Gabriel, and Siddique, all seem to be ready to sit down and figure out what they're going to do moving forward. Eugene watches with a smile. Poor Eugene. He needs a nice girl.

Daryl and Connie:

Okay, let's first appreciate the fact that the time for the romance to happen between the two of them has mostly passed. Yeah, they could end up alone in the woods at some point in the future. Maybe they will. They really weren’t together very long, though, and now Henry and Lydia are with them, which means they're no longer alone and the opportunity for the two of them to bond has largely passed. Did you see all that romance blooming in the woods? 

I mean, even I thought we would see more parallels to Beth between the two of them. We may see more next episode, but if we do, it won't be with the two of them being alone together.

When I saw this scene with them tracking in the woods, the first thing I thought of was Inmates. Part of it was just that visually it looked like Inmates, but Bethyl was tracking people from the prison in Inmates, and here, Daryl and Connie are tracking the Whisperers.

We have a shot of Connie looking in the dirt. 

She sees footprints, and again, that's like Inmates. I was also vaguely reminded of the dry riverbed in Them. I don't know but if that's what they were going for, especially because we don't see any Xs or dead frogs right here but it reminded me of the way they showed Sasha looking at the dry riverbed.

I couldn't help but be struck by how quickly Daryl can bond with someone. It doesn't happen very often because it's hard for him, but when it does happen, it happens quickly. So, here’s an exhaustive guide on how to bond with Daryl:

1)    Establish personal communication. Connie signaled that he needed to look at her when he talked so she could read his lips. That alone for Daryl establishes her weakness, how she overcomes it, and how he can help her overcome it. Instant bond.

2)    Showcase your walker-killing awesomeness. Connie uses her sling. Daryl was impressed. Instant bond.

3)    Yeah, that's it. Daryl now think cares what you think. You could tell he was a little embarrassed about the arrow breaking by the way he looked up self-consciously. He obviously cares what Connie thinks.

Honestly, I thought this was adorable. Connie laughed and it felt very much like when Denise offered him the oat cake and kind of laughed about his surliness. This feels very brotherly/sisterly to me. I really like the Connie/Daryl duo. But it's obviously platonic.

I originally thought that the arrow breaking was a callback to Still. Remember Daryl shot at a squirrel, but he missed and the arrow broke. I suppose we could still see it as that, but we also know that it wasn't intentional. Norman posted on his IG that the arrow breaking was actually a mess up, but he and Connie stayed in character and Angela thought it was cute so they kept it in. I’d like to think it’s the parallel they didn’t mean to include. Maybe Angela realized how well it worked as a Still callback and left it in.

Even without the arrow breaking, I still see something important here. It occurred to me that the arrow hit the walker in the head, and the dog retrieved it. So, even if the scene played out the way they meant to, we still have Dog (Sirius reference) retrieving an arrow from a head wound.

I also noticed the walker Daryl shot was missing an arm. I thought that was important, especially given the stuff we’ve seen with Daryl's arm. The S7, he wore the coat that had only one sleeve made out of flannel, which drew attention to his arm. Similarly, this season, the sleeve of that same arm is shorter than the other sleeve, again drawing attention to it. When I saw the armless walker, I thought, okay, the walker represents Daryl.

And THAT’S when it hit me that the two walkers that came toward Connie and Daryl were a male walker and female walker. Guys, this was an instance of the Bethyl side-by-side walker theme. Now, we didn't see an actual shot of the two walkers laying side-by-side after they got killed. It was subtler than that. But we had a male and female walker that were killed and would've been lying side-by-side on the ground.

I'm not sure exactly what this points to. Sure, it could foreshadow Connie's death, but even if she dies, I don't think that was the point of this. This has always been a Beth thing, and she hasn't been present most of the times they've used the symbol. It's just obvious from Inmates (so yet another Inmates reference here) and Always Accountable that it pertains to her. So, this could be a foreshadow of Beth showing up, but it could also be as simple as a way to show us that Connie and Daryl are being paralleled with Beth and Daryl here. Still, I was happy to see another instance of this theme.

And I can’t help but be reminded of an instance we saw of this in 5b. We saw the side by side theme with Ws in the walkers’ heads, just before the wolves showed up. So I feel like this is also a way to show similarities between the Wolves and the Whisperers.

One thing I alluded to in my First Thoughts post was actually pointed out by @thegloriouscollectorlady. While we can see a parallel to Beth and Daryl in this Connie and Daryl situation, we could equally see a parallel to Daryl and Carol in S5 going to look for Beth. When that episode aired, a certain ship insisted that Caryl would happen and this was when they were going to hook up. Nothing of the sort happened. Now we have everyone talking about Daryl and Connie. I don’t think that will happen either.

So, it occurred to me that they had kind of a funny incident with the dog, which reminded me of Daryl and Carol looking at picture and Daryl suggesting it looked like a dog had sat in paint and wiped his ass all over the canvas. I think that dog reference in Consumed was a foreshadow of the fact Beth is about to disappear. So, what does this dog reference foreshadow? I don't know, but I don't think either Connie or Daryl is going to disappear. It could be an Ezekiel thing again, or it could be a Beth thing. Just no way to know. But I will say that, as we have heavy Beth parallels here, and no Carol or Ezekiel anywhere around this, I kind think it’s more likely to be a Beth callback.

Last thing is that Connie already knows how to track. We saw a lot of tracking going on in this episode. It struck me that unlike Beth, Daryl doesn't really have to teach Connie anything. So again, maybe more like Carol in that way. Connie knows how to survive. She's figured out her slingshot and she really doesn't need any lessons from Daryl in tracking or killing walkers. 

So it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, this is a foreshadow of what Beth and Daryl’s relationship will be like when Beth returns. At that point, she’ll already know how to track, she’ll already know how to survive, and Daryl will be impressed with her. Just a thought.

Alpha/Henry/Lydia/Whisperers:

Let’s get to the heavy stuff. We learned a lot about Alpha, both by her actions and by her dialogue. We talked in my group about how we were mildly offended on Daryl's behalf that Alpha suggested he might have done something sexual to Lydia. I suppose it's a normal enough question for a parent to ask, given that Lydia was in the clutches of someone she didn't know for time. But we already know Alpha isn't terribly parental to Lydia to begin with.

I think this really shows Alpha’s mindset. She wanted specifically to know why Daryl was willing to fight to keep Lydia and then suggested that he had touched her. So, that association tells us she thinks the only reason someone would be willing to fight to keep Lydia is if there was a sexual element involved. She can’t imagine someone would want to keep a teenager safe out of basic goodness and decency.

She asked if there were any signs of trade, and Lydia said no. So she didn't tell her mom about the Kingdom or the other places that Henry mentioned.

I paid close attention to all of Alpha’s dialogue and something else struck me. Lydia asked, "Is that the only reason you came to get me? For information?" Alpha replies, "What a stupid question."

It reminded me of when Beth used the word stupid. She said of her own past optimism, "that's how incredibly stupid I am." Daryl assured her that she wasn't stupid. She was just normal and that's the way things were supposed to be. Maybe I'm reaching, but it just goes to show the difference between Alpha and Daryl. Alpha goes out of her way to make Lydia feel stupid rather than loved, where Daryl went out of his way to comfort Beth and let her know she was not stupid.

The yoyo. This was one of my favorite things in this episode. Why? Because it’s a significant symbol, but we haven't seen it very much. The less we see a symbol, the more significant it is when we do see it. The only other place I remember seeing the symbol was in 5x05 when Tara found the yoyo hidden in the backpack by the side of the river. It was when Glenn and Rosita were trying to filter water for everyone when the fire trucks broke down. You know, kinda on the way to Grady?

Here, we had almost the exact same scenario. Lydia randomly found a yoyo (hidden being a theme about Beth’s arc), and the Whisperers had stopped by the side of a river. This is a direct call back to 5x05. A yoyo, by definition, goes down and then comes back up, so I do think it's a resurrection symbol. All I could ever conclude about that yo-yo was that it foreshadowed Beth’s coming “death.” The yoyo suggested she would pop back up again somewhere.

Guys, we really haven't seen a yo-yo on the show that I'm aware of since then. So yeah, obviously I can talk about Beth symbolism all day and we've seen plenty of symbols throughout the seasons (6-8) that I've said pointed to her return, and we still haven’t seen her. But we literally haven't seen symbol since right before Coda. That makes me more hopeful than ever. They wouldn’t show it here for no reason. And just like in S5, the yoyo had absolutely no bearing on the plot. It's not like Lydia used it to get away or something. It was just random and has to be symbolic of something just around the corner.

I think it might also be important that it's blue. The yo-yo Tara found was yellow. That signified Beth apparent death, but her escape (think yellow polo shirt). The blue signifies something else. I'm not sure what, but @wdway also noticed a lot of characters in this episode wore dark blue. We batted ideas around about what the blue stands for, and haven’t really come to any concrete conclusions, but it's an interesting pattern to note.

*After double checking this I have to correct myself. Sorta. Michonne did find a yoyo in the van in 9x06. It was in the box with the little sheriff and some other things. She also grabbed some toilet paper right there. I don’t think that counts as it’s own instance, per se, because I think that, being the first episode of the new arc without Rick, it foreshadowed this yoyo with Lydia. But that just means something about this yoyo was important enough to foreshadow at the beginning of the arc. And given what else was in that box Michonne found, I think it’s safe to say this is associated with the emergence of the New Sheriff. Just saying. ;D*

Henry is captured by the whispers and it's obvious that Alpha knows Lydia is lying.

Let's talk about the Apple/Snow White reference. I sort of felt the same way about this as I did about the yo-yo. Obviously, we’ve seen plenty of apple references since Coda, so it's not the apple itself that makes me suspicious. It's the way they used it. Having Aaron talk about applesauce or Maggie eat apple pie are just very vague references to the apple theme. But those things in and of themselves don't illustrate the Snow White theme. So, what did? Beth's arm falling in the hallway of Grady, which is exactly what we see after Snow White ate the poisoned apple.

In this episode, Alpha gave Lydia an apple. The way she offered it to, looking as though trying to entice her to eat it, was pretty much a parody of the wicked queen/witch in Snow White trying to get her to eat the apple. Even the way Alpha watches Lydia take a bite...I had to laugh because it was so obviously an evil queen reference. Like they were trying to emulate the cartoon.

So again, I know this isn’t the only apple reference by far, but it’s the first direct Snow White reference I’ve noticed since Coda. I think we can draw a straight line between Beth's arm falling and this reference.

Lots of interesting symbols in the walker camp. I won't go into many of them because you already know what they mean. We saw a dead goat, which could be an extension of the ram symbol in 5B. Also a dead deer. Like with the Kingdom last episode, it's unclear hat this deer is tied to, but it's there. We also saw pigs on spits. It's also worth noting that they were drying skins. The question was posed in my group, how can they wear these skins without getting sick, given that they're coming off decomposing corpses? But they obviously use tannery to make them leathery and wearable for the long term.

When I watched Beta skin the walker (seriously disgusting) it occurred to me that this walker was female (pretty natural as he was looking for a new skin for Lydia), but also that it was tied to a tree. 

And that made me realize that Henry was also tied to a tree.

I think we can “tie” (see what I did there? ;D) this to the walker Aaron and Daryl found in 5x15. Why is that important? It's not just the Beth reference. It's that they gave us a foreshadow with that walker in 5x15 with the WOLVES and now here, with the Whisperers, the foreshadow might be fulfilled.

I've also talked briefly about how we see parallels between the Wolves and the Whispers. We’ve considered that maybe they’re part of the same group, or maybe they are the same group. But it's also possible we’re being too literal. The parallels might be only in the symbolism. Perhaps the wolves simply foreshadowed the Whisperers. Again, if that's the case, we had the wolves tying people to trees, including a blonde that looked like Beth. We haven't seen that exact thing with the Whisperers, but we've seen that they tie people to trees and they do it to walkers in order to take their faces. It feels like a direct fulfillment of that girl walker on the tree in 5x15 is coming.

We had the part where a male and female Whisperer challenge Alpha and she kills them. Yeah, AMC is obviously not skimping on gore this season.

We learn a lot about Alpha from this encounter. How ruthless she is, how gleefully she kills her own people, and a big part of why no one challenges her. It's not just her, but Beta they'll have to deal with. It’s happened before, as evidenced by her later telling Beta that it’s been years since anyone challenged her. Obviously, she killed them and remained the leader.

Here’s the thing: It occurred to me there must be a very specific reason they showed us this challenge to Alpha’s authority. They never did this, specifically, with Negan. We saw people disobey his rules and be punished for it, but we never actually saw anyone try to usurp his place as leader.

There must be a reason they're showing us this with Alpha. I think a lot of it is to establish her ruthlessness and the way she rules for people, but one line in particular jumped out at me. When the guy challenged her, she laughed at him and said, "and you think you are the one to replace me? To become the new Alpha?" The new alpha. That feels very significant to me. As though it's a thing and at some point, someone might become the new alpha. I’ll return to that in a minute.

On the subject of her brutality, I didn't catch the first time that the cord she used to decapitate a woman is actually worn around her wrist as a bracelet. So Alpha actually carries around a decapitation wire as though it's a piece of jewelry. Doesn’t she just seem sweet?

She gives the woman's head to the boyfriend and makes him hold it. Yeah, you really don't get any more sadistic than that. Just before stabbing him, she says something really interesting. She says, "Crying is weak."

We could relate that back to Beth, who also thought crying was weak. One of her signature lines was, "I don't cry anymore, Daryl." I always felt like she learned through the course of her arc that crying was not actually weak. That was a flawed way of thinking.

Now we have Alpha saying the same thing and killing people when they cry. I think this is more than just a parallel or anti-parallel. I think it’s a direct foreshadow of something.

Let’s skip ahead to when Alpha tells Beta the story about Lydia almost suffocating when she was three years old. First of all, it's obvious Alpha was a psycho even before the turn. She says she actually stood there and watched her daughter turn blue from not being able to breathe. Seriously? Yeah, awesome parenting skills. Afterward, she hit Lydia hard so she’d remember not to accidentally die again.

Something struck me as Alpha and Beta stood there talking. Here comes the super crazy theory.

It occurred to me that Alpha and Beta, especially with Alpha’s blonde walker skin, almost seem like a super-brutal version of Beth and Daryl. I suppose it's the way Beta is her right-hand guy and protects her. We’ve said before that if Beth were leading as the new sheriff, Daryl would be right there by her side. He’d kind of be her enforcer and other half. That’s a lot how Alpha and Beta's relationship is too, except obviously they’re way eviller and more sadistic than Beth and Daryl would be. And that's what sort of clinched some other thoughts I'd been having about this.

1. Beta has been set up as a Daryl foil. I called him a foil instead of anti-parallel because I’m making just a little bit of a differentiation here. Dwight was set up as a Daryl anti-parallel, but I feel like that situation was little bit different than Beta. Although Dwight was an obvious anti-parallel—he actually wore Daryl's clothes and drove Daryl's bike—but by the end of that arc, Dwight was pretty much a good guy. I don't think that will ever be the case with Beta. I don't see him and Alpha becoming part of TF in the way Dwight and Negan seem to be.

No, the last time I remember seeing something like this was in S4. I talked about it HERE in detail, but I felt like one of the Gov’s men, Mitch, had been sent to set up as an foil to Daryl. 

With the Gov being pitted against Rick, as his opposite, Mitch became Daryl's. He was the right-hand man, a super-tough survivor, and he didn't have sleeves. Hehe. So, while Rick and the Gov tussled at the prison, Daryl and Mitch came face-to-face, and Daryl killed Mitch.

I think something very similar is happening here. Beta and Daryl are being set up as foils. So, it's fitting that they’ll tussle in the next episode. And I feel like, when Beta dies, even if it's many seasons from now, it will probably be Daryl that kills him.

2. By extension, if Beta = Daryl, then Alpha must = Beth. And here's where things get complicated. I've already said that Alpha was a lot like Dawn, especially during the prisoner exchange. Then she says the thing about the “new Alpha.” As soon as I visualized that phrase in my head, I knew Beth has to be the New Alpha. It couldn't be anyone else. First of all, we had that cryptic line from Gorman at Grady about someday someone else being in charge who isn’t Dawn. We’ve always seen that as a foreshadow of Beth’s future leadership. Now Alpha is talking about a “new Alpha.”

The reason I'm saying it's complicated is because we also have the Carol aspect. I’ll talk about this in more detail later this week. It's one of those theories I wanted to get to last week and didn't. We have a very strong Carol/Beth entanglement thing going on here.

It's hard to say exactly what it means or how it will play out, but all three elements are present. Now, I do very strongly believe that were going to have a Carol/Alpha showdown. It will have everything to do with Henry and Lydia, and the differences in how they treat their children. I think that's going to be an awesome smack down and I’m excited for it. But I also don't really see Carol becoming the “new Alpha,” whatever that means. She barely wants to be queen and lead by Ezekiel’s side. She certainly wouldn't be volunteering to be a leader anywhere else.

And there's the Alpha/Beta dynamic, who I believe are foils to Beth and Daryl, so again it just makes sense that it would be Beth who’s the new alpha.

So, think about everything else I said. Alpha said crying is weak. Beth said crying was weak. The difference is that when Daryl cried, Beth hugged him, and when this guy cried over his dead girlfriend, Alpha stabbed him. Similarly, Beth said she was stupid, and Daryl assured her she wasn't. In this case, Alpha actually called Lydia stupid and was very derogatory to her about it. Are we seeing the anti-parallels?

We had Beta saying that if Lydia felt something for Henry or Hilltop, they needed to know about it. They’re obviously against genuine emotion is because they see it as a weakness. Conversely, Beth tried to draw the emotion out of Daryl and yelling at him for pretending he didn't feel anything.

We can see further parallels in how they dispose of their dead. The most obvious difference between the Whisperers and TF is that TF always bury their dead and treat them with a great deal of reverence and respect. On the other hand, the Whisperers feed their dead to the walkers. They have no respect for those they've lost, and no emotion for the people that cared about.

We can also relate this to Beth. In Alone, we learned had great reverence for the dead and was a big proponent of funerals. Alpha, on the other hand, doesn't bother to bury anybody. She merely casts the dead away and lets them be walker chow.

One more super obvious evidence that Alpha/Beta = Beth/Daryl? Check this out. My group noticed this from trailer even before the episode aired. 

Beta is wearing black and white ties, just like the ones we saw on Daryl in 5B.

Can I just say, I'm loving the Beta/Daryl match up. My man Norman and my man Ryan. Just totally loving it.

Let's talk briefly about Henry and Lydia. It took me a minute to figure out what Lydia's necklace was. It's the coin she found in the drunk shack. It has an H on it for Hilltop. 

She's obviously hanging on to that in a way that shows she's romantic or nostalgic about it. Henry smiles and obviously sees this is a good thing. Remember that finding that coin was a lot like Beth finding the spoon in S5, so the fact that Lydia is hanging onto it feels like a Beth parallel.

I also can't help but wonder if when we see Beth, we’ll see that she kept the spoon. I think we can also parallel it to Beth's heart necklace, which she wore the entire time she was with Daryl. It disappeared when she went to Grady and we never found out what happened to it.

Alpha tells Lydia to kill Henry and she obviously doesn't want to. She’s saved by the bell when walkers show up, keeping her from having to go through with it.

Alpha said to Lydia, "You weren't gone long. Maybe long enough." I think it was the “gone” that grabbed my attention. Beth is “just gone.” And it becomes an anti-parallel because Lydia wasn't gone long, but Beth has been.

I also liked that Lydia kind of stood up to her mother here. It wasn’t a massive stand or anything, but she said of her father, "Yeah, I know what happened to him, mother." 

So maybe we could see that as a parallel to Beth finally standing up to Dawn after realizing what was really going on.

Beth: “You let this happen, you’re letting it happen.”

Connie and Daryl showed up to get them, wearing walker masks. 

 Then Henry refused to leave without Lydia saying, "I'm not leaving you. I won't."

Obviously a direct parallel to Beth saying the same thing to Daryl.

It’s actually another anti-parallel (action-wise anyway) because Beth said she wouldn't leave Daryl and then they separated. Obviously that was a mistake. Here, Henry said that and, at least so far, he and Lydia haven’t separated. We’ll have to wait and see if they do in coming episodes.

One last word about theme. We saw a lot of people trying to survive rather than to live. Rather than doing the right thing, they're doing the thing that helps them to survive, and obviously that's a mistake. This mindset usually ends in disaster and the characters are going to have to learn to live again, rather than just surviving. So, a theme we’ve seen before, but still worth mentioning.

Okay, did I cramp your brain enough for today? Thoughts?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Season 8 EW Photo Shoot - TD Clues

Good morning Everyone and happy Saturday! How is everyone's weekend going?

Okay, so over the past 3 days I've gotten about 7 of these Asks about the EW pictures. I already had the first one when I was answering Asks on Thursday, but I decided I wanted to wait to answer it and do a full post. Then I got a bunch more. (These are obviously not all of them, but all the rest had the same gist.)

Actually I'm glad I waited because just yesterday the FB group had some really great insights that I wouldn’t have had before.

I will warn you, though, that this has been discussed all over the fandom. If you've read a lot of other discussions about it, I doubt I have much to say that hasn't already been said. This is what I see in the pictures, what insights the wonderful ladies in my FB group have had, and what we've been discussing.

So, quick summary for those who've been hiding under a rock and don't know what this is about. EW, as per usual, has done a photo shoot spread for TWD S8. These are some of the photos.

So here’s the complete run-down from my end:

The instant they hit the airwaves, a certain dark ship started screaming that because MMB has her arms around Norman, the show is foreshadowing C@ryl becoming canon this season. For the Nonny who needs reassurance, let me promise you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Here’s a random joke I made about it in my FB group:

Here are some simple facts:

1. Carol and Daryl have an iconic friendship, and people love seeing them together, even if it's just as friends. So the show has used them heavily promotionally for the past few years. And yet, they've never gone canon. This year is no different.

2. More than once AMC has hinted or outright said that Carzekiel will be pushed this season. I don't know if they'll actually go canon (most of the other long term couples have taken more than a season to actually hook up--Richonne = 3 seasons, Carnid = 2 seasons, Bethyl=oh geez! The one exception, I think, is Glaggie) but it should become very obvious that it will be the two of them in the long run. And who knows? They might go canon. I, for one, hope they do. And, based on the symbolism we're seeing here, I think there's a good chance they will.

Let me explain. One of the above Nonnies asked about symbolism. And the symbolism should go a long way to setting your mind to rest about the possibility of C@ryl.

At first I just kind of rolled my eyes at this picture, thinking, "well, the C@rylers are gonna have fun with that one, aren't they?" But then an IG follower pointed out that Carol is holding Sophia's doll.

Now, the third Nonny above asked if it was the magazine putting these symbols in, or tptb? While of course we can't know for certain, the instant I saw the doll, I knew it wasn't an EW thing. Not entirely. There are too many symbols we've seen in the show in this shoot for them to have been arbitrarily chosen by the magazine or the photographers. And remember this magazine had it's hands in all the secrets of Jon Snow's return to GoT, so I have a hard time believing these symbols aren't purposeful.

So for Carol, remember I said HERE that her whole arc has been and is about Sophia. This surely proves it. She's holding Sophia's doll, so this Sophia arc is obviously going to come into play in a big way in S8. My logic is that, even though this has been Carol's arc all along, we've never seen her hold the doll before, so it's got to be more front and center this season. Meanwhile, we have this kid, Ben's little brother, who just so happens to be played by Madison Lintz's brother, so he LOOKS just like Sophia, and is going to be part of Carol's story this season. He may be what finally helps her to heal and brings her arc full circle. And that's why I think Carzekiel could go canon this season. I think part of her healing will be a relationship with Ezekiel. No way to tell for sure when it will happen. Knowing Gimple, it could be spread over two or three seasons, but it also might not be.

So after noticing the doll, I started studying this picture and symbols started jumping out at me right and left.

(The funny thing was that by the time I actually went into my FB group, there were already like sixteen comments about the symbolism and I'd been tagged a bunch of times, lol. I was actually late to the table for this discussion. And I'd only logged off for like four hours! Well, that's what happens when new TWD stuff comes out, I guess. ;D)

The most obvious symbol to me was Daryl holding the champagne. Definitely milder than moonshine, but who cares? It's alcohol. Can't help but see it as a callback.

What most people in my FB group pounced on is the fact that Carol is feeding Daryl with a spoon. Not only does it remind us of Beth's D.C. spoon, but you don't get a more mother/child image than spoon feeding. Symbolically, many of us have thought for a while that Carol will have a relatively big role in bring Beth and Daryl together. This almost suggests her bringing Beth to him.

The other thing that caught my eye are the flowers he's holding. The reason is that I recently re-watched 7x05, Go Getters. Remember that when Maggie wakes up in the medical trailer in that episodes, there are tons of parallels to Beth waking up.

Also, when Maggie awakens, the first things she sees are purple flowers. These ones in the EW shoot look exactly like the ones in 7x05. I there's more white in the ones in the EW shoot, but other than that, practically identical.

So if you ask me, we have Daryl holding alcohol (Still), and flowers a Greene sister saw when she awoke in a medical place with a doctor.

Everything around Norman is screaming Beth to me. We also have peaches on the table and in one of Lauren's pics (peach schnapps)

and strawberries (totally a Bethyl thing).

And I’m pretty sure there's pomegranates in there too (Carzekiel).

So we were all doing pretty well with this. Pretty confident in our symbolism, etc. And then something else happened today. One of the EW photographers posted about the symbols used in the photo shoot. As you might imagine, none of the explanations were particularly TD-ish.

But guys, that's okay. Let's face it, they're never going to come out and say, "oh, the champagne is a callback to Still because Beth will be back this season." Just never gonna happen. So they're giving very convenient explanations for what the symbols are. And while they might be mostly true, they also kind of don't make sense.

For example, the stuff Melissa is feeding Norman is chocolate pudding. An obvious callback to Carl, and that's fine. But if they were going to callback to Carl, why not just put him in the photo shoot? He's one of the Atlanta originals and has been on the show longer than Maggie or Michonne. Why use pudding specifically?

This photographer also said the flowers were Carol's "look at the flowers" flowers. Um…if they're actually using that as a "look at the flowers" symbol, that suggests Carol will kill Daryl in this season. I chuckle even typing that because it's so ridiculous. I think we all know that's not happening. So my point is that these explanations aren't hitting the deeper symbolism.

Also notice they say that Shiva represents the Sanctuary. Well, Shiva...chewed on people who live at the Sanctuary, but she represents the Kingdom. Really not hating on this person. Just pointing out it’s not the most reliable synopsis.

Keep in mind, we've seen them do this before: give convenient explanations that are mostly plot-based, without really going into what the deeper symbolism is. As I told my FB group yesterday, the most recent example that comes to mind is an article that was released a few months ago explaining what the A on Daryl's shirt at the Sanctuary meant.

They said it meant "asshole" because the Saviors always try to degrade their prisoners. Now, I'm sure that's true. They aren't lying. (Other shirts we see have letters like F and S on them. Not hard to imagine what those stand for.) But the fact is that we saw A’s at the prison, at Terminus, at FG's church, and at Alexandria. Not all of them can possibly stand for a name call/body part. So this was a convenient explanation that doesn't REALLY talk about the deeper symbolism.

If the photographer knows anything at all about the symbols (isn't just guessing) then I’m thinking tptb gave her these simple explanations in case she was asked questions. And there probably is truth to them, but it's deeper and more complex than a simple, one-sentence answer.

The doll isn't just a callback to that one time Carol lost her daughter. It signifies Carol's entire 4 season arc and that fact that it will be front and center this season. She'll have to face Sophia's loss and find a way to finally move past it.

I think the flowers are about resurrection, at least partly. If they're also tied to Carol, well, the whole "look at the flowers" thing didn't start until Lizzie and Mica showed up. So I also think it could symbolize that she'll finally talk to Daryl about the girls.

Rick is holding the sheriff's badge. That's not TERRIBLY suspicious, but it's been some time since the badge was specifically used to signify him. They've focused more on the red-handled machete and such the past few seasons. So I can't help but think, new sheriff in town?

Aside: I also watched the Fan Favorite video for Carl today. While there's nothing inherently Beth-ish in it, I will say that the damn sheriff's hat is focused on A LOT. Just saying.

Maggie holds Glenn's watch. At first I didn't read much into that. As I told my group, I think it could just signify who she's become since Glenn's death and who she'll continue to be. Her whole purpose now is about her child and about the person she'll become specifically BECAUSE Of Glenn's death.

But the more I thought about it, the weirder that symbol seemed to me. Not only did they go out of their way to close Glenn's arc in a beautiful way, but she even gave the watch away (to Enid) in S7. So to see her holding it here again almost feels like their *ahem* resurrecting it in some way? And I don't even mean that it's necessarily Beth-ish. Just that it's kinda weird. At the very least, it's a time symbol. Maybe showing that the time screw is over and we'll finally go back to Grady and see what's up?

Now let's talk about the pudding one more time. While discussing this, @thegloriouscollectorlady​ said something that really got my wheels turning. She suggested that the pudding definitely was a callback to Carl (it totally is) but that that only goes to show that they're pushing Daryl and Carol as a son/mother relationship. The person who at the pudding before, after all, was the only "kid" on the show. And of course Carol is spoon feeding it to him.

That made me think more about Carl's whole pudding episode. That episode has a LOT of Beth parallels in it. Check out my analysis HERE.

In a nutshell, Carl sees a dead song bird beside a cage (foreshadowing Beth's “death” at Grady). Right after that, we see lots of resurrection themes. A walker comes at him and he shoots it in the left side of the forehead (right where Beth was shot) and thinks he got it, but it jumps right back up again. This is also where he goes into the bedroom with the nautical theme (Oceanside foreshadow) and has to escape the walker there.

He beats it with an actual lamp (Lamp Theory) plus there's a yellow bat in the scene. (Yellow = escape, bat = Negan. And what do you know? Oceanside showed up at roughly the same time as Negan; symbolism fulfilled.) Plus, he loses a shoe, and we see yellow-handled scissors near his foot.

That enough TD symbols for you? Right after that, he sits on the roof and eats the pudding. So this was very much about Carl becoming a man and learning to survive by himself. He did all this himself, without Rick's help. It instilled a confidence in him about his own ability to survive.

So now they're applying the pudding symbol to Daryl. Remember what Carol said in Consumed (you know, while they're looking for Beth?). "You used to be a boy. Now you're a man." So I feel like the pudding here is showing that Daryl has matured emotionally.

Remember that tptb and even Norman himself have said many times that Daryl was still emotionally immature in S4. They say that if he had romantic feelings for Beth (which AMC confirmed that he did) he didn't fully understand them. Think about that. Follow the symbolism through to conclusion.

If they're using the pudding symbol for him now (he's eating it, as Carl did) then it suggests he's reached full emotional maturity now. Guess what that means? Time for Beth to appear. He will now be capable of sustaining a romantic relationship with her, where in S4, he really wasn't.

This one shows Norman pretending to smoke a birthday candle. The candles from the cake he and Andy have all over them. Ostensibly it’s birthday cake to celebrate TWD’s “birthday” with 100 episodes, right? But who was the one character that talked about birthdays before starting a certain fire? Just saying.

Other interesting symbols:

1) Grapes. This really isn’t a symbol we’ve seen extensively around Beth or anyone else, but it could be termed Beth-ish because there were grapes in her arc in s4. In Inmates, which had the wacky non-chronological story-telling (X), Ty, Lizzie and Mica ate grapes. Later Beth and Daryl find the same ones and Beth picks some for anyone else they may find. Which they don’t.

2) Carrots are also on the table. (X) I’m gonna add that although we don’t actually see “carrot flowers” as far as I can tell, we do see both carrots and flowers in this shot. And Gimple had planned to play the song “The King of Carrot Flowers” during the dinner scene in Alone. (X). He only didn’t because of copyright issues. Just saying.

3) Apples, of course. (Apple Theory). They’re really around Richonne here, and we’ve seen them specifically around Richonne in the show, especially in 6b. But we’ve seen a lot of apples entwined Beth-related symbolism (as well as other characters like Maggie) so having them here at all is kind of suspicious.

Finally, there’s a bandage around Andy’s hand. No idea if that’s an Andy thing or a Rick thing, but if it’s a Rick thing, it’s a callback to S4, when Rick wore a bandage on his hand for most of 4a. Beth’s bandage at Grady mirrored that. And maybe it’s not for the show, but it doesn’t seem to be a significant injury (not like a broken bone or anything) which means they could have easily covered it up or photo-shopped it out. I think it’s more likely it was purposely put in.

So all of this rambling boils down to this: No, I'm not worried that C@ryl will go canon this season. Everything points to C@rzekiel. Yes, I think all the symbols we're seeing in the shoot are point to Beth's return. And yes, I think they were purposely put in by tptb, no matter what anyone else says.

We've seen them too often in the show for them to be arbitrary, and everything else we've said in the past still holds true.

But hey, it's just a theory. Just my opinion. I mean, I've only been analyzing the crap out of this show's symbolism for two and a half years. What the hell would I know, right? ;D

Everyone have a fantastic weekend. Four weeks and counting, my Bethyl peeps! Xoxo!

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Suspicious Pre-S8 Promos (Part 1)

Good morning! I'd planned to post my titles meta today, but I had a book launch this week and my schedule has been super-crazy. I'm working on it and it will probably be ready in the next couple of days. So I'll definitely get it posted before the premiere, but it's just getting pushed by a few days.

Meanwhile, let's talk about a couple of suspicious promos. Most of you have probably seen these. Both have been discussed in my FB group, so I figured I might as well share.

1. Commerical Promo focusing on Daryl.  

I first saw it last week while watching Fear. (Others in my group said they'd seen it before, so apparently I was a little bit late to the party. ;D)

Here is my analysis, copied and pasted from my original FB post in our group:

So, I just saw a REALLY interesting promo for TWD S8.

I watched Fear and then left the TV on while I worked on a post for tomorrow. It was on my DVR so I went back and recorded it for you guys. A few things jumped out at me about it, specifically about the last scene they show with Daryl and Negan.

1) Yeah it's probably a foreshadow of this arc continuing for Daryl in S8, but we know that's a direct mirror of Beth saying to him, "You've got to stay who you are." So they're using a mirror of Beth's dialogue that obviously affected Daryl in a big way to promote S8.

2) If you just look at that last scene of him and Negan, it reminds of promos they did during S5. Does everyone remember those? They would use small clips of important character interactions to promote the coming season. Specifically, they used Beth and Daryl a LOT to promote S5. I remember seeing ones of Daryl whaling on the walker in the golf club. And they had one of them fighting outside the moonshine shack. TD took issue with that because it didn't make sense for them use Bethyl to promote the new season if she was just gonna die. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember them doing these kinds of promos during S6 or S7. So my point is, they're doing these kinds of promos again, AND they're using a (granted, more subtle, but still) Beth and Daryl moment to do it.

3) While they don't show any Beth stuff in scenes leading up to Negan (mostly their shots of him aiming his crossbow at stuff) it DOES show a quick scene from Consumed, when he was looking for Beth, and it most definitely does not focus on Carol. We kind of see the back of her head, but the focus is on Daryl. And I thought about that scene. It's where he "helps" Noah by shooting the walker that's trying to eat him. He did it because Carol wanted him to, not because he wanted to help Noah. Then Noah was the reason Beth was shot (she went back to hug him bc he gave in to Dawn's demands). I just think it's interesting that this is the shot they chose.

Thoughts?

Super-suspicious, if you ask me. Onto the next suspicious promo.

2. Michonne Pic:

A couple of reasons this is suspicious:

1. The leaving people behind line. Given that we're pretty sure Beth was left behind, it's interesting that they're using this to promote S8.

2. This arc with Michonne from S6 is really very finished. She said this to the people she was with in the pet shop in 6x03 (*coughs Grady/Pet Shop parallels*). Annie died, but Heath and Scott made it back to Alexandria. There’s not really anything unfinished in that arc for any of the characters. So why bring this quote from it back up?

About the only other thing I can think of that this MIGHT be about besides Beth is Heath. After all, he mysteriously disappeared in a car after getting separated from the people he was with (Tara) and no one has seen, heard from, or said his name since.

Oh wait…who else is that true of?

3. The other suspicious thing about this promo is what else is happening in the narrative at the time. It comes from 6x03, which is both the episode featuring David/Betsy who parallel to Daryl/Beth, and is also the beginning of Glenn's fake death. Let's face it, Glenn was also left behind for a time and then miraculously turned up alive. Just saying.

So yeah. Just two promos I’ve been wanting to tell you guys about, in case you hadn’t seen them. 

Thoughts?

P.S. Check out Part 2, which is about suspicious interviews Emily has done lately.

[bethgreeneishopeunseen]

She’s Waited at the Tunnel Gates

For over a year, it has been argued that Sasha was partially responsible for leaving Beth behind. All of this goes back to 4x01. In that episode, after the infamous “damn romance novel” line, she and Tyreese placed black crates with white crosses into the back of a car. Then after Coda she suffered a severe emotional decline, for obvious reasons, going so far as to have flashbacks in 5x13. One of these included her seeing Daryl carrying Beth’s body out of Grady (at 14:40: X). Her P.T.S.D. had also manifested as her being driven to put down walkers and to bury them. Then in 5x16 Gabriel accused Sasha of “sacrificing her” (X) (X), claiming that her brother was “apart of it.” Going by the flashes in 5x09, Tyreese was likely the one carrying Beth when the men were running with guns. Abe has also been linked to Beth, because of him being the heart of the D.C. mission, and because in the comics, he wanted to put Maggie down when she appeared to be dead. That plot point was referenced via an easter egg in Slabtown. Marketing has also tied Sasha and Abraham to a Beth walker that appeared several times leading up to season 6 and which appeared in AMC promotion (X) (X) (X). I consider them (Tyreese, Sasha, and Abraham) to be the Trinity of those missing 17 days, the three people most directly tied to Beth being left behind. 

Recently, @bethgreenewarriorprincess​​, @allatariel​, and I have been discussing the Trinity in relation to Beth’s return. Something we noticed awhile back is that Beth, Ty, Sasha, and Abe all had their names on the tunnel title card at one point or another. After Tyreese’s death, the tunnel card should have been removed, like Steven’s pocket watch card. TPTB update the credits as they go, yet they have kept the tunnel card, giving it to Abe/Michael Cudlitz intermittently in 5b before passing it to Sasha/SMG in season 6. Every character whose name has been on that card has died, except for Sasha.

Below the read more are potential spoilers for the season finale.

For a long time, I’ve speculated that Sasha would die. She and Beth have many parallels, from both losing their older brother and their two boyfriends, to being the recipients of several comic!Andrea traits/plot lines. Over the summer hiatus, I thought Sasha might commit suicide after Abe’s murder. It would make sense that she would die, closing the circle on the characters connected to the tunnel, bringing it back to Beth.

Well, two weeks ago reports came out that Sasha will possibly die in the finale, “sacrificing herself in a failed attempt to take out N3gan”. Even though TPTB claim SMG can film the Star Trek show and stay on TWD (X), it’s not likely, and show-people have lied before in order to keep a secret (X). 

(Source: X; pg. 1, 26)

The report of a dream/flashback sequence piqued our interest as Tyreese and Sasha’s deaths would bookend Beth’s resurrection. While Tyreese and Sasha aren’t twins, they are siblings and twin imagery was heavy in 5x09. It would close the mirror arc, allowing Alice to come back through the looking glass. Gimple has also been treating the seasons like religious days (X) (season 5 Good Friday, 6 Holy Saturday, and 7 should Easter Sunday), and so it would be one death per day. Tyreese died on Good Friday, Abe on Holy Saturday (as his death was presented via flashback in 7x01), and Sasha on Easter Sunday. Three die in the tunnel, and one comes back to life. The Trinity opens the door, since they were the ones who shut Beth in.

Furthermore, spoilers indicate that there will be a great battle in the finale, and it is the perfect opportunity for Beth to fully come back into the narrative. As Christy and I have discussed (X) (X) (X), Beth will likely come through the Alexandria gates as a mirror of Sophia’s death and the end of Coda. It goes back to the season six premiere, which was very meta with Emily arriving late to the event. She came in the middle, and she came to even out the girls’ side, even though TPTB could have used Tovah Feldshuh (Deanna).

 We have constantly speculated that Beth would return during a time of conflict. Andrea and Team Family discovered each other when Team Family infiltrated Woodbury, and Beth should as well, her arc mirroring Andrea’s. Beth also first disappeared from her family during the battle in 4x08. When it comes to Beth’s return, I keep going back to the music box’s resurrection. Maggie and Sasha were in a confrontation with a man from another group, and the music disrupted them. Beth's existence is a disruption in general, but her return will disrupt the entire narrative. If she returns in the finale, she will likely return during the battle, after Sasha’s death, and she will help Team Family fight the Saviors. It would mirror 4x16 and Rick reuniting with most of his family in Terminus, as the Savior arc has mirrored the Terminus arc. Rick having his family gave him the numbers he needed to escape Terminus, and Beth would be another ally he could use, especially if she has a group. In 6x10 he even remarked that “[t]he law of averages has gotta catch up”. Lastly, Beth returning at the beginning of the All Out War arc (AOW) fits the war themes/imagery that has been heavy in the show since season 5 and Morgan’s arc since Gimple (X) (X) (X). In # 47, Andrea returns to the prison during the Governor’s attack, riding atop the RV, shooting at his people. I could see a remixed version being applied to Beth.

Interestingly, the rumored dream sequence also relates to an interview Michael Cudlitz gave right before the season premiere (X). He gave two truths and a lie:

1) Every episode will be one hour long. 2) Myself, Daryl, Merle, and Hershel are going to go on an awesome adventure, and you'll be invited. 3) There will be sixteen episodes produced.

We know that #3 is true, and #1 isn’t, as some of the episodes have run into Talking Dead’s airtime. The writer of the article dismissed the second statement, chalking the interview up to “two lies and a truth”. The attitude comes across as presumptuous as the show has utilized various dreams, flashbacks, and hallucinatory techniques in order to illuminate a character’s psychology. 

Ghosts from the past went unresolved during filming for 5 and 6. Scott Wilson was spotted on set June 2014 and noted as acting by a fan; there was also speculation that Scott Wilson filmed with Emily last summer (X).

Scott was supposed to be at a con the weekend of June 19th to 21st, 2015 (X), but he canceled about a week before: “While Scott Wilson who played Hershel Greene on The Walking Dead was forced to cancel his appearance due to filming, there are still several great reasons to attend the 2015 Wizard World in Sacramento.” At the time he had nothing coming out in the near future, and he had season 2 hair and a trimmed beard. Christy uncovered eggs hinting that Beth would end up at a farm, and there is a missing farmhouse set from filming earlier in season 6 production (X). Emily’s This is War Tour had a weeklong gap from June 18th to June 24th (X), and while she was on the west coast at the time of the shows, she disappeared during the gap. She posted about the tour on June 18th, and on the 20th, she posted a concert latergram.

Source (X) (X).

Source (X) (X)

On the 21st, she posted a picture of a book, and reexamining the picture, something caught my eye. The flooring seemed familiar, so I reviewed other pictures Emily had posted. (While this could be a table, she photographed objects she placed on a floor before: X. Emily is very sneaky when it comes to social media, as I’ll show in a bit.) (It also is plausible that she would have a book in her trailer, as she would have downtime to read.)

Source (X) (X).

The flooring above resembles the flooring on the right side in the picture below, believed to be Emily’s TWD trailer. (@magaretgreene wrote a meta about the school post, connecting it to another cast member’s post: X.) 

Source (X).

(The left side flooring resembles the flooring seen in the picture below, the one that Emily posted on November 17th, 2014, the day Bethfoot was documented. It looked like Emily was in her trailer.)

Source (X).

On the 23rd, she posted a picture of her and her two sisters, captioning, “Me sis, big sis, lil sis. Best phone catch up with sis 2night. 😊 Troubadour 2morrow. 🎶🎸😎…” The picture implied she wasn’t in Georgia or likely even on the East Coast, as she was with her sisters. 

Source (X) (X).

While going through her Instagram pictures, I came across a picture from September 6th, 2014, nine months earlier. It was an almost identical picture of her and her sisters, except for a different filter and her older sister having her sweater buttoned. Emily could have held a phone conversation anywhere, but she wanted to make it look like she was out West with her family. If she wanted to include a picture of her and her sisters, to go with the post, she could have used a newer one. Instead she used an older, generic one that could match any time of the year. 

Source (X) (X).

So Emily disappeared for several days during TWD filming and latergrammed throughout the gap between her shows, hiding her location.

All of this might seen a bit excessive, especially in terms of storytelling, but Beth is on a Heroine’s Journey. It is a storytelling structure focused on the internal, feminine experience instead of the physical achievements of the Hero’s Journey. Hers is a story of identity, coming-of-age, and transformation.The Tunnel represents that transformation. It goes back to the Heroine’s Journey because the tunnel, as a setting, descends from classic literature. The tunnel, like the traditional forest or mountain top, is a liminal setting where the protagonist undergoes a change before returning to their “home”, concluding that segment of the story. Examples include the Cave Luke enters in Empire Strikes Back and the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter. (For more reading on the Heroine’s Journey, I highly recommend this two-part meta: X, X.) (You can read more about the tunnel here: X.) Emily hinted at this in an interview post-Coda, describing Beth’s character arc in season 5:

“Beth, when she was at Grady, was becoming a different person. It's like when you go to college and become a different person and then you go back home and try to fit in again.” (X)

In the Heroine’s Journey, the protagonist hits the Death stage at stage 6, and it functions as a symbolic death for the protagonist. This stage pushes the protagonist to accept humility and to be reborn. Coda, as stage 6 in Beth’s story, fits this mold. Beth supposedly “died” because of a moment of “overconfidence”. In the meta I linked above, the author describes the Death stage thusly:

“Note that both Death scenes in Tangled and Dragon Age 2 are not at the climax of the story, as you might find in a Hero’s Journey. They’re in the middle. That’s a huge, huge difference between these two narrative structures, and one that I personally find far more applicable to real life. Hitting rock bottom, and climbing out of that pit, is never really so simple as it’s presented in the Hero’s Journey. It’s ugly and time-consuming, and backsliding occurs, and it’s never really the end of change, but the midpoint.” (emphasis mine)

Leading up to Coda, many Beths fans were theorizing that Beth would have a fakeout death, as she was nearing the Death stage. None of us expected such a real fakeout though. It’s one of the reasons Coda seems so ludicrous; it happened in the midst of Beth’s arc, as she was growing. Because it happened in the middle, it came without any closure.

For a long time, Christy and I have speculated that Beth would become the central character of the story after her return. The story shifting focus to her makes sense. She is the new sheriff in town, and she is the Christ figure, the savior. Beth is likely immune/cured of the virus, as hinted in her Grady arc (X) (X), and she will go on to help find a cure. Such a storyline would help break the show’s from the rut it’s fallen into, and the storyline could carry the show for seasons. The Trinity were the price to have Beth back (a reoccurring theme at Grady and in 5x09). It should be noted that all three of them were the traditional warrior types, Abe and Tyreese two of the physically strongest men in the group. As Morgan said back in 3x13, the weak will inherit the earth. We just have to wait for that day, when Beth reaches the end of the tunnel. There she’ll find her family, including Daryl, up the road.

[gjgriff736]

In the latest episode of The Walking Dead, Rick and Michonne hit the road.

Okay so first things first, I’M SORRY!!!  LO SIENTO!!  DÉSOLÉ!!  I know I said I would write while I was in Spain and that was just straight foolishness.  I was in Spain!!  There was just too much fun, food and history around me and I truly needed the break.  But I’m back now and instead of writing some quickie summaries of the TWD episodes I’ve missed, I’m going to watch and recap each one.  It’s the least I can do.  Ok, onwards.

So, Rick and Michonne are on the road looking for supplies, guns, and whatever else they’ll need for their war with the Saviors.  By day, they are a badass tag team, checking buildings for supplies and weapons, and at night, well, at night, they’re getting some quality nookie time.  I don’t blame them, since it’s probably been almost impossible to get laid during the past few months.  When Michonne suggests they go back to Alexandria, Rick wants to stay away a couple days more.  Wouldn’t you?  Wouldn’t you want to be away from the stress and responsibilities of your life for just a few days?  That’s what I thought.

So, they stay out a little longer.  When the two of them aren’t giving each other googly eyes, they’re working together to get those guns.  They end up at what looks like a carnival full of walkers.  Some are soldiers still wearing their uniforms and high-powered guns.  Before they can start collecting, Rick and Michonne fall through the ceiling of the building they’re standing on.  Luckily, they’re alright (cuz I would lead the revolt straight to AMC’s doors if anything happened to them).

Back at Alexandria, Rosita is still pissed.  Well, Tara comes over to help her with her scar and talk, but Rosita is too busy being angry to listen.  Look girl, I get it.  Shit is crazy and you want to take some action.  But save that anger for Negan and his Saviors, don’t take it out on your friends.  Before she could make things worse, Rosita decides to head out and look for more guns.  She comes up empty, of course, and with nothing but blood on her face from a walker she chopped up and an attitude, she heads straight to Father Gabriel (who’s back on the Good Guy List) and starts ranting about Negan and her gun and listening to common sense.  Father Gabriel listened, and then dropped this serious truth bomb:  “Anything is possible until your heart stops beating.”  You hear that people?  Anything is possible until your heart stops beating!  I’d like to thank the writer who came up with that one.  That line needs to be on a damn t-shirt.  After Father Gabriel dropped that knowledge on Rosita, he quietly walked out, leaving her to think about things.

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Danai Gurira as Michonne – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 12 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Danai Gurira as Michonne – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 12 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Back at the Walker Carnival, Rick and Michonne are definitely alright.  Both are laughing at their fall, which ended with a very soft landing on what looked like an air mattress.  Michonne said that it must be a sign that they’re at the right place and Rick confirms it when he points out the crates of ready-made food sitting in the corner.  The two of them have a lovely candle-lit dinner with nothing but themselves.  Michonne asks her man what would happen after Negan is defeated.  Would the deals between the communities be reworked or remain the same?  Who would lead them?  Of course, she thinks Rick should lead, but he wants them to do it together.  When she mentions going back to Alexandria, he stalls again.  Rick really has no desire to get back and it shows.  Later that night, while Michonne is sleeping, Rick sits on the side of the bed stressed as fuck.  Not a good sign.

In the morning, the dynamic duo come up with a plan to take out the Walker Carnival and get those guns.  Things seem to go well at first (of course), but then problems arise (of course).  The brakes in the car they tried to use to block the gap in the fence are dead (Problem #1), a walker wearing a high-powered gun starts shooting at Michonne purely by accident (Problem #2), which leads her to hide in the trunk of the car (Problem #3) and said car stalls in the middle of a group of walkers, leaving Rick and his love trapped (Problem #4).  Because these two can’t ever do things simply, can they?

The pair climb out of the car’s sunroof and jump behind one of the carnival’s barriers.  They begin the work of killing walkers, but the barrier doesn’t hold.  They decide to split up in order to make their jobs easier.  Things go pretty well, until Rick sees a deer.  He promised Michonne he’d get one and decides to climb up on the ferris wheel to get a better shot.  Before he can shoot, a group of walkers make their way to the deer, ending Rick’s plan.  But the writers at TWD love to fuck with us, and Rick falls, his gun going off to draw the walkers.  Michonne, done with her walkers, hears the gun shot and runs to her man.  But by the time she gets there, she sees the walkers chowing down on something bloody and she goes numb.  She drops her sword, just in time for one of the eating walkers to see its new meal.  But before they can take our girl, Rick comes out of a crate (literally), grabs Michonne’s sword, tosses it in the air to her, and the pair known as Richonne kick some major walker ass.  Once that mess is done, Michonne hugs her man tight for all of us.

Danai Gurira as Michonne, Walkers – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 12 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Danai Gurira as Michonne – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 12 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

After that scare, the pair begin the process of gathering all of the guns they can find to take back to Jadis and her creepy crew.  But Michonne is rattled.  In the van on the way back to Alexandria, Michonne is beyond quiet, which bothers Rick.  He pulls over and tells his love that he hasn’t been sleeping, thinking about all of his friends, especially Glenn.  Just the mention of Glenn’s name got me all teary-eyed (it’s too soon!).  And although he knows that people may and will die, including the two of them, they must go on to build their future.  Michonne can’t deal with the idea of losing Rick, but he tells her it’s not about them.  It’s about the future of the group and the only reason he’s even thinking about the future is because of Michonne.  Why does this show insist on making me cry?

Later, a cleaned up (and always fine) Rick and the group drop the guns off with Jadis.  Ms. Creepy wants to know if the guns work, and Rick is basically like, clean them and find out.  Jadis’ buddy looks at him like, “you want US to clean them?”  Uh, yeah!  Jadis has the audacity to tell Rick that they need MORE guns.  REALLY?  Rick tells Jadis that he’s keeping 10 of the guns and a negotiation begins.  Rick stands firm until Jadis tells him she wants the cat he got for Michonne back.  Rick is like, hell no, we’re keeping 20 guns plus the cat.  “Say yes.”  And Jadis does.

Rick is annoyed, but brightens up when Michonne tells him that they can stay on the road a few more days to find more guns.  I love these two!

Back at Alexandria, Rick meets up with Tara to see if she knows where Rosita is hiding.  A distracted Tara says she isn’t sure and then begins to blab about Oceanside.  Man, don’t ever get Tara to swear to ANYTHING.

At the Hilltop, Rosita finds Sasha at Abraham’s grave (still too soon!) and reveals she needs her frenemies help.  Sasha knows exactly what Rosita wants and says that she gets to take the shot.  The two agree and Rosita takes out one of the high-powered guns Rick kept from Jadis.  The two ladies confirm they both know what going after Negan alone will mean:  they won’t make it back alive.

Will Sasha and Rosita finally get their revenge?  Will Tara’s blabbing sink Oceanside for good?  And will Rick and Michonne keep reminding us that even during the zombie apocalypse, you can still find love?

Stay tuned.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.  Photos courtesy of AMC.

 As always, here’s the latest episode’s fan compilation video from Skybound, which is always hilarious.  Enjoy!

The Walking Dead, Season 7 – Say Yes In the latest episode of The Walking Dead, Rick and Michonne hit the road. Okay so first things first, I’M SORRY!!!