#i am once again saying that i wish people would stop sleeping on norman reedus's FILMS

[scuddish]

Thank you so much for your hard work on those movies and scene packs. I recently started watching all of Normans old movies and some are hard to come by so your work is greatly appreciated! 🎈

One question though: the full movie link for Floating is not working. Is there any chance that you will re-upload the file?

If not it’s fine just checking! 😊

omg sorry for the issues with the link love, it's fixed now! i've been messing about with my masterlist, and i guess that was one of the ones i moved to a different folder and didn't relink lmao...

aaa but thank you too, love! i am happy to make & share them bc norman reedus (and his work) have been a huge part of my life for a long while now. and also being able to help give others the chance to watch things that might be hard to find is really nice too. idk why some of his stuff is so difficult to find though when he is in some iconic films + shows & the cast is just as popular as he is these days.

[ikkleosu]

What do you think now in terms of Caryl actually happening? Seems to be looking a WHOLE lot better now!!

I have several asks basically asking the same thing so forgive for just lumping it all together in this answer. Also forgive me, for I am about to ramble.

Let me say that i am so so so certain Caryl is happening.

Now unlike some folks (with music box in their name) I FREELY admit that despite the fact I am ALWAYS RIGHT, sometimes I have been totally wrong.

I was totally sure Caryl was happening in season 5, and I was totally sure it was happening in the run up so season 8. Obviously I was wrong on both counts.

The rest of the time I was mostly speculating how it could happen if they were to do it at that point.

Now I have always (well since season 5) believe Caryl would happen eventually. Even when I stopped watching in s8/9 I still believed it would happen eventually. But by then I thought Carzekiel was a real, genuine ship, and Caryl would only happen as a last ditch attempt to save ratings - 3 show runners down the line!

And then the spoilers for 8x16 came out and my ears pricked up. Carol was leaving Zeke, and Daryl was implicated in the divorce! (LOL) Suddenly things got really interesting, but I still wasn't sure Caryl was on the cards in the immediate future.

Once the movie was announced I was fairly settled that Caryl would only happen in the movie, as a ratings grabber (because as much as I love Andrew Licoln, he isn't enough to sell a movie. Walking Dead fans who have walked away would expect a TWD movie to have Rick and Michonne and Daryl and Carol. They just would).

Now up until about a month or so ago I STILL believed that (and part of me does still think actual canon might only happen on the big screen). But what has changed in the last few weeks is that I am certain THIS SEASON is setting up Caryl - either to fully go canon in this season, or to NEARLY go canon, then go canon in the movie.

(By nearly go canon, I mean Daryl and Carol's feelings for each other are made explicit. There are on screen conversations about their feelings. Their reasons for not being together will be detailed, and they will have shippus interuptus a la the Consumed bed moment that stops them from taking the last step)

My mind being changed has happened bit by bit, and a large part of it has been thanks to Norman "threesome with Beth and Carol" Reedus! I KNOW?!

Suddenly his answers on Caryl were mature and interesting. Talking about the complicated nature of their relationship and waxing about aspects of Caryl. Like, who is he?

My assumption was Norman suddenly didn't just get media training. He could answer differently because he knew differently. He had something different to say because something different was happening.

And platonic relationships are rarely "complicated".

A huge part is the quotes I put in my "join the dots" post. The fact that Angela said this season would deal with Daryl's love life, and said she has asked Norman his opinion on how it would go. Then Norman said they have had talks, then explicitly said he has had talks with Angel's and some things he suggested went into ep 1, then he confirmed it was things in the Caryl scenes.

To me, that is definitive proof that the relationship he and AK were talking about was Caryl.

And let me divert and explain here why I got it wrong in the past...

It took me like 6 years to realise that Scott Gimple puts stuff into the show that seems significant but isn't AT ALL. He plants scenes and symbolism and Easter Eggs that amount to fuck all. They are pointless, meaningless stuff he puts in for his seeming own amusement. If he's asked about it, he will say yes I will say that will come up again BUT IT NEVER WILL!

From the jasper stone to Daryl's therapy book to Daryl's sudden deep relationship with every red shirt going - all of it was meaningless drivel. Hey remember the dead bodies with signs on them? Remember the weird deserted camps? Remember the Cherokee walkers? Remember the clocks and flowers and tomatoes and beer bottles and the colour green? MEANINGLESS!

I spent so many hours dissecting and analysing, connecting stories that seemed to fit brilliantly together. And I tend to think I was giving it more thought than Gimple was.

I thought Caryl would happen because things like the water jug flirtation and Consumed and the Dwight parallels and the Cherokee rose on the wall and... you get the point. But none of them meant anything other than Gimple thinking he was clever and throwing carylers random bones to keep us going. Which, to his credit, worked largely.

But I believe Angela Kang. Angela "I wrote Still, the worst written episode ever" Kang is not like that. Doesnt work like, and knows exactly what she's doing.

I dont say that lightly. It is only looking back at s9 with hindsight do I see what she was doing.

She had Carol repeatedly reject Ezekiel's proposal; she had Daryl have a conversation with Aaron about what a good father Daryl would be; she had Carol and Daryl show their connection and Carol show she wanted space from Ezekiel in a scene she wrote notes on saying Daryl was jealous of Zeke; she had Carol change her mind about Zeke only after she saw Daryl lose and go punch happy, whilst Zeke is a caring father to Henry. She made sure Carol never said "I love you" to Zeke on screen. She showed that while Daryl goes into the wild, Carol always knows where he us and lies to her husband to go visit him. She showed that Carol felt that Zeke had enough influence on Henry, and now she wanted Daryl to be the male influence on his life, in an episode filled with romance tropes and a morning after scene that was clearly meant to emulate a morning after scene. And then AK played her first hand - when Henry dies, it is Daryl who Carol seeks. And Zeke sees Daryl as a direct and present danger to his marriage and threatens him off. And then Carol leaves Zeke, and goes back to ASZ with Daryl.

I mean, holy crap! She set it all up so subtly that so many people didn't see it coming. And I still believe there are other parts of s9 that are set up to come into play this season.

And then with each spoiler I began to get more faith. Ep 1 was so much better than I expected, with Daryl taking Carol on a date, making a bracelet (something else I was wrong on. I totally thought that was wishful thinking), and not only being comfortable with the idea of running away together, but when he realised he couldn't do that, telling Carol HE NEEDS HER!

Again this is new ground, Daryl hasn't talked like that.

And then, after all that came the dream spoiler. I loved it, it seemed big, but the people leaking it played it down to ridiculous levels.

They made it seem like it was a throwaway scene, a Gimple-esque nod to the shippers. But as I have said, what actually happened was HUGE. This scene is the entire point of the Carol taking speed pills story (in this ep). It is telling us WHY she is afraid to sleep.

And it confirmed every single thing. The dialogue in the extended version confirms it is a good dream. The ring takes away ANY ambiguity (unless you are a desperate ABCer who has decided to pretend it's Ezekiel's ring, when it visibly, clearly isn't) that Daryl is just a roommate. And the fact the dream is 80/20 Daryl to Henry, shows this dream issue is NOT just about her missing Henry. If it was , the dream could have just featured Henry, or Henry and Zeke. It didn't. It heavily featured Daryl as Carol's dream husband, then followed it up by a scene showing us how utterly she loves and needs him.

I always believed in eventual canon. After Ghosts, I believe canon is on the cards very soon. And that we just saw on screen confirmation that Carol is IN LOVE with Daryl.

Put a fork in me I'm done.