#also also i saw someone posting like the 3 crucifixes. and i can only assume that was their response to all of the gay messages

[ghostcrows]

Favorite splat3 pride messages so far

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Alpha, Omega, Carol and Beth - It’s All Coming Together

Okay, I've been thinking about this theory for several weeks now and I'm just now getting around to doing it. I'm glad that I hadn't posted it for now because meeting the highwaymen did change it a little bit.

So, keep mentioning Carol symbolism, and how she ties into the Alpha arc. Let's start with the symbol we saw by Carol in 9x11. Everybody wondered what it was and we now know the highwaymen left it there.

Before we knew that, @bluesandbeth did a little research. She found this. 

Look similar? This is the first letter, Alef, of the ancient Phoenician alphabet which actually predates the Greek. Think about this. It's the first letter, which means it's the ancient Phoenician equivalent of “A” or “Alpha.”

At first, we thought this was another symbol for Alpha (the character). If that had been the case, it would simply have foreshadowed that Carol was on some sort of collision course with Alpha. And due to Henry spoilers, we already know that.

Now we know it wasn't Whisperers who left the sign here, but rather the highwaymen. In terms of the plot, the symbol does not represent Alpha. However, I think that symbolically, it still could. Let me explain.

If this symbol represents an A, it may not only be about Alpha, but about the A theme we’ve seen since S4. We’ve seen tons of As and there have been dozens of TD theories about what the A's might represent and how everything fits together. And yes, we do strongly believe the As either point to Beth or are somehow tied up in her arc.

So, then we wondered if maybe all the As in the A theme pointed toward Alpha. Alpha never seemed (to me, anyway) like she was quite as big a deal as other CB arcs, especially Negan. I felt like the show made a much bigger deal about Negan than they ever did about Alpha. People knew she was coming, of course, and she’s still a big deal, but there just wasn't as much hype about her as there was about Negan.

It's also important to note that spoilers have told us the Whisperer arc will be much bigger and more complicated than it was in the CBs. So that may feed into this. Maybe they always meant Alpha to be bigger, but there wasn't as much hype about it because in the CBs, she's really not bigger than Negan.

If the A's are specifically tied to Beth and she comes back during the Whisperer arc, then it really may be that all the A's pointed toward Alpha.

(P.S. I really think this Phoenician alphabet symbolism is a thing because if you look farther down, the 9th symbol in the alphabet, theth, looks damn close to the symbol Morgan keeps carving into trees.)

Alpha truly showed up in 9x10. Yes we saw her at the end of the previous episode when she took Luke and Alden captive, but we didn't see her face or really know who she was. Her true arrival was in 9x10 when she came to the gates of Hilltop.

So, Alpha showed up in an episode called Omega and in it, she's wearing an infinity belt. Guys, I literally have a post that I wrote after the finale of S8 called Alpha, Omega, the 8 Clocks, and Infinity Signs. Feel free to read it and others on the subject HERE, and I'm going to draw from them a bit, so I would suggest re-familiarizing yourself with what I'm talking about.

I won’t say much more about the infinity symbol, except that Alpha’s belt is important and it’s part of the Alpha/Omega symbolism. Read the above post for details. (Btw, I’m also pretty sure that, in addition to an infinity sign, her belt is a snake eating it’s own tail. That’s another common infinity symbol, and we can tie snakes to both Morgan (ouroboros) and Bethyl (Still).)

We’ve seen several “Alpha and Omega” references in the show throughout the seasons. Remember, the reason “Alpha and Omega” is a big deal is because that phrase is a very well-known name for Christ. He says he is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. And of course Beth is the Christ figure. In other words, Alpha and Omega is both a Christ and a resurrection symbol.

One of the more references to this phrase was in 7x16 when Sasha died. In a flashback to her and Abraham talking, Abraham said, "alpha to omega, battlefield to beach." I was very excited about that at the time, not only because of the Alpha and Omega, but because of the “battlefield to beach.”

The “battlefield to beach” was exciting because of all the beach/ocean/Oceanside/water symbols we've seen around Beth.

But let's travel further back. To show how Carol is tied into this, we need to return to episode 6x13, The Same Boat. In this episode, Carol and Maggie were taken prisoner by Paula and her group of Saviors. This episode had tons of great Beth and Grady parallels. The biggest was simply that Carol and one of the Greene sisters were taken hostage by a group of baddies. TD gleefully pointed out that Maggie—the Greene sister in this instance—survived, which means Beth must have too.

But there were way more suspicious parallels than only that. For this episode, lots of people talked about (and I believe tptb leaked this) how the set they used came from the film, Saw. I’m going to give you some spoilers from that film. (It came out in 2004; if you haven’t seen it yet after 15 years, it’s really your own fault. 😉)

In the film, two men who wake up in a strange room. They’re chained on opposite sides of a room and spend most of the film figuring out how to get away. Lots of mind games ensue. In between where the two men are chained lays a dead body who has obviously been shot in the head. You can see his head wound and he lies in a puddle of blood.

After the entire movie happens, in a major twist at the end, that dead man stands up and is actually alive. In fact, he's the one who put the two men there and set up this entire game. It’s a cool film, but the point is, they used that same set for 6x13 and made heavy reference to a movie where someone who'd been shot in the head and was playing dead turned out to be alive.

Similarly, in this episode, Carol and Maggie are tied up on opposite sides of the room and there's a dead body between them. I this case, it's a walker, which doesn't get up and turn out to be alive at the end.

But…

What does this walker look like? That's right. It's a blonde, Beth-walker. We have a walker that represents Beth in a position that mirrors the character in Saw who is just playing dead (kind of like a possum?) and turns out to be alive at the end.

But there's more. And here's where Carol comes in. At some point Paula’s Saviors drag the walker out of the room. The walker has a crucifix on it and Carol takes it and holds it for most of the rest of the episode. 

Why does that matter? Because Beth famous wore a crucifix at Grady when she was shot.

We may not have understood why at the time, but we knew 6x13 was a retelling of Grady. 1) Carol + Greene sister taken captive by a bad group, 2) the idea of someone being shot in the head, 3) everyone assuming someone dead who in the end, and 4) the crucifix. We found other details as well, but these are the big ones.

Everyone’s already talked about how they’re setting up up a Carol vs. Alpha arc because of Henry and Lydia. My point here is that 6x13 ties Carol very heavily to Beth’s story line.

So, what does this have to do with S9? Well, in 6x13, we also had some major, heavy “Alpha and Omega” symbolism. When Paul first takes Maggie and Carol to the building, and they're both blindfolded, Paula references the Greek alphabet when using her walkie-talkie. He calls. Check out THIS POST for interpretations of her actual words I’ve done in the past. That was back when I hoped Beth would arrive in S8. For purposes of today's theory, it's only important that they use the Alpha and Omega symbolism, because we think it may have foreshadowed Alpha’s arrival in S9.

Check it out: Paula used the phrase “Alpha and Omega” in an episode that had massive Grady parallels. Then the villain Alpha arrives in an episode called Omega, an episode that also had massive Grady parallels (Lydia's prisoner exchange).

So, what does it all mean?

In a very general way, I think it's a good thing to have Carol and Alpha on a collision course because chances are Beth will be in the mix somewhere, too. In other words, it’s another way to say this will probably lead to Beth's arrival in some way.

This next part of this is a little bit more conjecture, but I think it's worth noting.

I’ve said that I think when Ezekiel "dies" it will actually be a death fake out. Which means Carol and Ezekiel will have a very similar, if not identical, arc to what Bethyl (and now Richonne) do. Namely, that one of them thinks the others dead when they're really not.

This is where things get really complicated but interesting. If I'm right about Ezekiel having a fake out and Cazekiel repeating Bethyl’s arc, then the Carol/Beth entanglement takes a whole new meaning.

For example, Carol being 6x13 probably foreshadowed that eventually Carol would have an arc much like the one that started it, Grady. I also think that's true of the references to the serious piggyback we’ve seen around Carol. Remember that in S7, she read a book that had the piggyback on the front and that was right after Ezekiel came to see her, when he was still courting her, but she wasn’t open to the relationship yet. 

Then we saw another one this season on the poster at the movie theater. So, of course, those are things we link to Beth, and rightly so, but I also think they foreshadow a similar arc for Carol and Ezekiel.

We can even take this back to Consumed. Carol went with Daryl into Atlanta to search for Beth. 

Plot-wise, it didn't really have to be her. The same stuff would have happened if Michonne had gone with him or Maggie or anyone else. Maggie might have made more sense because she and Daryl were the ones closest to Beth. Now, four seasons later, we can see that there was a bigger plan in place. They had Carol accompany Daryl, not to tease a certain ship as so many have claimed, but because it foreshadowed that eventually, she would have a similar arc to the one about to play out in Atlanta. 

Remember we saw the toy tiger on her bunk, which foreshadowed Shiva and the Kingdom. We never realized it before, but seeing the tiger and this foreshadow specifically in 5x06 ties the Kingdom to this death fake out arc.

Once again, this shows how much planning and how far in advance the writers plan for the show. At the very least, they were already planning Carol's also arc in S5 (toy tiger) but we already know Rick's departure was planned in S4, so I think most of this has been planned since S4 as well.

Another idea I’ve been toying with: Remember that in 6x13, Carol took the cross, and it was specifically Beth who wore the rosary around her wrist at Grady. That made me think that maybe it won’t be Ezekiel in Beth's place, but actually Carol. You would think her taking the cross would make her Beth, symbolically. 

On the one hand, it would be super crazy if Carol “died" or disappeared. Not only have they leaked things to try and make us think Ezekiel is dying, but Kirkman has said Carol is probably the one character he’ll never kill off. Perhaps that was always a tease and a foreshadow. No way to tell yet if they’ll handle it like they did Beth’s arc and the audience will think they’re dead too, or if they’ll do it like with Andy where the audience knows they’re alive, but TF doesn’t.

Despite all this, I’m not convinced it will be Carol rather than Ezekiel who gets the death fake out. Carol and Daryl are very similar, which they’ve confirmed over and over again. And ever since Ezekiel appeared in S7, we instantly saw parallels between him and Beth, because they’re very similar. 

Ezekiel and Beth are the positive ones that have a lot of faith, where Carol and Daryl have a tendency toward isolation and self-destruction. Overall, it makes more sense for it to be Ezekiel who gets the fake out. Carol may have taken the rosary in 6x13 simply to foreshadow the arc. Ezekiel wasn’t in the show then, so it had to be her who took it. Anyway, just some stray thoughts.

That's most of what I wanted to say concerning this. Back when the prisoner exchange happened, we had the symbol, we had Carol on an obvious collision course with Alpha, and we had the Alpha/Omega symbolism which immediately made me think of S6.

For me, this all came together as a complete picture of what they've been planning for Carol for a long time. And it points to Beth's return as well.

I’ve said both these things before but 1) Beth’s line in Still that mentions herself, Michonne, Carol, and Maggie foreshadow these four death fake out arcs. And then there’s the pickle story which foreshadows that three of the apparent deaths will be resurrected. We know Glenn is dead for real, so that means the other three—Rick, Beth, Ezekiel—will turn out to be alive. We can already confirm Rick is, so we’re just waiting for confirmation on the others.

In closing, let me give a short reiteration on the highwaymen. If the leader, Ozzy (Wizard of Oz reference, btw) represents Santa Clause/St. Nick, and St. Nick brings Beth back to Daryl, and St. Nick resurrects the three people in the pickle story, then it kind of suggests the highway men will in some way will bring these three characters that TF believe are dead back to them. Well, now these highwaymen have entered the story, and it was their sign we saw, which may be part of the A theme.

If the A's have pointed to Alpha all along, perhaps it shows that we’ll see the resurrections during this arc. Meanwhile, spoilers tell us we will see snow in the S9 finale, so we already know we’ll have a Christmas theme. See how this is all coming together?

Beth may or may not show up in the finale (I really hope she will) but if she doesn't, this arc is still very on track to bring her back. And we’ve said before, S10 will have a lot of important events in it. 

I'm thinking that's when Ezekiel's death fake out will happen, there's only X symbolism, and that's when Michonne will leave (which means she must know Rick is alive and therefore the resurrections have begun). 

And can I just say, I think Rick and Beth's resurrection must happen either concurrently, or else Beth’s will happen first. Either way, we’re coming up on it pretty quick here, whether she arrives this season or not. Thoughts?