#also just realized it was Rick and Jerry as eagles

[buttercup-goodluck]

SPOILERS FOR S6 EP3

OH MY GOD. AFGJKLIYTEWCVNKOOUESAAAAA

BRUH

This episode was great. SAPHIC HORSE GIRLS.

Omg first before getting into the meat of the episode, I really loved everyone’s characterization in this episode. Rick just being able to genuinely get along with everybody. Like!!!

He’s hanging with his grandkids! Like their, their own little click?? Playing bad video games! Adorable! And him just casually hanging out, getting drunk with Jerry! So sweet! And him actually being there for the Beth’s during their affair was great! Like he can even relate to being with a version of himself like that and gave her advice to the best of his abilities. He even initially helped Domestic Beth cover up with the ice cream!

Okay so I really don’t mind that their in love. I thought it was really sweet, but I still felt for Rick, Morty, and Summer. I would feel the same if I caught my parents/daughter screwing. At that point eat dinner in the garage.

Also, I think the Bethcest(??) is fine. Being with a clone/alt ver. of yourself isn’t something I think we can put moral judgment on because that could literally never happen. So I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a writing trope. Like giant robots or alien invasions.

I really liked that the Beth’s even wondered if what they had was real. That despite them being so similar they still had grown into their own. That them fighting didn’t lead to them hating each other but instead breaking up for what they thought was right. I’m glad they were able to work something out with Jerry. I would have liked it if they had said it out loud that they were in a poly relationship. Just because the end almost feels like “ooo Jerry’s got 2 wives now big W” instead of 3 people who genuinely want to be together. I know it’s obvious because the whole episode was literally about the Beth’s relationship but still. 

Anyways we got Bisexual Beth’s and Jerry confirmed. Pansexual Rick in the background but ever graciously always there. A lesbian Summer in the comics and potentially a Bi Summer in the show. And although Morty seems to be the token straight, he’s been in space dawg. You can’t be straight in space. You just can’t. (Also potential for gender fluid Morty from s6 ep2)

The scene where Jerry turns into a bug had me cackling. Ricks ass tats of him and Jerry as eagle killed me. Can you imagine that conversation? Yeah I want a tattoo of me and my son-in-law on my ass but make us badass looking eagles. Ooo! Rick and the kids playing a text based game was really cool to see too! All the pictures of the family shown in this episode was a really nice touch. Morty and Summer just leaving Rick to rot with the consequences of Beth, gives hope and fear that ep2 didn’t have consequences. And the jab at the floating timeline, was classic. The 3 of them sitting in silence at the dinner table before breaking down. Rick making an attempt to pretend this is normal and fine. And of course we can never forget about Naruto Smith, fucking little bastard. The little kiss between the two Jerry’s in the end credits was cute too.

Overall I really enjoyed this episode it was funny and had good characterization, and that’s really all I ask for in a show.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

10x21: Details

Okay, let’s talk details. And most of these will just back up what I’ve already said about these sequences being callbacks to Grady and leaving Beth behind, as well as foreshadows of finding her again.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 10x21. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

Carol and Dog:

Of course Dog goes with Carol and I noticed that when she gets back to Alexandria, she says, “let’s get you home.” So, home theme, and it’s especially potent because Dog = Beth.

She says to Dog, “For the record, I didn’t need an apology for him.” It’s the ‘for the record’ part that caught my attention, not only because Beth mentioned records at Grady, but Negan said the exact same thing to Daryl about Carol several episodes ago. “For the record, I don’t think she’s coming back.” So, it’s something of a theme.

She tells Jerry the story of the Stone Soup, which to me parallels Rick’s “Rock in the Road” story, which we’ve always thought was about Beth. (X). And I’m not sure how exactly to interpret the rock in either story, but biblically Christ = the rock. So, there’s that.

We see her fixing the solar panels as well. Because of the sunlight angle, that could represent Beth. I’m actually seeing a lot of symbolism here for both Carol fixing Beth in some way and Beth fixing Carol. So, I think this has to do with the template for the future. I think the two of them will come together again, as they did at Grady, and they’ll both be kind of a mess at that point and need to help each other through some stuff. I’ll talk about it in more detail later when I do another forecasting post.

When Dog starts chasing the rat and Carol runs to see what’s happening, he knocks over a lamp. Lamp Theory. And the cord of the lamp has been gnawed on by the rat. So can you see how all these symbols kind of interlock?

When Dog chases the rat and knocks over the pot, Carol has a serious/Sirius mention. She says, “This is serious. We need that food.”

Now, for the record, I think food shortages are going to continue to be a thing, and Beth and the CRM will be the answer to needed resources, so both sides of that sentence are important.

She makes a trap to catch the rat, which I talked about yesterday. Then she goes out looking for more ingredients for the soup. While out there, we see a dragonfly, a blue butterfly, and a spider. All three of those are important symbols. 

They all represent some form of transformation, wisdom, renewal, and fertility.

It’s probably important that Carol uses Leah’s knife to fix the solar panels. Again, just more Beth symbols on top of Beth symbols.

@frangipanilove also pointed out that it’s important that the instant she can’t see the rat anymore, the power goes out. See how that works? Rat (Beth) is unseen and suddenly no sun power.

Carol also says at this part, “there will be more sun tomorrow, right?” That’s super important. Sun = Beth. And ever since AOW, I’ve thought the “tomorrow” theme pointed to the CRM war. So again, just more evidence that this is both a callback and a foreshadow of what will happen with Beth and CRM.

As I said yesterday, Dog watching over Carol as she sleeps = Beth watching over Carol while she’s unconscious at Grady. She also says to Dog, “You miss him, don’t you?” Which is exactly what Beth asked Daryl about Merle in Still.

And then of course she destroys the wall. The next day, Jerry comes to see her, and we get lots of interesting references. There’s the poker, poker face reference. He says, “caring…yeah that’s a problem,” which we’re connecting to Beth’s famous line, “when you care about people, hurt is just part of the package.”

Jerry also says, “2+2=Eureka.” Now, Eureka is an expression which means “a cry of joy or satisfaction when one finds or discovers something.” We’re hoping the 2+2 is a reference to episode 22, and the discovery is that Beth is alive. *fingers crossed*

The song that plays, No Worries by Amateur Blond, has references to dogs in it. And it keeps saying “Oh, oh, oh.”

Of course Daryl returns, Rat gets free, and I especially love how Dog runs to Daryl. Cuz, you know, Dog = Beth. :D

One other thing @frangipanilove​ brought to my attention. The scarf Carol has in this episode can be linked to the scarf she wore in S3. They actually look very similar. Remember that at the prison, when T-Dog died and Lori gave birth to Judith, Carol was wearing a scarf over her head. Daryl found it with blood on it, which led him to assume she was dead. They even created a grave for her. But of course he found her (after finding her knife, btw) soon after and she lived.

It’s just a little too coincidental that this can be connected to a death fake out in season 3, and there’s a major knife exchange going on in the same episode. 

Daryl and Bike:

Okay, so I talked a lot about Daryl yesterday and how Bike = Beth. The part where he gets under the car is really interesting. I’m not entirely satisfied with how to interpret it yet, but I do think it represents leaving Beth behind and stuff that happened during the missing 17 days. 

You could call Daryl’s behavior here destructive. I mean, he crawled under a precariously perched car. And that could represent his depression, to the point of self-harm, after losing Beth. He does find the part he needs in the 3rd car (rule of threes). And that car was somewhat hidden at first. 

He didn’t see it until he’d already reached and checked the first two cars. So, that could represent looking for Beth’s body but there’s an unseen element he isn’t aware of at first. It also parallels the “third man” theory. (X).

When he gets back to the bike, he suddenly realizes he gave the knife to Carol and he needs it. His huge, Rambo knife is just too big to get it into the crevices of the bike to attach the new part. 

I think this is important for the future story line as well. After the spinoff starts, when he and Carol part ways, he’ll give her something and realize he needs it later on. It’s when he goes looking for this part that he’ll run into the CRM and Beth.

I also noticed kind of a cute little parallel here. When he realizes he doesn’t have the knife and he needs it, he sort of does this thing where he brushes his hair out of his face. He did a similar thing in Consumed. 

I just remember a lot of people commenting on how adorable it was. So I thought I’d point it out here as well.

So then he goes looking of Beth, er, I mean a new knife. I talked about a lot of this yesterday: the Beth walker, his limp, the dry river bed, etc. It’s important that he finds the knife with military walkers (probably the CRM). I can’t help but wonder if letting walker fall into the ravine represents him letting one of their communities get overrun with walkers or something. 

I also REALLY want to connect it to when the group did this in Them. In that scene, Rick was almost bitten. Daryl came running up at the last minute and helped him, but I think it’s significant that they were doing the exact same thing there that we see Daryl doing here. I’m thinking it represents something about maybe him finding Rick with the CRM and helping him in some way, or something. Again, just speculating about future storylines here.

But he finds the knife he needs and goes back to the bike. And two more military walkers come at him. Yes, two. You may have missed that, as I and my fellow theorists both did the first time. But one is coming at him from ahead of the bike, down the tracks. 

The other is coming at him from his right side. You can tell because he turns his head to look at it.

Couple of things here. Part of the reason it only seems like one is that they show it weird. We only see him killing the one straight ahead, not the one to the side. I’m sure there’s some symbolism in that, but I honestly have no idea what it is.

But here’s an interesting thing. He finds a second knife on that second walker. It doesn’t do a close up on the second knife, so it’s easy to miss. But there are actually 2 knives.

Not entirely sure how to interpret that, but remember that in Still, there were two knives. First, Daryl gave Beth his, but between rooms in the golf club, she found her bone-handled one that she always carried after that, and gave his back to him. So it might just represent Beth and Daryl and their 2 knives.

He also finds military rations (food) on one of them. As I said yesterday, I think TF is going to get to the point where they desperately need resources. Where food is scarce and even water becomes undrinkable. It will be part of the CRM plot. So I think him finding food on military walkers hints at that. They will need the CRM’s resources to survive.

The other thing I’m curious about is what he says. He says, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” To me, that’s a weird reaction. There are walkers all over the place in these woods. And neither of these two are a massive, immediate threat to him. So his reaction doesn’t make tons of sense. But again, I’m sure it has something to do with a future storyline that simply isn’t clear here yet. 

Also, the walker he takes the knife from is missing his leg/foot. That’s part of the missing foot/shoe symbolism, and just proves in my mind that this is symbolic of something to do with Beth. 

He then sets to fixing his bike. But it takes a while and it’s dark before he finishes. This was super cool and something I missed the first time through. While fixing it, he hears a wolf howl. And they draw attention to it by having Daryl turn his head toward it, as thought acknowledging it. 

Plus, the captions say it’s a wolf, not a dog or a coyote. So, this is wolf symbolism. And I think what they’re trying to say her is that when Daryl finds and “fixes” Beth, the wolf symbolism will be in play. I’ll talk more about what the means and how it MIGHT manifest in coming days.

Finally, he gets the bike fixed and started and heads back.

@wdway​, as usual with her eagle eyes, noticed something about this shot. In the sky above him, we see three stars. They look suspiciously like the “spoon” portion of the Little Dipper. And guys, at this distant, stars wouldn’t even register on camera, which means they were put in purposely with a computer. Daryl is riding toward the spoon/star/Sirius symbol. Just saying. 

The only other thing I noticed (other than all the stuff I talked about yesterday, anyway) is that there is some missing time here. Daryl fixes his bike at night and we see him drive off into the darkness, but by the time he gets back and talks to Carol, it’s late afternoon or early evening, and he’s talking about going to bed. I don’t know if he could have gone out far enough for it to take him that long to get back. Of course, maybe he just looked some more the next day and didn’t come back right away. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But it’s something I noticed.

So, yeah. I think that’s all the details I have. Anyone notice anything I missed?