#and tbh i never understood lizzie as a character well enough to really get the difference between her and eizzil so

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Some DNK girls. I got lazy with the colouring ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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2017 Re-Watch: 7x12 - Say Yes

Okay, so for 7x12, Say Yes, we have a lot of small but interesting symbols. Michonne and Rick discover the Saviors playing golf and eating pretzels, which we talked about yesterday from 7x11. They steal the pretzels and their batteries. All Beth symbols.

Michonne sees a deer, and I remember being a little nervous when this first aired, because several times the deer gets away from her. The whole deer theory is that if the deer lives, someone else dies. But obviously Richonne doesn't die in this episode, so as long as the deer lived, it threated to disprove my Deer Theory, which is one of my major TD evidences. But never fear. The deer dies and the end (RIP CGI deer) but what's most important is that it dies RIGHT when Rick's death fake-out happens in this episode.

So let's review. Who else did we see dad deer around? 

1) Carl, in S2 when he was shot. And he pulled through. 

2) And Beth. Daryl randomly saw a dead dear in 5x10, right before the music box woke up. Other than showing Daryl being sad (which was adequately shown when he cried and burnt himself under the tree) there was no purpose for that scene with the deer. Just wasted screen time. Unless it was symbolic, of course.

Also remember that when Carol shot Lizzie (who definitely died) the deer lived. So we now have three instances of a dead deer around someone who lived. (Okay, only two. Beth's hasn't been proven yet, but she's the third.) Is that pattern enough for ya? Okay, moving on.

Every part of the school they go to is suspicious. There's the army guys and green army tents, which we saw in 4x01 and again in 4x08. We also saw them around Heath and Tara just before Heath disappeared, with tons of parallels between him and Beth. We also see school buses, of course. (School Bus Predictions.)

Rosita goes to look for guns and finds a trailer with what looks like a gun in the doorway. She kills a really gross walker (blond and female) to get it and then realizes it's a toy. This always seemed a little weird to me, tbh. It's just super-random and doesn't accomplish much or advance the plot at all. She went looking for guns. She didn't find any. Big whoop. I'll admit it had some impact on Rosita deciding to take things into her own hands to kill Negan, but still, why the sequence with the toy gun? Why not just have her come back empty-handed.

So I'm sure this is some kind of foreshadow of a future arc for her, but I don't know what it will be. At some point we'll probably look back and go, "Oh, that's what that was about." ;D

In the church, Gabriel tells Rosita that anything is possible until your heart stops beating. That's a mirror of the title of S8, which we all side-eyed suspiciously when it aired, thinking it might be the episode where Beth was revealed. Obviously not, but I still think this phrase is super-important. Me and @thegloriouscollectorlady are working on a titles meta and I have a theory about why they keep using this phrase. Yeah, of course it has to do with Beth, but I think there's a reason they used it for the MSF of this season. More on that later.

Back to Richonne. We have green cans and beer around them. I think those are symbols of romance. Remember the "original" green can was the okra around Bethyl in Alone. (Okra Parallels)

They have some interesting numbers in this episode, for sure. Michonne says she's going to eat 5 more of these dinners so we have the Five Theory.

The next day when they go out to try and get the guns from the walkers, they say the number 8 like 12 times. I kid you not. Rick says he'll get to the car and she can take care of the rest. (X, X, X)

Michonne: Leaving me eight.

Rick: You can handle eight.

Later he says, "You got your eight. I can push."

While fighting by the Ferris Wheel, Rick asks Michonne how she's doing. She says, "Eight more. How about you?" He replies, "Ten." 

So we're seeing a lot of 8s and 10s. As I said yesterday, it might suggest a three-season arc. S8-S10.

We also see a green dumpster like the one Glenn fell from his fake death and then we have Michonne ending up in the trunk of the car. If that's not a Beth parallel sequence, I don't know what is.

 We also see quite a few stuffed bears in this episode (carnival and everything). Bear Theory

Rick, trying to pull a walker out of the front windshield pulls it's foot and shoe off. (Lost Shoes Theory).

 Michonne and Rick end up trapped in the car, which felt very much like when Daryl and Aaron were trapped in the car after triggering the wolf trap. Of course Daryl and Beth were trapped in a car together too. Rick also says he overshot it. 

Michonne says, "do you think or do you know?"

Rick answers, "I know." 

Another parallel to Beth's dialogue.

So we have a lot of similar things between Glenn's fake death in S6 and Rick's fake death in this episode. And who else did we see this stuff around? Beth. Which means her death should also fall under the heading of fake.

There are quite a few blond walkers staggering around before Rick gets overwhelmed as well. The ferris wheel mirrors the decoration on the wall of TF's house at Alexandria. It probably represents things coming full circle, or returning to the same thing again. You could interpret it many different ways. They all point to something from the past coming back around again.

I've talked before about how, I feel like when Beth falling down sort of a symbolizes her getting shot and falling down. It's similar to people falling off a bridge. In this case, Rick climbed one of the rides and fell into the midst of the walkers. Felt like a parallel to me. His fake death and escape happen under an ER sign (hospital) and we have a lot of wheels around that have fallen off the ride. Kinda like the wheels coming off cars that we've seen, especially the fire truck.

Something I thought about when Richonne talk afterward in the car: Rick says fighting the good fight and doing what they're doing, that's living. I'm always pointing out dialogue parallels for the "this is living" theme because Beth said it at Grady. In her case, she said, "you call this living?" We also heard it with Sashraham in 6x01. Sasha says, "Doing something as big as this, that's living." Abraham reiterates at the end of S6 before his death when he said when he suggested doing what Maggie and Glenn were doing (starting a family) was living.

So I do think this is a theme they use for all the characters and arcs, but it's also something we can parallel with Beth. Rick pretty much defines it for us here. He says fighting the good fight is whatever they're doing to move forward and to create a future for themselves, especially for Judith. It just goes well with what we've always said about Grady because Beth obviously understood that the people there were stagnant. They were afraid and hiding, rather than actively trying to create a future for themselves.

It's yet another thing that doesn't make sense if Beth is dead. Just like having her find the D.C. spoon, why give her that line if she was never going to fight the good fight and "live"?

Of course there's Tara with Judith. Tara gives Judith the shell bracelet she got from Cindy. I wonder if giving Judith the shell bracelet shows Judith will end up in Oceanside at some point or have some kind of arc there.

We also see Tara's arm, including the roman numerals (X). We don't know what the meaning of all the numbers is yet, but the top one is VIII (8).

Near the end, Rosita asks Sasha to help her kill Negan. There are some pretty huge and obvious dialogue foreshadows here.

Sasha: "They can't catch us alive."

Rosita agrees: "It's a one-way ticket for both of us. If it is both of us."

She's asking if Sasha is in, but it's also a foreshadow that Sasha goes into the Sanctuary by herself and locks Rosita out. The whole, "can't catch us alive" is a foreshadow of Sasha's death.

I also noticed that though they have this conversation beside Glenn and Abraham's graves, the balloons are nowhere to be seen. That's super interesting because the green balloons always indicate life. So Sasha and Rosita plan to kill Negan. The lack of balloons suggests that one or both of them will not live through it.

Definitely some interesting things to see the second time through, after knowing how the season ends. I really enjoyed watching this. Anyone have anything to add?