#it's one of the very few angles of daryl's face from this ep that i don't have

[twdmusicboxmystery]

8x04: Details, Odds, and Ends

Hey Everyone! I said on Monday I wouldn't do a details post, because most of the details I saw I put in my original Analysis post. Buuuuttttt...my FB peeps, as usual, are geniuses and caught things I missed. So I'm going to talk about a few details they picked up on and then some odds and ends that I think are important to note after this episode. 

Details:

Remember how I said Carol asking Ezekiel if he's okay mirrors a convo Bethyl had? @getkath pointed out that Richonne also had it in 4x16. So each of our power couples have had that convo, and in each of these three cases it was before the romance actually went canon. Just saying.

From M-Nonny:

When Carol is in the building, she's listening to the Saviors argue. One of them is angry that the others aren't moving fast enough. Another says, "We're almost done. Jesus!" Yeah, how did I miss that one? Daryl's line: "Almost done." Let's hope and pray that means we're almost there! 

Then there's the "Jesus" thrown in, which is curse word, but still. AND they're loading weapons for the war. The weapons Rick and Daryl were searching for when they discovered Gracie. Kind of interesting. 

There are a lot of 3s around Carol and having specifically to do with the weapons/ammo. One of the saviors says "There's another THREE up at the Sanctuary, and then some." He says that while he loads the ammo into a hatchback car. So he's putting it in the trunk. 3 in the trunk? Perhaps it could be symbolic for Beth being at the Sanctuary? Carol tells the Saviors hiding behind the truck that they must only have 3 or 4 rounds left. 

Gunther says to Ezekiel, "You took you're shot. It's over." Callback to Coda, after someone took a shot that hit Beth, Officer Shepherd said, "It's over." Very interesting. I really like that connection!

Carol has an A on her paintball gear. 

@bluesandbeth pointed out that, with the line, "There's another three up at the Sanctuary, and then some," the "and then some" sticks out. Why add that? It really doesn't add any meaning to the sentence. Is there three, or more than that? Feels like it's hinting at something, but hard to say what. 

Abraham said something similar in S6. "Rick knows every fine grain of said shit, and then some." Makes sense when Abraham says it, but not so much when the Savior in 8x04 says it. If it's meant to be a callback to Abraham, why? Of course that was said in the finale of S5, and Abraham was a major Beth proxy. Just saying. 

@wdway caught that when Ezekiel talks to the crowd, Jerry is eating an apple in the background. (Apple theory). And guys, I gotta say, something is up with Jerry and Beth symbolism. Not sure what it means yet, but I'll illustrate. First there's this apple. And this is the second time we've seen this. The first time was in 7x16 when Aaron handed Jerry an apple after the battle. Aaron is a sometime proxy for Beth, but we can also clearly see a 76.  Episode 76 of the series is Heads Up. You know, the one where Glenn is revealed to be alive, and his dumpster death was a fake out? Makes me think Jerry will have something to do with Beth's reveal, but not sure what yet. I'll come back to Jerry. 

Remember the red drum of poison? I missed some things about it. 

@wdway noticed there's a diamond on it. Remember that Beth is the queen of diamonds (X). There's also an upside down 5 on it. (Think S5). But this is a super-cool connection. Remember that at Grady, when Beth and Dawn talk, they sit on red containers and there are lots of chemicals around them? I believe Beth was even mixing chemicals (probably for cleaning) when Dawn walked in.

Maybe we could even tie this to her doing the mopping? So they showed us all these chemicals at Grady, and now we're at a defunct chemical factory? That simply HAS to mean something. 

@wdway also made the excellent point that we see the tunnel, which is FG's title card, right? It looks all pretty and tranquil. But on closer inspection, there's poison in the water and things really aren't all that tranquil. In other words, things aren't really what they seem. 

You could say that about Grady too. Granted, pretty much from the second Dawn opened her mouth, we wanted to punch her in the face, but on the surface, it's a working hospital that saves people. But when you look closer, there were a lot of shady things going on there. Not such a great place after all. Kind of like this tunnel.

And of course we could apply that to Beth's "death" as well. Even the dutch camera angles are used in filming to show that not everything is as it seems. (X)

I said I’d come back to Jerry. I didn’t do a TTD post this week because I really didn’t see much TD stuff in the episode. There was one major thing I missed, though. They mentioned randomly that Jerry/Cooper Andrews has a wonderful singing voice.

Now, TD tends to pounce on anything musical, but this wasn’t about Beth and it didn’t really occur to me to read into it. But guess what? Just before bringing this up, Chris Hardwick said to Jerry (Cooper was on via satellite) that he’d probably be the last man standing. Seriously? That’s what Beth said to Daryl. And then directly after that they started talking about his lovely singing voice. (Which btw @Brynn_81 (IG) confirmed. She met him and heard him sing.)

See what I mean about Jerry maybe being involved in Beth’s return somehow? No idea how yet. Just saying that’s twice in this episode that I’m side-eyeing something around him. I was also thinking that that ax of his (which he lost this episode) is kind of reminiscent of something a woodsman or huntsman would use. And that character also figures in the Snow White legend. Thoughts?

I think that's it for details, but they give me hope!

Now for odds and ends:

I also wanted to talk about this: 

It's Melissa McBride's tweet from Sunday. (Thanks to @katkhaos for bringing it to my attention.) I've talked about the "tomorrow" theme before, so this immediately caught my FB group's eye. The tweet doesn't make tons of sense, and we're not sure what it means, but it's yet another thing that points to a shift coming between episodes 4 and 5. Gimple said after ep 4, things would get "acoustic." Let's hope that means what we're hoping for. 

Now, I'm not saying this Tweet has anything to do with Beth. But it suggests something big during or after this episode. And what happened with Carzekiel here? Well, Ezekiel is obviously going through some stuff, and as I said on Monday, this may lead to Carol leading for a bit. All I'm saying is that "tomorrow" seems to be coming, and that gives me hope. Can't wait to see how this all plays out. 

Finally, my good friend @brynn_81 (IG) posted this yesterday:

Just made my day, so with her permission, I thought I'd share! 

Also wanted to add that last night, Amber Dawn Fox (who played Officer Bello at Grady) followed me on Twitter. 

I don’t think it really had much to do with me. My friend @sparklepoodles tweeted that we needed Grady nation back on the show. Not only did Amber Dawn Fox retweet that, I think she just followed those who liked it, which I did. But I’m taking as a good sign that the Grady actors are still liking and following and retreating those who say they hope to see Grady on the show again, rather than denying that will happen.

Finally, I just wanted to reiterate one more time that there’s no reason to give up hope just because episode 4 wasn’t what we hoped it was. I know a lot of people are disappointed. You’re not alone. And a lot of that is my fault because I was gunning for episode 4. I was disappointed too. But remember that things are supposed to get acoustic AFTER episode 4, according to Gimple. And we have tons of things to hope for still.

I’ll put my thoughts together about the MSF and hopefully post them on Friday. Hopefully that will help. 

@thegloriouscollectorlady was talking about this in our group last night, and I heartily agree with everything she said. They’ve opened lots of new story lines this season (Gracie, for example). Until we see where it’s going, I’m not giving up hope. 

Daryl’s arc hasn’t been resolved. Quite the opposite. He’s in a worse place than he’s been since he was with Beth in S4. Until he either dies or something else restores his faith and humanity to him, I’m not giving up hope. 

Gimple said Daryl will find love. (Another reason among MANY to rest easy that he’s not dying yet.) Until he does, I’m not giving up hope. 

Many of you have asked about the logo being white, which I still believe is a resurrection thing. I simply don’t believe they would do such a huge symbol for one measly resurrection (Morales) that last all of 5 minutes. 

In fact, we have proof that they wouldn’t. If that were the case, we would have seen it when Sam from 4a showed up at Terminus. We didn’t. So until I see the rest of the season and figure out what this was all about, I’m not giving up hope.

And if none of that works for ya, just go back to our core arguments that still haven’t been resolved. The opening credits flash, which contains what we’re pretty sure is Daryl’s arm. No way it’s a general representation of Grady. The dialogue foreshadows, which we’ve proved over and over again are thing. “I am strong.” “I’m getting out. Just like Noah.” I was thinking about Sasha last night and her final arc. Remember that in 5x10, with the sunrise, Maggie told her, “you’re gonna make it. We both will.”

Did that mean Sasha would never die? Obviously not. But she wasn’t dying right then. She survived another 2.5 seasons, and when she did die, we saw the end of her arc with the same sunset. Nothing remotely like that happened with Beth after she proclaimed that she, too, would survive. There were four element that were part of that sunrise in 5x10. Sasha, Maggie, Aaron (who represents Alexandria at large) and the music box. Only one of those arcs, Sasha’s has ended. The other three are still going.

And then there’s Morgan. Remember the Sugar Plum Fairy song. I’ll be watching Morgan closely when we see him again. I don’t think that will be this episode, so yet another reason not to give up hope yet. What if we don’t see him until the MSF? That would mirror his appearance after Coda. Again, I’ll put up thoughts/predictions about the MSF in a few days.

My point is that I don’t blame people for being disappointed. I was too. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up. Not remotely.

That's it for today, peeps. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Special thanks to the peeps named above and the rest of my FB group for their insights.