#random thing Mica and I joked about yesterday

[darkwingsnark]

If there were two ducks on the moon and one of them quacked at the other would that be ducked up or what?

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Season 8 EW Photo Shoot - TD Clues

Good morning Everyone and happy Saturday! How is everyone's weekend going?

Okay, so over the past 3 days I've gotten about 7 of these Asks about the EW pictures. I already had the first one when I was answering Asks on Thursday, but I decided I wanted to wait to answer it and do a full post. Then I got a bunch more. (These are obviously not all of them, but all the rest had the same gist.)

Actually I'm glad I waited because just yesterday the FB group had some really great insights that I wouldn’t have had before.

I will warn you, though, that this has been discussed all over the fandom. If you've read a lot of other discussions about it, I doubt I have much to say that hasn't already been said. This is what I see in the pictures, what insights the wonderful ladies in my FB group have had, and what we've been discussing.

So, quick summary for those who've been hiding under a rock and don't know what this is about. EW, as per usual, has done a photo shoot spread for TWD S8. These are some of the photos.

So here���s the complete run-down from my end:

The instant they hit the airwaves, a certain dark ship started screaming that because MMB has her arms around Norman, the show is foreshadowing C@ryl becoming canon this season. For the Nonny who needs reassurance, let me promise you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Here’s a random joke I made about it in my FB group:

Here are some simple facts:

1. Carol and Daryl have an iconic friendship, and people love seeing them together, even if it's just as friends. So the show has used them heavily promotionally for the past few years. And yet, they've never gone canon. This year is no different.

2. More than once AMC has hinted or outright said that Carzekiel will be pushed this season. I don't know if they'll actually go canon (most of the other long term couples have taken more than a season to actually hook up--Richonne = 3 seasons, Carnid = 2 seasons, Bethyl=oh geez! The one exception, I think, is Glaggie) but it should become very obvious that it will be the two of them in the long run. And who knows? They might go canon. I, for one, hope they do. And, based on the symbolism we're seeing here, I think there's a good chance they will.

Let me explain. One of the above Nonnies asked about symbolism. And the symbolism should go a long way to setting your mind to rest about the possibility of C@ryl.

At first I just kind of rolled my eyes at this picture, thinking, "well, the C@rylers are gonna have fun with that one, aren't they?" But then an IG follower pointed out that Carol is holding Sophia's doll.

Now, the third Nonny above asked if it was the magazine putting these symbols in, or tptb? While of course we can't know for certain, the instant I saw the doll, I knew it wasn't an EW thing. Not entirely. There are too many symbols we've seen in the show in this shoot for them to have been arbitrarily chosen by the magazine or the photographers. And remember this magazine had it's hands in all the secrets of Jon Snow's return to GoT, so I have a hard time believing these symbols aren't purposeful.

So for Carol, remember I said HERE that her whole arc has been and is about Sophia. This surely proves it. She's holding Sophia's doll, so this Sophia arc is obviously going to come into play in a big way in S8. My logic is that, even though this has been Carol's arc all along, we've never seen her hold the doll before, so it's got to be more front and center this season. Meanwhile, we have this kid, Ben's little brother, who just so happens to be played by Madison Lintz's brother, so he LOOKS just like Sophia, and is going to be part of Carol's story this season. He may be what finally helps her to heal and brings her arc full circle. And that's why I think Carzekiel could go canon this season. I think part of her healing will be a relationship with Ezekiel. No way to tell for sure when it will happen. Knowing Gimple, it could be spread over two or three seasons, but it also might not be.

So after noticing the doll, I started studying this picture and symbols started jumping out at me right and left.

(The funny thing was that by the time I actually went into my FB group, there were already like sixteen comments about the symbolism and I'd been tagged a bunch of times, lol. I was actually late to the table for this discussion. And I'd only logged off for like four hours! Well, that's what happens when new TWD stuff comes out, I guess. ;D)

The most obvious symbol to me was Daryl holding the champagne. Definitely milder than moonshine, but who cares? It's alcohol. Can't help but see it as a callback.

What most people in my FB group pounced on is the fact that Carol is feeding Daryl with a spoon. Not only does it remind us of Beth's D.C. spoon, but you don't get a more mother/child image than spoon feeding. Symbolically, many of us have thought for a while that Carol will have a relatively big role in bring Beth and Daryl together. This almost suggests her bringing Beth to him.

The other thing that caught my eye are the flowers he's holding. The reason is that I recently re-watched 7x05, Go Getters. Remember that when Maggie wakes up in the medical trailer in that episodes, there are tons of parallels to Beth waking up.

Also, when Maggie awakens, the first things she sees are purple flowers. These ones in the EW shoot look exactly like the ones in 7x05. I there's more white in the ones in the EW shoot, but other than that, practically identical.

So if you ask me, we have Daryl holding alcohol (Still), and flowers a Greene sister saw when she awoke in a medical place with a doctor.

Everything around Norman is screaming Beth to me. We also have peaches on the table and in one of Lauren's pics (peach schnapps)

and strawberries (totally a Bethyl thing).

And I’m pretty sure there's pomegranates in there too (Carzekiel).

So we were all doing pretty well with this. Pretty confident in our symbolism, etc. And then something else happened today. One of the EW photographers posted about the symbols used in the photo shoot. As you might imagine, none of the explanations were particularly TD-ish.

But guys, that's okay. Let's face it, they're never going to come out and say, "oh, the champagne is a callback to Still because Beth will be back this season." Just never gonna happen. So they're giving very convenient explanations for what the symbols are. And while they might be mostly true, they also kind of don't make sense.

For example, the stuff Melissa is feeding Norman is chocolate pudding. An obvious callback to Carl, and that's fine. But if they were going to callback to Carl, why not just put him in the photo shoot? He's one of the Atlanta originals and has been on the show longer than Maggie or Michonne. Why use pudding specifically?

This photographer also said the flowers were Carol's "look at the flowers" flowers. Um…if they're actually using that as a "look at the flowers" symbol, that suggests Carol will kill Daryl in this season. I chuckle even typing that because it's so ridiculous. I think we all know that's not happening. So my point is that these explanations aren't hitting the deeper symbolism.

Also notice they say that Shiva represents the Sanctuary. Well, Shiva...chewed on people who live at the Sanctuary, but she represents the Kingdom. Really not hating on this person. Just pointing out it’s not the most reliable synopsis.

Keep in mind, we've seen them do this before: give convenient explanations that are mostly plot-based, without really going into what the deeper symbolism is. As I told my FB group yesterday, the most recent example that comes to mind is an article that was released a few months ago explaining what the A on Daryl's shirt at the Sanctuary meant.

They said it meant "asshole" because the Saviors always try to degrade their prisoners. Now, I'm sure that's true. They aren't lying. (Other shirts we see have letters like F and S on them. Not hard to imagine what those stand for.) But the fact is that we saw A’s at the prison, at Terminus, at FG's church, and at Alexandria. Not all of them can possibly stand for a name call/body part. So this was a convenient explanation that doesn't REALLY talk about the deeper symbolism.

If the photographer knows anything at all about the symbols (isn't just guessing) then I’m thinking tptb gave her these simple explanations in case she was asked questions. And there probably is truth to them, but it's deeper and more complex than a simple, one-sentence answer.

The doll isn't just a callback to that one time Carol lost her daughter. It signifies Carol's entire 4 season arc and that fact that it will be front and center this season. She'll have to face Sophia's loss and find a way to finally move past it.

I think the flowers are about resurrection, at least partly. If they're also tied to Carol, well, the whole "look at the flowers" thing didn't start until Lizzie and Mica showed up. So I also think it could symbolize that she'll finally talk to Daryl about the girls.

Rick is holding the sheriff's badge. That's not TERRIBLY suspicious, but it's been some time since the badge was specifically used to signify him. They've focused more on the red-handled machete and such the past few seasons. So I can't help but think, new sheriff in town?

Aside: I also watched the Fan Favorite video for Carl today. While there's nothing inherently Beth-ish in it, I will say that the damn sheriff's hat is focused on A LOT. Just saying.

Maggie holds Glenn's watch. At first I didn't read much into that. As I told my group, I think it could just signify who she's become since Glenn's death and who she'll continue to be. Her whole purpose now is about her child and about the person she'll become specifically BECAUSE Of Glenn's death.

But the more I thought about it, the weirder that symbol seemed to me. Not only did they go out of their way to close Glenn's arc in a beautiful way, but she even gave the watch away (to Enid) in S7. So to see her holding it here again almost feels like their *ahem* resurrecting it in some way? And I don't even mean that it's necessarily Beth-ish. Just that it's kinda weird. At the very least, it's a time symbol. Maybe showing that the time screw is over and we'll finally go back to Grady and see what's up?

Now let's talk about the pudding one more time. While discussing this, @thegloriouscollectorlady​ said something that really got my wheels turning. She suggested that the pudding definitely was a callback to Carl (it totally is) but that that only goes to show that they're pushing Daryl and Carol as a son/mother relationship. The person who at the pudding before, after all, was the only "kid" on the show. And of course Carol is spoon feeding it to him.

That made me think more about Carl's whole pudding episode. That episode has a LOT of Beth parallels in it. Check out my analysis HERE.

In a nutshell, Carl sees a dead song bird beside a cage (foreshadowing Beth's “death” at Grady). Right after that, we see lots of resurrection themes. A walker comes at him and he shoots it in the left side of the forehead (right where Beth was shot) and thinks he got it, but it jumps right back up again. This is also where he goes into the bedroom with the nautical theme (Oceanside foreshadow) and has to escape the walker there.

He beats it with an actual lamp (Lamp Theory) plus there's a yellow bat in the scene. (Yellow = escape, bat = Negan. And what do you know? Oceanside showed up at roughly the same time as Negan; symbolism fulfilled.) Plus, he loses a shoe, and we see yellow-handled scissors near his foot.

That enough TD symbols for you? Right after that, he sits on the roof and eats the pudding. So this was very much about Carl becoming a man and learning to survive by himself. He did all this himself, without Rick's help. It instilled a confidence in him about his own ability to survive.

So now they're applying the pudding symbol to Daryl. Remember what Carol said in Consumed (you know, while they're looking for Beth?). "You used to be a boy. Now you're a man." So I feel like the pudding here is showing that Daryl has matured emotionally.

Remember that tptb and even Norman himself have said many times that Daryl was still emotionally immature in S4. They say that if he had romantic feelings for Beth (which AMC confirmed that he did) he didn't fully understand them. Think about that. Follow the symbolism through to conclusion.

If they're using the pudding symbol for him now (he's eating it, as Carl did) then it suggests he's reached full emotional maturity now. Guess what that means? Time for Beth to appear. He will now be capable of sustaining a romantic relationship with her, where in S4, he really wasn't.

This one shows Norman pretending to smoke a birthday candle. The candles from the cake he and Andy have all over them. Ostensibly it’s birthday cake to celebrate TWD’s “birthday” with 100 episodes, right? But who was the one character that talked about birthdays before starting a certain fire? Just saying.

Other interesting symbols:

1) Grapes. This really isn’t a symbol we’ve seen extensively around Beth or anyone else, but it could be termed Beth-ish because there were grapes in her arc in s4. In Inmates, which had the wacky non-chronological story-telling (X), Ty, Lizzie and Mica ate grapes. Later Beth and Daryl find the same ones and Beth picks some for anyone else they may find. Which they don’t.

2) Carrots are also on the table. (X) I’m gonna add that although we don’t actually see “carrot flowers” as far as I can tell, we do see both carrots and flowers in this shot. And Gimple had planned to play the song “The King of Carrot Flowers” during the dinner scene in Alone. (X). He only didn’t because of copyright issues. Just saying.

3) Apples, of course. (Apple Theory). They’re really around Richonne here, and we’ve seen them specifically around Richonne in the show, especially in 6b. But we’ve seen a lot of apples entwined Beth-related symbolism (as well as other characters like Maggie) so having them here at all is kind of suspicious.

Finally, there’s a bandage around Andy’s hand. No idea if that’s an Andy thing or a Rick thing, but if it’s a Rick thing, it’s a callback to S4, when Rick wore a bandage on his hand for most of 4a. Beth’s bandage at Grady mirrored that. And maybe it’s not for the show, but it doesn’t seem to be a significant injury (not like a broken bone or anything) which means they could have easily covered it up or photo-shopped it out. I think it’s more likely it was purposely put in.

So all of this rambling boils down to this: No, I'm not worried that C@ryl will go canon this season. Everything points to C@rzekiel. Yes, I think all the symbols we're seeing in the shoot are point to Beth's return. And yes, I think they were purposely put in by tptb, no matter what anyone else says.

We've seen them too often in the show for them to be arbitrary, and everything else we've said in the past still holds true.

But hey, it's just a theory. Just my opinion. I mean, I've only been analyzing the crap out of this show's symbolism for two and a half years. What the hell would I know, right? ;D

Everyone have a fantastic weekend. Four weeks and counting, my Bethyl peeps! Xoxo!

[oakpodcast]

Transmission 6 Transcript

Transmission 6 is live on Patreon. It will go live to the general public Saturday.

This is the season 1 finale. Season 2 will return later this month.

HOLLY: If you're a new listener, make sure to start at the very beginning.

MUSIC: “SOLITUDE” BY MUCIOJAD

HOLLY: Before I get started, I want to thank Jemma, Melissa, Liam, and a bunch of other new listeners for supporting me on Patreon.

HOLLY: And to everyone funding my coffee habit dollar by dollar, THANK YOU. It's a serious morale booster to know that someone is out there listening, and not only that, but cares enough to buy me a cup of coffee. So seriously, thank you so much.

HOLLY: All right, so, it's about 9 a.m., July 23rd. I'm sitting outside the Walmart with a jug of chocolate milk I got on sale around 6 a.m. when I couldn't sleep.

HOLLY: Anyway, I figured I'd reply to your email and then hopefully finish this stupid assignment, pending the armored truck getting here when I'm expecting it to.

HOLLY: And if my stupid hands cooperate. I know I'm clumsy, especially lately, but normally I'm at least good with my hands, right? No dirty jokes about that. Let's keep this PG-rated, thank you very fucking much.

HOLLY: But honestly, this is getting so annoying! I took the Chromebook apart last night and I swear I dropped the fucking screwdriver every five minutes. (Sighs) I know the fact that I haven't had a good night's sleep in a few months doesn't help anything. Whatever.

HOLLY: (Tense) Uh, so, what's going on with your email address? Why does it keep bouncing when I try to email you? Hopefully that means you've finished up and you're on your way home? Never hurts to be optimistic, I guess…

HOLLY: I mean, I know you're busy, but there are some things I'd rather talk about privately, so... yeah. Send me your new email address when you get a chance, thanks.

SOUND: NOISY PICKUP TRUCK DRIVING PAST

HOLLY: Okay, I'm going to read part of your email and then respond to it. (Deep breath) Here goes.

HOLLY AS OAK: Hey Holly, how are you feeling today?

HOLLY: I'm fine. Like I said, tired... aside from not being able to sleep, I'm okay. Well, I did pass out in the laundromat yesterday, but there's probably no reason to worry. I'm just not used to the heat affecting me like this.

HOLLY AS OAK: (Reading) I know this random, but did you turn Cosette off between when I left and when you left?

HOLLY: (Sighs) The answer to that is no. No, Cosette is probably still Roomba-ing around the apartment every day, dragging her… exploded dust tank behind her. Do you remember if she stops if the tank gets full? (More quietly and uncertainly) Roombas can't... catch on fire... right? Nnnnnnnnn.

HOLLY: Well, I texted Cami and asked her to try to shut off Cosette if she happens to go by the apartment, so... anyway...

HOLLY AS OAK: (Reading monotonously) Mission is good. Can't say much obviously, but I should be back next week.

HOLLY: Great, so that gives me at least a few days to fix any damage Cosette did before you get home.

HOLLY AS OAK: Man, Holly, I had the craziest dream last night slash this morning. There was this werewolf, and first it ate Willard, and I was like "Fuck yeah!!!" (Three exclamation marks) but then it ate you, and then it ate me, and then I looked down and I was holding a cage with Frogger—remember the rabbit I accidentally killed when I was 10?—and I was like "OH SHIT" (in all caps) and started running, but I was dead, right?

HOLLY AS OAK: (Reading monotonously) So then I remembered my legs were eaten, and that's when I dropped Frogger's cage down a storm drain. And I don't know how the entire fucking cage even fit, but it did, and it went into the storm drain and I was like "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" (With, mm, eight... nine?! O's and three exclamation marks.) But anyway yeah, then the werewolf was down there eating Frogger. I don't know what that means but I'm really fucking stressed every time I wake up from it.

HOLLY: Yeah, I don't know what that means either, sorry Oak.

HOLLY AS OAK: (Reading) I'm also having a recurring nightmare about me and you playing street hockey with the Goldsteins and their neighbors. Everyone is playing hockey really gently, and you pass the puck to me, and I'm like "YEAH" (all caps) and hit a slapshot right into Emma Rosen's goaltender mask. Except for some reason we were using an egg for a puck, so, yeah, kind of a gross and disturbing dream.

HOLLY: (Laughs) Uh, yeah, what the fuck? Are you eating pizza before bed again? You know that gives you weird dreams!

HOLLY AS OAK: Anyway, it's probably just anxiety or whatever. I sent you some vitamins and supplements. Did you get them?

HOLLY: Yes, thanks. I've been taking them every day, so stop stressing about that. I'm fine. I could be way more malnourished and sleep-deprived than I am.

HOLLY AS OAK: Are you getting enough sleep and staying hydrated?

HOLLY: Like I said, I can't sleep, but I think it's just because the shelter beds are really uncomfortable. I take naps sometimes in the park, like, under a shady tree with a cheap blanket and an inflatable bath pillow I carry around. No one bothers me during the day because I just prop a library book near me, so it looks like I just fell asleep reading.

HOLLY: As for staying hydrated... I mean, I'm trying. The water here still makes me gag, but I sneak lemon packets and get free ice water whenever I can. Like I said, I did pass out in the laundromat yesterday, but I'm just not used to being quite this overheated all the time. I'm fine now. I drank some water, and I'll try to go at night next time.

HOLLY AS OAK: So you're going with Ivy for sure? The finalists are all pretty good, so I don't think there's a right choice. You should go with your gut. I trust your judgment on this.

HOLLY: Well, thank you, and yes, I'm pretty sure I'm going with Ivy and the other one we discussed? I haven't decided for sure yet, but I have a good feeling about those two.

HOLLY AS OAK: Has Leia Janeway forgiven you yet? Don't feel bad. It could happen to anyone. You're not exactly graceful even under the best of circumstances.

HOLLY: (Sighs) I think she's forgiven me, it's just that every time she starts to trust me again I step on some new part of her body and the cycle starts all over. She acts like she understands and doesn't hold it against me, but she also acts like "WHY GOD WHY," which apparently are not mutually exclusive feelings. Hopefully she'll forgive me.

HOLLY AS OAK: I know I say this every time, but please make sure you're ready to run at a moment's notice. I promise I'm doing my best to make sure nothing happens, but it scares the ever-living shit out of me that I'm over here and you're in a godforsaken place like Alabama and no one but the U.S. government is watching out for you. Nothing is going to happen, but if anything does happen—

HOLLY: (Annoyed) Yeah, I know, I know, I need to go dark if anything happens to you. I don't understand why you won't tell me why, though! Or what could possibly be going on.

HOLLY AS OAK: I'm fucking over this assignment already and can't wait to inhale some Thai food with you the second I get back. Can you eat Thai food right now, or will you spontaneously combust? Whatever, we'll celebrate with something yummy. Maybe Mexican, since they don't have that over here.

HOLLY: I don't know, I'm, I’m pretty sure I can eat Thai food. And I know I can eat Mexican. (Hungrily) Both of those sound great, actually. (A very soft moan, as if she's imagining the food.) All right, that's the new plan: Thai or Mexican food next week, as soon as you get home. Whatever we don't eat for lunch we'll eat for dinner and... hm, yeah. I like this plan.

HOLLY AS OAK: Holy fuck, did you see this?

HOLLY: And, uh, I clicked on it, and it's a link to the BBC article about Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor. Yeah, I saw, and... what a time to be alive! I just hope they don't change anything about River Song being her wife.

HOLLY AS OAK: I'm totally caught up on Greater Boston and Jim Robbie now. You were right—they're totally my jam. Got any other recommendations?

HOLLY: Yeah, I do. So the first one I'd recommend is a British comedy called Wooden Overcoats. It's about these siblings who work in a funeral home in the English Channel, I think, and… and anyway, this really hot guy moves in across the street and starts stealing all of their business. And the narrator is a mouse. So it's this weird mix of morbid humor and uplifting shit that, I don't know, it completely reminds me of you.

HOLLY: Another one I think you'd like is called EOS 10. It's kind of like Scrubs meets Futurama, so obviously it's right up your alley. Wooden Overcoats and EOS 10 are both pretty short, but hopefully since you're supposed to get back next week—

SOUND: PHONE VIBRATING

HOLLY: Huh, speak of the devil. I am getting a text from you right now. 

HOLLY: "I'm sorry"? Oh. Goddammit, what did you do?

SOUND: PHONE VIBRATING

HOLLY: "Run and hide"— Why? Why??? What did you do?!

SOUND: PHONE VIBRATING

HOLLY: I can't run! Why the fuck would you think I can run right now?

SOUND: PHONE VIBRATING REPEATEDLY

SOUND: HELICOPTER IN DISTANCE

HOLLY: Okay, fine! Not that you can hear me, but I'm going, I'm going right now.

SOUND: HOLLY STRUGGLING TO HER FEET

SOUND: MILITARY HELICOPTER APPROACHING

SOUND: HOLLY RUNNING ON PAVEMENT

HOLLY: (Running with difficulty, muttering under her breath) Goddammit, Mica!

SOUND: INT WALMART NOISES

SOUND: HOLLY RUNNING ON TILE

HOLLY: (Panting) Excuse me, where (gasps) where are the fireworks?! ... Thank you!

SOUND: HOLLY RUNNING

HOLLY: (To Oak) Anyway, (panting) fuck you, (pant) fuck General Willard, (pant) fuck everyone who took his side, and (pant) fuck society, fuck Walmart for being so big, and f–fuck everything! I'm fucking sick to death of this goddamn fucking shit! 

SOUND: A LIGHTER FLICKING

HOLLY: Okay, signing off! (softer) Fuck...

SOUND: FIREWORKS EXPLODING

MUSIC: OUTRO (“SOLITUDE” BY MUCIOJAD)

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x13: TTD Clues

Good morning! So I’m switching the order of my posts. Wasn’t going to do this one today but…I didn’t have much time yesterday and this one proved to be the shortest. So here are the things that caught my attention in TTD on Sunday:

1. Gimple said of Richard that they wanted him to be justified. For the audience to understand his reasons. And they didn’t necessarily give us all his reasons up front. That was definitely true. We understood that he hated the Saviors and being enslaved to them, but we didn’t get all his reasons–his entire backstory about his wife and daughter and another camp he was in–until the very end.

This jumped out to me bc it’s the opposite of Beth. We didn’t get her reasons for stabbing Dawn with the scissors. We didn’t feel like her death was justified at all. And if they were thinking about the audience reaction to Richard, who we’ve known for less than a season and most people only had mediocre feelings about, why wouldn’t they consider all that with Beth? I just don’t buy it, folks.

2. Okay, this was extremely random. Karl Makinen, who played Richard, talked about being a restaurateur and how they left a restaurant because they served dill and spaghetti together. I don’t know if this was a clue or not. It seemed like a genuine experience, but then Karl threw pork into the mix. Pickles, spaghetti and pork are three of the biggest recurring food in the show. Again, I’m not saying this was necessarily a thing. Maybe, maybe not. It was just so…random.

3. Gimple said the audience is always right. That made me smile. I think he just told TD we were right. (Granted, that would have to go for all fandoms and ships, but still. ;D)

4. Quiz:

A. First it talked about how many walkers Carol killed with the street sign. This was interesting because it didn’t focus on her killing five walkers total, but rather on the fact that she killed four with the street sign. Not sure what the logic behind that is. I’m wondering if, due to all the Grove parallels with Lizzie/Mica/Benjamin, it’s simply pointing us back to S4 for Carol’s arc. It also emphasized that we’d seen Maggie kill walkers with a street sign in S4.

B. The bullfighter painting. I’ll talk about that more in my Details post in a couple of days, but it was emphasized here.

C. Carol’s line to Morgan about “going but not going.” (And check out the last choice (option c). It’s hysterical. ;D)

5. Lennie James talks about how Morgan allowed himself to take responsibility for a younger life again (Benjamin) and the minute he opened up, it was snatched away. He also says that Morgan went to say goodbye to Carol. I’ll talk about both of these in my Morgan/Carol post.

6. There were several blond, female walkers shown on TTD this week. Each time, they were showing parts of the show, but I thought it was interesting that so many screenshots included Beth-walkers. It showed one in the behind the scenes stuff when it talked about the Kingdom’s outer wall being made from aluminum and radiators. (Which I side-eyed anyway, because radiators are a big part of car engines. Feels like part of the car/battery symbolism.) We also saw a blond walker in the sneak peek for next week’s episode.

7. Gimple also talked about how he wrote Morgan’s episode Here’s Not Here (6x06) before Morgan appeared in 5x01. I know they’ve said before that Gimple actually wanted Morgan earlier, as part of S4, but Lennie James was filming other things and wasn’t free until S5. So once they knew they had him for the show, Gimple sat down and wrote several episodes for his arc. He didn’t say that he’d specifically written this on prior to S5, but it was implied that he was at least thinking about it. And he flat out said he wrote 6x04 BEFORE 5x01 aired. Once again, is there really any doubt that Gimple had Beth’s entire arc planned out prior to S4? No way they just suddenly decided to kill her off. No way all of these callbacks and parallels are meaningless.

8. The sneak peek. Other than the blond walker, I don’t have much to say about it. Granted, they’re setting a car on fire using alcohol, which is an obvious Still callback. But I didn’t see much else in this particular scene.

9. Khary Payton talked about Benjamin being a bit part of the light for Ezekiel. He used a lot of the same wording Norman did when saying Beth was Daryl’s light at the end of the tunnel. Just saying.

10. Randomly, they joked with Michael Rooker that he wasn’t dead and they could bring him back. I doubt that’s real, but seriously? They’re randomly joking about bringing dead characters back? Come on now.

That’s pretty much it. Mostly small potatoes. Anyone see anything in TTD I missed?