#team delusiona

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x16: Details

Okay, let's dive into the details. These are in chronological order (not categorized by subject) which makes them feel a little haphazard. Bear with me.

Let me preface this by saying that I think Beth will return in S10, and probably fairly early in the season. So I think a lot of the details in this episode exist to point to how soon we’ll see her.

For example, we figured out a long time ago that Beth = water, right? So having snow at all, seeing parallels to Them or other previous Beth-heavy episodes except that there’s snow on the ground now, is really telling to me. Perhaps these parallels before, when it was hot = no Beth. Now that we see them again and there’s snow (Beth = water) it shows that she’s about to appear.

During the opening montage where Ezekiel talks on the radio, we see Carol and Ezekiel in their bedroom. They're facing separate directions. This is something the show has used before to show a couple isn't doing particularly well. They did the same thing in S7 with Richonne. We saw them waking up, facing away from one another. That was when Rick was doing as Negan wanted. Michonne didn't agree with his decision. So, they use this to show that a couple is in on the same page or isn't seeing eye to eye about something.

We also see Carol and Ezekiel closing the gates of the Kingdom together. That not only foreshadows their breakup at the end of the episode, but it supports what Angela said on TTD. This chapter of their lives is over. It’s not that their relationship is over and, who knows, the might return to the Kingdom at some point, but they’ll probably never be living happily together at the Kingdom in the same way they did during these past 8 years.

When Daryl gives Lydia food, the plate includes carrots (Carrot Theory) something green (looks like asparagus to me), apple sauce, and something red. I’m thinking maybe they’re kidney beans? So carrots are definitely a Beth thing, especially because of the King of Carrot Flowers thing in Alone. Applesauce is really jumping out at me, not only because of the Apple Theory but because Aaron specifically showed up with applesauce RIGHT after the music box woke up.

I also think we should note parallels between Lydia and Daryl here. She’s acting very much like he did in 5x10, after losing Beth. She even takes off, leaving the group during the journey, to be on her own, much like Daryl did. I think Daryl is taking care of her because he went through this exact same thing once. He knows she needs support right now.

Henry's box with all the cards reminded me of the music box. Which I suppose makes sense from a parallel standpoint. We didn’t see Beth’s music box until after Coda, and we didn’t see this box of Henry’s until after the pikes.

No one's heard from Maggie in a while. I'm sure that will end up playing into next season in some way.

We catch a glimpse of this blonde torso walker. It reminds me a lot of bicycle girl from 1x01. They said on TTD it’s an Easter egg for another movie, but if they were also going for a callback to 1x01, that suggests that perhaps someone (like Rick in 1x01) may be about to awaken.

When Jerry says the huge storm is coming, Ezekiel answers that they're going to have to travel through the night if they want to survive. That's obviously a huge piece of symbolism right there. The night representing trials and their fight for survival. Again, it just reminds me of 5x10, Them. They didn’t travel through the night in that episode, but they stayed awake most of the night, fighting to keep the barn doors shut. In other words, to survive.

Back in Alexandria, they have no power and decide that they need to keep everyone together in three places (the meeting room, Aaron’s house, and Barbara’s) to keep them warm and wait out the storm. We have a rule of 3s there. Also, we see red and green wires coming out of the radio in this scene.

On the road, Alden is somewhat mean to Lydia, and Daryl intervenes, telling him to lay off. @thegloriouscollectorlady is working on a much more detailed meta about this, but this is important because it shows us the contrast between Daryl and Lydia's relationship as compared to Daryl and Beth's relationship. Daryl is being very protective of Lydia and defending her against those who are being mean to her. Obviously Daryl was protective of Beth too, but for the most part, Beth did just fine defending herself.

Beth wouldn't let Daryl bring me to her and got in his face and told him to knock it off. Lydia, so far, is just be taking the abuse. Haters like to say that Daryl and Beth had a father/daughter relationship because of the age difference. This more or less disproves that argument. Daryl does have a father/daughter relationship with Lydia, and it's very different from his relationship to Beth, who challenged him and was his equal, rather than just someone he protected.

When Ezekiel asked Daryl to step back, the phrasing he used jumped out at me, because we’ve heard it before. He says, "I'm just trying to get back a piece of what I lost. What we lost.” In 5x16, Maggie says the same thing to Deanna. In defending Rick's meltdown with Pete the previous episode, Maggie told Deanna that Deanna didn’t understand “what we’ve lost. What we’ve all lost.” I always wanted to read into that, especially where Beth is concerned because that was only a few episode after Beth and Tyrese's deaths. Now, Zeke is using the same phrasing right after Henry dies, and Henry had a gazillion parallels to Beth.

Lydia almost lets the walker bite her and Carol sees. They said on TTD that this was a nod to how Carol died in the CBs, but I think it's more than that too. Carol herself has been suicidal before. She, like Morgan, is not someone who would actually kill herself. She's never tried and I don't think she ever will. But if you remember in 6x16, when she had the encounter with that Savior who shot her several times, and Morgan saved her, she kept asking him to kill her. So, I think part of the sadness of Carol seeing this is that she knows exactly how Lydia feels because she's been there before herself.

Back in Alexandria, Negan uses the line, "it's like Christmas to me." So just another Christmas reference. There have been so many in the last couple of episodes, they’re pretty hard to ignore.

Judith tells Negan that Dog has run off and is lost. She wants to look for him, but of course there's the blizzard. That really jumped out at me as a Sirius/Dog Star reference. Any dog on the show relates back to this symbolism, but here, Dog is specifically lost. Which means he has to return at some point, right? He does, before the end of the episode, but again, we’re literally talking about a dog who was lost for time and then returns.

The fireplace in the meeting room explodes. I really want to read into this, but I’m not sure exactly how. I think it could parallel to big burning events in the past, such as the burning of the prison or Terminus. (I talked earlier this week about how there are major parallels both to Alone and also to S5 before Daryl and Carol go to Atlanta to look for Beth.) So it depends on how you want to interpret it. 

Eugene also says that what caused the explosion was that the chimney was gunked up. A mixture of creosote and H20. Creosote is just the black gunky stuff that really will block a chimney if it doesn’t get cleaned out. Obviously they haven’t used this chimney much and it hasn’t been properly cared for. I’m assuming the H20 comes in from the now and the storm. But it’s also interesting that we have a reference to a mixture of fire and water here. (Daryl = Fire, Beth = Water).

(Not to mention, the flashlight beam in the above pic looks a lot like the ones I’ve pointed out before, one of which was around Beth.)

Once the fireplace blows, they decide to squeeze into Aaron's house. I'm wondering if there's some significance to it being Aaron's house. They mention his house several different times, emphasizing it. I mean, they couldn't grant any house or any building. I'm not sure what the significance would be. We know that Aaron's been a proxy for Beth before, and he showed up right as the music box awakened. But I'm still not entirely sure how to relate back to this particular situation. Just something I noticed.

When Daryl and Carol talk at the Sanctuary, we heard the “it’s okay/not okay” theme. We’ve heard similar convos between Daryl and Carol before. In Strangers, for example. *ahem, right before they went to Atlanta to search for Beth; just saying* The two of them tend to say this when one of them is actually not okay but saying they are.

Daryl also says, “We’re gonna make it.” It's a dialogue foreshadow because they do. Maybe that's obvious, but if one of them wasn't going to make it to Alexandria, they wouldn’t have included this line in the conversation. We can always rely on dialogue parallels.

Carol also says she's losing herself and doesn't think she can hang on. I didn’t catch this reference but Angela explained it on TTD and I went back to find it. 

When Carol and Ezekiel first got together back at the end of S8 after she saved Henry, she told him about Sophia. She said (and I paraphrase bc I didn’t get all this down in my notes, “I had a daughter. When I lost her, I was nothing. But the people I was with (meaning TF)…I found myself again. Some better version of myself. It always feels like it could just be swept away again. But that doesn’t mean that it will and it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t find myself again if it does.” 

So Angela said that’s the real reason she wants to go with Daryl. She wants to be around him and Michonne and those she’s known from the beginning. She’s genuinely trying to find herself again. That was also a foreshadow back in S8 that Carol’s fairytale would be swept away again at some point.

Trying to figure out where to go next, Ezekiel and Michonne talk about what route to take. The mention route B, which has been a big theme in the past.

I also thought it was interesting that Aaron says, "Rick's bridge would have saved us." In way, that makes me look at the bridge symbolism from a different angle. I said recently that the bridge represents the cohesion of the community, and I still think that’s true. But I also think, in terms of individual character arcs, the bridge may represent someone who almost died, or should have died, but something about the bridge saves them.

If you look at past bridges, we have some evidence for that. Rick was blown off the bridge into the river and swept downstream. If he’d been anywhere else, there wouldn't have been a place for him to go. If he'd been cornered in a canyon or something, either the dynamite would've killed him, or the surviving walkers still would've gotten to him. The same could also be true of the bridge in Consumed. Daryl and Carol got trapped on it (from walkers) but they drove the van off it. Again, that was only possible because they were on a bridge and had the option of driving off of it.

Oh, another thing. I know this top pic is hard to see, but Daryl wore his black bandanna again in the storm. We’ve seen it more than once, but he first wore it at the prison back in 4a, and AMC made a big deal about it, even doing a special Daryl figurine with the bandanna. So another callback to S4, and could point to something important coming.

I talked on Monday about how Lydia’ suicide arc parallels Beth’s, and they use walkers in the field to show that. But I also want to mention one more thing about Carol and Lydia, specifically the part where Lydia asked Carol to kill her. (First off, Carol finds Lydia in a BARN, so that could be a thing.)

It occurred to me that at this part, Lydia becomes something of an antiparallel to Lizzie (notice the similar names). In both cases, Carol comes to a point where it's just her and the girl (Lizzie and Lydia) and she has the option to kill them. I think we can all agree Lizzie was pretty messed up. She honestly didn't know what she’d done wrong in killing Mica, and therein lay the problem. Carol told Tyreese it wasn’t safe for Lizzie to be around other people, which is why Carol did what she did. She simply couldn't trust that Lizzie wouldn't kill someone else. 

So we have Lizzie who obviously didn't want to die, but Carol killed her anyway because she had no humanity, and that made her a danger to other people.

In this case, Lydia is doing the opposite. She begs Carol to kill her. The thing is, the reason Lydia wants to die is because she does understand how terrible what's happened is, and what her role in it is. She's not homicidal and looking to kill people and turn them into walkers. She's genuinely depressed and understands exactly why Carol blames her. She obviously blames herself a lot.

I don't think Carol would have killed her one way or the other, but understanding the difference between Lydia and Lizzie is probably one of the reasons Carol didn't. She said, “You're not weak,” which is another way of saying Lydia is strong. Of course we can relate that back to Beth, but I think we’re supposed to relate this more to past things in Carol’s arc. Lydia is different than Lizzie. She strong specifically because she’s sad about what’s happened and understands other people’s grief (neither was true of Lizzie).

I’m also reminded of a convo Carol and Rick had in S4. Carol talked about looking back on her time with her abusive husband. She says she didn't understand back then that she could be strong. That she already was. I feel like she’s applying that line to Lydia here. And, in my opinion, it does show a lot of growth on Carol’s part, even if she’s still in a dark place

I really want to read into them crossing a frozen river. I'm not sure exactly how to apply it, but a river is water. Water =s Beth, and water is what often runs under a bridge (not always, but a lot of the time.) So it’s interesting that to save themselves from death, they crossed over frozen river. It also occurred to me maybe we should draw a parallel between the frozen river here and the dry river in Them. I know they’re kind of opposite things, considering the weather, but we had them able to walk in or on the actual river without being swept away by water both times.

Daryl fights a blonde, female walker. It's the one he stabs in the eye with the icicle. I thought it was very Beth-like and made this joke in my group:

The thing is, stabbing in the eye with the icicle (also water) could actually be a Sirius/Dogstar reference. We’ve talked about this a lot in my group, and I’m sure @frangipanilove has mentioned it in her metas. Sirius is the one-eyed dog, and we had the one-eyed dog in Alone. Also consider Denise, who had so many Beth parallels and took an arrow to the eye. Same eye as the one Daryl stabs with the icicle here. So basically anyone who gets in the eye, we think is a Sirius/Dogstar reference.

So why would they make that reference here? As I said at the beginning, I think it’s to show that Beth is about to return. Everything about this storm, the snow (water), the Christmas theme, etc., points to her being the next thing we see.

It’s also worth mentioning that an icicle to the eye is a reference to the classic Christmas movie, A Christmas Story. So more Christmas references there too.

I already mentioned the Negan/Judith/Dog/Alone parallel. Just wanted to add that the “okay/not okay” theme was heard here too. Negan asks Judith, “you okay,” to which she replies, “I’m okay.” It was a theme we saw around Beth at Grady. Details HERE.

When Carol breaks up with Ezekiel, she says, “I'll never regret the fairytale.” In TTD, Angela Kane explained that Carol feels like her life at the kingdom, being queen and having a husband and son was a fairytale. She loved that part of her life, but she thinks it's over now, which is very sad.

When Michonne and Negan talk at the end, they mention Adam. I'm not sure what all these Adam references are referring to, but we’ve heard them more than once in the last couple of episodes. Earl and Tammy discussed naming the baby Adam before Tammy died. I wondered if there was some symbolism in that but I didn't know it was. Now, Negan says it again. The name Adam obviously holds a lot of biblical symbolism, but beyond that, I’m not sure where to go with it. I’ll keep an eye on it moving forward.

We saw Beta whipping Alpha’s arm. Little bit twisted, no? The writers told us the Whisperers migrate south for the winter. I can’t keep my mind from straying to the fact that Atlanta lies to the south, and if they went so far that there was no snow and tons of green while TF pushed through a blizzard, they must have gone pretty far south. Like the Saviors, the Whisperers obviously roam over great distances. So it wouldn’t be at all hard for them to run into a certain blond at some point. Just saying.

When Ezekiel talks to Judith at the end, he uses the phrase, "the winter of our discontent." We’ve talked about this in our group and, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from it. It’s a famous line from Shakespeare’s play, Richard III. For those who don’t know, that a play where the main character is the villain. He’s an evil king who kills lots of people, including two children to hold onto his power. In the end, we see his downfall.

We saw a reference to Richard III around the Governor in S4. And it made perfect sense for it to be a symbol of him. Because we saw his ultimate downfall in S4, and he was a villain/evil ruler. I’m even wondering now if that’s why they put in the part where Lily brought him Megan’s body and he shot her. It was such a cold, calloused thing to do, but maybe they were trying to liken him to Richard III and show that same kind of evil.

The thing is, I’m not sure why they’re using this line here. On the one hand, we literally saw the downfall of the Kingdom in the middle of winter. So as a tongue-in-cheek line, it really fits the plot. But Ezekiel isn’t an evil king—quite the opposite—and TWD is usually more specific in their symbolism than that. Not to mention, I think it must foreshadow something. The only “evil leader” we have on the show currently is Alpha, so I’m wondering if this foreshadows something for next season. We just really have no way of knowing what.

We actually had a discussion in my group just today about this and something else (very Beth-ish) that it may point to. I’ll probably post about that later, but I don’t want to get into it here.

For now, perhaps we can argue that we saw the Richard III reference in S4, which was right in the middle of Beth’s S4/S5 arc. Hearing it again now might be yet another way to point to her imminent return.

One thing I know @frangipanilove was super excited about from this conversation is when Ezekiel tells Judith that, “just because we lost our house doesn’t mean we lost our home.” He means that home is where your family is, not where your house is. Guys, that kind of proves everything @frangipanilove said in THIS POST about the Sirius/Dogstar/North star symbolism. It’s about coming home. Returning to family after an absence, and we’ve seen that symbolism around Beth a ton!

TTD:

Angela Kang talked about Ezekiel in the relationship, and it struck me that everything she said exactly what TD has always said. Find that. She also said that Sue think about how she always goes back to those people in that earlier scene.

Melissa also talked about Carol's hair and she said pretty much the same thing we've always said. Courses been confirmed anyway that the reason she grew it out was because she was happy with Ezekiel, but I just wanted to point out that we predicted that here in this post. So just another thing TD was write about.

Angela also said that the voice be heard on the radio will play in the story and asked 10 and it will "turn the story in an interesting way." Kind of interesting that says turn the story. I think that could definitely be a Beth thing. All of our ears perked up when she said that.

In closing, let me just add two more things that might give you hope for season 10.

Credits for the first one goes @bethgreeneprevails. She found this picture, which is a trading card of Beth. Notice how the blood on her forehead kind of looks like an H.

In 9x15, we saw Hilde making the H coins. She specifically mentions her and her husband's five year anniversary. We’ve seen many 5s over the seasons, and I usually suggest that they point back to S5 and Beth’s arc. However, if she returns in S10, that will be exactly 5 seasons after she disappeared. Perhaps the 5s have pointed to that. Remember, Hilde said the H represents both hope and home, as in coming home. As @frangipanilove said HERE, the Sirius/Dogstar/North Star symbolism all represents coming home.

This episode emphasized the lot that home isn’t a place. It's where your family is. Wherever they are, that's home. So between the H on Beth’s forehead, what the coins mean, and paired with the five year reference, were thinking the idea is that she’ll return after five seasons, which will be S10.

Finally, this last thing just occurred to me last night. A non-TDer on IG was asking questions about Beth. In short, the conversation got me thinking about how the writers knew about Rick’s departure since S4, and they both planned for and foreshadowed it. 

So I started thinking about that foreshadowing, and something potentially huge occurred to me. While there might have been earlier signs, the bulk of the symbolism we picked up about Rick’s departure came in S7. There was when he fought Winslow and got the stigmata wound 

as well as all the stuff in 7x12. Now, Rick didn’t leave until S9, which was two seasons later, but we now know he was originally slated to leave in S8. It wasn’t until they were filming 8b that he asked to push his departure out until S9. So when they put the foreshadowing of his departure in S7, they were planning on him leaving in S8.

Then I started thinking about other foreshadows we’ve already seen fulfilled. We saw this foreshadow in S4 

which is obviously a foreshadow of her arm falling in Coda. So we had the foreshadow in S4, and the fulfillment in S5. Same with Tyrese. I’ve said before that his injury to his arm at the prison foreshadowed his death, because he was bitten in exactly the same place. The foreshadow came in S4 and the fulfillment in S5. I’m going to revamp my Red/Green theory next week, and I’ll talk about this more then, but I recently noticed a major foreshadow of Sasha and Abraham’s deaths that came in S6. They both died in S7.

So I’ll admit this may not work across the board (I’m sure some deaths were foreshadowed more than a season in advance) and then there’s the fact that we’ve seen foreshadows of Beth’s return every season (nearly every episode) since Coda aired. But I also think we can all agree that the Beth parallels were more obvious and on-the-nose during season 9 than during any past season. So I’m just saying that, based on precedent, her return in S10 makes more sense than ever.  

Whew! Okay that was long. I’m done now. ;D

[djappleblush]

So far, the happiest I’ve seen Daryl in the entirety of TWD (from S1-S7) was when he was with Beth. And now... Daryl’s just one of ‘em walkers, roaming around with a broken heart and mind and I’m in pain for my babies.

[boltthrutheheart]

Getting The Band Back Together

It is safe to say that I am entirely intrigued by Andrew Lincoln’s recent interview with Entertainment Weekly regarding season 7B of The Walking Dead published on January 3, 2017. (Article found (x)here(x)). In addition to Andrew Lincoln saying that there is a moment in the season finale that made him drop his script and do a little dance, he said something much more interesting to me.

“All I’m saying is that the band is back together”.

In and of itself, perhaps this means very little. Taken quite literally, we have seen the group reunited in the MSF. Rick and the group, ready to fight, join Maggie and Sasha at Hilltop. Daryl escapes from the Sanctuary, makes his way to Hilltop, and has a heartbreakingly beautiful reunion with Rick. We have seen the group reunite except for C@rol, but we know that is coming as well. Literally, the band is back together. Of much greater interest is how this statement from Andy mirrors Norman Reedus’ social media activity prior to the airing of the season 7 MSF.

On the day of the MSF, before the episode aired, Norman posted this picture on Instagram captioned “Band’s back together Tonight mid season finale!”

Norman basically “spoiled” the fact that Daryl escaped from the Sanctuary to rejoin TF in his statement. We see the phrasing “Band’s back together”.

Prior to the above post, Norman shared a picture of a scene from season 4 episode 12 “Still” on Instagram during the MSF marathon on December 10...Beth hugging Daryl from behind outside the moonshine shack. It was captioned “Marathon’s on (still one of my fav episodes) this weekend! Let’s get the fkn band back together!”

This “getting the band back together” concept started, as it seems, with Norman commenting on a scene that Daryl shared with no less than Beth.

There is something about this Instagram post too that has intrigued me since I first saw it. I have discussed this with some other friends, and they seem to have found it interesting as well. Part of me wonders if this was a staged or planned post for whatever reason...as in Norman wasn’t actually watching the marathon live...a latergram. The reason I say this is because if you look closely, there is a copy of the issue of Men’s Journal on which Norman appeared on the cover on the TV cabinet. Norman doesn’t seem like one who would have his magazine cover strategically placed on display near his TV. AMC did, however, have their “Six Sundays, Six Seasons” marathon of TWD over the summer. Season 4 aired on Sunday July 24, 2016 which would have made it much more plausible for Norman to have his copy of Men’s Journal on his TV cabinet during “Still”.

Okay...back to the discussion about reunions. Just out of interest, I decided to research the phrase “getting the band back together”, and these simple observations I wanted to make evolved into something much longer. In my search, I came across a post about “putting the band back together” TV tropes which seems to fit the situation in TWD quite well. By no means is this an know all, end all source or authority, but it was still interesting to read what it said:

“This nifty little scenario is common in sequels, especially after a time skip, but it also happens at the beginning, which basically just means that the original 'Band' existed prior to the beginning.

'Back then', the ragtag bunch of misfits were kicking ass and taking names all over the place. Alas, the golden days came to an end, and they split up, took ordinary jobs, started families...

But now a new threat looms! And there's only one team that can solve it, so it's time to put the old band back together. There are two possible ways to do this: One is that the old leader picks up where he left off, seeking out his old friends and convincing 'em to join up with him again. But just as often, the old leader isn't available - maybe dead, or may have retired, or may have simply disappeared. Or maybe he's just not interested at all. (In that case, he's the first one they visit, only to get turned away, but he'll probably show up anyway just when the rest of the crew has been gathered, or later, in the nick of time to save the day.) Anyway, if it's a former minor character who's gathering the band, that means that he or she will probably be the new leader.

Either way, various things will happen during this episode. A member may be reluctant, and require our heroes to jump through hoops to get him onboard. Several may be working jobs that are oddly appropriate, or ironically inappropriate, to their former role. Extra characterization will occur by showing what kind of activities are taking up their free time, or what kind of family they've started. A former big-shot is likely to have become completely washed-up, turned into a drunk and/or bum, and the heroes will have to revitalize his burning spirit to bring him back to his old glory.” Source (x)here(x)

Let’s look at this piece by piece in regards to TWD.

“'Back then', the ragtag bunch of misfits were kicking ass and taking names all over the place.”

You don’t get much more varied in character than a former Sheriff’s Deputy, a redneck hunter and tracker, a pizza boy, a former mother and art aficionado turned Samurai, a firewoman, farmer veterinarian turned doctor, the farmer’s daughters, an abused housewife etc.

By the time season 4 rolled around, there was a stable, thriving, sustainable community built at the prison with a government and capable fighters. TF had the apocalypse under control...they were “kicking ass and taking names”.

“Alas, the golden days came to an end, and they split up...”

The Governor destroyed the prison, and everyone in the group was torn asunder...

While the majority of TF was reunited after Terminus, their separation was still very clear after Beth’s death and into the days in Alexandra...even reaching into season 7. They may have been physically together, but their ideologies, expectations, mindsets, plans etc. kept them far apart.

“...took ordinary jobs... working jobs that are oddly appropriate, or ironically inappropriate, to their former role...”

Upon entering Alexandria, everyone more or less found their place in the community (or in Daryl’s case outside of it because Alexandria has never been his place) and were given jobs to do.

Our badass ZA survivors have literally moved to Suburbia...a seeming Apocatopia!

“But now a new threat looms!”

 Cue Negan...

“And there's only one team that can solve it, so it's time to put the old band back together.”

In order to defeat Negan and the Saviors, TF is going to have to join together, “Rise Up” (as the new promotions from AMC state), and fight to get their lives back.

Now, at this point, you might be wondering, how does Beth fit into the equation? The band is already back together. Well, there has been a lot of talk about how Daryl’s journey during his captivity at the Sanctuary mirrored Beth’s captivity at Grady. I am not claiming any of these ideas (nor the comparative ideas of the following images) as originally my own, just reiterating what others have said. Both Daryl and Beth were kidnapped.

They were forced into servitude, physically and mentally abused...

But they refused to give up who they were, stood up to the supreme authority, even knowing that it could mean their death. 

Both Daryl and Beth attempted one failed escape from their prison. It wasn’t until Daryl broke free and escaped from the Sanctuary on his own that he was truly able to reunite with his group. Rick asked Negan to free Daryl on his first visit to Alexandria, and Negan said he would allow Daryl to stay. “All” Daryl had to do was say what Negan wanted him to...which for Daryl would be giving up the only thing he had left. Daryl refused. (Even though I doubt Negan would have allowed Daryl to stay if he did comply, this is what we were told in the scene). For Beth, TF came to negotiate for her freedom, but she decided to take the chance to kill Dawn and stand up against the injustice at the hospital. She wouldn’t just walk away, and that led her to the ultimate separation from her family. Daryl broke free on his own, journeyed to Hilltop with Jesus, and found his family.

If Daryl and Beth’s stories of separation are paralleling one another, Beth still has the part of her journey to complete in which she frees herself and finds her family and Daryl on her own for there to be a true reunion.

This may be the furthest stretch in this entire discussion, but of course any time I can relate “fire” to Daryl and Beth, I will. The small description of the “putting the band back together” trope includes this portion as well. “A former big-shot is likely to have become completely washed-up, turned into a drunk and/or bum, and the heroes will have to revitalize his burning spirit to bring him back to his old glory”. Daryl is very broken. He has never been the same since he lost Beth. She was his fire. I truly believe that the only thing that can bring Daryl back to the full glory of who he was is Beth’s return.

Finally, on an ending note, I am unable to ignore the musical connotation of this statement that is being repeated by Norman and Andy... “band back together”. This doesn’t even need to be said, but if music was ever attributed to any character in TWD, it is Beth.

“Why don't you go ahead and play some more? Keep singing.” ~Daryl Dixon

“I sing. I still sing.” ~Beth Greene

[pisquenta]