#they made those statements about including more foreshadowing in the next seasons bc the books couldn't plan ahead or whatever

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x14: TD Details

Good morning! How was everyone’s Monday? So yesterday I focused mostly on character development and arcs. Two reasons for that 1) I was tired and didn’t want to write a longer piece for Monday morning. 2) The character development in this episode was really beautiful and I wanted to discuss it without distracting too much from it with other details.

Today, I’ll talk about specific details and symbolism I saw. At first, I didn’t think there was much. On my first watch, though I don’t actively look for symbols, usually at least a few jump out at me, but that wasn’t the case this week. However, upon re-watching I did find some interesting things.

One of the first images we see is this:

I’m not sure what they’re making here. Perhaps spear heads? There are four of them, though, coupled with the molten fire which I can’t help but relate to Beth/Still/S4. It also kind of looks like a candelabra.

I mentioned the emphasis on knives yesterday but wanted to go over the weird Enid/Savior scene again. I thought if I watched it again, some big light bulb would go on. It really didn’t. All I can say is that the scene was extremely random and it happened close to other suspicious things. This is close to where Daryl and Maggie hide, and there are tons of parallels between them and Bethyl in S4. There’s the extra emphasis placed on the knife when he takes it. Enid has been a proxy for Beth before and now she’s lost her knife. The fact that it was a Savior who took it is also interesting. That didn’t happen with Beth’s knife, but there’s tons of Negan/Savior symbolism around Beth. Finally, when he shoves the basket back toward her and she drops it, what falls out? Melons and cucumbers. Melons = the melon situation from last week and what I think it means for TD (X) and cucumbers = pickles = resurrection symbol. (X)

The savior guy also makes a time reference, btw. He says “we have time.” Super random thing to say. It took more time to correct Enid’s grammar than if you’d just let it alone, Dude. I couldn’t help but see a time reference. Again, not a straightforward theory that we can plug everything into and decide what it means, but I’m side-eyeing the details.

In the opening sequence, Enid puts a plate of food on the table in front of Maggie. This made me super excited, guys. Everyone remember the carrot theory? If not, check it out HERE. I said before that we’ve mostly seen baby carrots in the past. Seasons 4-6 had lots of carrot references, but they were either baby carrots, baby food carrots, or something along those lines. I made the statement that if we start seeing real, adult carrots, it will signal that we’ve entered or are about to enter the second cycle of the story (wherein Beth should appear). Yup. Big, adult carrots on Maggie’s plate here. Makes me happy. 

Also, I’m pretty sure what Maggie actually eats here is an apple dipped in peanut butter. Both are food images we’ve seen a lot this season. They had the same plate of food sitting on the table in TTD, so it was emphasized there too.

(P.S. I’m not doing a TTD post this week. Didn’t find enough to constitute an entire post, so I’ll just talk about relevant stuff in this and other posts.)

Maggie making a list. This is awesome! Just her writing something in a notebook would have been enough to catch my attention. But check out this list, guys. Everything on it can be related to Beth somehow:

Scrap metal makes me think of the junk yard. We don’t know how that will relate to her yet, but given all the symbolism around Boots, I’m sure it will eventually. Batteries (battery theory). New generator (Lamp Theory). Pretty sure it says, “Ask Eduardo,” but at first I Thought it said Edwards and I about had a heart attack. Still, the names are very similar. Horses (Horse Theory). Weapons, cuz obviously. And Emergency Exit. That’s referring to the tunnel Sasha and Rosita escape through. Sasha remarks that Maggie made it because she thought they needed an emergency exit.

A couple of things are interesting about that. When they first went through the tunnel–and the fact that they called it a tunnel–I immediately thought Dark Tunnel Symbolism (X, X, X). I’m not sure that applies here because 1) we didn’t see the tunnel. Usually it’s a darkness and light thing. 2) Both Sasha and Rosita made it out without incident.

…Or did they? I don’t know. We’ll have to see where this goes. If Sasha dies, then you could argue that, in an extended way, maybe she didn’t. Remember that Sonequa’s name is now in the dark tunnel in the opening credits, and has been for a while.

Maggie has had a lot of tunnel stuff before too. She and Glenn reunited in one in S4. She and Aaron went into one in S6 but ended up going back rather than through. Like I said, we’ll have to see where it goes before concluding more.

With Jesus and Maggie’s convo, it struck me how alike Jesus and Daryl are. He talked about growing up in a group home, and while Daryl didn’t, neither of them had very functional, nuclear families. He also talked about how when he first arrived, he was always leaving and had a hard time getting close to anyone. That sounds a lot like Daryl, especially in S1 and S2. Then we saw it again when he arrived at Alexandria. Not sure what the purpose of this is. I know Daryl’s character was always a lot like CB Jesus, so this may not point to anything at all. On the other hand, it might. I know in the CBs Jesus becomes Maggie’s right hand man, and we can see them sticking to that in the show. I feel like, even though they won’t be together romantically bc he’s gay, Jesus will kind of be Maggie’s other half now. Again, not in a romantic sense, but he’ll compliment her and they’ll rely on one another and be together all the time now. So it’ll be Beth/Daryl and Maggie/Jesus. They’re practically twin pairs. (Heaven knows we’ve seen the twin symbolism in the show before.)

Maggie mentioned riot gear, which was a callback to the prison and specifically to Glenn.

When Sasha goes into the trailer, she opens a hollowed-out book and finds this:

Bullets, and keys. (Key Theory) If that’s not a callback to Grady, I don’t know what is. Not to mention, they’re “hidden.” If this mission leads to Sasha’s death, and if that ushers in Beth’s return, then Sasha taking these bullets (and by extension going on this mission) might be the “key” to Beth’s return.

They also mentioned on TTD that this book was a copy of “A Farewell to Arms.” I don’t see anywhere in the scene where we can make out the title of the book. They wanted us to know that for some reason. I won’t go into details here, but if you look up the plot synopsis of the book, a lot of it sounds like Sasha’s relationship to Bob. It’s a love story about two people who keep getting separated (due to the war) and then reuniting. So we could relate it to Bethyl too, but I honestly think this is more of a Sasha symbol and will probably inform her coming arc.

Red/green color scheme in this episode. In the scene with Sasha and Jesus, there’s a red hat hanging on a peg in the background. It looks a lot like a sheriff’s hat, though it’s probably a straw hat. 

In that same scene, Sasha gives Enid something she was making for Maggie’s baby. Looks like a woven bracelet or something. It’s green. 

We also saw green and red wires when Rosita was trying to hot wire the car. I think there were some others, but I didn’t write them down.

Apple theme. Besides the one Maggie ate with the peanut butter, we saw both Sasha and Jesus grab whole apples before leaving the trailer, and I think there were also some in the cellar where Daryl and Maggie hid.

Goats. When the Saviors arrive, Maggie, Daryl and Enid run right past some goats, one of which looks identical to Eastman’s goat, Tabitha. (Remember that’s the name of the girl in the bible who died and was resurrected by Christ. X) I’m totally side-eying the timing again here. Daryl and Maggie with their Still parallels, Enid with the veggies and the knife, Saviors coming, and Tabitha, a girl raised from the dead. When they go into the cellar, you can even see the green tractor in the background that Maggie used to flatten the gremlin/music box in ep 5.

Let’s talk Sasha and Rosita for a minute. We saw Rosita try and start two cars before she found one that worked. So first let’s appreciate the rule of 3s here. It was the third car that started for her. Also notice that to get that third car, they went into an enclosed area, and that’s really strange. They went into a fenced-in area, which was crawling with walkers, making it much more dangerous than staying outside the fence. I mean, what guarantee did they have that that car would start? Why take the risk? Once they got the car going, they took off, flattening several walkers on the way, and had to bust through the fence to get out.  

This is SUPER suspicious to me. They set a FIRE using ALCOHOL to distract walkers, and there is a BLOND, BETHISH walker involved. And then they bust out in a car. 

Many of us (yours truly included) think Beth will burn Grady down when she leaves it the second time. And remember that, when it comes to things that were filmed that we haven’t seen yet, Emily was seen driving a Grady car around the hospital grounds. I’m really feeling like this is a parallel/foreshadow for her leaving Grady.

Probably because of all the chain link, it also reminded me of Aaron and Daryl in the wolf trap. The shots of Sasha and Rosita in the front seat reminded me more of Daryl and Aaron than it did of Sasha and Abraham in 6a. Don’t know if that’s a thing, though. Could just be me.

Sasha wears the red necklace Abraham wore. Even Christian pointed out in TTD that it was odd Sasha kept it. I kinda think it’s a death omen for her. Abraham wore it, and I thought the fact that he dropped it meant he wouldn’t die, but maybe wearing it at all (kind like their name in the dark tunnel in the opening credits) means they’ll be the next to die.

While Sasha and Rosita walked to the Sanctuary, I also noticed a green dumpster, just like the one Glenn fell off (death/resurrection symbol) and railroad tracks with a railroad crossing sign. Railroads are definitely a symbol of death.

“Having a clean shot.” Sasha talks to Rosita about going into one of the buildings (on the EAST Side of the Sanctuary, btw) so she can get a clean shot and they all get out alive. Then, when she tries, there are too many people standing around Negan and she says she doesn’t have a clean shot. The phrase is repeated multiple times in the episode. I couldn’t help but think of Beth’s strange shooting, whether someone had a clean shot and took it, or perhaps the opposite. Maybe they didn’t have a clean shot of what they were aiming at and took it anyway and that’s why Beth got shot. Anyway, just made me think along those lines.

Another thing: the brick building where Sasha and Rosita had their heart to heart looked a LOT like the warehouse in Coda where they took the Grady cops before the prisoner exchange.

@thegloriouscollectorlady pointed out a parallel with Sasha pointing her gun out the window.

In Coda, remember that Evil Officer Bob told Sasha he recognized one of the walkers on the outside as one of his former friends. She said she’d shoot the friend for him. Of course he double-crossed her, tried to escape, and died for it. Sasha survived the encounter, and I’ve always seen those events as a foreshadow of Beth surviving. See: 

But in terms of Sasha’s arc, that may also have been a foreshadow of this episode. That one day she would attempt to kill Negan. (Remember that Grady/Grady cops are parallels to Sanctuary/Saviors.) In both cases, she didn’t get a chance to take her shot. Evil Officer Bob hurting Sasha could foreshadow her being hurt or killed in her assassination attempt against Negan. Either way, it’s a callback to Coda.

This building also bears a resemblance to the place she tried to stop in 4b, where she met up with Maggie again. That was probably a foreshadow to much of the rest of Sasha’s arc.

Theme about not wasting time. Rosita said, “I was stupid to waste so much time.” Earlier in the episode, Jesus said to Sasha, “It’s a long life, until it’s not.” Maggie also said to Jesus, when he talked about having a hard time getting close to people, “You should try it sometime, even if it doesn’t last.” If you think about it, Sasha was hesitant with both Bob and Abraham. She’s never gone after her own happiness as much as other characters. Maybe she’s lost all of her chances when it comes to wasting time, but certainly Rosita has learned from this tragic circumstance with Abraham’s death. And we can hope that, after not telling Beth how he really felt, Daryl won’t waste time with Beth when she shows up again. You could also relate this to Richonne. Rick said they had to be together now, even if they eventually lost one another. Major theme for relationships here.

Finally, the doctor. He talked about having patients at the Hilltop who needed him, and then mentioned charts for his “on-going” patients. Seriously, other than Maggie, what on-going patients does he have. A doctor is needed in case anyone gets hurt, but we didn’t see anyone who was hurt or sick or being progressively treated. Obviously he means Maggie, and he couldn’t say that because she’s supposed to be dead. But they’re really emphasizing the fact that Maggie no longer has a doctor to look after her. Hmm. Wonder where they could find another one. ;D

There was a CPR sign in the background of the medical trailer. I noticed it several times. I debated whether to mention it because it’s a medical setting so having a poster like that really isn’t out of the ordinary. Then half a dozen followers sent messages to me about it, so it wasn’t just me. The word “resuscitate” is clearly visible in several shots.

Simon, when he comes to get the doctor, mentions cardamom, which felt very symbolic. I looked it up, but nothing jumped out at me. It’s a very expensive spice often used in Indian cooking, and is seen in some cultures as a sign of hospitality. (Hospitality may be what they were going for, as Simon is flippantly trying to convince the doctor that coming to the Sanctuary will be awesome.) The only possible TD tie would be that there are two kinds of cardamom. One is green. The green variety is the most expensive and is often called “true” cardamom.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think that’s it for today. Later in the week I’ll do a post about the knot motif, and then focus on some things other followers have sent me. ;D Have a great day, everyone! 💖💖💖