The Walking Dead, The Calm Before: Things To Note
By Liam O'Leary
![Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Avi Nash as Siddiq, Danai Gurira as Michonne, Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier, Eleanor Matsuura as Yumiko - The Walking Dead _ Season 9, Episode 15 - Photo Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Avi Nash as Siddiq, Danai Gurira as Michonne, Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier, Eleanor Matsuura as Yumiko - The Walking Dead _ Season 9, Episode 15 - Photo Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/fd8d98de726f2513b1ca072d020a7637ac638e8b5662c55e3d1bde2bc2d9658b.jpg)
1) Hilde is (At least) the twenty-third named character killed this season, counting those killed in flashbacks.
2) Rachel seems to have…grown…a lot since we last saw her. Honestly, she looks like she’s in her mid-twenties, not the late teens one would expect. It’s kind of jarring.
3) Rachel informing Tara that she was going to kill her on sight is a callback to her first appearance in Season Seven’s “Swear”. Additionally, while we know this, this is, actually, the first time Tara’s ever heard that fact, seeing as how she was unconscious when Rachel and Cyndie found her.
4) Speaking of Cyndie…where is she? While Rachel is clearly present at the leaders’ meeting, Cyndie (Who was the leader of Oceanside, up to the time jump), is not. Did something happen to her?
5) Rachel signing the charter (And revealing her last name to be “Ward”) is the first time we’ve learned the last name of anyone at Oceanside.
6) Michonne calls The Whisperers “The Skins”. This is the fourth (Marco’s later “Skin Freaks” name makes it five) unique name for The Whisperers, if you count Eugene’s calling them “…The living kind [of walker]” back in the mid-season premiere episode, “Adaptation”. Of the names we’ve heard up to this point, none of them have been “The Whisperers”.
7) Upon meeting Ezekiel, Alpha gives herself the alias “Debbie”. Is this a coincidence, or, was this her actual name before christening herself “Alpha”?
Mini-The Walking Dead Theory: Alpha’s name WAS “Deborah”.