Carol and Daryl shippers are amongst those unhappy with The Walking Dead’s latest episode, Find Me.
It may seem a very obvious question with a very obvious answer why “shippers,” and especially Carylers, wouldn’t like The Walking Dead episode, “Find Me.” Carylers are “shippers” who want Carol and Daryl to get together romantically, and in “Find Me,” we see Daryl in a romantic relationship with another woman, Leah, told in flashback. Whilst in the present-day, Carol and Daryl have a horrendous argument. That surely is enough to explain fully why Caryl fans are upset with this episode?
Although those facts are certainly a huge chunk of the explanation, the truth is far more complex and in-depth than that. As soon as spoilers began leaking about “Find Me” and Leah’s role became known, many Caryl fans became upset at the prospect, and other fans were asking why this different from when Carol was with Ezekiel? She married him, and while Carylers didn’t love it, they didn’t declare they were leaving the show in droves or say that Caryl was dead. So what’s different about “Find Me”? The answer is Daryl.
Does Daryl love once and forever?
For the past several years, Carol’s relationship with love and romance was explained to us both on screen and in cast and crew interviews as something she uses to “hide” inside. She openly told Tobin that she was pretending with him as a way to run away from her grief and pain. And similarly with Ezekiel, after their marriage ended, she explained it was a fairy-tale (that she didn’t regret). It was an escape from her pain, a way to quiet the voices inside her, and while it was love, it was described by show-runner Angela Kang as a “fling” and thus never depicted as the only true love.
However, with Daryl, we were always told – largely in off-screen interviews but implicitly on-screen – that Daryl wasn’t like that. Many fans refer to “the one and done” – a shorthand term for the many times Norman Reedus has said that when Daryl does eventually get together with someone, it will be his one and only for life.
"“I think that that character, once he shacks up with somebody, he’s going to be with them for life.” – Norman Reedus, Inquistor"
"“I think if he’s going to zero in on one, it’s going to happen by accident, and he’s not going to be the one zeroing in first. Then he’ll just stay with her. I think he’s like an eagle — once they start flying together, they’ll always fly together.” – Norman Reedus, Inquistor “He’s like a flamingo or a penguin, I think if he’s gonna find it he’s gonna stick with it.” – Norman Reedus, Comicbook “If Daryl falls in love with you, he’s going to love you for the rest of his life.” – Norman Reedus, Daily Dead"
With all these quotes consistent over the years, it’s easy to see why fans who pay attention to these would think that if Daryl has a romantic relationship with Leah, it will be the only one he has forever. She’s his “penguin” for life – thus killing any hope of Caryl or any other relationship.
Yet, that doesn’t seem to be the story that’s being told in “Find Me,” with Daryl unsure about staying with Leah even within in the episode, and now having distance from the relationship, he has moved on and left it behind and knows it’s not where he belongs.
However, the “one love forever” issue isn’t the only issue in “Find Me” when it comes to the representation of Daryl’s sexuality for fans.
Daryl has intimacy issues
For 10 years, Norman Reedus and every writer and producer were asked about the mystery of Daryl’s love-life, and all expressed that it was a massive topic – one that inevitably grew bigger every season it wasn’t addressed on screen. Many shipping divisions set up camp and placed all their bets on his chosen partner – from Michonne to Beth to Jesus to Connie and Carol. Fans speculated on his place in the sexual spectrum – was he gay, bisexual, demisexual, asexual? And they placed hope on his character, being a representation for these underrepresented sexualities on screen.
So, many had a vested interest in the explanation for Daryl’s sexuality; it was expected that it would be a massive revelation. One that would explain why he hadn’t shown interest in any person so long. One that would explain how and why he was able to get over his massive intimacy issue (his flinching at the prospect of a kiss on the forehead from Carol in season 2 showed how severe it was) due to a lifetime of violent abuse. We were repeatedly told that Daryl would find it very hard to overcome those issues and form a romantic relationship, so the expectation was that it would be a huge deal on screen when he did.
"“I think if he does find a love interest or sex partner as you will, I think I want to play it real, real, real cautious. I want to play it awkward, and I want to play all the beats in between the actual [claps his hands]. Hopefully if that happens it will be very thought out and careful.” – Norman Reedus, Comicbook “If we were gonna do a love scene, I would want it to be just super awkward.” – Norman reedus, Comicbook “Once you do it, it’s done. So it’s just such a topic of conversation forever. I get it. But once you do that, it’s done forever. So I want to be really careful with doing that and I think Angela does as well.” – Norman Reedus, EW"
When it turns out the big reveal of Daryl’s sexuality is told in flashback, with less than 15 minutes of screen interaction between the pair of lovers and little visual explanation of how the romantic and intimate side of their relationship develops, fans felt betrayed and let down.
“Find Me” condenses 5 years into one episode
It may be that the lack of visual proof of the intimacy and amount of the relationship onscreen was done so as not to offend or put off Caryl or Donnie (Daryl and Connie) shippers by not showing Daryl kissing and having a love scene with another woman. Yet by trying to appeal to everyone, they have fallen between two stools and risked appealing to no one.
Shippers hate it because of what it is, even if they don’t see the full details on the screen, and non-shippers who want to see Daryl’s sexuality explored feel cheated they didn’t get to see the relationship in full.
"“Daryl’s such an interesting character that way because in some ways, when it comes to romantic relationships, he’s not a person that I think trusts easily, and a lot of that has to do with his backstory, which is filled with so much trauma. He was physically abused, as well as in other ways. There’s sensitivity there for him. And I think he’s also just a person who it’s hard for him to trust anybody enough to connect with them really, really deeply. It’s a long, slow process for him in a lot of ways to get into any kind of a romantic thing.” – Angela Kang, Comicbook"
By condensing the years of Daryl and Leah’s acquaintance and growing friendship into several minutes, the writers got around the issue that Daryl takes a long time to trust anyone enough to get into a relationship. However, by not having Leah as a main character, by not having the character be on screen for a long-time, the audience doesn’t feel that weight of time. Many viewers struggle to get behind the relationship or understand the connection in any meaningful way.
Fans feel there is no explanation for why Leah is different. Why Leah and not Rosita or Carol or Beth? He was close to all of them during times when he felt low and alone, yet no romantic relationship formed with them during those times.
Retconning stories is not a popular TV trick
There is a consensus that the reveal of Daryl’s sexuality should be given the same time and importance as the size of the mystery about it, and “Find Me” doesn’t do that for many fans, nor does it show how Daryl overcame the issues that have held him back in the past with intimacy, and why Leah was the special one to help him through that. It also fails to reveal a complex or minority sexuality on the spectrum, which many fans hoped Daryl would be the representative for. He’s just a straight guy who doesn’t have many relationships.
On top of that, viewers are generally not fans of shows retconning anything, ever. When The X-Files revealed in a flashback that Scully was pregnant from IVF and not from a sexual relationship with Mulder (possibly, it’s complicated) and that Mulder had a secret brain tumor during a previous season, fans were furious.
Creating a story in the past in this way changes scenes to which the audience has already watched, digested, and ascribed meaning to. When they see the additional information created by this backstory, it changes the meaning of these scenes, and fans feel cheated out of them, as though they’ve been snatched from their hands.
A promo for the episode said this week said, “How well do you know Daryl? Think again.” Fans who have followed and loved Daryl for 10 years don’t want to feel that they don’t know him, that there are aspects of him they aren’t aware of. That kind of revelation tends to make the audience feel foolish or duped that they have loved, fought over, and defended a character who isn’t exactly who they thought it was. Whether the revelation about the character is a negative one or not, the resulting feeling of him not being who they thought is the same.
Carol and Daryl’s fight causes upset
The revelation of Daryl having a romantic relationship is not the only way that “Find Me” has changed Daryl for some fans. The fight he and Carol have at the end of the episode also does that, in spades.
While it’s not wholly unusual to see Carol and Daryl snipe at each other, especially during season 10, this fight’s content is different, and it comes down to Connie. Although, as Carol says during the argument itself, it isn’t really about Connie or Leah or anyone else, the mention of Connie within the fight is a massive blow for both Daryl fans and Carol fans.
In the argument, Daryl blames Carol for Connie being missing/ her possible death. That, in itself, is something a lot of fans feel changes, Daryl, forever, and is not the Daryl they know and love.
Daryl knows Carol is torturing herself over what she did at the cave, that the guilt is eating her alive, and it’s that guilt that may be tempting her to run again. Yet, instead of assuaging her from her guilt, he takes her wound and sticks his fingers in it – as Carol did with the Whisperer they tortured. He says the one thing he knows will destroy her.
That level of cruelty is one we haven’t seen from Daryl and certainly not one we’ve seen from Daryl in recent years. It does hark back to season 2 when he blew up at Carol over Sophia being missing and accused her of being a bad mother.
It was painful enough to watch then, but for fans to see Daryl knowingly use that level of cruelly throwing her own fears back at her after knowing Carol so long, seeing everything she has gone through in that time, and knowing his heart as he does, makes the insult all the more cutting.
Is Daryl a hypocrite?
However, even more than making Daryl seem cruel; many fans feel his blaming Carol for Connie’s fate also makes him a hypocrite. Daryl, whose lashing out caused Glenn’s death. His violent reaction caused Negan to murder Glenn as a “bonus” on top of killing Abraham, which was guttural, visceral, personal anger. And yet, no one in the family or group blamed Daryl at all. In fact, we were even shown Maggie comforting Daryl, showing how much she didn’t blame him, and showing the strength of their bond was only solidified after that.
Yet, Carol, who attempted to take out Alpha’s horde, in a way that she hadn’t thought through, is blamed for the fall out from that decision – in which Magna and Connie chose to head back into the cave to fight Whisperers, of their own accord – by her best friend.
Seeing Daryl cast that blame at Carol – when Reedus admits that Daryl still blames himself over Glenn – makes him seem hypocritical and cruel. And for many fans who fell in love with the Daryl who brought Carol a Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle to lift her spirits while Sophia was missing, that’s a galling change.
The fact the fight happens at all is hard for fans to take, not because Carol and Daryl should never argue, but because fans had just sat through an entire season of them arguing and distant and had hoped that this tension might be behind them, given they seemed to make up in “A Certain Doom.”
So for fans to see everything undone again and for Carol and Daryl to be at an all-new low with each other is depressing, and it’s not surprising fans of their closeness don’t like it. Particularly given the world we’re in right now.
Pandemic has affected people’s tastes
In a way, it seems that the reason these episodes exist is the same reason that is the final straw that broke the camel’s back for Carylers – the pandemic.
We have all lived through a horrific year of disease, death and depression. Fans had really hoped that these bonus episodes would give fans and the characters a chance to breathe between the traumas in the show and something light to lift them in this time of darkness. Particularly when show-runner Angela Kang described the Carol and Daryl arc as “fun.”
At the start of 2020, the AMC president revealed to the press that marketing research had shown that The Walking Dead’s viewership had dropped significantly largely due to the “hopelessness” viewers felt from the show following the deaths of Abraham and Glenn. The loss of beloved characters, the resulting end of two happy, loving relationships, and the depression and misery of the characters left on the screen, drove some of the audience to walk away and seek something more emotionally rewarding.
With “Find Me,” it seems like The Walking Dead risks repeating this situation, with some fans – but particularly Carylers – feeling that their hope is gone; the cycle of unhappiness is too continuing; the torture of their favorite character too never-ending, and the relationship they love is being destroyed forever. All at a time when real life is alarmingly close to an actual apocalypse and fans are desperately looking for an escape that brings them the hope they weren’t feeling elsewhere. Sadly, for many, “Find Me” was not that.
Hopefully, with still one more Carol and Daryl-focused episode – 1021 “Diverged” – to come in the bonus period, The Walking Dead can win back the shippers and bring fans to a happier place before the hiatus.