IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN!
It is another Sunday, which means it’s time for the latest installment of The Walking Dead: Things To Note!
For those of you who may not know, Things To Note is a series where I look back at each episode of The Walking Dead to find all the hints, clues, references, callbacks, and trivia, and put them all in one place, so you don’t have to go looking for them!
This week’s episode was a very personal one for Daryl, chronicling his time away from Alexandria following Rick’s disappearance six years ago (In the show’s timeline), focusing especially on the relationship he developed with a woman named Leah, whom he found living out in the woods.
In this week’s Walking Dead, we learn about Daryl’s tragic love story with a woman named Leah a how Daryl got through the six years since Rick disappeared.
Because of this, we get a lot of glimpses into things we’ve seen or heard about after the fact as they’re happening, giving us some greater detail about how the communities’ relationship began to deteriorate after Rick’s disappearance.
Additionally, we get a greater glimpse into Daryl’s evolution, showing how he went from the vengeance-ridden man he was in season nine’s “The Obliged” to the more optimistic man we find him to be in most of this episode.
Of course, this is only scratching the surface, and we have a lot to get to.
Are you ready? It’s time for this week’sThe Walking Dead: Things To Note!
1) This episode, much like the previous one, features a recap of events over the last season and a half, this time by Daryl. Which also includes the run-in with the first Reaper from the previous episode.
2) Considering the fact that the communities just recently beat the Whisperers (The worst group of hostiles they’ve faced yet), why has Carol become so pessimistic?
3) As Carol and Daryl examine Leah’s house, Daryl walks through a room with several round holes in the wall. Are those…bullet holes? If so, who attacked? And why?
4) This is the first episode to feature a flashback (By a member of the community) to events before the time jump concluded since season nine’s “Scars.”
5) With Daryl’s first flashback taking place five years earlier, it probably actually takes place not that long after “Scars,” wherein Michonne was pregnant with R.J.
6) After his first meeting with Dog, Daryl edits a map of the river, very much like the map Carol picked up off the ground and placed in Daryl’s backpack just before they left.
7) During the flashback, Carol visits Daryl to tell him that Maggie left Hilltop and that trading has become more difficult, a problem that would characterize a good part of the post-time jump episodes of season nine and be exploited by Alpha in the festival massacre.
8) The fact that Carol and Daryl knew of Maggie’s departure five years ago is a sign of just how out of touch the communities became, as Michonne only learned about it just before the Whisperers arrived, five years later.
9) Apparently, by the point this flashback takes place, Daryl had been living in the woods looking for Rick for two years.
10) In the second flashback (Which takes place a year later), Dog already seems to recognize Daryl as it leads him to Leah, suggesting that, while Daryl and Leah might not be on speaking terms at the time, he ran into Dog frequently in the woods.
11) In the third flashback (Taking place six months from the second), Daryl has the scar over his left eye and cheek that has been with him throughout the post-time jump episodes. How did he get it? Will we find that out in a later episode?
12) In the third flashback, while discussing living out in the wild, Daryl says, “…It’ll catch up to all of us one way or another”, to which Leah replies, “Only if you let it.” This parallels Carol and Daryl’s conversation while gutting fish earlier in the episode and explains Daryl’s resistance to Carol’s rather newfound pessimism.
13) Assuming the times given with each flashback compound, the fourth flashback would take place about two years and seven months before the time jump is completed.
14) As she recounts to Daryl, Leah served in the military, which branch, though, she never says.
15) The fifth flashback takes place approximately one year and nine months before the time jump completes.
16) Umm…where did Leah and Daryl get corn on the cob? Is Leah growing it? It seems like an odd vegetable to just find, but there’s no corn near the house.
17) This episode gets its name from the message Daryl leaves for Leah in her house: “I belong with you. Find Me.”
18) What happened to Leah? Did she leave? It seems like her picture of her adopted son is also gone. Could it have something to do with the bullet holes in the wall?
19) Daryl’s relationship with Leah feels like a mirror of Dwight and Sherry’s, with Daryl the one leaving the note for Leah, as opposed to Sherry, who left a note for Dwight, back in season seven’s “Hostiles And Calamities.”
20) After returning to the present, Carol tries to get Daryl to stop blaming himself whenever he loses someone. When Carol mentions Connie, Daryl lays the blame for Connie’s disappearance on her, the first person to hold Carol responsible for Connie’s disappearance since Yumiko in this season’s twelfth episode, “Walk With Us.”
21) Daryl telling Carol that Connie’s disappearance is because Carol “didn’t know when to stop” is the same thing Carol said to him during the final flashback as Daryl gathered his belongings to bring to Leah’s.
And that ends our installment of Things To Note for this week! Was there anything you missed? Was there anything I missed? Let me know! If you like this and want to read more of my writings, specifically about how to survive a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! And you can get it from Amazon here and on iTunes here!