The Walking Dead Theory: Leah Was KIDNAPPED.

This week’s episode of The Walking Dead focused almost exclusively on Daryl during the time between Rick’s disappearance and Magna’s group’s arrival in Virginia, especially on his relationship with a woman named Leah, whom Daryl found living in the woods a year into his self-imposed exile.

From what we see in the episode, it’s clear how important Leah becomes for Daryl during his time in the woods, being the first romance we’ve seen for Daryl in the entirety of the apocalypse.

However, we also see that their relationship implodes when Leah determines that Daryl needs to choose between searching for Rick, going back to Alexandria, or staying with her.

In this week’s Walking Dead, we met Leah, whose relationship with Daryl abruptly ended when she left. But, what if her departure was NOT her decision?

After thinking about what his priorities were, Daryl had chosen to stay with Leah and went to gather his belongings at his lean-to, yet, when he returned to her home…it was empty.

In the flashback, we see the empty cabin that Daryl assumes Leah left, frustrated with his apparent indecision. Yet, as he discusses her departure with Carol, she brings up an interesting possibility…“Maybe somebody took her?”

The Walking Dead Theory: Leah was kidnapped.

Now, I know, I know, going off of what we know about Leah — Her proficiency with guns, her military experience, Dog — you’d think that there’s no way someone could snatch her.

However, you have to remember the world she’s in at this point: We’re long past the point when Rick and company first arrived at Alexandria, where nearly everyone in the town was terrified of walkers even when they had automatic rifles; If there’s someone around who wants to grab someone…they’re not going to be amateurs. If they’ve survived up to this point, they need to be tough.

Furthermore, if they intend to do something as nefarious as kidnapping somebody, they’d have to be extremely devious, stealthy, and underhanded.

With all the various hostiles we’ve seen thus far in The Walking Dead, would the existence of such a person or group of people be that surprising?

Of course, I imagine that, if such a thing were to have happened, we’d have seen some evidence of it in or around the house, right?

Well, there was something I noticed right as Daryl and Carol entered Leah’s house, something which neither of them seemed to pick up on (Though, with Carol suggesting Leah might have been kidnapped, perhaps she did), and something that, after looking back on the earlier flashbacks of Leah’s house, I did not see at those times: Bullet holes.

That’s right—bullet holes.

If you look carefully, when Carol first enters the house and sees Dog investigating Leah’s loose floorboards, there are several round holes in the wall, where light is poking through.

I suppose you could argue that those are knotholes, but there don’t seem to be any other such holes in the house, and, if the knots in the wood were just popping out, you’d think it would be like that all over the house, yet, they only seem to be in that one room.

Having said all of this, I’m betting that you’re wondering who might be the culprit, and as odd as I might sound, I think it could be…The Reapers.

Remember what I said earlier? “If there’s someone around who wants to grab someone…they’re not going to be amateurs. …They need to be tough…extremely devious, stealthy, underhanded.”

That, honestly, sounds a lot like the first Reaper.

Remember, we’ve only seen the one, but if he’s just a minion, then you’d think that the rest of the Reapers are just as skilled as he was. Think about it: Would a man adept at stealth and sniping be a lackey for someone who couldn’t do those things?

Possibly, but if you’re in the zombie apocalypse and possess those skills, why would you ply them for some chump you could just kill from a mile away and have them never even know you were there? You wouldn’t. It makes no sense.

I think that first Reaper is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how skilled and dangerous the group is as a whole. I wouldn’t be surprised if we discover that all of them are this stealthy and this deadly, and the first was only a small fry compared to the rest of them.

Of course, for this theory to be true, it would mean that the Reapers would have to have been operating in the Virginia area for at least several months before the communities began encountering the Whisperers.

But, since we don’t know where Maggie’s village was (One would think it has to be somewhat close if Maggie can receive letters from the communities), it’s entirely possible that the Reapers have been traveling somewhere between there and the northern Virginia wilderness for a long time.

“But, then, wouldn’t the communities have run into them by now?” You might ask.

…No.

None of the communities ever encountered Leah in all the time since Rick’s disappearance, and she wasn’t that far from Daryl. If the rest of the Reapers are equally trained to be as stealthy as the first one we met, they could easily roam the wilderness around the Alexandria area and never be spotted, even by the Whisperers.

Such skills could also allow them to fire shots at Leah’s house, drive her out, and have a team waiting to snatch her up as a sniper corralled her to them.

Now, is this an absolute certainty? No, it isn’t, but I just find her abrupt and apparently, hurried, considering she only seemed to take the picture of her son, departure…odd. I think there’s more to her disappearance than will be revealed to us in due time.

Besides, from the standpoint of The Walking Dead as a TV show, don’t you think it’s odd that is the first thing that comes to Carol’s mind? Do you think that the writers would just leave that thread hanging if they didn’t mean to address it at some point?

I don’t.

But, what do you think? Do you think Leah just up and left? Do you think something happened to her? Do you think she was kidnapped, and if so, by whom? I’m curious to hear! If you enjoyed this and want to learn how you can stay alive in a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!