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Hi,

I understand how you feel, and I totally agree!

While there's tons of symbolism indicating Beth's return, determining when and how the symbolism will pay off is always the hard part. However, as this is the end of the spin, they MUST pay off the themes established for the spin-off.

Additionally, Norman's interviews, and Gimple's, during the filming of season 4 are very telling. First, Norman said, "there was ALWAYS going to be a very specific ending."

This entire series, Daryl, Isabelle, Carol and others have said that Daryl left the Commonwealth looking for "something". This happens to be the exact word that Rick says to Daryl in 5x10 before the music box wakes up. Seeing how distraught and depressed Daryl is at the loss of Beth, Rick says to Daryl, " It's been 3 weeks since Atlanta. I know you lost SOMETHING back there."

So what's the ending that has ALWAYS been planned? It's Daryl getting his SOMETHING back aka Beth.

In an interview about season 4, Gimple said that season 4 was going to rectify things from the past. Of course, this will include things from Daryl's childhood, but after he makes peace with his childhood, then he will get his reward which is finding Beth.

Think of it like this. Carol makes peace with Sophia dying, and now she will get the loving family she didn't get with Ed and Sophia with Antonio and Justina. That's her happy ending.

To parallel that, Daryl will make peace with his childhood. Then, he will be reunited with Beth and at some point Laurent getting the "home" or family he didn't have as a child. That's Daryl's happy ending.

Finally, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So looking at the last season of Fear The Walking Dead, what did they do?

Not only had they brought back Madison in the previous season, they specifically brought back Troy, who had been beaten in the head with a hammer and thrown into the water. Both these characters had been "dead" for many years.

So anyone saying it's not possible that they would bring back Beth obviously has not watched Fear The Walking Dead which is under the direction of the same chief content officer, Scott Gimple.

How did the flagship end? With Rick, who had been "dead" for years to the rest of Team Family, seen for the first in years.

Will Beth be seen alive by the end season 4? I really think so.

Do I think it will be a full story?

No, I think they will save that for later, but I 100% think we will see her alive before the end of Daryl Dixson.

After all these years, Emily is filming again for TWDU. Not just a cameo mind you, we know she will be in at least one full episode. Beth is back for a REASON.

Now is the time.

Uhhhh, guys? This was apparently posted a couple of weeks ago from the Daryl Dixon post production crew saying post had wrapped. In the top left when zoomed in it says, "Property of RTD 408". But am I nuts or......is that not two people embracing between those pillars? Or is it another pillar??? What do you think?? At first I thought for sure it’s two people embracing….but then I’m like could also just be a pillar…..gah! EDIT: auroraroseane on the Discord found it! It is near the base in Cadiz Spain that was one of the last filming locations. Also, there is no pillar! So it's definitely a couple hugging - could be Carol/Antonio, could be Daryl/Someone!

Definitely no pillar in that spot.

EDIT: Also looking at the darkness around the edges of the post-production party picture….i think this might be new opening credits. So once again, highlighting how this season is going to be different from the others. S1 and S2 in France had the same opening credits (a couple of minor changes in the S2 ones). S3 and S4 in Spain are going to be different.

EDIT: Updating the post to show what the end title card of the credits have been for all the seasons until now. S4 is so DIFFERENT. S1/S2/S3/S4:

The title, the lyrics, the fire

Bro

**Editing and reblogging to add some AMAZING news found by @obidala2 today.

Michael E. Satrazemis will direct 3x1 Trillium(aka Bethroot), 3x7 Hourglass and 3x8 TENEBRAE.

He also directed.......SLABTOWN!

We now have Hoffman and Negrete, writers from Beth's era, AND Satrazemis director of Slabtown

******

TD has been tracking art and its symbolism in TWD since the inclusion of and focus on the large painting by Caravaggio called The Denial of Peter featured prominently in Slabtown 5x4. Caravaggio painted this work months before he died, and it's considered the epitome of his style.

What is an element of that style called? Tenebrism. See the definition below.

The writers used tenebrism as a stylistic element throughout the entire SlabTown episode not just to highlight the painting itself. I've included a couple of pictures below, but the tenebrae style is used in multiple shots throughout the episode. To make sure we picked up on this symbolism, they included, the at least TD famous, close up of Beth's sneakers with the white and black shoelaces symbolizing the contrast between the light and the dark.

Slabtown could, in fact, have more accurately been called Tenebrae.

Matthew Negrete wrote Slabtown and is a writer on Dead City this season for episodes 2 and 4. He is also an executive producer for the season. He and Hoffman were in the writer's room when seasons 4 and 5 were written. They are intimately familiar with Beth's arc and its symbolism.

The writers so often use artwork symbolically in TWD and one of the ways they point this out to us is by having it appear out of place. For example, this Caravaggio was said to have been rescued by Dr. Edwards outside the High museum in Atlanta. However, this painting has never been housed there.

Guess where it is housed? Why the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City setting for Dead City.

Many of the works featured in Dead City season 2 at the Met are not housed there. Most notably the Goya painting which is housed in Spain. This ties Dead City to Daryl Dixson as Goya is the signature artist in the opening credits of DD3.

What could this mean for Beth return? I've been tracking the season 5 replay since season 1 of Daryl dixon. I've always thought that the replay of Slab town would occur after Beth reappears to explain where at least part of where Beth has been this whole time. Could 3x8 of Dead City be that replay? I think it could, but more likely it could be one of those titles with multiple meanings.

In Dead City it could mean the end of New York City's return. The lights could go out in the city as the religious meaning of the word tenebrae would indicate, but it could also include a coda or post credit scene that shows where Beth is, thereby connecting it to Slabtown.

In light of recent sightings of both Norman and Emily in Italy, and all the past connections to Italy including the Up the Wolves song, the many references to the Mona Lisa painted by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, and of course Caravaggio being an Italian artist, we can't rule out a reunion between Beth and Daryl in Italy.

I'm not 100% convinced this is going to be the case, but it's worth taking a look at while we're talking about tenebrae and Caravaggio.

Based upon spoilers and rumors, we know that the US military will be part of Daryl Dixon season 4. According to reports, there is a large naval ship that Daryl saves, perhaps his reward is to be granted a flight to another military installation. There is a rumor that an abandoned air base with signs in English was used for filming. We have the behind the scenes pictures of Daryl on a flight looking excitedly out the window. So, theoretically, if Daryl is flying to another base in the area to meet up with someone in Italy, where would the most likely base be? Below I've included a list of American bases in Italy. The one I highlighted below stands out because Naples was where Caravaggio painted The Denial of Peter. It is another Naval Base like the one in Cadiz and coordinates with other bases throughout the region as a command and supply hub.

As you can see above, Campania can be translated as " happyland ". Now wouldn't it make sense for Daryl to find his happy ending in " happy land".

One final little tidbit tying dead City into the European and Italian location, is the behind the scenes photo taken during filming featuring maggie, negan, herschel, and the croat fighting a rainstorm just outside the Croatian embassy. Remember the Croat tells Maggie in season 2 that he wants to go home to Croatia. Where is Croatia? Next to Italy.

I'm not saying that Dead City season 3 will wind up in Croatia by any means, but I do think it's an interesting connection especially with the storm. I've been waiting for a 5x10 kind of storm for our season 5 replay. Will that storm be it symbolically with the location of Croatia hinting at Italy?

I'm not sure, but I am about 90% sure that these spin-offs are merging and Beth and Daryl will be part of whatever happens next with Dead City, or perhaps it'll be called something new, where Maggie, Negan, Beth, and Daryl will reunite.

Again, I'm not 100% convinced that Italy is where this will end, but it's definitely interesting.

Everything gets a return (flight)....

BUT now today Norman posts a picture that looks like HE is in Italy as well! Hmmmm. Again, another just huge coincidence piling up.

Update! Emily’s latest posts. Where is she now?? Looks like Rome!

Part. II Happy Ending

        It was like a dream, a mirage, to see Beth walking up to their group  across the entry hall of the Guggenheim. He felt Carol squeezing his arm, heard her adamant whispering of his name, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe. It was like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. Electricity shot through his body as if he had been struck by lightning and his legs turned to jelly. It took all his strength to stay upright.

      Sunlight streamed through the museum’s tall windows making Beth glow. At first he thought she was a hallucination like Isabelle had been back at the chunnel, but the light made it clear she was older . He could see the scars, faded on her face. She was real. She was alive. She was beautiful. 

     The dream, the mirage, evaporated when they heard her tale. Shock and disbelief at finding her alive turned to deep guilt and shame when he learned everything that she had gone through. The long buried pain that had kept Daryl from uttering Beth’s name for a decade came roaring to the surface. He longed to question her, to demand she fill in the gaps in her story but he couldn’t speak. He was tongue-tied in her presence too overcome with turmoil to even open his mouth.

        Seeing that Daryl was unable or at least unwilling to talk Carol haltingly told Beth an abbreviated version of how they ended up in Spain, what happened to the family after Grady, who they lost that she knew, and that Maggie had a son and was still alive. This news brought Beth, who had been stoic if not rather pale and drawn until then, to tears. Carol gently reached out and squeezed Beth’s arm while Daryl watched in strained silence.

     “You can always come home with us Beth,” Carol said softly, but Beth vehemently shook her head.

     “You don’t understand the power  of the CRM. They can wipe out whole cities if they want to. It’s better for everyone if I just stay dead,” she said finitely. Fury exploded within Daryl, finally rousing his speech and bringing him to his feet. He contended that they could face the threat together as a family citing the size of the Commonwealth and all the enemies they’d conquered in the past. However, she remained resolute, her blue eyes glinting like steel.  He swore it was the same look she had at Grady before she had stabbed Dawn.

      “I get it now,” the words seem to mock him. He wasn’t looking at the Beth he remembered but the dead girl.

    The sunshine earlier in the day did not prepare them for the onslaught of the storm that erupted around them that night. Thunder cracked and lightning flashed as Daryl lay awake struggling to make sense of the events of the day and his tumultuous emotions. The sense of unreality was still with him along with the guilt and shame he carried but it was his unreasonable rage at Beth’s refusal to return to the United States that made him feel like he was crawling out of his skin. 

       He knew she was trying to protect them and she had a whole community to think about but he couldn’t reconcile Beth,the girl who never gave up looking for her family, with this woman, who didn’t even hesitate at the idea of going back with them. Worse still, despite his anger, the image of Beth glowing in the sunlight appeared again and again in his mind, opening up a hollow place in his chest filled with longing he didn't understand and didn’t want to explore. Letting out a long breath Daryl threw his arm up over his face and tried to sleep.

         The next day they found that the storm had damaged some of the outer buildings and weakened patches of the fences. The storm had also driven more walkers to the Guggenheim necessitating a culling of the herd that had gathered. All hands were needed in the clean up and shifts were organized to deal with the aftermath.  Daryl jumped in to help with the others in his group without being asked, eager to burn off some of the dangerous energy still coursing through him. 

          Throughout the day he would catch glimpses of Beth as she oversaw the mending of the fences or took her turn stabbing walkers and each time the hollow place in his chest would burn. When this happened he would work even harder pushing himself to the brink until sweat was pouring down his back and the tools would slip from his hands.

 Daryl  imagined he felt her eyes on him making the skin on the back of his neck blaze with unwanted heat but when he turned to look she would be busy speaking with a community member or soothing a crying child leaving him feeling foolish and even more pissed off.

      “You wanna  talk to her?” Carol asked hesitantly when she had caught him stealing a glance at Beth for the second time in just as many minutes.

     “Ain’t nothin to talk about,” Daryl growled around the nails he was storing in his mouth and went back to hammering the fence. With unease he realized the burning in his chest told a different story.

      The clean up took several days and  Daryl continued to wrestle with his feelings. Several times Beth approached him but he brushed her off afraid of what might come out of his mouth. He didn’t know if he wanted to berate her or kiss her. Maybe both. This thought scared this shit out of him. 

    Moonshine once again fueled their connection when Beth finally convinced Daryl to catch up over drinks. Daryl arrived at her quarters freshly bathed and anxious.  Beth greeted him warmly, blond hair in waves from her braid down her back, face luminous in the light of the candles that lit her room. The hole in his chest flamed at the sight of her.Their first attempts at conversion proved awkward and stilted until Beth recommended they play “I never,”.

     “Yeh sure? Last time didn’t go so well,” Daryl mumbled, swirling the pungent liquid in his glass.

    “I’m sure,” She assured him with a mischievous smile making  his stomach swoop in response. They started slow and easy, simple statements, tame assumptions, and soon the conversation began to flow along with the moonshine until they were revealing the deeper shit, shit he’d never said to anyone, not even to Carol. He told her about the Dixon curse, how he felt about Laurent, and the dream that died with Isabelle. 

     Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks when she told him her fear of the CRM had kept her from getting close to anyone for long. She told him that even before she remembered her own name she remembered Judith. The memory was almost like a phantom ache, an ache she still had to this day.

      “I thought she was mine,” Beth admitted, smiling softly through her tears. Daryl blinked. 

      “She was yours,” he said simply and her smile brightened. He cleared his throat.

      “Well, you’d be proud of ‘lil ass kicker she ain’t afraid of much, strong, like her parents, ike you. Keeps my ass in line,” he smirks, taking a swig of moonshine. Beth laughed. 

       “I’d like to see that,” she said, taking a sip of her own drink. He set his glass down, hesitant now, he knew he was entering thorny territory but he was unable to stop himself from challenging her. 

     “Yeh can. Yeh just choosin’ not to,”. Her head snapped back as if he had slapped her, color flooding her cheeks.

     “That’s not it. You don’t know. You don’t get it,” she insisted, angry now, eyes flashing.

      “Yer right I don’t get it. Tell me, help me understand.” Daryl urged. Beth glared at him, arms crossed tight across her body. Her entire posture screamed of buried pain.

      “Tell me,” Daryl pleaded, letting his desperation seep into his words. She huffed in exasperation and stubbornly swiped at her eyes.

      “Beth,” he implored. Her blue eyes searched his face for something he didn’t know what but she must have found it because she slowly nodded.

      “Whaddya doin’ ,” Daryl asked, alarmed as Beth stood and went to pull her sweater over her head. She paused.

      “You wanted to know the reason. I’m showing you,” came her muffled reply from within the fleece. Once she had pulled the sweater entirely off  leaving her in just a tank top he could see an arm bandage on her lower right arm. She then began to unwrap the bandage while he waited in silence, his stomach clenched in anticipation of what he might see.

      “This. This is why. This is why they’ll never let me go. They’ll never stop searching and they’ll kill anyone in their way.” she vehemently explained, lifting her arm up to the nearest candle. He took it gently and examined the skin before he hissed out a shocked breath. There was a bite, an old one, long healed over. Fucking hell.

      He listened in horrified silence as she told him about the experiments at Grady, what they had done to her, what she had witnessed.

      “I get it now,” he thought as the gravity of her past hit him. No wonder she was terrified of those bastards. A certainty overcame him then so swift and so complete he swore he felt the ground move underneath him. He stood up suddenly, the force knocking his chair backwards.

      “I ain’t leavin,'" he shouted at her as if she had shown him the door,  “You hear me. I don’t care what shit been done to you.You fucking made it and I made it and that’s all that matters. You ain’t dead Beth. You ain’t dead and I ain’t goin’ back unless yer comin with me,”

         As soon as he said it he knew it was true. This was where he belonged. With her. 

       “I get it now,” the words pounded in his chest in time with his beating heart.

        She stared at him in shock, frozen. Then confusion crinkled her brow.

         “I don’t understand. You were determined to get back to Alexandria. What changed your mind?” she asked, raising a calming hand and taking a tentative step forward. Daryl reached forward and tenderly brushed aside a blond lock that had fallen into her face.

        “You know” he rasped thickly, eyes burning with meaning, and she trembled at  his words. The air seemed to crackle around  them and suddenly she was in his arms and they were kissing fiercely, her hands plunged into his hair and his arms drew her up against the burning pit of his chest that seemed to combust and consume him entirely at her touch. When they finally broke apart he rested his forehead on hers, panting, a faint smile tracing his lips.

         “Oh,” Beth breathed, smiling back shyly.

Pearlie as a firefighter is making my TD spidey senses tingle. Here's why:

First here's a link to my resurrection post. The gist is, as Beth and Rick are parallels, we will see a scene parallel to the one where Rick reappears at the end of TWD. Beth will return surrounded by some of the same elements that were in her last scene, just like Rick.

So, when Beth returns she will need to be by or near a medical facility like Grady and there will be some type of emergency vehicle, perhaps another fire engine, nearby.

Pearlie with the the fireman's hat and the ax are giving me those vibes.

The numbers on his hat, the 781, could be a reference to season 7 episode 8 from the 1st Walking Dead show. In that episode, we see Daryl escape from The Sanctuary with the help of Jesus. He then reunites first with Maggie, then with Rick.

Coincidence? Gimple doesn't allow those.

I think that this is a universe easter egg. This is where we are headed. Beth, as the resurrected figure, will take Jesus' place in the story.

Had to edit to add the insane license plate connections. 781 is on the plate of the Grady car followed by Daryl and Carol in Consumed.

The reverse is on the car Carol and Daryl use.

All credit to @atrumreginablue for that connection in the replies!

If you want more details on the license plate theory, I suggest this post by @frangipanilove.

“There were ideas that didn't make it.”

“Here's all the stuff that I wanted to do 10 years ago.”

“We're gonna take our audience to places that they've never been before.”

How are we feeling TD??? We are more alive than ever!

Another YouTube video! This video includes everything here plus a whole bunch of signature Gala-style ramblings on the topic, which is the TWDU setting of OMAHA ^_^ I've also included the entire post here so you can follow along or just read if you'd like. As usual I am not a pro, so the video is not perfect but I think it gets the job done lol.

Trillium, Haven, Emigrants,

Found/Lost, Imperialis, Genesis, Hourglass, Tenebrae

So Genesis is episode 6 - the AU. Hourglass - you think you have run out of time but you can 'invert' it.

And we end with darkness, approaching Easter!

They talk a little about episode 6.

I'm not sure which red carpet comment they are referring to but I would love to know.

Hey!! Ah I love all questions and theories about "Find Me." Thank you ^_^

You know I never really developed a solid theory about Daryl's wing. But I have thought about it a lot. I don't know if the writers developed a story for the wing. Somebody else might though. I do definitely see it as a symbol of his degraded sense of self, and where he belongs. I could come at it from a couple different angles.

I do think that the wing is largely symbolic. I remember when I first saw "Find Me," I felt strongly that the eroded wing was related to Daryl's eroded sense of self, and a generally eroded grasp on reality and slow descent into madness. I think that much of "Find Me" is about madness. Daryl's psychology is shockingly fragile. I remember the storm being a major tip-off for me. I think the storm happened, but I don't actually think he lost his map. I think he hallucinated that and he then went on to have a full on psychotic break. The jump cuts in the preceding scene when he's stomping on the boat walker's head are a major tip-off that his perceptions are changing. He is not well in these flashbacks, or memories, or whatever they are. The whole episode in and of itself feels like a metaphor in this way. The woods and the river are just these endless mazes of trauma and loneliness with Leah at the center, like a witch, a black hole, a bad memory, a wound. For a long time I didn't think Leah actually existed. I remember theorizing with @wdway and @twdmusicboxmystery that she was a full on hallucination. Of course, we were wrong, but I think that much of Daryl's time with Leah is either misremembered or forgotten entirely.

I agree with you, too, that the eroding wing is definitely related to some sort of loss of his identity, specifically, I think, after Rick, because Daryl was really Rick's "wingman." Shane even calls him as much in 2.12 "Better Angels."

After Merle dies, Rick basically becomes Daryl's surrogate older brother and his leader, and Daryl follows in his shadow for many years. It's important that the first time Daryl is ready strike out on his own and to be the hero of his own story is in "Alone" when he chooses to stay in the funeral home with Beth, and to possibly settle down there. After losing Beth, Daryl goes right back to Rick and to being his brother, and Rick even calls him as much after the confrontation with the Claimers in "A" and I don't know if anyone can really understand what this must have meant to him at the time. But the schism with Rick seems to start after "Coda" and this is not something that is ever explained or even explored. Daryl full breaks from Rick in "Warning Signs" and openly in "The Obliged," and we can see that Daryl is starting to feel stifled by the role as "wingman," even if it's just instinctively, but when Rick "dies," it's too soon and Daryl hasn't actually had the chance to process what this means yet. He's not ready to be on his own, without Rick, with the anchor to the past. He's like a ship lost at sea. So the erosion of the wing is, I think, also related to this, for sure.

I'm not sure how much more footage there might be of "Find Me." I know it was shot during COVID, so everything was very spare and as-needed. I do know that the writers intended a longer arc for Leah and for the Reapers and while I don't think there is anymore "footage" per se, I do think that there might be more story to be told there. For example, where they came from, why they're after Maggie, who they work for, why Lance knows who Leah is and how to find her, and whether they might have some sort of connection to the CRM. Like I have theorized they may have been contracted by Major General Beale or Jadis, basically as bounty hunters, hunting down "threats" like Georgie and Maggie and other self-sustaining communities (ie: Knoxville, which Maggie will not talk about) and eliminating them. I have even theorized that they may have been the ones who eliminated Grady, as Carver at one point mentions a "hospital in Rockville" that they had previously destroyed. If they're willing to destroy and pillage one hospital, well...

Not enough is known about the Reapers, and Pope's monologue in "Rendition" about "politicians," and how, in their final war, "they were coming for us," is certainly a reference to Operation Cobalt and it reminds me of the Radiowaves episode "Conspiracy Theory" in which a crazed man on the radio mentions a US Military protocol called N.O.A.H., which he speculates is a reference to an escape strategy for the President and other high ranking members of the US Government. Pope's story as a military vet of the Korangal Valley in Afghanistan (aka "the Valley of Death") clearly lays out the story of soldiers who feel abandoned by their government.

With rumors circulating that we might encounter the US President, or that a "renewal" of the flagship show may involve a major skirmish between the CRM, The Commonwealth, and the US military, I am once again reminded of Pope's references to "one last war," and how it involves the US government coming for the people. If the president DOES indeed make an appearance, it really makes me wonder where the heck he has been for the past 10-15 years or however long it's been. If he has been in hiding or maybe even imprisoned by the CRM? If this is true, then it stands to reason that Rick might erroneously free him, starting yet another fire with his goodness that he cannot extinguish alone, possibly even giving way to a replay of the Governor's return.

It might be that we never get more information about the Reapers, but I think their story will end up having major ramifications for what's to come. Gimple is a major proponent of Chekov's Gun, and he will always use everything he can use. Everything in his story has a job to do. Now on the note of Leah's hair color and what happened to her place, these are more reasons I initially theorized she was a pure hallucination. There are other things in "Find Me" that make no sense, like why Leah's story inexplicably mirror's Beth's and why she frequently repeats Carol's dialogue, making her feel like a fantasy. I still think that her red hair is an invention of Daryl's memory, that it basically rewired itself as a way of protecting him from the trauma of losing another pretty blond girl in the woods. I think the fact that Leah's hair is basically the same color as Dog's and the very first shot we get of her in which her face and Dog's face are both obscured and conflated could be evidence for this, ie: His memory is just blurring the two.

On the other hand, it could be that the blond hair is the hallucination. We don't actually know. Not a single character comments on Leah's hair at any point. But Daryl does look entirely shocked to see her when she takes her mask off in "Rendition." Like, stunned. And of course we all were, too, because she looks exactly like Beth. Whatever it is, I think it's in Daryl's head, and it is undoubtedly related to Beth and his linger ing trauma over what happened to Beth, because like, Leah looks like Beth.

And yeah I agree it's also really weird how messy and empty Leah's place is. I even remember other fans, not TD-related, questioning how the hell she managed to find a U-Haul truck to come and move out all her furniture and dishes during the apocalypse lol. I mean, the place was EMPTIED. This is another thing that just literally makes no sense, and it's yet another reason I thought she just... wasn't real! But we know now that she WAS real, so, now I just wonder how much of what we see in "Find Me" is real. If they actually lived in that cabin. Or if something else happened entirely. Daryl gets that nasty cut over his eye, for example. We never learn what happened there but it's a scar that he still has! It must be important. Did he and Leah do something together? Something bad? Idk.

There's also this really weird line by Pope in "Rendition," during the POV scene with Leah. Now this is one of a couple scenes that are from Leah's POV, which I think point to foreshadowing about Beth's life and Beth's "hidden" story that we don't yet have. Anyway, Pope says to Leah something about "losing a day of tracking our enemy because you... you had to go on a fishing expedition with an old boyfriend."

Because like, an old boyfriend? What is he talking about? He's clearly talking about Daryl. But what fishing expedition? Is this a metaphor? Is it just purposely vague? Leah was not recently on a "fishing expedition" with Daryl. At this point, I think I calculated it had been like 1-2 years since Daryl and Leah had last seen each other. Everything about this is confusing, because it makes it sound like Daryl was Leah's boyfriend BEFORE he met her in the woods that day in "Find Me." It was actually with this line that I started to lightly theorize that Leah was actually Beth! And that Beth had already come back, and Daryl had simply repressed it, and he couldn't see her. He was hallucinating somebody else. Honestly, I quietly kept up with this theory until the very moment Daryl shot Leah dead. Because up until then, there isn't really a definitive moment in which it becomes clear that she can't be Beth. Even when Maggie refers to her at one point, she doesn't say Leah's name. She just says her. And there are MULTIPLE moments in "Rendition" when we see Leah's face obscured by burlap, or from a distance, or in half-darkness, and in these shots it could just as easily be Emily Kinney as Lynn Collins.

Obviously I was very wrong lol. But like?? As you say there are so many unanswered questions and so many mysteries surrounding Leah and the Reapers. I do hope we get more information about them at some point, maybe even just in an easter egg or something...?

i don't check the tag for a few months and suddenly we have confirmation that dawn wasn't the one who shot beth and also emily has been seen filming for a dream sequence excuse me helloooOOo WHAT ELSE DID I MISS

michonne changed her name to "dana bethune" in towl, right? they've never used a name randomly, so i looked the name up and found a man, norman bethune. appearently, he was an important surgeon back in the day.

he also developed a mobile blood-transfusion service in the spanish civil war. blood-transfusion? spain? 👀

there's also a scottish surname, beaton, that sometimes pronounced as bethune. it belongs to a medical family lived in scotland in the past.

it's quite a coincidence that we saw beth last as a nurse, and then michonne chose a surname that has connections to multiple people in the medicine field in real world.

also, in season 5 or 6, tara confuses denise's name with dana.

denise, who has to become the official doctor of alexandria, is the first dana we've ever heard actually. maybe beth also has to undertake the role of a nurse or a doctor after grady, again.

it seems dana is a name in a few different languages, and they're all related to daniel.