Tell It to the Frogs

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

Whew. I'm not gonna lie to y'all, this took forever. My goal with this was to recreate my previous Caryl compilation with 1.) all scenes intact, not missing anything and 2.) much better quality. I ran into many issues that I won't bore you with, but in summary - almost everything here is completely lossless from the original files, aside from S10, which I unfortunately had to reencode to fix a few issues I could not solve no matter how much I fiddled with it. However, it is still much better quality than the previous file I had up! These also have 6CH audio, which means that if you make fan videos and use something like Vegas Pro, you will be able to isolate the spoken audio from the music/random background noises and have better, cleaner voiceovers!

All of the seasons add up to about 123 GB, so I'm sorry that these will take up quite a bit more space than before, but the improved quality hopefully makes up for that! These are not perfect, so please forgive any little framerate bugs or very slight (hopefully) issues with video/audio syncing. I'm aware that the audio for S10 is a bit behind, but hopefully not to an extent that ruins anything - that season gave me quite a hard time, and I'm not really sure how to get it just right. It bothers the hell out of me, so I'm sorry, but I did my best. Otherwise, any issues should be pretty minor, but let me know if you run into anything major.

As always -

Credit is not necessary.

You are free to - and encouraged to - use these for anything creative that your heart desires. Just don't claim that you put these together yourself and I'm happy.

If you want me to see something you made with the scenes, tag me! I love seeing new creations in the tag, so don't be shy.

This is my love letter to y'all. It's not much, but I hope it sparks joy!

(Pssttt, psstt. If you would like episode timestamps for each season, click the link below. It's pretty lengthy and they're not precise, I just did my best.)

She can have gray hair and wear men’s shirts and still be sexy. She can make the same tough decisions that men make, make the same mistakes that men make, and still be attractive.

Carol is nuanced. She’s strong, she’s sexy, she’s dangerous, she’s emotional, she’s powerful, she’s feminine, she’s scary, she’s beautiful.

Referring to the scene where a woman attempts to sexually assault Ash as romantic is a HUGE blunder for AMC's social media accounts, but at the same time, it represents merely a fraction of a very strong disconnect between this show and it's audience.

Portraying sexual assault or any form of abuse in an episode doesn't have to be forbidden. It's a chance to raise awareness, open discussions, and take action against prevalent issues in our culture. That being said, if a creative is going to go in that direction, they should first and foremost be aware that they're doing it, be sensitive to audience triggers, treat the characters enduring it with care, frame any onscreen or offscreen conversations about it in responsible ways and be ready to axe the storyline all together if any of the above is impossible. Zabel and co. check none of those boxes. The scene in question wasn't written to show that men can be victims too, but rather to repeat the show's pattern of portraying women as both manipulative and starved for men's attention.

Daryl and Isabelle are another example of the show's insensitivity. Zabel continuously tried to call the relationship "deep" and "mature" while Norman seemed to go back and forth between teasing a "romantic" arc for them and framing it as a juvenile experiment. Not once have any of the creatives acknowledged the emotional abuse at the center of the relationship. Gaslighting someone into taking responsibility for a child they barely know and later accusing them of being like their monster of a father just because they want to get back to their family is abusive. It's not romantic. It's not mature. Yet, all of the abuse survivors who make up a significant portion of Daryl's fanbase (go figure), the ones who find comfort in seeing Daryl overcome his childhood pain, and the same ones who Zabel, Norman, Nicotero, and AMC don't seem to care about, are stuck with the image of Daryl's first onscreen kiss after 14 years being with someone who perpetuates the cycle of abuse. They're still expected to see it as some sort of milestone for the character when it's nothing more than a retcon.

Then of course, there's Norman's and Nicotero's shameless promotion of a ship involving Daryl and a teenager, which overrides every single thing that made a lot of fans root for Daryl in the first place. It is not normal or romantic to show an older adult man try to be "boyfriend and girlfriend" with a 17-year-old. It is predatory and regardless of how the men in charge perceive things in their own lives, they shouldn't be projecting any harmful ideas onto a character who represents the exact opposite, mainly drawing a female audience as well as a more emotionally mature male audience.

So, yes, the show's biggest issue is that on the creative side, there are several tone deaf and misogynist EPs who write for themselves, not their audience and on the studio side, there's an all-male team of executives, some of whom are only concerned with drawing a younger male audience to a show that doesn't naturally call to them, so they think they have to force it, thereby alienating the audience that already wanted to invest in the show instead of nurturing them.

They may defeat you, burn you, insult you, injure you, and abandon you, but they will not shall not and cannot destroy you, for you, like Rome, were built on ashes, and you, like a phoenix, know how to resurrect.

The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon Season 3 Needs to Decide on Daryl and Carol’s Relationship

Will they or won't they? Daryl Dixon season 3 really needs to make a decision about Caryl once and for all...

By Jeanette WhiteNovember 6, 2024

This Walking Dead article has spoilers for Daryl Dixon.

The desire to see a romantic relationship between Carol and Daryl isn’t anything new, but it has ramped up. Across The Walking Dead and Daryl Dixon spinoff, fans have witnessed friendship bracelets, “I love yous,” and plenty of face-caressing reunions between the two. Carol crossed an ocean to find Daryl in France, and he assured her that he never stopped trying to get home to her. Cute, right? Well, that all depends on who you’re talking to. According to David Zabel, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol showrunner, there’s nothing romantic about it.

When asked about the nature of Carol and Daryl’s relationship in an interview with Collider, Zabel said, “I don’t think it’s romantic,” seemingly attributing the duo’s chemistry to whatever magic exists between Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus behind the camera. This, of course, isn’t the first time Zabel’s spoken against romance. When talking to SFX magazine, he said turning Daryl and Carol into a couple would be a “mistake.”

For “Caryl” shippers, it’s disheartening news. More importantly, it makes The Book of Carol’s romance hints feel a bit like gaslighting. For the series to succeed, it needs to decide what’s going on between Carol and Daryl because, right now, it’s sending mixed messages.

Daryl Dixon’s First Season Made Season 2 Messy

AMC originally conceived Daryl Dixon as a Daryl and Carol spinoff before overseas shooting made Melissa McBride’s inclusion “logistically untenable” for her. While a new direction was necessary, season 1 goes a step further by ignoring Daryl’s past almost entirely. Unlike The Ones Who Live, which delves into Rick and Michonne’s feelings about being separated from each other and their family, Daryl Dixon’s first season establishes Daryl’s bond with Laurent and Isabelle in France. Daryl doesn’t do much lamenting about the gang back home. In fact, he barely mentions them. When Laurent asks about the people Daryl left behind, he responds, “There’s Judith. There’s RJ. There’s a lady named Carol.” We all know Daryl’s tight-lipped, but “a lady named Carol” feels like a pretty big brush-off for someone he said “I love you” to just two months prior.

Watching Daryl choose between the people he just met in France and returning to his found family in the US is painful. The Daryl we know wouldn’t hesitate to return home. Yet, the big choice season 1 desperately pushes for doesn’t matter anyway. Once Daryl and Carol reunite, The Book of Carol kills off Isabelle, making Daryl’s “choice” a whole lot easier. Maybe the series didn’t want to steer into soap opera territory, but it sends a bizarre message nonetheless: Why can’t two women occupy space in Daryl’s life at the same time? The write-off feels like an all too convenient way of pushing Carol and Daryl back into the spotlight, but then, what was the point of season 1? Watching Daryl play reluctant guardian once again didn’t do much in terms of character development. Judith and RJ still exist, after all.

The Book of Carol Sends Mixed Messages

The Book of Carol includes plenty of Caryl moments that aren’t just fantasies of hopeful shippers. The fact that Daryl never returns Isabelle’s “I love you” after telling Carol that he loved her in TWD’s finale practically begs audiences to question his feelings for Carol. Strangers compare them to an “old married couple” and hint at the spark between them. When you toss in the playful banter, the hugging, and all those looks, you get something that feels a lot like romantic foreshadowing. If Zabel is so against romance, why bother including these moments at all? Yes, straight men and women friendships lack representation in entertainment, but the solution to that isn’t depicting a relationship wobbling on the edge of romance. That’s not authentic, either. In fact, it’s harmful.

The best will they/won’t they relationships work because, at some point, the “will they” becomes “they want to, they just haven’t.” This is where Carol and Daryl drip with slow burn potential. Taking the romance route suggests feeling realizations are underway. However, following Zabel’s path of friendship, ironically, makes things a lot more complicated if the spinoff keeps dolling out interactions like this.

Norman Reedus says that “when you become a leading man on a thing, there are certain leading man things you do."

Sure, but if a leading man actually wants to be respected as a leader, there are certain things a leading man should and should not do.

What a leading man should do...

Have his character’s best interest at heart

Respect the aspects of his character that his fans watch for

Handle different opinions and constructive criticism professionally

Be an ally for his female costars who aren’t “entitled” to the same privileges that white male stars are, especially for the female costar and EP who has been involved with the show/franchise as long as he has

Value that female costar’s opinions, listen to her, raise her up, treat her as his equal, and make sure the other men in power are doing the same.

Support change when something or someone is getting in the way of all of the above

What a leading man should not do…

Approve and/or insist on drastic changes to his character, his character's history, and his character's relationships to better fit a personal agenda

Shift blame to everybody else around him, including his female costar who had nothing to do with certain bad decisions, instead of taking responsibility for them himself

Mock his fans who only ever wanted a good story for their favorite characters and have been trying to voice their concerns in good faith for almost three years

Compete with his female costar using the Gimple method, sabotaging her storyline, sidelining her, letting her scenes get cut, stealing her signature weapon, etc.

Claim the title of the show and top billing for himself when he knows and maybe because his female costar and EP who has been involved with the franchise/show as long as he has is coming back

Co-conspire with the other men in power while keeping the only female EP in the dark on decisions they don't want her to weigh in on

Let the other men in power dismiss what the only woman in power has to say

Double, triple, and quadruple down on bad decisions, bad writing, and bad writers despite wave after wave of backlash

Repeatedly change the narrative in interviews as though he assumes the audience is stupid and can't tell when he's lying

Keep the damage control rolling out instead of pushing for positive change behind the scenes