Just saw the episode on Premiere and let me just say that how anyone can see anything here except solid caryl build up is beyond me.
This is all about caryl guys. That “hand hold” in the spoilers between d@nnie? Does not happen. He gives her a tortch and their fingers brush accidentally. That is what the shippers would go crazy for? Nah bro.
Daryl is only worried about one thing this whole episode and that’s Carol. Time and again he’s seen looking for her, comforting her, talking gently to her. He’s got a one track mind and Carol is that track.
“We’ll make it together.”
Sounds like some good foreshadowing to me.
The scene where he saves her from falling off the cliff into the horde after she goes back with the explosives is even sweeter than I imagined because even then, even then, after she promised not to do the thing and did it anyway, he still isn’t mad at her. His voice is still soft. She says Alpha killed her boy (why she went back to blow up the herd) and starts crying and he tells her he knows and to come back with him, giving her fucking heart eyes the whole time. She’s too far gone though, she shakes her head no and reaches back again and that’s when it explodes.
She went in there thinking it would be a suicide mission and she couldn’t let that go, and yet, when she was dangling above the herd she didn’t let herself drop. Maybe because she couldn’t take them with her, but if she wanted to die badly enough it wouldn’t have taken much. Just let go. But she held on, there’s still hope, and then you see Daryl’s hand appear and take hers and it’s honestly a beautifully shot scene.
Some of the above is out of order, but you get the picture.
He only gets upset after they’ve escaped and she’s crying about the others being buried. Asking him to blame her. The way he looks at her, like he’s about to break too, like he can’t keep his own tears in is heartbreaking. And no, I don’t like it’s about c0nnie at all. Not even a little bit. It’s clear to me he’s crying for Carol and in that moment is too overcome to do anything about it so he moves past her and tells the others to go back while he looks for another way in.
Guys, I feel so good about this ep now that I’ve seen it. If you don’t see how much he loves her after this I dunno what to tell you, you might be hopeless ;)