Dove back into the trailer - because what else would one do - and I found something I think is quite interesting. At the beginning the trailer we see Daryl looking at though he’s talking/listening to the person beside him … quite intently I might add.
At the end we have the glorious clip at the end of Carol appearing over Daryl’s shoulder, which to me looks to be the same scene. Carol has changed her clothes so it potentially could be after they get back to the Nest.
I’m totally here to have a deep Caryl conversation right after they get reunited. They way Daryl looks at her when they are talking is reserves solely for her and it completely changes his whole demeanour. I could go on and on about the list of things I’d like them to be talking about but that would take up an entirely other post.
okay, I have a ~theory~ about all the clear shipbaiting on TWD:DD S1
I think NR/GN/Zabel are trying to make Isabelle a 2.0 version of Leah, with hints of Connie and I don't like it one bit because I don't think it's necessary but it's good for canon caryl.
Hear me out: AK original plans for Leah was for her to be a foe for Carol. Everything that Leah was and wasn't screamed Carol. All those parallels on 'Find me'? AK would have been more subtle if she had pointed a neon arrow at both women's head. She would be the final catalyst to canon caryl because, apparently, Daryl and Carol couldn't just solve their feelings for each other without a another angsty plot no one asked for. Anyways, nothing AK originally planned happened because Gimple interfered, and with Lauren negotiating Maggie's return as the leading female of S11A, Melissa was shoved aside and everything about Leah became even more WTF than it already was because Maggie x Pope x Leah made no sense whatsoever. She died with zero emotional impact. Fast forward to the series finale: Daryl confesses his love. Carol clearly doesn't get the depth of what he's saying. Why would she? They never had the resolution they were supposed too within Leah's arc. Daryl interprets Carol's light 'I love you too' as 'she doesn't love me on the same way I love her'. Oblivious idiots in love 101.
Okay, cut to TWD:DD and Isabelle. Isabelle has similar character traits to Carol, although they are not as obvious as it was with Leah. Isabelle's part of a religious group as Leah was. Both groups are a little bit suspicious. Remember Laurent reading to the priest-turned-walker? He said they were waiting for his second coming or something like that. Both Laurent and Isabelle are incredibly reticent on killing walkers. The kid has an excuse: he's just a kid. What is Isabelle's excuse?
Leah was a very manipulative person and tried to guilt-trip Daryl on staying with her. Daryl only decided to 'belong' with Leah after Carol told him that she couldn't visit him anymore because of Henry and Ezekiel. He angrily asked her "you asking my permission?"...to move on from him with her life. Daryl was lost at that moment, grieving Rick, and Carol was married to someone else he saw as better than him and deserving of her. Leah was right there offering him something closer to a home and to love. Why wouldn't he accept her offering? Lucky us, she's already gone by the time he came back. Carol got him out of the woods eventually and he got back to his real family.
Let's go back to Isabelle now. She's trying to do the same thing Leah did. But she's not going to succeed because Daryl's not on the same emotional place he was when he met Leah. Even if he loses hope to come back home at some point, he'll never feel like he truly belongs anywhere else than his truly home - Carol. The teaser trailer for 'The Book of Carol' clearly show us that. He knows where he belongs. BUT, when Carol arrives, she'll see him adjusted, with a younger woman giving him heart eyes and a kid following him everywhere. The woman is supposedly a nun, a woman of faith. Carol was once a religious woman, so she'll probably admire Isabelle. She may think Isabelle's better than her, untouched by all the horrors of the ZA. Isabelle's definitely not a murderer like she is, Carol's low self esteem will whisper to her. Isabelle's better for Daryl than Carol is, the same way Connie was better for him. Daryl's probably in love with her, he just loves Carol as a best friend. And it's her duty as his best friend to point him in the direction of the good woman over there, who can have his babies, while Carol sadly smiles and gives him her blessing. *snort*
There's it, the supposed angsty plot no one asked for that Daryl and Carol need to cross the line to romantic canon because, again, saying 'I love you' and crossing an entire fucking ocean apparently isn't enough, we've got to insert a third part to shake things up. *snort again* That was the intention with Leah but TPTB changed their plans last minute. I don't think Isabelle will become a villain like Leah, unless they kill Laurent off. But if TWD:DD is really about Daryl getting his happy ending, he doesn't need another dead child to grief, does he?
Does this make sense to anyone other than me and my caryl brain? No, only me? That's okay.
The more I think about it, the more “Find Me” feels like an echo of “Ghosts.”
Allow me to explain. In probably the most rambling and incoherent way possible, lol. My earlier post on Twitter about Season 10 being an exercise in grief and longing really got me to thinking. Not just thinking. Ruminating.
Anywho.
Posting the rest of this beneath a cut because nobody asked for this (I swear I haven’t imbibed or ingested any illegal substances).
It doesn’t take long for Carol to be established as an unreliable narrator in “Ghosts.” At first it isn’t completely obvious because there’s just enough fact in the fiction that Carol’s triggered brain stirs up. Daryl’s there and he’s concerned about her. He’s supportive. Both things he’d been before, especially since Henry’s death, but there are just enough elements in those chemically and grief induced hallucinations of hers that make you go--oh wait a minute. Like she’s having a break from reality but she’s desperately grasping for that which grounds her and that’s Daryl.
Am I making any sense here? I feel like I’m not.
Let me approach this from another angle.
Following the airing of “Find Me” various people mentioned that Daryl, similarly to Carol in “Ghosts” wasn’t exactly the most reliable narrator. That things weren’t necessarily as they seemed. The word toxic was bandied about but other than Leah giving Daryl an ultimatum to choose her over his family and Daryl dwelling in deep, longstanding depression? There wasn’t much else overtly deserving of that moniker.
Argh. I’m still not explaining myself well. Let me just jump right in the deep end of probable delusion here. Sometimes it’s fun to splash around, lol.
Wouldn’t it be wild—sad AF but still wild—if Leah was already dead when Daryl met her?
Bear with me here.
Like Carol in “Ghosts” Daryl is obviously struggling. He’s grief-stricken. His brother is lost to him and after he betrayed him no less. His close friend is mired in her own grief--she’s just lost her mate, probably recently discovered she was carrying RJ, and it wasn’t too long before that they had all lost Carl. And that’s not even considering Carol, who’s allowed herself to be pulled away, lured by the tantalizing chance of doing things right this time. Of rearing a child capable of surviving in the harsh world they live in. Another thing to remember is Daryl is not that far removed from his torture at Negan’s hands. So he’s more fragile than he’d willingly admit to anyone.
He’s searching the woods for a man that isn’t there. Now he’s no more aware that Rick was taken than the rest of Team Family, but he’s unwilling to give up hope and so he searches and because Rick’s not there and hasn’t been since shortly after that bridge blew up, Daryl’s doomed to always come up empty. To always feel disappointment. To never have his grief assuaged because as long as there’s no body in the form of a Walker, there’s still hope. Or plausible denial. Take your pick.
He’s tireless in his search. He’s methodical. He plots out the places he’s already scoured on a hand-drawn map. A map that just so happens to get ruined by an awful storm and Daryl seems to reach his breaking point, screaming out into the roar of that storm. Walking through the barrage, the harsh rain and the violent lightning, unconcerned for his safety.
Dude has a bit of a mental break. He’s undeniably emotional.
It’s not long after that he stumbles upon Dog. Or, more aptly, Dog stumbles upon him.
That puppy immediately lightens Daryl’s heavy heart and helping it find its way home gives him purpose. He’s a tracker after all. He could have easily traced Dog’s steps back to that cabin.
Funny that Dog was always coming to him. That he was roaming free in woods that were full of hidden dangers.
I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll but that cabin looked abandoned when Daryl first discovered it. Maybe not long abandoned, but it didn’t look inhabited by the living. And that’s the weird thing. How did that Walker get into the cabin? Did Leah just leave the door wide open for it? Did she also leave the door wide open for Dog to escape? Why was he always such an unaccompanied furry minor?
The thoughts swirling around in my brain, lovelies. They’re going to force me to go back and watch that fucking episode again aren’t they?
My point is that Dog essentially leads Daryl to the cabin. The Walker’s inside and then he stumbles upon Leah, who bursts onto the scene like she wants to be Sarah Connor or something. Daryl ends up in restraints and Leah questions him and ultimately lets him go and WTF, lovelies. Who does that in the ZA? As a woman all alone in a cabin miles from anybody else, in the company of a man she doesn’t know from Adam? If ever there’s a time to have stranger danger...
Right from the start, this chick doesn’t really add up.
So Daryl leaves the cabin. He resumes his search for Rick and he seems to give very little thought to this Leah or the cabin. Until Dog finds him again.
Strange isn’t it that he keeps stumbling back in her path around the times that Carol visits, when she draws further and further from his reach and closer to the fairytale he thinks she’s living at the Kingdom?
Did Daryl ever go to that cabin without following Dog? I can’t remember. The episode was beautifully shot but ultimately too painful to rewatch for my Caryl loving heart.
Anywho.
When Daryl and Carol come upon that cabin in the woods, Daryl’s flashbacks begin. They’re hazy around the edges and not as clearly defined as the moments he spends with Carol. Speaking of the moments he spends with Carol, how coincidinky that so many of them echo his moments with Leah? Or do we have it all backwards? Hmm?
Things are so convoluted sometimes on this fucking show it leads one to question their sanity.
Let me ramble out a few wild thoughts for you lovelies again and you tell me if I’ve completely lost it, lol.
What if Dog was simply an orphaned, abandoned Dog that found Daryl in the woods?
What if Daryl followed the trail Dog had traveled in reverse and stumbled upon the cabin?
What if the cabin was abandoned because Leah was already dead? What if she’d taken her own life? What if Daryl saw the cross/grave outside and the picture inside and his grief-stricken brain conjured up a whole tragic story for this woman, this Walker roaming around inside this house, and she became his coping mechanism? You know. Kind of like Rick did Lori when he had his own break with reality. They’ve all suffered so much, lovelies. They’ve all got PTSD. It’s just manifesting in different ways.
I mean, all of this would fit the label of sad that NR and others have given this little tale. It would even fit toxic because Daryl let grief and loneliness swallow him for a while.
As Carol pulls farther away from him, Leah just keeps popping up more and more.
Daryl essentially loses himself in his own fairy tale only it’s a nightmare painted in soft colors and Leah asking him to choose is basically his own psyche saying to him “do you wanna live here in this fantasy land and numb your pain or do you want to relive the awful reality of Rick being lost and Carol slowly fading from your life day by day?” And at first he’s like, you can’t make me make that choice because Daryl doesn’t want to give up hope, no matter how futile it seems. But then Carol makes what she tells him might be her final visit for a while and anger leads Daryl right back to that fucking cabin and oblivion. Back to the solitude of his tortured thoughts.
That note, lovelies. It felt like by choosing Leah he was choosing a lifetime of being alone more than it did him choosing the hope of a new love. That “find me” for all the world felt like he was willing hope to find him again. Hope in the form of love in the form of Carol.
Listen. I never said this would make sense, lol.
When Daryl gets back to that cabin, Leah is gone. Her picture is gone.
Truly it felt like she’d never been there.
Even more so when you consider how run down the cabin looks in present day when Daryl and Carol seek shelter in it.
I can’t help it. Some small part of me? Well, it thinks that Daryl told Carol about Leah (whether she existed or not) as a way to both make her feel better than he wasn’t out there in those woods completely alone and to maybe move the needle a little bit on the nature of their own relationship. Both in the past and present day.
And while he and Carol are struggling through the ever-shifting nature of their feelings for each other, Daryl has climbed out of his own darkness and found hope again in Judith and RJ. In the family he’s embraced again. In the communities. And he’s angry and unsettled because he wants the same for Carol but she doesn’t seem to want that for herself.
He still wants her to find hope.
He still wants her to find him.
He still wants her to find love and peace.
Help me, lovelies. These two have broken me, lol. I promise. I’m stone cold sober. A little, okay a lot, tired.
Wouldn’t it be wild, though? If Leah really wasn’t what she seemed? If she were a figment of a broken, lonely man’s tortured imagination?
If it's a first kiss, and it's at the end of the series, here is how I can see it going (even though If I were the showrunner I would not write it this way)
Carol is having second thoughts about going away with Daryl. Because she is insecure and feels that he will have doubts about leaving with just her. So she becomes anxious. Wants to run but doesn't because she wants to be a good friend. She worries for his sake. I picture her finding Daryl out on an open road that leads to freedom and she sees him prepping his bike and making sure it's good for the road. He puts his storage away. Sees Carol approaching and frowns. He wonders why she looks so nervous.
Daryl: What's wrong?
Carol: ....
She looks lost in thought. She is trying to arrange in her head how she wants to say these things.
Daryl: Hey.
Carol: Y-yes?
Daryl: ....You alright?
Moment of truth.
Carol: Daryl, maybe this isn't a good idea.
Daryl is confused .
Daryl: The bike?...We can stop for rest in between. New Mexico ain't next door.
She shakes her head. Daryl frowns further.
Carol: It's not the bike. It's this. Me. Maybe I'm not the right one to be accompanying you.
Daryl: What?
Carol: Daryl, it's like you said. New Mexico is far. Really far away. And it will just be the two of us. I was already a burden before with Ed. I remember Rick banishing me from the Prison. What if you get tired of me because of the way I am?
Daryl looks bothered and hurt. He says quietly:
Daryl: I ain't them.
Carol: I know. I mean...because of how I am?
Daryl: ...how you are like what?
Carol shrugs like he should know.
Carol: Leaving. Being reckless....not talking about my feelings, shutting everyone out. Not moving past...my past. My guilt. I can't put you through any of that again.
She sounds very sad. Daryl is looking at her, thinking.
Daryl: So don't.
Carol:...It's not that easy, Daryl.
Daryl: Didn't say it was. Nothing's easy anymore.
Carol: So...
Daryl: So what?
Carol: Don't....don't you think you should have a steady companion?
Daryl thought.
Daryl: Dog's with Connie, now.
Carol: Not that kind of companion, Daryl. I mean a different kind of companion. Like Connie or...
Daryl looks exasperated, slumping against his bike into the seat. His legs are against one side of the bike.
Daryl:. ....Or what?
Carol: Someone that you had something with like Leah.
Daryl: Where is this comin' from?
Carol walks over, gaining more confidence that her idea is a good one for her friend Daryl's sake. She is standing in front of him and he is looking up at her.
Carol: Nowhere, Daryl. I just want to support you and do something for you. You've always done that for me from the time I first met you and you've never stopped. I just want to do the same thing for you.
She is smiling but there is unspeakable sadness there too. Their hair is blowing in the warm wind.
Daryl: Where will you go?
Carol is trying to hold back tears.
Carol: Oh, I'll find somewhere. I can't live at the Commonwealth. It wouldn't feel right.
Daryl: What doesn't feel right?
She wants to say being without him, but doesn't. She wants to make this about him, not her for once.
Carol: Oh, you know. Pretending to be something I'm not to fit in with the crowd.
She gives a little laugh.
Carol: I'm a little too old for that.
Carol: It wouldn't feel right, Daryl. I Should have been doing more
Daryl:....You feel like you'd be pretendin' out on the road?
Carol: No! That's not what I said.
Daryl: then what?
Carol: I just think...it wouldn't feel right for a different reason. Because you're what anyone would want. And I'm what people think they want until they smarten up...sooner or later.
Daryl: ....
Carol: It just wouldn't feel right...I would probably do something to mess everything up for you and you don't deserve that. You deserve better. And Connie-
Daryl slowly and surely leans up to kiss her on the lips, cutting Carol off totally. There is a gasp into his mouth. Her eyes are blown wide open. She felt something transfer into her soul. When he removes his mouth from hers she stares shocked.
Daryl: That feel right?
Carol: *Nods slowly*
Daryl: Good. Now get on the damn bike already, Carol.
Carol smiles and is in tears before scurrying on the back of his bike.
“That feel right?” I love that part! Oddly enough, I can totally see Daryl making the first move.
Thoughts about the table read for the first bonus episode
I’ve had some thoughts stewing in my head since that clip of the table read came out and this post is a product of that. These are my caryl speculations based on that clip. If you don’t want to know spoilers, don’t read below.
So, the little snippet of conversation between Carol and Daryl about Negan is very interesting to me. Carol says that thing about Maggie will never come around on Negan (and why on earth would/should she??) and Daryl asks her if she (Carol) has, which Carol shrugs off. Now, why would Carol be defensive of Negan? One possibility is because she feels in some way indebted to Negan for killing Alpha, or perhaps it’s a form of self-defensiveness in the sense of Carol wants to somehow justify to herself setting Negan free by trying to argue that Negan is changing. I’m thinking that the latter probably hits the nail on the head.
But there is a third possibility that delves much deeper into Carol’s mindset. I am wondering if Carol, in her very warped sense of self right now, thinks that she is similar to Negan. Like, I wonder if she feels like the bad things that she has done are on par with what Negan has done. Thinking about Negan and Maggie and how Negan killed the love of her life, maybe Carol thinks about how she killed Karen (and David), taking Karen away from Tyreese. Perhaps she also thinks that she has taken away the possible love of Daryl’s life (who she incorrectly thinks is Connie) . What Negan did to Glenn (and Abraham) is, of course, utterly different from what Carol did. Negan was smiling and laughing it up as he terrorized Team Family and brutally beat two of their members to death in front of them. While the morality of Carol’s decisions are very questionable, she certainly did not relish or enjoy killing Karen and David. Though her actions in the cave lead to possible harm/death of Magna and Connie, it was certainly not Carol’s intention and she now hates herself for what she did in the cave. She hates killing people (Alpha being the exception), even people who are threatening her. Every person she has killed clearly weighs on her, and it has weighed on her for years.
As I said, what Negan and Carol did are utterly different. But that’s not necessarily how it is in Carol’s mind. She probably feels like she is as much of a monster as Negan is, and maybe that’s why she wants to believe that there is a chance for people to come around on Negan: She wants to believe that the same is true for her. A little sidenote to this is that Carol doesn’t really know what Negan did as she was not there and it’s doubtful that anyone told her the excruciating details of Negan killing Abraham and Glenn that night.
And now I’m going to bring Daryl into this whole equation about Carol and how she might be comparing herself to Negan. Daryl will put up with Negan, and maybe even feels like Negan is trying to be a better person, but there is no way in hell he will ever forgive or forget what he did to Glenn and Abraham and the torture that he endured at the Sanctuary. Daryl knows what a monstrous person Negan was and he would never try to justify it or forgive it. Daryl also knows Carol and while he does not agree with all of her choices, he knows that what Carol did was an attempt to keep the people she loves safe and he knows that she is not a monster. He knows that the things she has done weigh on her conscience.
I would just love it if all of this were to be hashed out between Carol and Daryl. I would love for Daryl to question Carol further about “why are you defending Negan” or maybe he doesn’t even need to ask. Maybe it will just occur to him that Carol is comparing herself to Negan and then Daryl will tell her that they are not AT ALL comparable. Maybe this will finally be the time for Daryl to tell her about what happened that horrible night and what he endured at the Sanctuary. And he will make it perfectly clear to Carol that he does not view her as a monster (which is probably how she views herself and how she thinks others perceive her).
I haven't read a ton of spoilers besides dialogue, so I don't know if this fits with what we know from the scene, but what if...
Daryl starts to go over the cliff with Beta, but Carol is there to haul him back up. Beta falls to his death and Carol helps a slightly injured Daryl up onto the edge and they just collapse in each other's arms. Picture Beauty and the Beast when Gaston falls, except Daryl isn't dying.
So then they're on the ground side by side, breathing hard and he jokes "You still wanna go to New Mexico?" To which she replies, "I'll never have what I want". And he rolls onto his side, props himself up a bit, looks into her eyes and says "You have me". And she's staring back at him thinking, "Do I? Do you mean that the way it sounds?"
I can't stomach the idea that canon won't come until the spinoff. I truly believe this upcoming season will be the beginnings of a Caryl courtship. They can have a lot of time together, just being themselves and doing things that don't include fighting for their lives. They will get to simply be together and enjoy each others company. I have a sneaking suspicion (or maybe just a wish) that we'll start to see Daryl making romantic gestures and all the butterflies that come with a new romance🤞
I too have a sneaking suspicion! Basically, they need to start building towards the spin off. I can’t see it coming out of the blue, after they’ve high fived and sped off on Daryl’s bike! There has to be a lead in to canon and if Daryl’s lovesick puppy eyes tell us anything, it’s that he’s probably pretty close to finally confessing his feelings to Carol. (I’d say her own feelings seem to be simmering close to the surface too.) Once Daryl feels secure that she’s herself again and not going anywhere... without him. They will be both be on the same page for once! Cue all their fun banter and cute flirting, but this time it will actually go somewhere.
The first is from Season 7. Carol confronts Morgan and Morgan holds up a mirror to Carol on things she is running from.
And then the scene with Eugene and Carol. His line at the end almost mirrors what Morgan said to her. Carol has been dreaming of Daryl as her husband y’all!
