#tfw healthy communication in a relationship makes you soft...

[rockshortage]

I've been thinking a lot about Darryl finally finding out what happens to her son, and while getting over the great war stuff sucked, finding that out would basically be opening a bunch of old wounds and be at least 10X worse. I figure she'd have Derrick and/or Danse with her when she finds out, but is still shook up enough by the time she gets home that she kinda just... lashes out a little, maybe even tries to push away anyone who isn't extremely careful until she can calm down

That led to me imagining that Hector doesn't know what's happened until someone tells him, which means he doesn't really understand why she's not just randomly cold and angry towards him, but also very clearly having a pretty severe emotional breakdown

Yeah I can't imagine that'd be any good for her, no matter how much she's learned to deal with the trauma pre-war. This adds another layer, it's new, it's fresh, and she was not prepared for it. I imagine being so sure that she can handle it and it then turning out that she can't adds another layer of something like indignation? Disbelief, disappointment, anger at herself that she's not able to keep her cool this time? Blaming herself for being in this line of work and endangering her family through it? Of course mostly as a side note to all the shock, anger and grief that the situation itself conjures up, but still. Just a whole lot of really messy emotions.

Hector would probably guess at first that she's "relapsing" into the great war trauma, but it's also kind of clear that this is a whole different beast. He just doesn't know what, until maybe he sheepishly asks Derrick, or maybe just Darryl directly if she's willing/able to share that information. And then again, he just does his best. Can maybe man up a little better this time after he's learned some things from her previous troubles, as well as his own.

#darryl murphey #hector messerli #don't think a vacation is gonna cut it this time lads #i'm just kinda soft at imagining hector trying really hard #and them having that good open communication #like he's just keeping her company at first but feels like it isnt enough #but neither of them really know what /would/ help #so he just tries out different things and she can give him feedback #hector going into problem solving mode and darryl's just. this isn't helping. doesn't feel good #so he says ok and tries something else #gets more open about his own troubles to ease her into talking about it #and some days that's a good strategy. and other days she just can't deal with listening to his problems too #tfw healthy communication in a relationship makes you soft...

[mittensmorgul]

I’ve seen multiple posts about how 13.21 referenced both Stand By Me as well as LotR (I mentioned it here but I know there were other posts that explained it in much more detail in case anyone doesn’t recognize all the references). And I’ve thrown around a couple of comments on how the episode directly referenced a LOT of the first half of s8 of The Walking Dead but I haven’t seen anyone write anything more detailed.

I intended to wait to see how the rest of the season turned out before writing anything more detailed, because this episode was written long before the second half of s8 of TWD was finished airing and I have no idea if Bobo knew spoilers in advance or if he was only using this as a sort of one-off parallel within this episode alone, but thematically there have been a number of other TWD references this season, from all the zombie comments in 13.06 to the Zombie Mom Witch in 13.12.

Anyway, below a cut in case anyone doesn’t want s8 TWD and current Fear The Walking Dead spoilers.

I mentioned in another post that I was essentially convinced by the end of Sam’s opening dream sequence that something terrible was gonna happen to Sam by the end of the episode... because TWD has been using a similar opening scene for a while now. Both on TWD and also on Fear TWD.

Essentially the “dreamer” is dead in every case (the notable unresolved “dreamer” whose fate we aren’t entirely sure of is Madison in Fear, but she’s now also been featured in Nick’s dream in the episode he died in so...)

But I want to focus on Carl’s dream sequences from the first half of s8. Because there were a number of them through the first eight episodes, and it wasn’t entirely clear that they were dreams at first. They seemed to show flashes of a “happy future” where his family was all safe and healthy, living a normal sort of “apple pie” life in their home in Alexandria. His little sister was older, his father had gone a bit greyer and walked with a cane, Michonne was still with Rick and happily being mom to Carl and an older Judith. Basically imagine a Walking Dead version of Sam’s dream, where they’re all around the table safe and happy and just living.

We didn’t really get a full understanding that these were specifically CARL’S dreams until the episode he was bitten (which aired December 10, 2017, so likely while Berens was working on this draft).

Clearly Sam’s “bite” went down a lot different than Carl’s did. But the part of the AU where Sam was attacked bore a lot of resemblance to the area where Carl and Siddiq had been walking together:

Path through the woods with hungry monsters waiting to eat them. But let me back up for a moment and explain why he was even out there.

Kindness.

He lived in a barricaded little town called Alexandria, who have allies in other groups such as The Kingdom (heh), Hilltop, and a broken relationship with a group of women living hidden in a community called Oceanside. All of these groups have been struggling under the oppressive rule of the Saviors (ie that group led by John Winchester Negan and his barbed-wire baseball bat called Lucille that Dean had in 12.15). At the beginning of s8, Carl’s father Rick had essentially been in what Mr. Mittens politely refers to as “kill mode.” They’d been betrayed and suffered heavily from the Saviors, who rule their territory with an iron fist and a steady campaign of terror and intimidation against any group they see as a potential resource.

(they’re basically awful, okay?)

But Carl is an odd duck. He’d spent quite a bit of time talking to Negan (not entirely by choice, because Negan is generally awful, but also had a weird soft spot for Carl, despite having threatened to force Rick to chop of Carl’s arm the first time they all met... it’s a disturbing show, sorry). Rick has never been able to forgive Negan for what he did (not just the psychological torture and threatening Carl, but also killing Abraham and Glen in cold blood just to intimidate and hurt the rest of them, and Maggie will never forgive him for killing Glen-- i.e. the father of her unborn child).

Which brings us to the people TFW+Gabe met in the woods-- a dark-haired woman called Maggie and a dude carrying a baseball bat. Interesting pair, no? Because in TWD if Maggie ever came face to face with Negan she’d claw his face off with her bare hands.

Okay now back to why Carl was in the woods. Back when Rick had been in Kill Mode, they ran across a man in the woods named Siddiq who Carl had wanted to help, but Rick shot at him to scare him away. Rick wasn’t in a mood to trust anyone, and especially not lone strangers in the woods. Carl apologized and began sneaking food out of Alexandria and befriending Siddiq. This went on for 8 episodes... bringing him supplies in secret and learning about the man. Which is what he’d been doing when they were ambushed by walkers.

Meanwhile back at home, one of the Saviors had turned traitor and was secretly helping Rick and his people escape an ambush (heck there’s so much of revenge and deceit involved in explaining Dwight’s motives here... but basically half the season is about revenge, and the fact that getting revenge is just... not worth it... sound familiar?)

So Carl had been out there in the middle of all this danger and (essentially) warfare to do a good deed for someone. And in the fighting, he’d accidentally been bitten by one of the walkers. (Sound familiar?)

The differences between Sam and Carl’s deaths:

Walker bites don’t kill instantly. It can take days to succumb to the infection unless the bite itself proves fatal, and Carl was bitten on his side (think about where Cas got stabbed by the Lance of Michael).

Carl killed the things that “killed him”

Sam’s bite was to a critical artery. If Carl had been bitten on the neck he would’ve been dead in a minute, but they wanted him to live long enough to get home and prepare for his own death. Sam didn’t get that luxury.

Carl didn’t have a handy archangel to resurrect him. Even if it was awful.

He did get to write letters to the people he cared about-- and to Negan-- and say goodbye to his loved ones in person. Sam didn’t. But Sam came back from the dead to address that in person.

Carl met back up with his family in the sewers (tunnels) under Alexandria after escaping the Saviors’ attack

The thing is, Carl had been the Negotiator. He’d been a sort of diplomat between everyone else and Negan, trying to convince everyone to work together rather than keep seeking revenge and trying to kill each other. Just like he’d been nurturing his friendship with Siddiq, and preparing to bring him back to Alexandria despite Rick not wanting him there.

Meanwhile we’ve been seeing hints about the revenge Sam is eager to take out on Lucifer. We saw Dean’s concern about Sam’s motives for helping Gabriel get his revenge against Loki and his children in 13.20, and Dean wanting to take the horrific burden of vengeance and the utter lack of fulfillment it actually provides off Sam’s shoulders.

It’s interesting that the Negan-coded dude (but not entirely, because his baseball bat didn’t have barbed wire wrapped around it) ended up biting it (pffft) in that tunnel and is never mentioned again. Maggie attempts to offer sympathy to Dean for the loss of his friend, but she gets nothing back from him.

Anyway, Carl left some letters behind (which he writes during episode 9, which didn’t air until February 25, 2018, so two weeks before they began filming 13.21 and likely after the script was finalized) and the contents he shared with Rick and with Negan can be read at those links in their entirety. But here’s a few key points:

You have to find peace with Negan. Find a way forward somehow. We don't have to forget what happened, but you can make it so that it won't happen again, that nobody has to live this way, that every life is worth something.

Start everything over. Show everyone that they can be safe again without killing. They can feel safe again. That it can go back to being birthdays, and school, and jobs, and even Friday night pizza somehow, and walks with a dad and a three-year-old holding hands. Make that come back, dad. And go on those walks with Judith. She'll remember them.

I love you.

Carl

and to Negan:

I hope my dad offers you peace. I hope you take it. I hope everything can change. It did for me.

Start over. You still can.

And at this point I’m singing “It’s never too late to start all over again” in my head.

And while all that was happening in TWD, the Saviors were launching firebombs into their town, as we assume there’s gonna be some more AU Angel “fireballs” hitting in 13.22.

The interesting thing about TWD’s season finale (which aired April 15, or four days before 13.23 wrapped filming), is that Rick finally both lucked out (via a timely bit of backstabbing by Eugene, who’d been considered a traitor when he went to work for Negan and had cost multiple people their lives as a result, but he’d rigged all the saviors’ guns to backfire and kill THEM instead of the people the guns were aimed at) AND took Carl’s message to heart.

He had the perfect chance to kill Negan and get his revenge at last, but he bargained for peace instead, in the face of a HUGE swarm of walkers that could threaten them all if they didn’t work together instead of constantly enacting petty revenge wars against each other.

(but Maggie? She still wants revenge, along with a few quiet others... but that’s for next season. For now, there’s an uneasy truce)

I have no idea what this means for anything else going on in SPN, or what lengths Sam, Dean, Cas, Gabriel, Lucifer, Mary, Jack... and everyone else... will be willing to go to to get “revenge” or to stop AU Michael, but I thought this was an interesting parallel between Sam and Carl in this episode.

#spn s13 spoilers #spn 13.21