Authorial Intent and The Walking Dead
Even though I am completely biased pro-Beth/Daryl now, there was a time when I wasn't. As I explained in my previous post, because I believed Carol/Daryl might happen at some point in this season, when Beth and Daryl ended up as a team, I never expected anything romantic to develop between them.
However, I have very quickly changed my opinion after the last few episodes, and especially this week's sneak peek. I don't know if Beth and Daryl will ever be an official couple (even if they both survive to reunite, plenty of other things could get in the way, including Beth not reciprocating), but I think we can safely say that Daryl has feelings for Beth. Certainly the writers are setting it up that way, or they want us to think so.
"Alone" is just full of moments that can be interpreted romantically. While there is no unambiguous confirmation of the nature of the relationship, the implications are clear. In "Alone":
- Beth and Daryl hold hands (fingers laced, bitches)
- Daryl gives Beth a piggyback ride
- They choose to eat together
- Daryl asks Beth to sing to him
- Daryl carries Beth into the kitchen, bridal style, for no discernible reason ("you're not going fast enough" when you can hear they are like two steps away from the door =/= a good reason...that's called flirting)
- Daryl can't quite tell Beth that she is the reason for his resurgence of faith in humanity
- After Beth is kidnapped, Daryl chases after the car for two days without stopping, and only stopped because he came to a fork in the road and had no idea which way the car went
- With all hope of finding Beth supposedly lost, he collapses on the road and just...stays there, when he must have heard Joe and his gang coming near
If all of this weren't suggestive enough, we have Len or whatever his name is in the sneak peek from next week's episode suggest that Daryl is "walking around like a dead man" because "there's a bitch [that's] got [him] all messed up." He implies that she was just "a piece of tail" to him, and Daryl looks like he's about to cut this asshole when he tells him that if she's "one of the little 'uns" she won't "last too long out here." Of course, Daryl might be taking out his knife to cut up the rabbit, but even so, the first part is more than enough. This trope is so cliche that I am frankly surprised that they would go there, but boy am I happy they did, because it's painfully obvious that Daryl has feelings for Beth.
Yes, you can say that Daryl might be simply sad about losing his last remaining connection to his prison family, you can say that he doesn't like hearing a woman (any woman) be talked about that way, you can say that not being able to protect Beth has made him feel hopeless that things are going to get any better, you can say all of that and a million more excuses, but the fact remains that they went there. They decided to have someone call Daryl out on his feelings for Beth! And the way Daryl reaction makes it clear that the guy hit the nail on the damn head. I don't know what the rest of the clip will be - perhaps Daryl will tell him he's full of shit and deny everything, but that would just make it look like he's in denial...and he's not. Daryl knows how he feels about Beth. He as well as told her when they were having dinner at the funeral home.
This is what I'm talking about with authorial intent: the writers are telling us that Daryl has feelings for Beth. This type of scene, especially following an episode that had all of the shipperfuel that "Alone" did, wouldn't be used unless they wanted us to think this. For example, imagine that Carol and Tyresse got separated, and Tyresse ended up in this gang instead of Daryl. Would Tyresse be depressed the way Daryl is over losing Carol? Can you imagine that guy suggesting that he's upset that Carol is his "piece of tail" and might not make it? If you're watching the same show I am, the answer to all of these questions is obviously: no. And Tyresse was so happy when Carol found them, too, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that he cares about her and she is a friend. But their relationship currently goes no farther than that, and so we won't see a scene like this implying that is does.
I don't know where the writers are planning to go with this, but right now it appears that Daryl has feelings for Beth.
ETA: There is also something to be said about authorial intent and Carol/Daryl. Like Beth/Daryl in the sneak peek, Carol/Daryl has also been emphasized, but the difference in how is extremely important.
In 3x01 and 4x01, we have Carol teasing Daryl about their relationship, and in both cases his reaction is exactly the same: "stop." In both cases this is a humorous moment, with Carol being silly and over-the-top rather than flirtatious. The first time she does this is in the beginning of season 3 after he massages her sore shoulder. I think this is the first and last moment that the two of them considered whether the nature of their relationship was romantic; Carol gives him a little appreciative smile, and he hesitates, and shortly suggests they rejoin the group. That is when Carol suggests, jokingly that they "screw around," and Daryl says, "pffft." When she makes another joke, he actually asks her to stop.
The way I see it, Daryl misinterpreted Carol's little smile and was concerned that she might be taking his small act of kindness the wrong way, which is why he suggested they rejoin the group, ending the moment. Carol picked up on this and decided the best way to make it clear that she wasn't thinking that would be to make the idea of them getting together into a joke. As I said above, this is similar to what happens in the sneak peek, because the relationship is specifically being commented on. However, the sneak peek makes it look like Daryl really has fallen for Beth, whereas Carol's joking seems to answering the question of "will they or won't they" with "lolwut?"
I can't imagine a situation in which the dynamic of the Caryl relationship would suddenly become romantic. It's not as if Carol and Daryl haven't gotten close or had their fair share of development and interactions. If they did have romantic feels, what exactly is stopping them from getting together (at least between the end of the third season and the beginning of the fourth)? Both of them know how likely death is now, so waiting is a terrible idea. Daryl, as opposed to how he was in the first three seasons, is pretty well-adjusted in the beginning of the fourth season. Same goes for Carol. So what is the problem?
To get back to my main point, it's not as if the potential romance is all about shared gazes and silent moments. You literally have it out there in the open, with the characters commenting on it, and not in a way that makes it likely the ship is going to happen. Bethyl, on the other hand, had all of the development over a shortened period of time (two episodes versus two seasons), and then you have the characters commenting on it in a very different way.
To reiterate what I said above, I don't know what is going to happen with Beth/Daryl. However, regardless of whether they get together or not, I think it is very unlikely that Carol and Daryl's relationship will develop into something romantic.