The Walking Dead: I mean I'M JUST SAYIN' OKAY
Series-wide themes for The Walking Dead, continued! ( S1 & 2 themes here.) Gettin' right down to the real nitty-gritty really this time! Starting with, the big three overarching motifs I've actually noticed: time, water, and signs. (Well, and also using injuries/appearance/behaviour to signal links between characters, but I'll get to that later.)
Time motif:
Time is the most prominent, and also the one with the least ambiguity. Whenever it's mentioned, or a clock or watch featured, the message invariably is: this state will not last, time is running out. Don't take it for granted, you never have the time you expect you do; and in concrete terms, something is coming down the pipe to fuck this situation up, and soon, whether that be in the next few minutes or in the next few episodes. (Not that things don't get fucked up without the helpful hint of the time motif; when it pops up, it seems generally to be flagging unexamined, faulty assumptions about the way things are/how things would continue, and the unwise steps characters have taken (or procrastinated taking) on the basis of those assumptions.)
The count-down clock at the CDC was perhaps the most spectacular instance of this motif, but the most exposition of it, along with commentary-via-reference, comes through Dale, of course, the character most fixated on orderly regulation of life in general and time in particular:
Morales - I gotta ask you, man. It's been driving me crazy.
Dale - What?
Morales - That watch.
Dale - What's wrong with my watch?
Morales - I see you, every day. Same time, winding that thing, like a village priest saying mass.
Jacqui - I've wondered this myself.
Dale - I'm missing the point...?
Jacqui - Unless I've misread the signs, the world seems to have come to an end. At least hit a speed bump for a good long while.
Morales - But there's you, every day, winding that stupid watch.
Dale - Time. It's important to keep track, isn't it? The days, at least. Don't you think? Andrea? Back me up here.
Andrea - *shakes head*
Dale - I like, I like what, um, a father said to son when he gave him a watch, that had been handed down through generations. He said, "I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine or my father's before me; I give it to you, not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it. For a moment, now and then, and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it."
Amy - You are so weird.
*general laughter*
Dale - It's not me. It's Faulkner. William Faulkner. May be my bad paraphrasing....
(1.04)This goodnatured conversation, chewing the fat around the "fish fry" (happily pointing out that no matter what any of the characters want, strive for, or do, ultimately they are still just running out the clock), occurs mere minutes before the camp is overrun with walkers, when Amy, and Jim, get bit, prompting the move to the CDC in search of a cure/hope/something better. Dale, it turns out, is quoting (abridged but hardly paraphrased at all!) The Sound and the Fury, which I have never read but a quick skim of those quotes certainly look ... pertinent. Most especially the rest of what the father had to say upon bestowing the watch, which Dale neglected to include:
Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.(Thanks, Faulkner!)
Meanwhile, when Hershel gives his grandfather's pocket watch to Glenn in 2.11, signifying his blessing on Glenn - in S4 he would tell him he considered him as his own son, not just son-in-law - for Maggie (to whom Glenn had missed the opportunity to say "I love you" back), it carried not any regard for the alcoholic, abusive, estranged father Hershel inherited it from (along with his farm), but the love, strength and goodness of his first wife, Maggie's mother, who redeemed it after Hershel pawned it for a night of drinking, and gave it back to him years later once he dried out. Taken in conjunction with the Faulkner story, it becomes a gift of time, which is the gift of the temporary release from time's tyranny, that once you let the moment go by you can never get it back. When they are all driven from the farm by a huge walker herd in two episodes' time, Glenn carpe diems and tells Maggie he does love her. This is about the only time anyone's come out with really any kind of positive result (notwithstanding the devastating loss of the farm) from the time motif at all.
(Edit: I forgot to say, the flashback at the end of S4 implied that Hershel and Rick had at least partially learned that lesson:
Rick - What time is it?
Hershel - I never know what time it is anymore. Ever since I gave Glenn my watch, it's always "right now" to me.
...
Hershel - It can be like this all the time.
Rick - It's like this now. That's enough.
(4.16)So we'll see how that continues to develop.)
Even Daryl can't fully escape this theme, although the Dixon contra-theme still takes an axe to the rocket-launcher-proof door where it can. The only other time he seriously interacts with it is when he's fumingly helping Beth track down her first drink in the desecrated golf club, after she refuses to let them both sit and stew in the basic survival mode he'd flumped back into after Hershel's death and the devastating loss of the prison and everyone they know. He picks his way through a wrecked hallway and rights a tipped grandfather(!) clock - and only in order to get it out of his way - which (in this world were everything else is winding down) restarts it. He gives its TEMPUS FUGIT inscription a single contemptuous look before turning away (I love that the only time they go that explicit, they do it with the one guy who might not even know what it means, far less care), and when its sudden chiming summons some country club member walkers, he savagely beats and dispatches them with a golf club. (The last one, whose skull Daryl finally tees off, is lying beside a four of clubs playing card. I feel like someone's getting their pun on.) His subsequent adventures with Beth do give him a second chance - metaphorically taking him back to his father's house, coming to terms with and rejecting (and burning down!) the hellhole legacy of his father and his past - restarting the full humanity and mission-of-care he'd attained by the time they lost the prison. However, in the very next episode, the moment he begins to relax and plan how they might be able to live going forward (the first time we ever see him do this, rather than just react to the present necessity), boom, he makes a faulty assumption (although not about the sustainability of their circumstances, but about a stray dog - who he's giving one more chance to come in, to stay, but this time, whoops, it brought walkers on its tail), and boy howdy does it not last. (further thoughts on this in comments below)
Water motif:
This one is ... all over the place (fittingly). Any time there is a mention or image of water, or a body or source of water, including sinks, and bathrooms in general, something specifically to do with the consideration of literal survival - life and/or death - will come up. Major or minor, this often includes the concept of some kind of question or choice, and it is therefore obviously super varied. It also tends to crop up more frequently when the characters are settled somewhere, rather than on the move, when the sign motif comes more into play, but there's still plenty of overlap. From the first thing Rick doing upon getting up from his coma bed being guzzling water from a tap, to (thus far) Daryl wetting his rag for Rick to clean the blood from his beard after ripping out a man's jugular, water marks life and/or death. Sometimes it's intercut, one set of characters with the water immediately followed by the other set discussing life/death/survival. Sometimes it's not a human death but a walker (ie, whether to kill the one in the well or try and get it out alive; it also tends to accompany a scenario of the aftermath of people who've chosen to "opt out" of the apocalypse, or were unable to kill the walker of a loved one; and then there's Jenner's decontamination shower, as behind him the last remnants of TS-19 - and any forlorn hope of a cure - are annihilated).
Some more examples: When Rick confronts Carol over whether she killed Karen and David (to her, being a choice of killing them in order to save lives), she's hauling water; that whole story thread was staged around Carol taking it upon herself to try to repair the water supply to the prison. When Milton is conducting his experiment with Mr Coleman to determine if there are any remnants of the person in the walker, which Andrea is recruited to put down if she deems it necessary, paintings of beach scenes hang around the deathbed. Rick's bid to do whatever it takes to live on Hershel's farm involves wrangling walkers trapped in a swamp into the barn alive; ditto the swamp-trapped walker Carl inadvertantly frees by his choice to play/torment it instead of just killing it, which then goes on to kill Dale. Shane buzzing his hair over a sink, with the shower running next to him, staring into his reflection after having sacrificed Otis to get away from the overrun school with the medical supplies to save Carl's life; this, one episode after discovering a bottled water delivery truck, inundating himself in it, yelling it was like being baptised, man! (then the walker herd shows up). Glenn and Rick cover themselves in walker guts and it starts raining, prompting them to fearfully wonder if the smell of death is still masking their smell of life to the crowd of walkers around them (nope; run!). When Rick finally reaches the hallucination of dead Lori face-to-face, they are standing in the middle of the footbridge over the creek outside the prison. Amy and Andrea, fishing, discover their father taught each of them how to fish completely differently, knowing that Andrea needed to catch/eat them and Amy needed to release them. Carl laughing and joking with Michonne over dry cereal and full water bottles, forgets himself and brings up Judith('s formula to put on the cereal), who they think is dead but is in fact alive. Lizzie playing tag with a walker is viewed through a window as the kettle that was on the stove in the foreground comes to a boil and begins to scream its whistle. And that's not even getting started on The Governor lounging back and contemplating a trophy wall of the heads of walkers and people he's killed floating in fishtanks, or beginning another collection with walker!Pete chained at the bottom of the lake. Abraham argues for abandoning Glenn's search for Maggie in favour of getting Eugene to DC, per Eugene's claim to be able to fix the apocalypse and save the human race - but the water jugs Abraham's carrying slung across him are all noisily empty, so make of that what you will.
And on, and on, and on and on and on. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have caught this one, except for the focus on water sources in the prison (especially the shot of the shower running out as Patrick falls out of frame and dies) and all the wider questioning whether this indicated this was where the flu contagion was coming from (nope) while I was trying to spot the season's theme. The water focus was more to signpost the abundant life the survivors had built there - the huge brimming rain barrels in particular (the first thing we see Rick do that season is liberally splash some on his face, and head into the field for a day of tending his growing crops and livestock symbolising his choice of that life for himself and Carl, rejecting the life of violence/killing, setting up a nice bookend to the brief, futile attempt to wash a man's lifeblood off his face with a rag dampened from a half-empty water bottle at the end of the season). While the contagion progresses and people die, the water supply also dwindles, before finally the prison itself is lost.
Other drinks or liquids don't seem to count, although S4 also introduced mud, saline, and fog as possible variants. The Governor, attempting to flee Martinez's camp with his new fauxmily, is blockaded by a group of literally-stuck-in-the-mud walkers stretching across the crossroads (and yes, characters at crossroads is always symbolic), concludes it's futile, and turns around, setting in motion all the death and destruction (in the name of life) that came next. After which, Michonne wanders aimlessly among the walkers with her walkers-on-leashes camouflage, with dream-flashbacks to her pre-death boyfriend and his best friend, and her small son, her boyfriend questioning why keep on living in this apocalyptic world of horror and death, until he and his best friend end up as the walkers she originally used as camouflage (and her son is nowhere to be seen), until she wakes up to herself and turns around, backtracking to the muddy trail where she'd previously seen and turned away from Rick and Carl's clear footprints. Following their trail to where they'd gone through Joe & Joe Jr's BBQ SHACK, and they'd found supplies, some bottles of water, along with the note
Please do what I couldn't - Joe Jr.and a barricaded walker, Michonne stops at the sight of the note, sinks down brokenly, half-crying, and says,
Mike. I miss you. I missed you even when I was with you. Back at the camp - it wasn't you who did it. You were wrong. Because I'm still here. And you could be too! And he could be.... I know the answer. I know why.She gets up and continues on, finally spotting them inside a house, eating, with Rick taking a drink from one of the bottles of water; when she knocks on the door, Rick spies her through the peephole, sinks down brokenly, half-laughing, and says to Carl,
It's for you.
(4.09)(Confession: I do ship Rick/Michonne like very quiet, non-urgent burning. Her love for Carl and their BroTP is everything that is wonderful, but I am absolutely going to interpret that moment as the "why" also being for Rick - the polar opposite to Mike, so I guess that might make Mike a Rick analogue too? I'm not saying it's definitely supported by the text, but I am saying I do not even care. He just finished her sentence okay.)
As a side note, so far food barely seems to be a thing, survival-wise; its necessity is acknowledged, but nearly always in casual, incidental ways, it has not yet been the cause of serious problems. As Daryl notes
Gotta eat. That's one thing these walkers'n us have in common.
(2.03)Walkers don't need water, don't even seem to register it, and blunder into water bodies that often trap or sweep them away; there is a huge distinction between what water (likewise any concept of life and death) means to living humans and the walking dead. There is virtually no difference between what food means to them both, and if that becomes a theme, it'll be when the other differences between them have been whittled down to very little (perhaps when, say, other living humans are eating people, too, although I still wouldn't necessarily bet on that being S5's theme). Eating together traditionally symbolises fellowship, accord, community; the sharing of food is, on a primal level, partaking the most basic need all people have in common, something we get instinctively. (And walkers, too, gather around food, even though there's no human connection left between them.) The show stages things accordingly to indicate the social relationships - when Jenner sits apart from the group having dinner (Daryl, naturally, ranges around the edges and never sits at the table), or when Hershel's disapproval at the mixing of the two groups enforces a stony silence at the table, we feel in our gut that something is wrong. Joe's group do not share food among themselves; alarm bells (metaphorically) start going off when Rick&co are handed Terminus's BBQ and you viscerally do not want them to eat it (even before it's revealed what it is, even before they catch sight of their people's stuff being used by the Terminus people). But thus far there isn't a theme specific to the show's themes that's being signified in addition.
And yes, indeedy, in the few times Daryl actually interacts with water, the Dixon contra-theme is ducking and weaving and redneck-ninjaing him toward humanity over survival. It's fairly rare, but invariably pointed, nearly always a practical solution to a problem (rather than a posing of any kind of question), and usually paired with the signs motif, which is otherwise fairly unusual. He wets and offers the rag to clean Rick's appearance back to something more human for Carl's sake (and this just after trying to give his own life in place of Rick's, and right before trying to absolve him by saying anyone would have done what he just did; both of the cleansing attempts are only very partially accepted by Rick). When Beth declares she needs a drink in their makeshift bare-minimum SUCK-ASS camp, he tosses a water bottle at her without looking or stopping munching on the "snake jerky" he caught and cooked them; she is not talking about water or caring about survival and takes off on a decidedly non-life-and-death quest, which as noted drags him out of his uber-survivalist funk and back to his humanity, to all the things that matter. When assessing the dust-free "stash" of food which they later come across, with several full jugs of water, he notes the person who put it there could still be alive and therefore they'd only take some, and leave the rest, to which Beth asserts she was right and there are still good people left in the world (unconfirmed). When on a run to get medicine for the stricken prison, having lost their car, amid Michonne and Tyreese grappling with needing revenge for the slaughtering of those they loved, and the walkers of the group-suicided family that owned the mechanic shop they're at, Daryl is sourcing a battery to replace the dead one in the car outside
Bob - Cells look pretty dry.
Daryl - A lil' distilled water'll clear that right up.
(4.04)and brings the car back to life, whilst counselling Bob not to blame himself for the deaths that occurred on the last run they went on, pointing out that he and Michonne were the ones who chose that spot in the first place. (Daryl, counsellor extraordinaire:
*squint* That's bullshit.)When he plunges down the ravine into the river and is nearly killed, both by his own arrow and then walkers (he then uses the hunting arrow that he survived to kill them; Daryl's past = symbolism liek whoa), he has just found Sophia's doll and there's no question whatsoever in his mind - even confronted with Merle's jeering hallucination - of whether to give up on Sophia or his own life, or even recognise that there's any choice between the two; meanwhile giving a demonstration of survival drive as pure as Merle cutting off his own hand, as pure we've yet seen it. (This, before returning to the farm - with the doll still tucked in his belt - and being mistaken for a walker, and surviving being shot in the head.) Arguing with Merle over whether a nearby creek is the Yellow Jacket is entirely a question of direction, nothing to do with life and death, until they get to it and see a family on the roadbridge about to be overwhelmed by walkers; the only question we see Daryl have the entire time is whether to let Merle loot them, after Daryl led them both into the fight and saved the family's lives. (The answer is no.) As they leave the bridge, we see the sign that tells us Daryl was right, it was Yellow Jacket. Basically: it's not a question, it's never a choice, you just figure it out and get on and fucking do.
Signs motif:
Which brings us to the signs motif, the written kind or the indication/evidence kind, which simply signals the activity of humans, and, not always but often, questions of guidance - what direction to take/pursue (hence showing up more often when the group is on the move). Every pre-apocalypse sign is useless, and occasionally dangerous; for example, the map that is first used to "properly organise" the search for Sophia later becomes the reason Lori, looking down to check it, misses the walker in the middle of the road and crashes the car (contra-theme: the pre-apocalypse Yellow Jacket sign later serves to tell us that Daryl's pre-apocalypse-learned tracking was correct (Daryl's past! symbolism!), but he had no need of it at any point). Only signs people have issued since the apocalypse are relevant (except one; we'll get to that), and still only useful as much as you can interpret them; so when we see that map at the beginning of S3, it's covered in notations about the movements of the walker hordes to help Rick's itinerant group navigate them, while the group stands around it and each give their two cents to Rick, who then decides and gives out directions (... except Daryl fucking contra-theme Dixon, who suggests Rick come hunt with him, which then leads the two of them to the prison (on the other side of the creek) and Rick's decision to take it).
S4 really ramped up the written-signs motif once the group is scattered. With the signs to Terminus, it becomes obvious that, just like anything else in human communication, signs can not just be misleading but deliberately lie. However, that doesn't mean they can't still be useful - even before Maggie started smearing messages to Glenn in walker blood, she knew that if he saw the signs to Terminus, he would go there looking for her, knowing she would do the same thing, and she was right. However, it's Sasha, with the disastrous experience of seeking sanctuary in Woodbury, who accurately reads the sign(s):
If it sounds too good to be true....
(4.13)It's life experience that teaches people the familiarity and context to "read the signs". Between the children's happy drawings of Walker Nick, and Lizzie's erratic reactions to human and walker deaths, there were quite a few signs of what was happening with her - and Mika, with her lifelong experience of her sister, had no trouble reading them - but while Carol could see them she only knew how to read them through the experience of losing Sophia, until it was too late. (Mika, incidentally, giving Carol a quick lesson in how to read the fire situation from the smoke they see rising in the distance, as well as earlier identifying for Carol that Lizzie's not weak, she's Messed Up; Carol, who hasn't yet learned to read the difference between her dead daughter and her live ones (the other one of whom similarly can't read the signs of a fire that's died out) would have done well to remember the adage where there's smoke there's fire and maybe could stand to take a closer look at the things Lizzie's been saying and doing.)
Another factor of navigating by signs is that, no matter how useful, without periodic checking and re-evaluating as they pertain to your new position as you go forward (tying back to the necessity to do the same for humanity-vs-survival), it's going to steer you off-course. The most fascinating example of which being The Governor, wandering aimlessly after Woodbury, seeing messages spraypainted on the side of a barn. His eye (hurr) lingers on
Brian Heriot we're at Home---Meet us---we Love you Brian Heriot
(4.06)amongst the other names and messages; when he runs into Lilly and Meghan, he gives himself the name Brian Heriot - someone who, though nothing/no one else was left to do or aim for, was loved by his family. And, having taken that identity, finds he cannot bring himself to relinquish it by refusing the needs of this new vulnerable loving family, can't keep from taking on the role of loving father to Meghan, sharing in/protecting her innocent play (and knocking boots with Lilly while he's at it). Which, of course, careens into a catastophic wreck for everyone involved, because he cannot let go of the fresh chance of Brian's new fauxmily; every time, he is looking back and steering by the identity of a man who was loved (thus taking us through a very rapid replay of what his original ascent (descent) from average, loving family man into The Governor must have looked like). Meanwhile, the post-apocalypse lack of checking/upkeep has buried the very relevant pre-apocalypse sign
WARNING FLASH FLOOD AREA
(4.08)leading The Governor - going by the signs he's learned to read of post-apocalypse patterns - to declare the area safe because it's by the water; when Meghan unearths the sign in her innocent mud-pie play in the mudslide, she also releases the literally-stuck-in-the-mud walker that kills her (symbolism!).
Dixon contra-theme: Yeah, okay. Daryl's a tracker/hunter; signs are far more about survival decisions for him, and with the apocalypse didn't so much as skip a beat, it makes no difference. He's always reading signs for what direction to take/pursue, especially since even when the group's settled he's still ranging out on search missions or supply runs. Nor is there anything to suggest he ever stops reading the signs with people (barring his time with Joe's merry band, which we'll get to in the next part), even if he's not usually inclined to do much of anything about what he reads (ie, Shane's story about Otis). Aside from Yellow Jacket, using the map to more efficiently search for Sophia (succeeding in finding her doll, correctly interpreting that if she's up there, he'd find her - she wasn't, and he didn't), and reading off the (pre-apocalypse!) labels of Merle's antibiotic stash to save T-Dog, the only time he has any interaction with a written sign is Hershel's list of medicine to fetch from the veterinary college:
Bob (a medic) - Y'really want me comin' along?
Daryl - *pats pockets, pulls out list, shows it to Bob* What's that word?
Bob - "Zanamivir".
Daryl - *knowing the value of someone who is fluent in the signs* Yep, we need ya.
(4.03)The one single time he actually entertains/accepts someone's reading of the signs over his own is Beth's interpretation of why someone would be embalming walkers in the funeral home (edit: ... ohh. That's right, there's also a headstone and a thank-you note), factoring it into his assessment of maybe being able to work something out with them. The narrative hasn't yet told us (might not ever) if she was right; as with Bob, Daryl judges her more fluent in the signs than he is, in this case the signs of "good people", but also like Bob that doesn't guarantee that she can correctly act on them. Either way, it did swiftly punish him for letting his guard down. Still, there's some hope to cling to for Beth's fate (she said, hollowly, knowing what show she's watching) since from taking her first drink in a Dixon-approved moonshiner's shack to setting herself to learn as much as she could from Daryl, she miiight have just managed to sneak in under the aegis of the contra-theme (in which case, the red cross sign in the back window of the car that took her might maybe actually pleasegod be played straight).
Beth - Are we close?
Daryl - Almost done.
Beth - How do you know?
Daryl - Signs are all there. Y'just gotta know how to read'um.
(ATTENTION VIEWERS: You like Daryl? You think he's cool? Badass? Why not be like him. He's TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING ASDFGHJKL;LKJHGFDS HEADDESK.)
Beth - What are we trackin'?
Daryl - You tell me. You're the one that wanted to learn.
Beth - Well, something came through here. But the pattern's all zig-zaggy.... It's a walker!
Daryl - Maybe it's a drunk.
Beth - I'm gettin' good at this. Pretty soon I won't need you at all!
Daryl - Yeah. Keep on trackin'.
(4.13)
Aaaaaanndd ... and fucking fuck me, FINE. (How do these get so long?) Part three, soon. I hope.
Time motif:
Time is the most prominent, and also the one with the least ambiguity. Whenever it's mentioned, or a clock or watch featured, the message invariably is: this state will not last, time is running out. Don't take it for granted, you never have the time you expect you do; and in concrete terms, something is coming down the pipe to fuck this situation up, and soon, whether that be in the next few minutes or in the next few episodes. (Not that things don't get fucked up without the helpful hint of the time motif; when it pops up, it seems generally to be flagging unexamined, faulty assumptions about the way things are/how things would continue, and the unwise steps characters have taken (or procrastinated taking) on the basis of those assumptions.)
The count-down clock at the CDC was perhaps the most spectacular instance of this motif, but the most exposition of it, along with commentary-via-reference, comes through Dale, of course, the character most fixated on orderly regulation of life in general and time in particular:
Morales - I gotta ask you, man. It's been driving me crazy.
Dale - What?
Morales - That watch.
Dale - What's wrong with my watch?
Morales - I see you, every day. Same time, winding that thing, like a village priest saying mass.
Jacqui - I've wondered this myself.
Dale - I'm missing the point...?
Jacqui - Unless I've misread the signs, the world seems to have come to an end. At least hit a speed bump for a good long while.
Morales - But there's you, every day, winding that stupid watch.
Dale - Time. It's important to keep track, isn't it? The days, at least. Don't you think? Andrea? Back me up here.
Andrea - *shakes head*
Dale - I like, I like what, um, a father said to son when he gave him a watch, that had been handed down through generations. He said, "I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine or my father's before me; I give it to you, not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it. For a moment, now and then, and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it."
Amy - You are so weird.
*general laughter*
Dale - It's not me. It's Faulkner. William Faulkner. May be my bad paraphrasing....
(1.04)This goodnatured conversation, chewing the fat around the "fish fry" (happily pointing out that no matter what any of the characters want, strive for, or do, ultimately they are still just running out the clock), occurs mere minutes before the camp is overrun with walkers, when Amy, and Jim, get bit, prompting the move to the CDC in search of a cure/hope/something better. Dale, it turns out, is quoting (abridged but hardly paraphrased at all!) The Sound and the Fury, which I have never read but a quick skim of those quotes certainly look ... pertinent. Most especially the rest of what the father had to say upon bestowing the watch, which Dale neglected to include:
Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.(Thanks, Faulkner!)
Meanwhile, when Hershel gives his grandfather's pocket watch to Glenn in 2.11, signifying his blessing on Glenn - in S4 he would tell him he considered him as his own son, not just son-in-law - for Maggie (to whom Glenn had missed the opportunity to say "I love you" back), it carried not any regard for the alcoholic, abusive, estranged father Hershel inherited it from (along with his farm), but the love, strength and goodness of his first wife, Maggie's mother, who redeemed it after Hershel pawned it for a night of drinking, and gave it back to him years later once he dried out. Taken in conjunction with the Faulkner story, it becomes a gift of time, which is the gift of the temporary release from time's tyranny, that once you let the moment go by you can never get it back. When they are all driven from the farm by a huge walker herd in two episodes' time, Glenn carpe diems and tells Maggie he does love her. This is about the only time anyone's come out with really any kind of positive result (notwithstanding the devastating loss of the farm) from the time motif at all.
(Edit: I forgot to say, the flashback at the end of S4 implied that Hershel and Rick had at least partially learned that lesson:
Rick - What time is it?
Hershel - I never know what time it is anymore. Ever since I gave Glenn my watch, it's always "right now" to me.
...
Hershel - It can be like this all the time.
Rick - It's like this now. That's enough.
(4.16)So we'll see how that continues to develop.)
Even Daryl can't fully escape this theme, although the Dixon contra-theme still takes an axe to the rocket-launcher-proof door where it can. The only other time he seriously interacts with it is when he's fumingly helping Beth track down her first drink in the desecrated golf club, after she refuses to let them both sit and stew in the basic survival mode he'd flumped back into after Hershel's death and the devastating loss of the prison and everyone they know. He picks his way through a wrecked hallway and rights a tipped grandfather(!) clock - and only in order to get it out of his way - which (in this world were everything else is winding down) restarts it. He gives its TEMPUS FUGIT inscription a single contemptuous look before turning away (I love that the only time they go that explicit, they do it with the one guy who might not even know what it means, far less care), and when its sudden chiming summons some country club member walkers, he savagely beats and dispatches them with a golf club. (The last one, whose skull Daryl finally tees off, is lying beside a four of clubs playing card. I feel like someone's getting their pun on.) His subsequent adventures with Beth do give him a second chance - metaphorically taking him back to his father's house, coming to terms with and rejecting (and burning down!) the hellhole legacy of his father and his past - restarting the full humanity and mission-of-care he'd attained by the time they lost the prison. However, in the very next episode, the moment he begins to relax and plan how they might be able to live going forward (the first time we ever see him do this, rather than just react to the present necessity), boom, he makes a faulty assumption (although not about the sustainability of their circumstances, but about a stray dog - who he's giving one more chance to come in, to stay, but this time, whoops, it brought walkers on its tail), and boy howdy does it not last. (further thoughts on this in comments below)
Water motif:
This one is ... all over the place (fittingly). Any time there is a mention or image of water, or a body or source of water, including sinks, and bathrooms in general, something specifically to do with the consideration of literal survival - life and/or death - will come up. Major or minor, this often includes the concept of some kind of question or choice, and it is therefore obviously super varied. It also tends to crop up more frequently when the characters are settled somewhere, rather than on the move, when the sign motif comes more into play, but there's still plenty of overlap. From the first thing Rick doing upon getting up from his coma bed being guzzling water from a tap, to (thus far) Daryl wetting his rag for Rick to clean the blood from his beard after ripping out a man's jugular, water marks life and/or death. Sometimes it's intercut, one set of characters with the water immediately followed by the other set discussing life/death/survival. Sometimes it's not a human death but a walker (ie, whether to kill the one in the well or try and get it out alive; it also tends to accompany a scenario of the aftermath of people who've chosen to "opt out" of the apocalypse, or were unable to kill the walker of a loved one; and then there's Jenner's decontamination shower, as behind him the last remnants of TS-19 - and any forlorn hope of a cure - are annihilated).
Some more examples: When Rick confronts Carol over whether she killed Karen and David (to her, being a choice of killing them in order to save lives), she's hauling water; that whole story thread was staged around Carol taking it upon herself to try to repair the water supply to the prison. When Milton is conducting his experiment with Mr Coleman to determine if there are any remnants of the person in the walker, which Andrea is recruited to put down if she deems it necessary, paintings of beach scenes hang around the deathbed. Rick's bid to do whatever it takes to live on Hershel's farm involves wrangling walkers trapped in a swamp into the barn alive; ditto the swamp-trapped walker Carl inadvertantly frees by his choice to play/torment it instead of just killing it, which then goes on to kill Dale. Shane buzzing his hair over a sink, with the shower running next to him, staring into his reflection after having sacrificed Otis to get away from the overrun school with the medical supplies to save Carl's life; this, one episode after discovering a bottled water delivery truck, inundating himself in it, yelling it was like being baptised, man! (then the walker herd shows up). Glenn and Rick cover themselves in walker guts and it starts raining, prompting them to fearfully wonder if the smell of death is still masking their smell of life to the crowd of walkers around them (nope; run!). When Rick finally reaches the hallucination of dead Lori face-to-face, they are standing in the middle of the footbridge over the creek outside the prison. Amy and Andrea, fishing, discover their father taught each of them how to fish completely differently, knowing that Andrea needed to catch/eat them and Amy needed to release them. Carl laughing and joking with Michonne over dry cereal and full water bottles, forgets himself and brings up Judith('s formula to put on the cereal), who they think is dead but is in fact alive. Lizzie playing tag with a walker is viewed through a window as the kettle that was on the stove in the foreground comes to a boil and begins to scream its whistle. And that's not even getting started on The Governor lounging back and contemplating a trophy wall of the heads of walkers and people he's killed floating in fishtanks, or beginning another collection with walker!Pete chained at the bottom of the lake. Abraham argues for abandoning Glenn's search for Maggie in favour of getting Eugene to DC, per Eugene's claim to be able to fix the apocalypse and save the human race - but the water jugs Abraham's carrying slung across him are all noisily empty, so make of that what you will.
And on, and on, and on and on and on. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have caught this one, except for the focus on water sources in the prison (especially the shot of the shower running out as Patrick falls out of frame and dies) and all the wider questioning whether this indicated this was where the flu contagion was coming from (nope) while I was trying to spot the season's theme. The water focus was more to signpost the abundant life the survivors had built there - the huge brimming rain barrels in particular (the first thing we see Rick do that season is liberally splash some on his face, and head into the field for a day of tending his growing crops and livestock symbolising his choice of that life for himself and Carl, rejecting the life of violence/killing, setting up a nice bookend to the brief, futile attempt to wash a man's lifeblood off his face with a rag dampened from a half-empty water bottle at the end of the season). While the contagion progresses and people die, the water supply also dwindles, before finally the prison itself is lost.
Other drinks or liquids don't seem to count, although S4 also introduced mud, saline, and fog as possible variants. The Governor, attempting to flee Martinez's camp with his new fauxmily, is blockaded by a group of literally-stuck-in-the-mud walkers stretching across the crossroads (and yes, characters at crossroads is always symbolic), concludes it's futile, and turns around, setting in motion all the death and destruction (in the name of life) that came next. After which, Michonne wanders aimlessly among the walkers with her walkers-on-leashes camouflage, with dream-flashbacks to her pre-death boyfriend and his best friend, and her small son, her boyfriend questioning why keep on living in this apocalyptic world of horror and death, until he and his best friend end up as the walkers she originally used as camouflage (and her son is nowhere to be seen), until she wakes up to herself and turns around, backtracking to the muddy trail where she'd previously seen and turned away from Rick and Carl's clear footprints. Following their trail to where they'd gone through Joe & Joe Jr's BBQ SHACK, and they'd found supplies, some bottles of water, along with the note
Please do what I couldn't - Joe Jr.and a barricaded walker, Michonne stops at the sight of the note, sinks down brokenly, half-crying, and says,
Mike. I miss you. I missed you even when I was with you. Back at the camp - it wasn't you who did it. You were wrong. Because I'm still here. And you could be too! And he could be.... I know the answer. I know why.She gets up and continues on, finally spotting them inside a house, eating, with Rick taking a drink from one of the bottles of water; when she knocks on the door, Rick spies her through the peephole, sinks down brokenly, half-laughing, and says to Carl,
It's for you.
(4.09)(Confession: I do ship Rick/Michonne like very quiet, non-urgent burning. Her love for Carl and their BroTP is everything that is wonderful, but I am absolutely going to interpret that moment as the "why" also being for Rick - the polar opposite to Mike, so I guess that might make Mike a Rick analogue too? I'm not saying it's definitely supported by the text, but I am saying I do not even care. He just finished her sentence okay.)
As a side note, so far food barely seems to be a thing, survival-wise; its necessity is acknowledged, but nearly always in casual, incidental ways, it has not yet been the cause of serious problems. As Daryl notes
Gotta eat. That's one thing these walkers'n us have in common.
(2.03)Walkers don't need water, don't even seem to register it, and blunder into water bodies that often trap or sweep them away; there is a huge distinction between what water (likewise any concept of life and death) means to living humans and the walking dead. There is virtually no difference between what food means to them both, and if that becomes a theme, it'll be when the other differences between them have been whittled down to very little (perhaps when, say, other living humans are eating people, too, although I still wouldn't necessarily bet on that being S5's theme). Eating together traditionally symbolises fellowship, accord, community; the sharing of food is, on a primal level, partaking the most basic need all people have in common, something we get instinctively. (And walkers, too, gather around food, even though there's no human connection left between them.) The show stages things accordingly to indicate the social relationships - when Jenner sits apart from the group having dinner (Daryl, naturally, ranges around the edges and never sits at the table), or when Hershel's disapproval at the mixing of the two groups enforces a stony silence at the table, we feel in our gut that something is wrong. Joe's group do not share food among themselves; alarm bells (metaphorically) start going off when Rick&co are handed Terminus's BBQ and you viscerally do not want them to eat it (even before it's revealed what it is, even before they catch sight of their people's stuff being used by the Terminus people). But thus far there isn't a theme specific to the show's themes that's being signified in addition.
And yes, indeedy, in the few times Daryl actually interacts with water, the Dixon contra-theme is ducking and weaving and redneck-ninjaing him toward humanity over survival. It's fairly rare, but invariably pointed, nearly always a practical solution to a problem (rather than a posing of any kind of question), and usually paired with the signs motif, which is otherwise fairly unusual. He wets and offers the rag to clean Rick's appearance back to something more human for Carl's sake (and this just after trying to give his own life in place of Rick's, and right before trying to absolve him by saying anyone would have done what he just did; both of the cleansing attempts are only very partially accepted by Rick). When Beth declares she needs a drink in their makeshift bare-minimum SUCK-ASS camp, he tosses a water bottle at her without looking or stopping munching on the "snake jerky" he caught and cooked them; she is not talking about water or caring about survival and takes off on a decidedly non-life-and-death quest, which as noted drags him out of his uber-survivalist funk and back to his humanity, to all the things that matter. When assessing the dust-free "stash" of food which they later come across, with several full jugs of water, he notes the person who put it there could still be alive and therefore they'd only take some, and leave the rest, to which Beth asserts she was right and there are still good people left in the world (unconfirmed). When on a run to get medicine for the stricken prison, having lost their car, amid Michonne and Tyreese grappling with needing revenge for the slaughtering of those they loved, and the walkers of the group-suicided family that owned the mechanic shop they're at, Daryl is sourcing a battery to replace the dead one in the car outside
Bob - Cells look pretty dry.
Daryl - A lil' distilled water'll clear that right up.
(4.04)and brings the car back to life, whilst counselling Bob not to blame himself for the deaths that occurred on the last run they went on, pointing out that he and Michonne were the ones who chose that spot in the first place. (Daryl, counsellor extraordinaire:
*squint* That's bullshit.)When he plunges down the ravine into the river and is nearly killed, both by his own arrow and then walkers (he then uses the hunting arrow that he survived to kill them; Daryl's past = symbolism liek whoa), he has just found Sophia's doll and there's no question whatsoever in his mind - even confronted with Merle's jeering hallucination - of whether to give up on Sophia or his own life, or even recognise that there's any choice between the two; meanwhile giving a demonstration of survival drive as pure as Merle cutting off his own hand, as pure we've yet seen it. (This, before returning to the farm - with the doll still tucked in his belt - and being mistaken for a walker, and surviving being shot in the head.) Arguing with Merle over whether a nearby creek is the Yellow Jacket is entirely a question of direction, nothing to do with life and death, until they get to it and see a family on the roadbridge about to be overwhelmed by walkers; the only question we see Daryl have the entire time is whether to let Merle loot them, after Daryl led them both into the fight and saved the family's lives. (The answer is no.) As they leave the bridge, we see the sign that tells us Daryl was right, it was Yellow Jacket. Basically: it's not a question, it's never a choice, you just figure it out and get on and fucking do.
Signs motif:
Which brings us to the signs motif, the written kind or the indication/evidence kind, which simply signals the activity of humans, and, not always but often, questions of guidance - what direction to take/pursue (hence showing up more often when the group is on the move). Every pre-apocalypse sign is useless, and occasionally dangerous; for example, the map that is first used to "properly organise" the search for Sophia later becomes the reason Lori, looking down to check it, misses the walker in the middle of the road and crashes the car (contra-theme: the pre-apocalypse Yellow Jacket sign later serves to tell us that Daryl's pre-apocalypse-learned tracking was correct (Daryl's past! symbolism!), but he had no need of it at any point). Only signs people have issued since the apocalypse are relevant (except one; we'll get to that), and still only useful as much as you can interpret them; so when we see that map at the beginning of S3, it's covered in notations about the movements of the walker hordes to help Rick's itinerant group navigate them, while the group stands around it and each give their two cents to Rick, who then decides and gives out directions (... except Daryl fucking contra-theme Dixon, who suggests Rick come hunt with him, which then leads the two of them to the prison (on the other side of the creek) and Rick's decision to take it).
S4 really ramped up the written-signs motif once the group is scattered. With the signs to Terminus, it becomes obvious that, just like anything else in human communication, signs can not just be misleading but deliberately lie. However, that doesn't mean they can't still be useful - even before Maggie started smearing messages to Glenn in walker blood, she knew that if he saw the signs to Terminus, he would go there looking for her, knowing she would do the same thing, and she was right. However, it's Sasha, with the disastrous experience of seeking sanctuary in Woodbury, who accurately reads the sign(s):
If it sounds too good to be true....
(4.13)It's life experience that teaches people the familiarity and context to "read the signs". Between the children's happy drawings of Walker Nick, and Lizzie's erratic reactions to human and walker deaths, there were quite a few signs of what was happening with her - and Mika, with her lifelong experience of her sister, had no trouble reading them - but while Carol could see them she only knew how to read them through the experience of losing Sophia, until it was too late. (Mika, incidentally, giving Carol a quick lesson in how to read the fire situation from the smoke they see rising in the distance, as well as earlier identifying for Carol that Lizzie's not weak, she's Messed Up; Carol, who hasn't yet learned to read the difference between her dead daughter and her live ones (the other one of whom similarly can't read the signs of a fire that's died out) would have done well to remember the adage where there's smoke there's fire and maybe could stand to take a closer look at the things Lizzie's been saying and doing.)
Another factor of navigating by signs is that, no matter how useful, without periodic checking and re-evaluating as they pertain to your new position as you go forward (tying back to the necessity to do the same for humanity-vs-survival), it's going to steer you off-course. The most fascinating example of which being The Governor, wandering aimlessly after Woodbury, seeing messages spraypainted on the side of a barn. His eye (hurr) lingers on
Brian Heriot we're at Home---Meet us---we Love you Brian Heriot
(4.06)amongst the other names and messages; when he runs into Lilly and Meghan, he gives himself the name Brian Heriot - someone who, though nothing/no one else was left to do or aim for, was loved by his family. And, having taken that identity, finds he cannot bring himself to relinquish it by refusing the needs of this new vulnerable loving family, can't keep from taking on the role of loving father to Meghan, sharing in/protecting her innocent play (and knocking boots with Lilly while he's at it). Which, of course, careens into a catastophic wreck for everyone involved, because he cannot let go of the fresh chance of Brian's new fauxmily; every time, he is looking back and steering by the identity of a man who was loved (thus taking us through a very rapid replay of what his original ascent (descent) from average, loving family man into The Governor must have looked like). Meanwhile, the post-apocalypse lack of checking/upkeep has buried the very relevant pre-apocalypse sign
WARNING FLASH FLOOD AREA
(4.08)leading The Governor - going by the signs he's learned to read of post-apocalypse patterns - to declare the area safe because it's by the water; when Meghan unearths the sign in her innocent mud-pie play in the mudslide, she also releases the literally-stuck-in-the-mud walker that kills her (symbolism!).
Dixon contra-theme: Yeah, okay. Daryl's a tracker/hunter; signs are far more about survival decisions for him, and with the apocalypse didn't so much as skip a beat, it makes no difference. He's always reading signs for what direction to take/pursue, especially since even when the group's settled he's still ranging out on search missions or supply runs. Nor is there anything to suggest he ever stops reading the signs with people (barring his time with Joe's merry band, which we'll get to in the next part), even if he's not usually inclined to do much of anything about what he reads (ie, Shane's story about Otis). Aside from Yellow Jacket, using the map to more efficiently search for Sophia (succeeding in finding her doll, correctly interpreting that if she's up there, he'd find her - she wasn't, and he didn't), and reading off the (pre-apocalypse!) labels of Merle's antibiotic stash to save T-Dog, the only time he has any interaction with a written sign is Hershel's list of medicine to fetch from the veterinary college:
Bob (a medic) - Y'really want me comin' along?
Daryl - *pats pockets, pulls out list, shows it to Bob* What's that word?
Bob - "Zanamivir".
Daryl - *knowing the value of someone who is fluent in the signs* Yep, we need ya.
(4.03)The one single time he actually entertains/accepts someone's reading of the signs over his own is Beth's interpretation of why someone would be embalming walkers in the funeral home (edit: ... ohh. That's right, there's also a headstone and a thank-you note), factoring it into his assessment of maybe being able to work something out with them. The narrative hasn't yet told us (might not ever) if she was right; as with Bob, Daryl judges her more fluent in the signs than he is, in this case the signs of "good people", but also like Bob that doesn't guarantee that she can correctly act on them. Either way, it did swiftly punish him for letting his guard down. Still, there's some hope to cling to for Beth's fate (she said, hollowly, knowing what show she's watching) since from taking her first drink in a Dixon-approved moonshiner's shack to setting herself to learn as much as she could from Daryl, she miiight have just managed to sneak in under the aegis of the contra-theme (in which case, the red cross sign in the back window of the car that took her might maybe actually pleasegod be played straight).
Beth - Are we close?
Daryl - Almost done.
Beth - How do you know?
Daryl - Signs are all there. Y'just gotta know how to read'um.
(ATTENTION VIEWERS: You like Daryl? You think he's cool? Badass? Why not be like him. He's TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING ASDFGHJKL;LKJHGFDS HEADDESK.)
Beth - What are we trackin'?
Daryl - You tell me. You're the one that wanted to learn.
Beth - Well, something came through here. But the pattern's all zig-zaggy.... It's a walker!
Daryl - Maybe it's a drunk.
Beth - I'm gettin' good at this. Pretty soon I won't need you at all!
Daryl - Yeah. Keep on trackin'.
(4.13)
Aaaaaanndd ... and fucking fuck me, FINE. (How do these get so long?) Part three, soon. I hope.