Season 11, Episode 4
- Daryl finds himself a captive of the Reapers.
During the chaos of the Reaper ambush, Daryl is attacked by a particularly violent Reaper who also throws Dog down a ditch. One Reaper stops their cohorts from attacking, eyes wide in shock behind their mask. The next morning, Daryl finds the same Reaper standing with Dog at their side. The Reaper takes off their mask... and reveals themselves to be Leah, Daryl's ex-lover. Daryl is shocked, but when Leah points a gun at him and demands to know if he was with Maggie's group, Daryl quickly claims he was only traveling with them for a week. Leah is unconvinced, and when Dog refuses to leave her side, Daryl is taken prisoner by Leah's cohorts.
Daryl is taken back to Meridian, the Reapers' base they took from Maggie, and briefly interrogated by Leah before he is waterboarded and tortured for information by the other Reapers. Daryl is thrown in a jail cell, and sees Frost in another cell nearby. Frost, groggy from his own torture sessions, asks if Daryl has seen anybody else, but Daryl swears they were not allies and only met each other for a week. Frost catches onto what Daryl's doing and plays along before he's taken away for more interrogation.
Leah and Brandon Carver go to the quarters of Pope, the leader of the Reapers, where they find Bossie has brought back Michael Turner's body after he was killed by Maggie and Negan in the department store. As the Reaper preacher Mancea prays and chants in tongues over Turner's body, Pope demands that the Reapers make Maggie's group feel his wrath.
Leah returns to Daryl and confides her grief over Turner's death, and says she still has feelings for him, and is still hurt that he left. Daryl says he tried to come back to her but she left him. Daryl claims that Maggie's group is preparing to rendezvous with dozens of soldiers nearby to convince her that he is not affiliated with Maggie, and Leah accepts. She goes to Pope and proposes they let Daryl join the group.
Leah later brings Daryl into the interrogation shed, but finds herself locked inside as the shed is set on fire. Daryl finds a way out the window and pushes Leah out before him, and the pair find the Reapers watching. Pope is pleased, and declares Daryl one of their own. He takes Daryl aside and explains that the Reapers are veterans of the War in Afghanistan, and suffered from PTSD and poverty after their tour of duty. They became mercenaries, and when they survived a napalm bombing during the fall, Pope became convinced they were chosen by God to inflict wrath upon innocent people.
The two men join the other Reapers for dinner around a campfire, where Pope accuses Bossie of cowardice since he was injured while Turner died. Pope punishes Bossie by throwing him into the campfire, burning him to death. The Reapers cower in fear but refuse to take any action, Leah included. Daryl watches Bossie's death, knowing he must preserve his cover.
- Apocalypse Cult: The Reapers are shown to be religious cultists who speak in tongues and chant over their dead.
- Badass in Distress: Daryl ends up taken prisoner by the Reapers.
- Bad Boss: Pope is condescending and rude to Leah about her past relationship with Daryl, and is generally an asshole to his subordinates. He nearly has her killed as part of Daryl’s initiation test, and kills one Reaper for apparently abandoning Turner during a fight.
- Blatant Lies:
- Daryl lies to Leah that he wasn’t part of the group to try to buy them as much time as possible. He’s forced to dig his heels in even more as the Reapers begin torturing him for information on them. When he sees Frost is a captive as well, he tells him off claiming to not care about him or the others, well aware the Reapers could be listening to them.
- Leah lies to Pope that she doesn’t still have feelings for Daryl, not long after telling Daryl the opposite.
- The Bus Came Back: Leah returns after her last appearance in Season 10’s “Find Me”.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Reapers begin waterboarding Daryl to interrogate him, and are implied to do the same to Frost.
- Continuity Nod:
- Leah was Daryl’s girlfriend he was revealed to have had during Season 9’s six-year Time Skip in “Find Me”. To compliment her first proper reappearance, she soon holds him at gunpoint with her shotgun.
- Pope executes Bossie by tossing him into the campfire, similar to how Negan killed Dr. Emmett Carson back in Season 7’s “Hostiles and Calamities”.
- With all Pope’s crazy ravings about his gospel, you can’t help but imagine Daryl is reminded of his conversation with Alpha back in Season 9’s “The Calm Before”, where he asked that bald, hostile enemy leader if she fed her sheep a bunch of bullshit as well.
- Dead Guy on Display: The Reapers have walkers hung upside down in their camp in Meridian - one of whom is Agatha, who was killed by walkers last episode.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Frost looks appropriately betrayed when Daryl tells him off. He then realizes it's an act so that the Reapers don't connect Daryl with Maggie and the Alexandrians.
- Evil All Along: Daryl found romance with Leah, only to discover she was a member of the Reapers all along.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: The Reapers are shown to grieve their dead just like anybody else. Leah is also just as loyal to them as she said she was back in “Find Me”.
- Exact Words: Daryl confirms to Leah that the group is far more numerous as a whole than the Reapers… but doesn’t tell how the community is in no condition for a prolonged fight after the Whisperer War.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: An obviously female Reaper tries to stop her fellow Reapers from attacking Daryl and Dog and looks upon them as they flee with wide eyes. The next time we see her, she takes off her mask and reveals herself to be Leah. Her reaction was because she was surprised to see Daryl, and was worried about her people hurting Dog.
- The Reveal: Leah is back and is revealed to be a Reaper - who were the family she spoke of back in “Find Me”.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: With his crazy musings about politicians and God and the war in Afghanistan, Pope and the Reapers fit right into this trope.
- Secret Test of Character: Pope sets fire to Daryl’s holding room to test if he’s worthy to become a Reaper - with Leah inside as well. After Daryl succeeds in escaping with Leah, Pope welcomes him.
- Villain Episode: This episode centers around Pope, Leah and the rest of the Reapers. Daryl is the only protagonist who is in this episode.
- You Have Failed Me: Pope kills a Reaper by throwing him into the campfire as punishment for cowardice.
