Thanks to one eagle-eyed viewer of Sunday's midseason premiere of The Walking Dead, we're now a little concerned about Daryl Dixon's fate.
You remember that awesome opening sequence when Daryl (Norman Reedus) blew Negan's nasty crew to smithereens with the rocket launcher in the back of the truck? Well, what you may not have noticed—and we certainly didn't—is that right before the massive explosion, in the very upper right corner of the screen, a car appears to drive up, witnessing the incident.
And if that's the case, well, it's probably bad news.
If what we're seeing is a car, and the car there on purpose, then it stands to reason that the witness behind the wheel could be Negan himself, checking in on his crew. Again, this is all one huge if—but if it is Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), that could put Daryl squarely in the ultra-villain's crosshairs. Regardless of whether Negan witnessed the event or not, you can bet that he won't take too kindly to the folks he believes owe him everything they own blowing his men up. Knowing how ruthless he is in the comics—and how heavily his on-screen villainy has been teased by the cast—he's going to want revenge. And if he saw the person who did it? Well, he might start with them.
When Negan meets Rick's group for the first time in the comics books—SPOILER ALERT—he introduces himself in the most horrifying way possible: By introducing his barbed-wired baseball bat Lucille to the sit of Glenn's (Steven Yeun) head, repeatedly. However, late last year, showrunner Scott Gimple previewed some changes to Negan and his Saviors' story, telling EW, "If you have read the comics, there are a lot of moments directly out of the book when it comes to the Saviors. And then some really cool expansions of the comic story. And some hard left turns from the comic story that do eventually wind up with a lot of very familiar small scenes form the book and big scenes from the book."
We've been told well finally meet Negan in the season finale, an episode that Andrew Lincoln had some strong words about. "I felt sick to my stomach when I read the script," he told EW. "It was the first day in the whole six years of working on The Walking Dead that I was late for work because I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't get back to sleep. I was so angry and frustrated and I felt sick. And that was just after reading it."
Could the sharp left turn in the episode mean Daryl's on a collision course with his own mortality? AMC isn't saying. A request to clarify the moment in the midseason premiere wasn't returned as of press time. But on The Walking Dead, nothing is ever accidental. Nothing is ever out of place. And nobody is ever safe.
What do you think about the moment from the midseason premiere? Is Daryl in danger? Sound off in the comments below!
H/t to Uproxx.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.