This latest mystery on The Walking Dead has me feeling like I'm watching Lost again, pouring over details and analyzing symbols. Walkers marked with "W" on The Walking Dead have shown up on the last couple of episodes. With so many questions and so few answers, you start to flip things inside out. The folks at Wetpaint mentioned the fan theory that the "W"s are actually "M"s that stand for Morgan. You know, like a post-apocalyptic Zorro. It's a crazy theory, but it just might work.
Personally, I think the most interesting thing about these markings is how they got there. Walkers aren't exactly known to sit still long enough for you to leave your mark on them, unless that mark is a sharp blow to the brain area. Inanimate corpses with carvings on them makes sense, a still stumbling mostly dead Walker does not. Even Michonne's "pets" had to be rigged to be harmless when she dragged them around. So whomever is doing this either:
- Is able to get away quickly without being bit.
- Marks bodies before they turn, either while still living or dead.
The second option is definitely scarier. If this is the mark of a serial killer or new menacing group of survivors, it's almost certainly a warning. Albeit, a slow warning that's not very clear. Still, I wouldn't want to encounter such a person.
However, you know who would probably be able to carve an already turned Walker and get away quickly? Morgan Jones. The last time we saw him, Morgan was wearing some pretty heavy duty face armor. It seemed only necessary for traveling on the road alone, but what if that armor had a second purpose? We also know that he has a knife and isn't afraid to use it.
Our first association with carved symbols this season came from Morgan's reappearance, so it's likely that he's connected to this somehow. What would this symbol mean? He can't be marking a path, that's unpredictable and inefficient. Is this some kind of Fame thing? Does he want everyone to remember his name? Morgan wasn't gripping too well with reality in Season 3, and what we've seen of him so far in Season 5 doesn't prove anything either way.
What if Morgan, or whomever is doing this, has become a sort of Walker Rights Activist and is practicing mercy on them by letting them go free? It's bound to happen sooner or later, and the existential theory that the survivors and the Walkers are no different has been tossed around a few times already this season. Granted, this sort of thinking got Lizzie shot in the head by "Scarol," but the little girl couldn't have been the only person left in the world who felt sorry for the undead.
No matter what, we're going to see Morgan sooner or later. He may be on foot, but he's hot on our survivors' trail. Maybe everybody's new favorite bromance, Daryl and Aaron, will pick him up on one of their recruiting missions. In the comics, of course, he's already with the group at Alexandria. I can't imagine how Morgan will fit in at the Alexandria Safe-Zone, though. If Rick Grimes, who has been around other people for most of his time in this world, had trouble acclimating to normalcy, then Morgan is in for a big shock.
Images: Gene Page/AMC (2)
