The biggest mystery this season on The Walking Dead is not where Rick Grimes has disappeared to, nor why Maggie left The Hilltop. It’s not who all these strangers are on The Hilltop now, nor is it why The Walking Dead replaced Carl Grimes with virtually the same character with different hair.
The biggest mystery this season surrounds the X-scars on the backs of Daryl and Michonne, and The Walking Dead has been surprisingly adept at keeping that secret under wraps. The series itself has been mum about clues; there’s no comic-book counterpart to offer insights; and the cast has also successfully avoided dropping spoilers while giving interviews or appearing on The Talking Dead. Angela Kang has told us that answers will be provided this season using flashbacks, and the title of episode 14, “Scars,” suggests when those answers will come. Kang also suggested that the scars are a crucial part of Alexandria’s history, and suggests that it’s why Michonne has become so isolationist. “It’s definitely something that is a big part now of the backstory of Alexandria and the people there. It’s something that looms large in their minds and has obviously had an effect on them.”
Norman Reedus has also teased the significance of those scars, but did so without giving anything away, except to say that it’s a “really dark, dark secret” and that it involved “crossing lines” with “new people coming into the group” in Alexandria.
In this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Bounty,” Henry also alludes to the scars when speaking to Daryl, and Henry may have offered a small clue. “What about before, in Alexandria?” Henry asks Daryl. “I know what you did before when things went bad there … I saw the scars on your back. I think you know better than anyone what we just sent [Lydia] back to.”
Why would Daryl know better than anyone about being sent back to Alpha, unless those X-scars have something to do with The Whisperers? Have Daryl and Michonne already had a run-in with The Whisperers, a “dark, dark secret” that no one knows about?
I don’t think that Daryl and Michonne met The Whisperers during the six-year time jump. But I do think that they may have met a Whisperer before he became a Whisperer. With only five episodes left this season, there’s one fairly high-profile character that we haven’t really met on the series yet: Beta. Beta is played by Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy), and the thing about Beta in the comics is this: He never takes off his skin mask. As Alpha’s right-hand man, he is also fiercely protective, and the most brutal of all The Whisperers. He will also kill anyone — including other Whisperers — who tries to remove his mask.
If Beta never removes his skin mask, however, it seems a waste to cast a fairly well-known actor like Ryan Hurst in the role, right? Unless, of course, we get to know Beta in flashbacks in Alexandria before he officially becomes Beta. Without giving away his identity, I’ll just say this: There’s a very good reason why Daryl and Michonne may have immediately trusted Beta before he became a Whisperer, and why they would have been quick to invite him into Alexandria. But if his personality had already begun to show the characteristics of Beta, there’s a very good reason to believe that he gave Michonne and Daryl those scars. We don’t know why, of course, but I am guessing that Beta is responsible for the X-scars.
One possible indication of that may lie in the title of last issue of the comics in which Beta appears: “Lines We Cross.”
A full recap of this week’s The Walking Dead will arrive in the morning. More answers to the Scars should arrive in a few weeks.
