Cinema’s Best Hidden Secrets and A Great Reward to The Walking Dead Fans

Most storytellers in Hollywood have unique arsenal of tools at their disposal that they use to convey their stories. Lenses, music, lights…Etc. But there are some brilliant minds that go further than that and use a new set of tools, and as a consequence they tend to stand out more than their contemporaries.

Let me give you some examples.

The brilliant filmmaker David Lynch for instance tends to use expectation as a tool. Believe it or not, we're still an impressionable species, we often tend to engage emotionally with the scene and David knows that. So what he does is creating characters that at first would appear to be flat and lacking of any depth, and then he sets expectations based on a sub-plot that seems a little two-dimensional and simplistic, and as a consequence you tend to drop your guard down a little… But then all of the sudden, and when you least expect it, he pulls the rug and drops you.

You see, those expectations were in fact nothing but a trap leading to that key moment where all he has to do is to switch the bait, leaving the entire audience in a state of awe.

That being said, this just a small part of his genius as a filmmaker.

British Director Chris Nolan, one of my favorite active filmmakers (you might know him from Inception, The Prestige, Memento, Interstellar..) is another storyteller that uses a special set of techniques, the type that the conspiracy theorists among us may call ‘hiding in plain sight’.

Take for instance The Prestige, the movie starts with a mysterious shot of numerous top hats lying in the woods, and if you’ve watched the movie then you’ll know how relevant those hats are to the development of the story. But he doesn't stop there, he continues throwing these little clues all throughout the movie. In that sense, Nolan has a unique ability to build a plot with so much mystery and momentum that even when he gives you all the clues you remain at the mercy of his script until the very end.

So if you are a little like me, if you enjoy creatively mysterious and engaging pieces of cinema, then I would like to invite you to join me navigate one of television best kept secrets, undoubtedly the TV biggest mystery this summer. As you've probably guessed, it has to do with the wildly successful television phenomena that is The Walking Dead, the most popular basic-cable drama ever made.

I can tell you this: You will not be disappointed. Though I have to warn you, a major spoiler alert is coming your way.

The Walking Dead, Unlocking the Mystery

A couple of months ago, the internet broke after the explosive season six finale where rather than depicting super-villain extraordinaire Negan savagely beating a fan favorite in one of the most expected scenes of television, AMC at the very last moment, shifted their point of view to that of the victim thus ending season six with a cut to black and only the horrifying sounds of the brutal murder.

So you if happen to be a TWD fan but you don’t want to patiently wait until the new season’s premiere next fall, then I think you will enjoy this post quite a bit.

Who wants to know the ending of the cliffhanger?

As the AMC series brought to life Negan's "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" a lot of people began attempting to decipher the selection process, so the producers had no choice but to shuffle things around in terms of the order to hide who was killed by a baseball bat called "Lucille".

The producers later admitted that the shuffle was intentional and was made by design because they had already anticipated that their die-hard viewers would inevitably replay the moment over and over, attempting to determine which one of their favorite characters won’t be returning next season.

The problem is, there are no clues there.

The showrunner Scott Gimple admitted later on The Talking Dead that they shuffled that scene because they knew that “people would be Zaprudering it”, so they made it impossible to figure out the victim just form the eenie meenie.

Zapruder of course relates to the silent color motion picture sequence shot of the Kennedy assassination that was allegedly filmed by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with his home-movie camera.

And since we’re on the subject, mention apart deserves The Talking Dead, yet another example of the genius behind the creators of TDW, the first TV-show in history to launch right out of the gate with its very own podcast attached. They were quick in realizing that we live in the smart phone era, so they played the game to perfection.

As Gary Vaynerchuck often says: "The secret is marketing in the year that we actually live in"

Immediately after the season finale, Chris Hardwick, show-host of The Talking Dead, was in the middle of giving his thoughts on the subject, anticipating that the viewers were inevitably going to try to find out who was killed despite the cliff-hanger, when he was suddenly cut off by Robert Kirkman, the writer and creator of the show who enthusiastically interrupted him by saying this: “As they should! There are definitely clues hidden in there.”

Now the question immediately becomes: What clues was he talking about?

From a Strictly Cinematic point of view

When watching the season finale “Last Day On Eath” I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the first scene started exactly as the last scene ended, with the camera on a point of view mode. In fact that was a recurring theme throughout the entire episode.

The truth is, the signs were always there, and although it was displayed many times, it’s still easy to forget, because rarely did that shot last more than 2 seconds at a time, usually with the protagonist breathing or coughing… up until the big moment, the great cliffhanger, when a fan favorite was killed.

You may remember that shot like this:

In case you were wondering why they kept showing that P.O.V. scene time and time again.

This point of view theory was later confirmed by executive producer Gimple in quite a humorous tone I may add: “Yes, that was the person that died, it was not you the viewer.”

Now, it’s only a matter of figuring out whose point of view was it.

That first person view shot in question turned out to be aimed at a door actually, a door that was finally opened towards the end of the episode revealing a big secret in the process, as the P.O.V sequence showed Daryl (whose head we see in front of us) being escorted out of the van.

So whoever got ‘lucilled’ was definitely in the same van sitting behind Daryl, and so that leaves us with Michonne, Rosita, and Glenn.

Which one do you think?

Foreshadowing And The Art Cinema

Foreshadowing is a highly effective plot device that makes the story more interesting. It consists of an implication or introduction early in the movie of something that will be extremely relevant as the plot unfolds.

It’s a brilliant form of storytelling that enables you to write a twist-ending to your film and then throw in little hints here and there, because let’s face it, surprise still remains and always will be an excellent form of entertainment.

For TV series, foreshadowing can be done not only several episodes in advance but even seasons ahead as well.

Kirkman, being a fan of foreshadowing, often applies this technique, either seasons in advance such as foreshadowing Alexandria in season one, a community that was not introduced until season 5.

Or in the same season, for example when Sophia disappeared Daryl said: "It's not mountains of Tiber, it's Georgia. She can be hold off in a farm house”. Later on, they found her in a farm house…

But what does that tell us about the Lucille scene?

First of all, what do we know about the death scene? That whoever is going to die is going to experience a gruesome death having their heads bashed down with a barbed wire wrapped baseball bat.

If you remember, just a couple of episodes before the infamous death scene, one of our protagonists did in fact stumble upon a tan wall decorated with Polaroids showing the gruesome deaths of Negan's past victims.

Guess who that was?

Matter of a fact, that was not the first time that Glenn’s death-by-baseball bat was foreshadowed in the series. Remember when he nearly received a similar fate just last season?

Needless to say, Kirkman's foreshadowing, the first person view, combined with the fact that Negan ‘allegedly’ doesn’t kill women, and there you have it. Goodbye Glenn!

I totally spoiled this one by the way!

I hope you like this one and if you do like these type of articles, please let me know and I’ll keep them coming.

Best luck to all!