The Walking Deadembraced silence early on as a narrative tool.
Instead of filling in lulls with dialogue, as many TV shows have done, it bathed in silence.
The mood of a scene could make a bigger impact than any crafted conversation.
Credit: Richard Foreman, Jr/AMC
John Dorie is a man who lives in this silence.
Where we find him now in a flashback episode is his solitary cabin by a river in the woods.
Its not clear how long hes lived here, but hes in a rhythm of a routine.
He sits on his back porch cleaning his two white-handled revolvers that he keeps in a box.
Trenches were dug in the ground out back to deter any walker who might shamble up onto the shore.
Platypus is the one he settles on.
John cant sleep, though.
One night, he hears something by the river.
Though he thinks it to be another one of the dead, he finds Naomi.
Smeared with mud, she lies barely conscious in a canoe, mumbling, I have to get back.
He leaves two butterscotch candies for her on the nightstand as he tucks her into bed.
Her presence breaks his life of silence, though shes hesitant to share her story.
He finds her outside, trying to find keys so she can take his car.
John isnt trying to stop her, though.
He tells her where the keys are above the visor.
Sadly, the engine wont start.
He offers up his home until she gets well enough to leave.
John makes her a partition around the bed and takes the couch so she can sleep.
By daybreak, Johns clearing out two more walkers who found their way to his home from the river.
Laura wants to go with him.
She wants to be able to run.
Rowing along the river, she asks John about his story.
They first head to the store for supplies.
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Before they leave, John goes over to the movie rental part of the store.
Hes been taking out one movie every Tuesday, even signing his name on the clipboard.
This week, he picks outMeet John Doe perhaps a play on his own name, John Dorie.
Later that night, Laura wakes up and finds John having movie night with some popcorn on the couch.
She joins him as his latest rental is playing.
Laura tells John that night as he dozes in and out of sleep that she lost her child.
This seemed like an obvious assumption when she first met Madison and she said she didnt have a daughter.
The next day, Laura asks John to teach her how to fish.
This grief is stoked when they return to the bridge after the walkers had broke through again.
He also sees she had grabbed one of his pistols without his permission.
Theyre attacked again by a walker as theyre parking a car in front of the gap.
Despite her calls, John still refuses to fire his weapon and furiously stabs the walker with Lauras knife.
He tells her later that while he was a policeman, he accidentally killed a robber.
The man turned and the bullet caused him to bleed out.
John then moved up to his cabin because he couldnt deal with other people calling him a hero.
John wakes in the night to see them all coming up from the shore.
He shouts for Laura and starts hacking away at them.
Soon they become overwhelmed and Laura falls into a ditch herself.
The dead are reaching for her when John whips out both his guns.
He tries to keep his distance but ends up professing his love for her.
If youre alive, this whole world feels alive, he says.
But when he wakes up, shes not there.
She finally accepted the boots he gave her and left behind her old sneakers.
On the kitchen table, spelled out in Scrabble letters, are the words, I love you too.
This is the story John has been telling Morgan in the present.
He clutches a small tin that carries those Scrabble pieces and Morgan reminds him that Laura/Naomi still loves him.
He refuses to let John believe Laura is dead and that Alicia must have been wrong.
So they set out with a reignited hope and determination to find her.
