We found out who the Reapers were really like and they are just as scary as we thought. The Reapers are “God solders” from Afghanistan that have PTSD from the war and were formed because they could not fit into the world after they came back from war. We met their leader, Pope, which seems like a more of a man of God than Gabriel is these days. We also saw a familiar face that we haven’t seen since “Find Me”. Episode 4 underwhelmed me and I thought it was boring at times. If I wanted to see Daryl get captured and toy with his past feelings with Leah for an hour, I would have watched something else. After the strong performance of the first three episodes, “Rendition” was the worst one of the season. I give his episode a 2 out of 5 stars, just for the slight positives of the Daryl and Leah relationship reblooming, Pope’s introduction, and the most important part, Daryl joining the enemy…
Daryl gets captured by the Reapers and see his old partner, Leah, as one of the enemy. I predicted that in my predictions article but everyone could see it coming if you read the synopsis before hand. When Dog and Daryl do see Leah, I found it funny that Dog abandoned Daryl all together and joined Leah’s side. To be fair he was Leah’s dog to begin with, but Leah evens says “I thought he liked you better. I guess I was wrong.” Leah and the other Reapers brought Daryl to a holding cell in the Meridian and began to question him about who he was with and what he knows. In typical Daryl fashion, he doesn’t crack and tell her or anyone else anything about him. He even got waterboarded and still didn’t tell them anything.
However, the important part of the questioning is that Leah thinks that Daryl would be a good Reaper and to follow her lead to “get in”, but he would have to tell her somethings to get Pope’s (Ritchie Coster) approval. She still thinks that Daryl is living alone to this day and his family all died a long time ago, which is what he told her in season 10 “Find Me”. You also see Leah upset at the fact that Daryl left her in the first place, but Daryl told her that he came back to the house and saw that Leah was already gone. Daryl ended up telling her that the people that he was with was led by the woman (Maggie), had a priest (Gabriel), a skinny guy that won’t shut up (Negan). This is important because now the Reapers know who attacked them and Pope will know it is Maggie, with their prior history. Daryl also told Leah that the only reason why we was with them was to trade for supplies and food and only knew them for a week. The only problem with that is while he was in holding, he saw Elijah in the opposite cell. Hand up, I thought Elijah died last week, but he survived and like Daryl, got captured too. Daryl did tell Elijah the plan (sorta) by telling him to keep his mouth shut and to not talk to him. I think Elijah is going to play an important part in this storyline because I think he is going to tell Maggie and Negan about Daryl and they are going to have to rescue them inside the Meridian. For right now, I think that Daryl will want Leah to go with them but Leah is going to die by episode 8, so I don’t think that is going to be possible, but they could always escape together. This is why I think Daryl joined the Reapers, partly to save himself, like how he had to with the Saviors, but mainly for Leah.
The introduction of Pope is fierce, scary, and you see that he is motivated by God. He is named Pope after all… He always does stuff with a purpose and after his test that Daryl completed, asked if he believed in God. What was the test you may ask? Oh it was just lighting a cabin on fire with gasoline with Daryl and Leah inside of it, to see if could get out alive. In typical Daryl fashion, he survives everything and makes it out alive. However, he passed Pope’s test because again, in typical Daryl fashion, he saved Leah first and then went out the window. After he passed Pope’s test, he was in, and officially apart of the Reapers. After Daryl passes, he is invited to eat outside near the fire. You feel the tension near the fire and I knew that someone was going to die outside. An unnamed Reaper carried the Reaper that died in episode 3 from Maggie and Negan back ten miles back to the Meridian. Pope sees that the unnamed Reaper back is hurt and the only way one’s back gets injured is by turning it towards the enemy. This is not the Reaper way so Pope throws him into the fire face down until he dies from all the burns on his body. Daryl now realizing that they don’t put up with anything, has to put on another act to survive the Reapers.