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'Walking Dead' Clears Up Mystery And Plot Hole At The Same Time

There are some mistakes that “The Walking Dead” just can’t fix.

For instance, why didn’t Rick (Andrew Lincoln) just shoot Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in Season 8, Episode 1? Rick went to the Sanctuary to shoot him. Negan was right there, out in the open. Why didn’t Rick, you know, do that?

Or why did Carl (Chandler Riggs) aim a machine gun with his missing right eye? You can’t aim a gun accurately if you have no eye on that side. That’s just science.

Outside of “The Walking Dead” universe, these questions have simple explanations. In the case of Rick, producers probably wanted the season (and his battle with Negan) to be longer than one episode. As for Carl, Riggs admitted to HuffPost that he didn’t feel comfortable switching his holster and aiming with his left eye after his character lost his right. (“It was super weird, so I was just like, forget continuity. That’s just ridiculous.”)

But within the universe of “The Walking Dead,” these things don’t make sense. Fortunately, other possible blunders are fixable.

During the Season 7 episode “New Best Friends,” in which we get to know the junkyard-dwelling Heapsters/Scavengers, fans spotted an unidentified object moving behind Rick as he stood on a trash heap. There were also birds in the background of the shot, but many on Twitter determined the object was moving so fast it had to be a plane or some other type of flying contraption, and the production hasn’t said otherwise.

So, did the show’s production team fail to notice an airplane flying around in the background? Or did Rick miss a potential sign that there’s another organized human society out there? (That would be a big deal in the apocalypse!)

The actress who plays Jadis on the show, Pollyanna McIntosh, wouldn’t say whether it was an error. She told HuffPost in an interview late last year, “I can’t say anything. You either talk about a studio screw-up or you talk about a possible thing that might be part of a story.”

The show did introduce a possible solution to the plot hole in Season 8′s “The Big Scary U.” During that episode, Rick briefly sees a mysterious helicopter as he’s walking to see the Heapsters.

And he’s all like, “Da heck?”

Then it’s gone.

We haven’t learned anything else about this helicopter, but if it has some association with the Heapsters, that detail could also explain away the possible airplane plot hole: Perhaps the object flying behind Rick wasn’t an airplane. It was a helicopter all along.

That takes us to Sunday’s Season 8, Episode 10.

In it, the Saviors head to the junkyard to punish the Heapsters for betraying them and siding with Rick. There, they take the group’s guns and end up only leaving the leader, Jadis, alive to torment her over the deaths of her peeps.

But before all that, they question the Heapsters, asking why they apparently have solar panels and a helipad in the back of the junkyard. Jadis doesn’t give them an answer, just stating that the place is a dump, but all we gotta say is, “Oh, heli-yeah.”

The news of the helipad is basically confirmation that the chopper Rick saw had something to do with the junkyard gang. If so, this could finally explain away the UFO that fans spotted behind Rick.

Why Rick didn’t notice the object in Season 7 is another issue. But one problem at a time, please. As far as the plot hole, we’re going to call this case closed. Court dismissed. As they say on “The Amanda Show,” bring in the dancing lobsters.

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Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Alanna Masterson as Tara Chambler, and Merritt Wever as Dr. Denise Cloyd - The Walking Dead _ Season 6, Episode 12 - Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Alanna Masterson as Tara Chambler, and Merritt Wever as Dr. Denise Cloyd - The Walking Dead _ Season 6, Episode 12 - Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.