21 Blink-and-You'll-Miss-Them Easter Eggs That Have Popped Up in The Walking Dead

In what might be the most obvious Easter egg on the list, AMC has been gradually decomposing the logo in the opening credits since the first season came out in 2010. It reflects the way the show's world, and its walkers, has been deteriorating with each passing season.

There are a whole string of Easter eggs that appear to be callbacks to another AMC hit, Breaking Bad, but let's start with the most significant: Walter White aka Heisenberg's iconic blue meth. In the season two episode "Bloodletting," T-Dog (may he RIP) cuts his arm and it gets infected, prompting Daryl to reveal he has a giant bag full of drugs, courtesy of Merle, that might help. When he pulls it out, you can see what looks like Heisenberg's bright blue drug of choice sitting at the bottom of the bag. Did Merle and Daryl know Heisenberg and Jesse Pinkman before the apocalypse?

Remember when The Walking Dead basically turns into "The Daryl and Beth Show" in season four? Well, during the episode "Still," Daryl tells Beth a story about a time he and Merle were watching cartoons with Merle's drug dealer, who sounds an awful lot like Jesse Pinkman:

"Merle had this dealer. This janky little white guy. A tweaker. One day we were over at his house watching TV. Wasn't even noon yet and we were all wasted. Merle was high. We were watching this show and Merle was talking all this dumb stuff about it. And he wouldn't let up. Merle never could. Turns out it was the tweaker's kids' favorite show. And he never sees his kids, so he felt guilty about it or something. So he punches Merle in the face. So I started hitting the tweaker, like, hard. As hard as I can. Then he pulls a gun, sticks it right here. He says, 'I'm gonna kill you, b*tch.' So Merle pulls his gun on him. Everyone's yelling. I'm yelling. I thought I was dead. Over a dumb cartoon about a talking dog."

A janky little white tweaker who says "b*tch" a lot? C'mon.

In the second episode of season one, Glenn steals a red Dodge Challenger that has distinctive black racing stripes on the hood. Walt buys the same exact car for his son, Walt Jr., in Breaking Bad (which you can see below) before his wife flips out over the purchase and orders him to return it. Walt ends up setting fire to the car instead, but maybe it survives the flames and somehow ends up in Atlanta.

Daryl and Carol spend season five's "Consumed" wandering the ruins of Atlanta in search of Beth and fight their way into an abandoned building. Daryl discovers a big pack of "Morley" cigarettes, which are a fictional brand loved by the Cigarette Smoking Man in The X-Files. Interestingly enough, the cigarette brand has a lengthy history of popping up in TV shows, from as far back as early episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Dick Van Dyke Show, all the way to Friends and (you guessed it) Breaking Bad. For what it's worth, season one and season two character Dale also loves Morley cigarettes, and we see him holding a pack of them at one point on the Greene family farm.

In season four, the group gets separated after they lose the prison, and Beth finds herself wandering alone in the woods. She comes to a clearing and finds a pile of dead bodies, who all look like they've had their brains bashed in. You know who's fond of beating people's brains out? Season seven's new villain, Negan. You know what Negan likes to use to carry out these beatings? A bat wrapped in barbed wire, which he named Lucille. You know what happens to be lying next to one of those corpses? Sure looks like a bat wrapped in barbed wire. As far as we know, it's the first time that the show hints at Negan's existence.

Beth's gruesome findings might be the first clue that Negan is around before his arrival in the season six finale, but it certainly isn't the last. In the season six episode "East," Carl is seen holding a gun in the Alexandria armory that has a bat wrapped in barbed wire etched into its handle.

In the season four episode "Live Bait," the Governor (David Morrissey) stumbles across the apartment of Lilly and Tara, who welcome him in despite his scraggly appearance. Around the 25-minute mark, he can be seen napping on their couch, and with his eyepatch and the embroidered parrot that seems to sit on his shoulder, he looks exactly like a pirate. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Morrisey confirmed that the visual gag was done on purpose. "There was one shot of the Governor, I think when he came back," he said. "He was in his disheveled state with his beard and his hair when he was lying on the couch and a the cushion behind him has a parrot, which was by his shoulder, so that was always quite funny."

In season six, we get a flashback to how Enid ends up at Alexandria after her parents are eaten by walkers. Desperate for food, she kills a turtle and graphically chows down on its raw insides. Not too long after that scene, Morgan is shown practicing his bo staff technique with Eastman (John Carroll Lynch), who's wearing a t-shirt with the words "Save Terrapins" and a picture of a turtle on it. Although we personally think the moments are placed too close together to be mere coincidence, showrunner Scott Gimple denied that it was an Easter egg via Talking Dead. A few eagle-eyed Redditors also seem to think that it's just product placement for Terrapin Beer Co., which brews a TWD-themed IPA. Personally, we find the theory that the character is a reference to Kevin Eastman, the creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the strongest.

Fan favorite Tyreese dies from blood loss in season five's "What Happened and What's Going On," but before he succumbs to his wounds, he hallucinates a radio broadcast from a British man about the zombie outbreak in the car. That British man happens to be none other than Andrew Lincoln. He might nail Rick's Southern accent on the show, but he was born and raised in the UK.

In a scene from season six's "Not Tomorrow Yet," there's a shot of a trio of decapitated heads on the ground, and if you think the one on the right looks familiar, you're not alone. "One of the other heads, I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble if I say this, was Johnny Depp," executive producer Greg Nicotero told Entertainment Weekly after the episode aired. "I think we had sculpted an emaciated version of a dummy head for something and we used Johnny Depp's head as a basis just for a clay sculpt."

What might have been an innocuous piece of set dressing in Father Gabriel's church is actually much more meaningful. When Rick and the rest of his group take refuge with Father Gabriel, the Bible passages posted on a bulletin board are way more significant than you might have noticed the first time around:

Romans 6:4 — We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father.

Ezekial 37:7 — So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Matthew 27:52 — And the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

Revelation 9:6 — During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

Luke 25:4 — In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

Any Resident Evil fans in the house? In a season five scene, we can just make out a symbol on the wall behind Michonne that looks remarkably close to the Umbrella Corporation logo made famous by the film and video game franchise. If Umbrella Corp. was responsible for starting the zombie apocalypse in one universe, who's to say it didn't have a part in this one, too?

As a way to reference Daryl and Carol's relationship, the bow-wielding survivor comes across a heavily decayed, moss-covered walker in season six that has Cherokee roses growing out of its back. If you remember back in season two when Carol's daughter, Sophia, is missing, Daryl tells her a sweet story about the flower and brings her one to lift her spirits. The tender moment is a turning point for Daryl's gruff character, and just seeing the flower four seasons later makes us fall in love with him all over again.

Of all the terrifying moments that go down in Jaws, one of the more shocking jump scares comes courtesy of Ben Gardener, whose severed head pops out from a hole in the bottom of his boat. In season three's fifth episode, we get a look at the Governor's extensive, disturbing collection of heads, all submerged in fish tanks. One of the heads in the upper left tank, which we've circled, is modeled after poor Ben.

The Walking Dead is Robert Kirkman's most popular comic series, but he carved some time out of the season six midseason finale to reference the characters from his Invincible series. You can see the action figures of Invincible, Allen the Alien, Atom Eve, and Omni-Man sitting on Sam Anderson's dresser when the episode starts.