Every Time the Letter "A" Appears on The Walking Dead — and What It Means

Villain squads come and go on The Walking Dead, but there's one thing most of them seem to have in common: a fascination with the letter "A."

Throughout the series's most recent seasons, the letter-slash-symbol has cropped up in some mighty conspicuous places — most recently, with Jadis painting it on the door of Rick's holding cell at her heap — and although the contexts have been very different, there seem to be a couple of common themes in the scenes involved with the letter's appearance. From physical captivity to tests of humanity, there's a lot to unpack from just a single letter.

Since we don't think they're trying to pull off some massive Pretty Little Liars homage right now, let's take a look at what that alphabetical icon of the show might really mean.

The first appearance comes along in the season four finale — which is actually titled "A" to ensure we don't miss the importance.

Rick, Michonne, and Carl have been wandering around the woods toward Terminus when they cross paths with Daryl and his new pack of biker pals. Things get ugly really quickly, and rather than sitting back and letting Deliverance Dude #2 have his way with Carl, Rick fights (and bites) back by relieving his captor of his carotid before carving Carl's attacker from gut to gullet. Rick's gone ham a lot of times on this show but never quite like this.

Later on in the same episode, the trio finally make their acquaintance with all the Terminus residents, and it doesn't take the good Sheriff very long to piece together the clues — Maggie's poncho, Hershel's pocket watch being worn by people who are decidedly not them — that their farm friends have been abducted. Of course, by then they've already handed over most of their weapons, so they have no choice but to obey when they're herded into a train car bearing the letter "A" on the side.

In the beginning of the season five premiere, we're shown a pair of prior occupants of that same dark box, and — surprise! — it's a flashback of Gareth and his brother, who swear they've only ushered people in to help them. His brother then asks him, "What are we now?" And with the giant red "A" outside, the answer seems clear: they're animals. And now they're on the hunt.

We also see the letter adorning the walls of several buildings throughout the place, including one Rick and the rest leave to help another trapped victim, after Glenn reminds him that's who they are and what they do. (Of course, their rescue effort is in vain because the guy inside is already cuckoo for cocoa puffs, shouting, "We're the same, we're them" before blissfully becoming a walker's lunch).

And if that isn't clear enough, when Carol's about to handle the group's leader, who's got an "A" chilling above her shoulder, the woman justifies her transformation into a purple people eater by saying others have tried to overtake the place before and she's learned, "You're the butcher, or you're the cattle."

A couple of episodes later, Rick and the gang have managed to escape the Terminus deathtrap and find themselves taking shelter in Father Gabriel's church. But they're not done with Gareth just yet, oh no. Gareth and what remains of his hit squad mark the church with a red "A" to intimidate them before making their move.

Their plan backfires spectacularly, of course, and that's when Gareth gets to meet Rick's red machete. By the time the letter crops up in the show again, it's season six and the survivors have found reluctant shelter within the all-too-vulnerable walls of Alexandria.

Jessie's son Sam has a red stamp with the ubiquitous letter on it and uses it as a sort of welcome wagon for the town's new guests. If we didn't know any better, we might think it just means Alexandria. But consider what Carol tells him in the scene when he's holding it: "Your dad used to hit you and he got himself killed. It happened. It's done. You live with it or it eats you up." In other words, she's asking him to table his sense of hurt and anger for the sake of survival, like she's had to do.

Carol sees the "A" one more time in the same episode, after masquerading as a Wolf to fight back against their raid on town. The letter is innocently stamped on her house perch — a gesture Melissa McBride takes to be a moment of sweetness. From the look on her eyes in the scene, she certainly seems to come back from the brink of something at the sight of it. The next time "A" arrives in any form of significance, in season seven, it's not the only letter getting some love on screen.

Daryl Dixon has been captured by Negan and his Saviors (yes, the "Easy Street" earworm days), and he's given a tan sweatshirt with the letter spray-painted across the front and back. As others wear other letters on similarly embellished shirts, he is asked by Dwight to surrender that last little bit of Rick allegiance that's keeping him from assimilating with the Saviors and declaring himself to be, like everyone else, Negan.

Dwight holds Daryl's face to the fence of the Sanctuary's walker moat and says, "Your choice. You could be like them, or me."

The Walking Dead writer Angela Kang has since said that the letter in this episode is meant to represent one of Negan's favorite four-letter words. But given the familiar appeal being made by Dwight, it's hard not to see a larger significance as well. Which brings us to the latest but not least arrival of "A."

After Rick tries to bully his way into a new bargain with Jadis and the Heapsters in season eight, he fails to impress or intimidate her, so she throws him — in his skivvies — into a storage cell. Jadis draws the letter "A" on there in chalk right above what appears to be a breathing hole.

On its surface, the "A-hole" reference is right there, but the moment also ties together many of the common threads associated with the letter so far in the show: (1) Rick's being held in a metal box again; (2) she's stolen his shoes, which is something Gareth would totally do; (3) he's being asked to debase himself but refuses; and (4) he's gonna have to go full Red-Eyed Rick to escape their latest trash zombie monstrosity.

In some way or another, the letter "A" has always been present around someone being trapped — from the obvious situations like Rick's crew at Terminus to the less obvious scenarios, like with Sam holing himself up in his room as soon as danger presents itself because that's been his defense mechanism his whole life. So, the "A" is definitely symbolic of confinement.

On top of that, most of its appearances happen around when someone's having a crisis of humanity, like with Rick giving into his inner rage-a-holic against the bikers and Daryl being pressured to kneel.

It's also worth pointing out that in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the central protagonist is forced to bear the letter as a symbol of her sin. Considering the letter first gains its prominence in the series right around the time Rick absolutely defiles Gabriel's church, there are some parallels there for sure.

Fans of Robert Kirkman's comics may have a sneaking suspicion that Jadis's use of the letter "A" here might have more to do with her potential arrival as the eventual "Alpha," a quiet character who heads up the Whisperers and gives Rick and the gang a LOT of trouble after they deal with the Saviors. But then again, maybe she's just marking her territory with the scrawled mark; she hasn't exactly hidden her desire to get to know Rick in that way, has she?