Taylor Swift’s Patient Zero Tells Two Different Stories

Podcast Episode: October 14, 2026

What happens when Taylor Swift’s lyrics tell one story, but her music video seems to tell another?

In this Patient Zero analysis, we’re unpacking the lyrics before examining the music video frame by frame to discover what changes when we put the two stories side by side.

How has Taylor adapted her own lyrics for the screen? What changes when she transforms the song into a ghost story? And how do the video’s visual choices reshape our understanding of the words?

Let’s look beyond the lyrics to explore how Taylor builds a story across two different mediums, and what we discover when we read them together.

✏️ In this episode, we’ll discuss: 

  • The hidden reason Taylor transformed Patient Zero into a ghost story
  • The influence of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
  • Taylor’s obsession with wordplay (double entendres, puns, multiple & layered meanings) 
  • Color symbolism in the video, and in Taylor’s larger cinematic universe
  • How Taylor transforms her metaphors on screen (“toxins” vs poison, “killing you” vs murder, etc) 
  • That ambiguous ending…and who is buried in the graveyard
  • And so much more! 

Listen to the Episode

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🎤 Other Songs Discussed in this Episode

Episode Transcript

“Taylor Swift is back, and she has given us not one, but two editions of her new single, Patient Zero. One is a song and one is a music video, and these are telling two completely different tales. If you only listen to the song, you would think that Taylor was telling a story about a toxic ex, you know, warning his new girlfriend about what a troublemaker he is.

But then she made the music video, and suddenly there’s an entirely different story happening on screen. There’s this cold, brutalist mansion and a graveyard in the snow, and Taylor’s ghost trying to save the new wife from getting murdered. She’s created this whole fictional world that brings her lyrics totally new meaning.

So in today’s episode of the Swiftly Sung Stories podcast, I’m gonna go through Taylor’s lyrics, and then I’m gonna go through the new music video. And I’m gonna see where these two different stories take us. Why would she tell us two versions of this story? And how and why has she taken this source text, her lyrics, and built a whole narrative universe around them?

We’re also gonna get into all the Easter eggs, talk about the theories, those graves, and so much more. This is the ultimate deep dive into Patient Zero. And by the end of this video, you’re gonna have your own theories on who or what this track is really about, and I want you to tell me in the comments once you have all of the information.

Before we get started, if you love the literary side of Taylor Swift, if you love learning, if you wish there was a Taylor Swift English class, this is it. I’m a former English teacher and author, and though I’m not a massive creator, I do want to extend my reach. So please like and subscribe on YouTube.

Follow me on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, and send this to your Swiftie friends who love doing deep dives with you. It really helps me grow this channel, and I appreciate it so very much.

[00:01:49] Content Warning For Later in the Episode

Quick content warning for this episode. When we get to the music video portion, we are gonna talk about domestic violence and coercive control because it is depicted in this video.

And there’s one scene that is, if you are a survivor, it’s particularly hard to watch. So I will give you another heads up before we reach that point, and you can skip ahead if you need to. Okay, let’s get started. We’re gonna dive into the lyrics first, the source text, the patient zero of Patient Zero

[00:02:19] Patient Zero Lyrics Meaning

 On the page, this track is told from the point of view of our narrator, who describes herself as Patient Zero, and Taylor frames this whole narrative as a phone call. Her ex’s new girlfriend or maybe wife has reached out for some advice or maybe to get some clarity. But we don’t start with the phone call.

We start with a chorus, and that’s fairly rare that Taylor does this, kicks off a song with a chorus. But when she does it, she’s using the chorus to give us some backstory, and it’s her hook to make us curious before jumping into the main plot points. She kicks off this narrative with, “If you want to party with somebody who might know about the devil on his shoulder under his halo.”

Immediately, we’re intrigued. Who is our narrator talking to? Where is this party at? And what does she know that this other character doesn’t know? And most importantly, who is this dude with a devil on his shoulder hiding under his halo, hiding under his facade of being a good guy? An angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other is a common metaphor or plot device that personifies a person’s internal moral battle, good versus evil.

And you’ll see this sometimes in cartoons where the angel is saying, “No, don’t eat the cake,” and then there’s the devil saying, “Eat the cake, you know, screw everyone else.” But Taylor loves to twist these common tropes and cliches to mean something different. And here, he has no angel on his other shoulder, so this isn’t an equal battle between good and evil.

Instead, the devil is hiding under his halo. So this isn’t his own internal struggle with morality. This is a disguise. On the outside, he projects himself as magnetic, charming, maybe even altruistic. But hiding under that facade of, “I’m a good person,” is the truth, which is that he’s not a good person. He’s evil, like the devil.

So she goes on with, “When the toxins take their hold, you’d rather die than let it go.” So early on in a relationship, he’s like a drug addiction, and you’d give anything for just one more hit. And love as a drug is a really common metaphor in Taylor’s universe. Think about Don’t Blame Me. My drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life.

Uh, Blank Space. You can tell me when it’s over, if the high was worth the pain. But she describes this feeling not as a high, but as toxic, poisonous. And then the last line of the chorus is, “But if you’re sick of him, I got you. I was patient zero.” So he can be addictive, but he’s also toxic, and he can make you sick.

And what she’s saying is that if you’re ready to get away from him, I can show you how. I can show you the truth because he did this to me first. I was the first one who was poisoned. But what about the central metaphor, patient zero? What is this all about? So in epidemiology, patient zero is the index case, the first person infected, the first instance of this disease that we can trace.

Patient zero for our narrator could mean that she was his first victim. But other than diseases, what other kinds of epidemics are there? There’s drug addiction epidemics, like the opioid epidemic, and that fits more appropriately with the metaphor that she’s weaving here in, in these lyrics.

He’s addictive, he’s exciting, but he will slowly turn toxic if you have too much. But this metaphor will change once we get into the music video pretty drastically, so we’re gonna keep an eye on that. When we move into the first verse, here’s where the real plot begins. “I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve been expecting your call,” she says.

And this is a really common phrase, I’ve gotta be honest, but usually it’s not just honesty. It means that a really hard truth is coming. She was expecting this person to reach out. She knows exactly why she’s calling “No, it’s not a bad time at all,” she says. So normally this would be a response to, “Is it a good time to talk?”

But Taylor doesn’t fill her lyrics with small talk. They all serve a purpose. And I think what she’s getting at is that she’s no longer having a bad time. She’s in a much better place. But she knows that this other woman is calling because she’s definitely in a bad time. Like in, in Long Story Short, it was a bad time.

Long story short, I survived. In the music video, it’s not a bad time at all. It has a much darker meaning, but here it’s used for contrast. “I heard somebody saying there’s trouble in paradise.” So she’s heard through the rumor mill that her ex’s new relationship is not what it seems to be, and trouble in paradise is an expression that means something looks perfect on the outside, on the surface, but it’s really messy underneath.

And we’ll learn that this applies not only to their relationship, but to him. He is not what w- he seems. He’s not what he presents to the outside world. “And my lips are sealed tight now,” she says, and this is a loaded line. Her lips are sealed, as in this conversation will kept just between us, like in confidence, but her lips have also been sealed up until now.

She hasn’t revealed the truth about this crazy ex. She’s kept quiet. But it’s also a lie because her lips are about to open up and tell the most blatant truths about what he’s really like. And lips and, and the reason for her silence will become magnified in the music video. “It’s not for me to tell someone else what to do.”

So she’s being purposefully tentative here, like maybe trying to seem gentle and neutral and understanding, like, “I don’t wanna tell you what to do,” but on the inside, she wants to tell her exactly what to do, which is get out. Like, get out now. And that’s exactly what she does in the chorus that follows.

She repeats what we’ve already heard. He’s toxic. He’ll ruin your life, and I know it because he ruined mine. I was patient zero. I was the first life he ruined. Then in the second verse, she’s about to prove that she knows exactly what she’s talking about because she’s about to read their relationship like a book.

“I bet he burst into your life like fireworks,” she says. So he came in hot and bright and exciting and thrilling, lighting up the dark. But what else are fireworks? Explosions, detonation, destruction. So this is foreshadowing. “I bet he even said I love you first.” And what she’s describing here is, is love bombing, where a narcissist comes on hard and fast and overwhelms you with adoration, and it’s easy to fall for, and it’s even easier to be blinded by, like fireworks.

“And when you saw another woman coming out of his place,” she goes on, “I bet he kissed the rain off your face.” We can picture this new woman standing outside of his house, which turns out to be a house of lies. That will be important in the music video. And she’s watching another woman leave. She thought she was the only one.

He told her he loved her. And how does he respond? He kisses the tears from her cheeks. He’s not apologizing. He’s not begging for her back. He’s comforting her, which is strange, right? And this is another clue that something is very wrong. The tears are described as rain, meaning either he’s minimizing her tears by saying, “Oh, she must have just been stuck in the rain,” or she minimizes them and says, “No, I was just in the rain.

You’re not the reason I’m crying.” Either way, her emotions are being manipulated, and our narrator knows that this has happened, like almost clairvoyantly, almost like someone was watching this situation through a hole in the wall, because the same thing happened to her. Now he seems bored by you. So this is the discard phase of the narcissist.

When they aren’t getting their supply from you anymore, they aren’t being worshiped by you anymore, they move on to greener pastures, and this happens especially fast if they feel you see through them. So this is escalating the conflict, and you don’t know what to do, she says. So she’s been in this place before.

She knows this confusion, and what do you do when the person you love, whom you think loves you, suddenly seems disinterested? It’s, it’s especially confusing when everyone else sees this person as charming and perfect. He’s a different person in private, so will anyone believe you? 

The chorus repeats again, but when Taylor repeats lines like this so often without changing anything, it usually means there’s a, a deeper meaning or an alternate meaning. And I like to say that in Taylor’s music, with repetition comes revelation. So she means something a little bit different each time.

She doesn’t just repeat lines willy-nilly. They all serve a purpose. So she’s left off with, “You don’t know what to do,” and then it’s, “If you want to party.” And that’s incongruent. It doesn’t fit. So I’m honing in on that word party because it has multiple meanings. What else is a party besides a celebration?

It’s a group, for one, a group that has a common purpose, a search party, a party of two in a restaurant. There’s also a party in a lawsuit, a group taking one side in a dispute. There’s a political party joining forces for common belief. These are all a better fit than, like, let’s have a toast. But there’s also a party to, and that phrase means to, like, become involved or become complicit in. Like, I refuse to be a party to your lies anymore.

And I think that’s what our narrator is getting at here. Like, come on over to my side. Let’s join forces, and we can take him down together. You don’t have to be a party to his toxicity anymore. Like, leave the dark side and come on over to the light. Then we get one addition in the third chorus. She says, “I was patient.

I was patient zero.” So she’s pointing out the double meaning of patient with that repetition. There’s patience, like biding your time, and there’s being a patient, like in a medical treatment setting, and the latter implies a power imbalance just by its nature, right? Like, he’s an authority figure, and she has no authority.

And by now we get the sense that she was the first girl he tried this with, and he tried to use his power, his position, to manipulate her like some, you know, doctor doing an experiment. But she was lucky. Like, she got out alive. But patient zero could also mean that she’s run out of patience for, for his lies, for his manipulation.

She’s done being silent, and she has zero patience for his bullshit anymore. Like, she’s gonna tell all. And then she does in the bridge. ” So let’s get into it,” she says. And here she’s gonna tell us exactly what makes this villain tick. “I know he charmed your family and friends, and you thought it’s ’cause he loves you, but it’s ’cause he loves how everyone else loves him.”

He’s not being genuinely charming. He’s ingratiating himself into her world because he wants attention. He’s just manipulating everyone around her so that he can have control. “I know it seems like he shines so bright”, like a firework maybe, “but he’s bathing in your reflected light.” And what she’s saying here is, like, you’re the one who shines, and he likes that it allows him more attention.

But what other lyrics in Taylor’s catalog does that remind you of? ” The idea you had of me, who was she? A never needy, ever lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you.” It’s the same metaphor from All Too Well, and that male character in that song has some very similar characteristics to the villain here.

I’m not saying it’s based on the same person, but i- it’s definitely possible. But he’s not just basking in the attention he gets from being with her. He has a larger goal in mind, and she says he’s on a free solo social climb. And this is a really clever combination of two phrases. To free solo is to climb without ropes, like, you know, Alex Honnold.

Free Solo is a great documentary. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. Some people say that free soloing is, is crazy and reckless, some think that’s admirable. But then there’s a social climber, and this is a person who is using relationships and friendships strategically in order to elevate their status in society.

Combining these two, it means that he’s climbing up a social ladder with no backup plan and with complete disregard for who he has to step on to get to the top. So our narrator’s telling this new woman, “He’s using your relationship for his own gain. Like, so you, you have to watch your back, or else he’s gonna drag you down with him when he falls.”

So she goes on, “Take it from somebody who lost his games but won the race.” So she’s comparing his manipulation to a, a game of strategy, and this is a play on the common saying, “Lost the battle but won the war.” His games, his manipulation, his narcissism, his lying were the small battles that she may have lost, but she won the race, meaning either she outran him and got away, or she beat him in some larger way, like in, in the game of life.

And this detail will be important in the music video where it, it takes on a new meaning, so we’re gonna circle back. ” Take it from someone who said all of this to his face,” she says,

and this is her justifying, like, “I’m not talking shit. I’m not gossiping. I’ve told him all of this myself, that he is a horrible person, and he was using me just like he’s using you now.” So she’s trying to establish credibility, trying to get this person to believe her that this ex is bad news, and she’s not just the crazy ex-girlfriend.

And then she builds more credibility. She says, “Someone who knows she’s more than just the chase from someone who had him and walked away.” So once she got out, she realizes she was worth so much more than just the love bombing, and the lying, and the manipulation, and the discard. She knows what she deserves, and she doesn’t want this woman to make the same mistakes.

Then the final chorus repeats word for word, but this time one phrase catches my attention more than the rest. “If you’re sick of him, I got you.” By this point it feels like, “I understand what you’re going through. I’m gonna help you through this.” But it also feels like he’s the one making you sick.

You’re not sick of him, you’re sick from him, and that is gonna pick up in the music video. ” So if you wanna kick it,” she continues in the outro, “then I’m with it. I’ve been there.” “If you wanna kick it” is a play on, like, the let’s hang out phrasing. And to kick it means to, like, to hang out together, yes, but it also means to kick a habit.

If you’re ready to kick him to the curb, if you’re ready to quit this addiction, if you’re ready to go to metaphorical rehab, she’s saying, ” I’ve done it, and I can show you how.”

And then she tells her exactly how she recovered. Felt the reeling, done the healing, said the curses and prayers. So it’s like the stages of grief that you’ll have to go through. First you’ll reel into depression, sadness, withdrawal, then you’ll start to heal. But healing isn’t linear, and the curses and prayers will be a part of your journey to get clean, to get, quote-unquote, sober.

It’s gonna be hard, she’s saying, but you can do it. And then she says one of the most visceral lines in this whole track. When the fever turns a dreamer into a pathetic ghost. What was once this, like, feverish obsession of new love, this exciting addiction, is now just a plain fever, an illness, like a sickness that you have to recover from.

And like any drug addiction, it’ll crush your dreams and turn you into a pathetic ghost of your former self. And on the surface, this ghost metaphor means that he sucked the life out of her or killed her spirit. And, and it’s a warning. Don’t let him get that far. Don’t let him steal your soul. But it’s gonna take on a more literal meaning in the music video.

And then she amplifies this all with one final line. If he’s killing you, I see you. I was patient zero. Before it’s if you’re sick of him, but now it’s darker. It’s he’s killing you. He’s about to metaphorically kill you. You will be a ghost of your former self. And I see you both means I, I know what you’re going through, I understand.

I might be the only person who understands. But it’s also, I see you, you’re not a ghost yet. Don’t let yourself disappear. It’s time to save yourself, and I’m here to help you. And this is a really interesting progression because in the beginning, you’d rather die than let it go. But then she actually starts dying.

She starts fading away. And as hard as it is to quit this drug, this toxic person, you have to in order to save your own life. So that’s the lyrics. That is the source text that Taylor’s starting from when she comes up with the concept for this music video. So just a quick recap. The lyrics narrate a phone call between the ex and the current partner of this toxic man.

She compares his love bombing and the thrill of this early romance with an addictive drug. But too much of a drug can turn toxic. It can be fatal. And she warns, he’s slowly gonna take away your sense of self until you turn into a ghost. He will haunt you. All metaphorically, of course. But that’s where we start.

[00:20:54] Adapting Patient Zero For the Screen

So now how do we get to this dark gothic ghost story where there’s intrigue and poison and murder and an actual haunting? Well, it’s because Taylor just really, really loves telling stories. And as it turns out, she told us the plot of Patient Zero long before the music video came out

 the elements of what I’m looking for is, like, you know, um, you know all the elements of, like, Daphne du Maurier Rebecca, that book? Yeah. Right? So if it’s like, if you’ve got, like, a, if you’ve got, like, an old, like, sh- like rambling, shambles old British mansion covered in moss or ivy, and there’s, like, a mysterious relationship, and he may not be what he seems, and there’s, like, a murder that, that has happened in the past, but you, but you hear whispers of it.

There’s, like, I- the idea of a ghost or an actual ghost. If there’s a marriage, and the marriage d- isn’t what it seems, and it seems like this dude is, like, clearly, like, why are you with him? He’s horrible to you. Oh, plot twist, unreliable narrator, she’s the psycho.

That sounds like a great book. That sounds like a great book If you got any of that, I’m gonna need to read that. And when I say read that, I’m gonna need someone to read that to me.

Did you catch all of those hints?

A mysterious relationship. He may not be what he seems. A murder that has happened in the past, but you hear whispers of it. The idea of a ghost or an actual ghost. A marriage that isn’t what it seems. He’s horrible to you. Oh, plot twist. Unreliable narrator, she’s the psycho. Was she Easter egging Patient Zero the whole time?

Yes. But was she also just telling us what kind of stories she’s drawn to? Also yes, and ever since folklore and Evermore, she’s really been exploring creating these fictional worlds that aren’t strictly autobiographical.

But why else might she create this really vivid imagining of this song that takes all of these metaphors literally, where the toxins are actually poison, and if he’s killing you means that he’s actually a murderer? Why would she take it so far outside reality and so far away from the lyrics? That also goes back to her exploration of fiction and why she was compelled to write fiction in the first place.

See, Taylor had a problem. When she would release new music, we would pull it apart and paternity test the lyrics because she wrote about her own life and her own relationships for so long.

As her fan base grew and she rose to this level, fever pitch level of superstardom, that made writing autobiographically a liability. As soon as she would release new music, anyone who was speculated to have inspired the lyrics was targeted, and we would begin making up stories about these stories that would somehow telephone game their way into fact, into the lore of Taylor Swift.

This song is about Joe, and he cheated on her, and this song is about Matty. You know, maybe she was cheating on Joe, and this was a 10-year situation. Sh- like you get the picture. You see. In folklore and evermore, she dives into fiction, and she does it because it takes away the option for us to definitively pin these stories on a particular person.

So with a song like Patient Zero, she knows that when she writes a song, uh, that is ostensibly about an ex and what a terrible person he is, the public will decide who to attribute the song to, and it will be a witch hunt. And it won’t just blow back on them, it’ll blow back on her. So what does she do?

She creates a story around this song that is so far removed from reality. It’s so fantastical that we can’t ever attribute it to a real person. That’s what she’s doing here with the music video. She enjoys creating these fictional worlds, and then the added bonus is that we are not going to solely try to figure out who the Colin Farrell character might be or who the Dakota Johnson character might be.

It pulls the focus away from the possible muse, and it puts it back where it belongs, which is on her art, her lyrics, her filmmaking, her storytelling. And also, using these big-name actors and not some unknowns doesn’t allow us to so easily substitute a real-life person into those characters. It’s brilliant on so many levels, and I think going back to that Colbert interview, she has been wanting to probably do something like this for a while, like in the ghost story genre.

But in that interview, you may have noticed a story that Taylor has referenced and been inspired by before, and that is Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic ghost story, Rebecca. In press for Evermore, Taylor revealed that Rebecca inspired the song Tolerate It, and the book is about exactly what she’s talking about on Colbert.

A woman marries a wealthy widower, comes home with him to this massive ivy-covered English countryside estate, but she soon learns that he may not be what it seems. The house is haunted by the ghost of his late wife. We don’t know how she died, and is he the psycho, or was his previous wife the psycho?

That’s the same plot as Patient Zero, just with a different ending. And if you haven’t read Rebecca, you should, or you can watch the Hitchcock adaptation, or there’s a more recent one on Netflix starring Lily James that’s okay. So Taylor’s pulling inspiration from a ton of different places, and I love how she pulls on all of these things that she’s inspired by to create something that’s all her own.

So we’ve covered the source text, the lyrics. We’ve gone through why Taylor has chosen to create this whole narrative world surrounding this song. So now let’s get into the juicy bits, which is how she has adapted her lyrics into film. Let’s talk about the Patient Zero music video

[00:26:59] Patient Zero Music Video Scene by Scene

The opening scene of this video is Dakota Johnson’s character standing in a snowy graveyard. She’s dressed in dark clothing, and the whole scene is in this sort of gray scale. Gray graves, black clothes, white snow, and she’s holding two black roses. The grave she’s standing in front of is darker than all the rest, and it’s in a newer style than the more sort of Victorian headstones.

So Dakota slowly walks towards the grave, and then we get a close-up where Taylor’s character walks up and stands beside her, staring at her, and starts singing the lyrics, “If you want to party with somebody who might know.” And right away we’re drawn into this disconnect because they’re in this solemn place, in the cold winter snow, in a graveyard.

She’s asking if she wants to party? This is not champagne time. So she’s drawing this distinction visually and thematically that party doesn’t mean celebration at all. So while she’s singing these lyrics, Taylor is staring at Dakota, who is staring at the grave, and we zoom out a bit and we see that it’s not one, but two graves that look very, very similar.

They’re the same color and the same shape. And remember that Dakota is holding two roses. So we’re gonna circle back to this. We get a shot of them from behind, and with the line, “If you’re sick of him, I got you,” Taylor puts her hand on Dakota’s back in support. But the whole time, Dakota has not reacted to Taylor’s presence at all.

And by the way, I’m gonna call them Taylor and Dakota and Colin. It’s the, the characters they’re playing, but it’s easier to just say that instead of saying Taylor’s character every time. Then we see Taylor from the front, and she reveals, “I was patient zero.” So she was where it all began, and it’s implied she’s the reason that they’re standing in the cemetery in the first place.

Like, it was me. 

[00:29:01] Meeting the Villain & The Bleak House

In the next scene, we open with a shot of Colin Farrell’s character. Up until now, this character’s been hinted at, he’s been talked about, and he’s got the devil on his shoulder. 

So he’s the reason this is all happening. And then the devil appears. He’s looking straight at the camera as if it’s a mirror, and he adjusts his tie, and he gives this kind of wink to himself like, “Yeah, I’m hot shit. I’m charming.” It’s a, it’s a brilliant bit of acting and character development because it tells us exactly what kind of guy this is with absolutely no dialogue whatsoever.

So behind him is this sort of bleak, concrete, modernist house, and we’re gonna see more of it shortly. And this house is sort of its own character in this story, and visually it’s been really important for the marketing of this single. So we’re paying attention.

Colin is now walking over to Dakota, who has been in this dark, silk-sheeted bed in this bleak house, and we’re still in grayscale. Colors are incredibly important in this universe, and they’re really symbolic, so pay attention. When do we see color and when do we not?

So he hands her a cup of coffee or tea, and he kisses her on the forehead. And this kiss isn’t a romantic kiss. It’s like how an adult would kiss your child on the head, like, like good girl sort of thing.

So she’s hinting at this power imbalance before we even learn anything else. Colin leaves, and in an overhead shot, we see Dakota lay back down in bed, and Taylor lays next to her facing her. They’re wearing matching gray tank tops, and she’s singing, “No, it’s not a bad time at all.” They’re staring straight at one another, but it’s like they can’t really see each other.

There’s like a wall between them

The Bad Time lyric, once we learn that Taylor’s really a ghost, it becomes kind of darkly hilarious. It’s not a bad time at all because the bad times are over. She’s dead. And two, she has all the time in the world ’cause she’s a literal ghost with nothing to do.

In the next shot, Taylor is perched on the side of the bed singing to the camera, “I heard somebody saying there’s trouble in paradise.” And behind her, Dakota is kind of laying in bed, staring off into space, looking troubled. And this place should be paradise, right? Like, it’s a, it’s obviously a very wealthy house.

She’s in a great position. She seems to maybe have a loving husband, but there’s, there’s trouble lurking here. And once we learn who Taylor’s character really is, that she’s a spectral presence, the “heard somebody saying” is ironic. She’s the one who’s heard it all because she’s haunting this house. We flash to a photograph on the bedside table of Colin and Dakota’s wedding photo in black and white, and then to Taylor who sings, “And my lips are sealed tight now.”

Again, also ironic because once we know she’s a ghost, of course her lips are sealed. She can’t speak. But a little bit later on, she will find a way to speak, to reach out. So already she’s taken these lines, these lyrics from the song. She’s made them have a totally different tone and a different meaning when the story is being played out on screen with this fictional plot.

It’s just, it’s brilliant, and all of these little details that she includes are incredible. 

[00:32:13] In the Bathroom

So in the next scene, Dakota is washing her face in this brutalist concrete bathroom, and then we get a split shot. Taylor is in the same bathroom, so if they were looking each through the mirror, they’d be staring directly at each other, and they’re both making the same movements.

They are mirror images of one another. So here she’s hinting that they are the same. They’re interchangeable. They’re somehow living the same life. They both turn off the tap at the same time, and the lyrics at this point are, “It’s not for me to tell someone else what to do.” And with these mirrored movements, she’s telling us they’re both me.

They are one and the same. And this, once again, turns ironic because it is her place to tell her what to do because they are living the same life. They are the same person, and she needs to tell her what to do or else she’s gonna get hurt. Then Taylor walks around from her mirror to Dakota’s mirror, and during the lyrics, “Tell somebody else what to do,” she flips Dakota’s coffee mug onto the floor, the coffee mug that Colin handed her in bed.

And this is her way of telling her exactly what to do, and as we’ll find out later, th- this is the message, “Don’t drink that. It’s dangerous.” She’ll take it further when she writes messages in all of these spilled liquids that we’ll see later on. 

[00:33:36] The Pool Scene

In the next scene, we hit the chorus again, “If you want to party,” and now we’re underwater with Taylor and Dakota diving in the same pattern but different directions.

They don’t intersect, and they don’t acknowledge each other or look at each other. They sort of pass right by. Then the next scene is an overhead shot in the pool where they’re doing backstroke in opposite directions, and the, the coloring in the shot is really interesting because Taylor seems to be more in the sunshine.

The water is a brighter blue, whereas Dakota’s side of the pool is darker and more ominous. And we don’t know if this is a split screen, like, flashback to when Taylor’s character was alive or if she’s metaphorically in a brighter place, like in the sunshine instead of in this cold, dark house because she finally escaped in one way or another.

We get one more shot of them underwater facing one another, reaching out their hands. They could almost touch, but they don’t touch. And all of these pool shots symbolize their parallel lives and their fates diverging, And as we’ll find out, Taylor is trying to force Dakota’s fate to not intersect with her.

She doesn’t want Dakota to end up like she did. She doesn’t want Dakota to metaphorically drown like she did. Then the last part of the chorus here is, ” If you’re sick of him, I got you. I was patient zero.” And now they’re out of the pool. They’re still soaking wet in their bathing suits, but we’re back inside that brutalist bathroom, and Dakota is getting sick into a black toilet.

Taylor is holding her hair back so the, “I got you,” transforms from, “I understand. I get it. I’ve been there,” to, “I’ve literally got your back. I will take care of you.” And she will. 

[00:35:18] Concrete Wall Symbolism

We have to talk about this wall that’s behind them for a minute, because it seems to be the same sort of concrete structure that s- m- the rest of the house is made up of, and this imagery with the circular divots in the cement.

This was important in the rollout of the encore and of the single. There was a lot of speculation, started by me, I’m sorry. I had a random TikTok go, like, mega viral about this, that these divots in the concrete symbolized a tomb. But now that we’ve met this house where this video takes place, which Taylor said in the behind-the-scenes is an actual character in this video, I wasn’t too far off.

Is it physically a tomb? No. But metaphorically, yes, it is. Taylor died there, and Taylor lingers there, and Dakota will meet the same fate if she doesn’t escape. But these divots, they’re in the shape of an O or a zero, and they’re all over the walls. It’s like a reminder of Taylor stamped into the bones of the house, patient zero.

And yes, it’s just a, a part of the house as it is, but there’s a lot more circle or zero imagery and symbolism that we’re gonna see throughout the video that seems more intentional than just, like, this happens to be how the wall of this house is designed But it’s this concrete wall that connects us to the next scene, where Dakota is kind of limping along this interior wall, and she looks like she’s about to pass out.

Our colors subtly start to change here, and it begins with the outfits. So Dakota is now wearing a lighter gray sweat-type set, and then Taylor enters a frame wearing a cream-colored sweater. So this is leading into our backstory, the calm before the storm.

[00:37:05] Colin & Dakota’s Backstory

And Taylor sings the lyrics, “I bet he burst into your life like fireworks,” and then the color kind of explodes on the screen.

It’s been so dark up until now. But in the next shot, Dakota and Colin are kissing, and it’s bright and it’s saturated. And this fits because this second verse about how he love-bombed her, this is our backstory. In the lyrics, it’s speculation. It happened this way for me. It probably happened this way for you, too.

But here, we actually get to see it play out like a flashback, and we get to see the happy times before it all goes south. So we get some scenes of them making out, and it’s, it’s gorgeous, it’s romantic, it’s sexy. And in the background of the shot of them on the table, there is what looks like a cabinet with round, like, decorative plates behind the glass.

So there’s our circles or our zeros again. But we don’t get to live in the light for very long 

[00:38:05] The Marble Statue

because our transitional shot is from behind, looking out through the concrete house onto the pool. And in the middle of the shot is a statue, with Taylor and Dakota flanking either side of this marble statue.

And the statue is of a nude man with a kind of cloth draped over his left side. They’re both looking up at this statue. So this is important.

And since Taylor used some really iconic paintings in the Fate of Ophelia music video, I had a feeling this was probably referencing a real classical statue, and it is. Though we only see it from behind, The statue looks an awful lot like Marcellus as Hermes Logios, a sculpture currently housed in the Louvre in Paris.

So it’s a real marble sculpture of a real person, Marcellus the Younger, posing as a god, posing as Hermes, a real person posing as a god. Does it remind you of any particular character in this video? And then it goes further. Hermes, if you know your Greek mythology or if you’ve seen Hadestown, is a messenger.

He’s a guide. He helps lost souls, and he can walk between the land of mortals and the land of the gods. He’s kind of in between the living and the dead. Does that remind you of any other character in this video? Also, pay attention to this arrangement. It’s three figures. One in the middle is the messenger with lower figures on either side.

So we’re gonna see this pattern again, but she establishes it here. So the statue shot is incredibly symbolic, but it’s also transitional. We had a quick moment where things were happy and colorful. Then after the statue, we’re back to a flatter, more grayscale tone, and at this point, the lyrics are, “And when you saw another woman coming out of his place.”

And we enter some darker shots of Colin Farrell making out with Cara Delevingne, who plays the role of the other woman, or the other, other woman. Then in the next shot, the lyrics are, “I bet he kissed the rain off your face.” And we see Colin comforting Dakota, who is sobbing probably because she just saw him cheating on her. And we’re into more golden brown tones, but overall it’s still, it’s darker.

So we’re not in, in the good place anymore. It’s like the saturation has been turned down from those happy scenes. So this is foreboding. Nothing good is gonna come of this. Then the next lyrics are, “Now he seems bored by you.” And we get quick flashes of close-up shots alternating between Dakota and Taylor putting on their makeup.

And this is our first appearance of red, which already was an important symbolic color in the Taylor Swift universe, and is incredibly symbolic in this video. They’re both putting on identical red lipstick, and until now their lips have been a more neutral, muted pink. So this is a sign that’s telling us things are changing, things are escalating.

Red is, in general, a warning color, so something is about to go down. We get an exterior shot of the Colin Farrell character exiting his car in the driveway, and this car looks very much like a gray Aston Martin, a luxury car, though, you know, car people can tell me in the comments if I’m correct or not.

But it’s a car she’s mentioned before in I’m Gonna Get You Back, “I’m an Aston Martin, you drove straight into a ditch. Then ran and hid.” So the car itself, if you’re paying close enough attention, is another little bit of foreshadowing. But there might be more to this car after all in the plot of this video, so keep that in mind.

We’re gonna circle back. 

[00:41:49] Living Room Wine Spill

So Colin enters the house, goes into the living room. Dakota is having a glass of red wine, and she looks pissed. She glares at him as he enters. And then in the background, we see two pieces of art on the walls with circular patterns, just like the walls, patient zero figuratively haunting this house.

And then she’s also literally haunting this house because Taylor’s in this frame, though the others don’t seem to notice her. She and Dakota are wearing identical black dresses and red lipstick. And during the lyrics, “And you don’t know what to do,” she walks up behind Dakota, coming between them in the middle, and tips the wine glass out of her hand.

So this is the messenger in the middle with the two figures on the side, just like the statue shot. And she’s not just figuratively coming between them, she’s literally coming between them to try to disrupt this relationship. And this is the second time she spilled her drink during, “You don’t know what to do.”

So whatever you do, she’s saying, “Don’t drink that.” And the final drink spill in this video is gonna be epic. So stay tuned. 

[00:42:59] The Tolerate It Table

The next shot is incredible. It’s so s- stunning. As we enter the chorus again, if you wanna party, we see Taylor in this kind of dusky evening light standing on what looks like maybe a, like a bridge over the pool.

Behind her is the brutalist house and a very long dining room table in the center. Dakota is on one side and Colin on the other, and they’re arguing. So first I wanna point out that arrangement. Again, messenger in the middle, just like the statue scene, two figures on either side. But then we have to talk about the table, because you’ll remember a table like this from the Eras Tour when Taylor still had Tolerate It on the set list.

And that song, as we discussed before, was inspired by Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and the music video was also definitely inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. So it’s important that she’s brought the Tolerate It style table here. I think it’s definitely a callback to that. But this also reminds me of another lyric from Showgirl.

“You finally left the table, and what a simple thought. You’re starving till you’re not,” from Opalite. She’s trying to get Dakota to metaphorically and literally leave the table like-

Get out. You deserve so much better. This fight they’re having, by the way, we find out in the behind the scenes that they’re actually arguing about whether Brendan Fraser starred in Encino Man, which is a very millennial thing to argue about. I thought it was hilarious. And also, they just make it look so real, like they’re actually mad at each other.

They’re talking about Encino Man.

As the rest of the chorus plays out, the devil on his shoulder, under his halo, we see a closer scene of them arguing inside the house, and she is clearly frustrated. And from reading his lips, he says something like, “I’m just trying to help you.” But we know from the vibes and from Taylor’s lyrics that he is not what he seems. He’s not trying to help. Then we get a shot of Taylor back in the room where she spilled the wine glass, and she’s laying on the floor tracing her finger through the spilled wine.

So while this fighting is going on and it’s escalating, Taylor is calmly playing with broken glass. Like, this is so eerie. It’s confusing. We don’t know what’s going on yet, but we will find out very soon. Then we get one last shot of Taylor and Dakota together in the house, where Dakota is sitting on the bed crying after this fight probably, and Taylor’s behind her looking like she wants to comfort her.

And she says the lines, “If you’re sick of him, I got you. I was patient zero” again. And this time it feels like a promise. Like, like, “I won’t let anything happen to you like it happened to me.” And this is also where that one line was added in the chorus, “I was patient.” And here, with everything that’s going on, ch- it feels like she’s saying, “You have to keep your wits about you.

You have to be patient if you wanna get out safely.”

So she repeats, “I was patient,” and then she says, ” 

[00:46:05] At the Gala

I was patient zero,” and we’re in a new scene. Taylor is now in a cream-colored gown with red lipstick, and she’s leading the camera through a set of these ornate double doors. And the color scheme here is warm browns and tans and creams.

So we’re in the good place, but as soon as we leave this party, it’s gonna be the bad place again. So Taylor backs up to these doors, and as she says, “So let’s get into it,” she bursts open the doors. And then we cut to another shot from the other side of the doors. And suddenly it’s not Taylor there, it’s Dakota and Colin walking arm in arm into this gala or this award ceremony with a crowd surrounding them and camera flashes going off.

They’re immediately the center of attention. And this portion of the lyrics is the bridge where she absolutely reads this dude like a book. And I love this scene because Taylor is basically saying what an awful, conceited person this dude is, and then we get to see Colin’s character out there personifying this awful, smarmy dude.

Like, it plays out just perfectly. So during the line, “He loves how everybody else loves him,” he’s basking in the adoration of this crowd, acting like, “Yeah, I’m hot shit.” And Taylor, whom we didn’t even know was in the crowd yet, turns around and looks directly at the camera and sings that sarcastic, “Uh-huh.”

Like, she’s this little narrator, like Hermes in, in Hadestown popping in and speaking directly to us. It’s, it’s delightful. Now, Colin’s character is up on stage receiving an award, and behind him is the coppery brown very showgirl curtain. And he gestures like he’s thanking his partner, like he’s thanking Dakota in the crowd.

Standing next to Dakota in the crowd is Taylor, and they’re both wearing these identical cream-colored sparkly dresses with tulle and these little bows. So it’s very girly, very angelic imagery. And as he’s performatively thanking Dakota, Taylor sings the line, “He’s bathing in your reflected light.” And then the spotlight goes on to Dakota.

So this is visually signaling that she’s the one who shines. She’s the one who is special. He’s just a hanger-on. But then during the free solo social climb, he’s being photographed with his award and all of these bigwigs. So this is his ambition, his ego. He’s clawing his way to the top. And who’s he gonna step on to get there?

Dakota, of course. Then we see Taylor in the crowd drinking champagne, and she’s narrating to the camera, “Take it from someone who lost his games but won the race.” And during that line, we zoom out, and in front of Taylor is Colin with another woman, Cara Delevingne But wait, as we zoom out, it’s not just Kara, it’s a whole gaggle of women.

So these girls are his games that she’s referring to. He’s cheating and lying and generally being a dirt bag. He just wants attention. And in this moment, Dakota’s attention goes to him. She looks at him from across the crowd and notices what’s going on, or at least we think that that’s what she’s looking at because that was the shot that we were just in, but that’s not what she sees.

All of a sudden, Dakota sees Taylor or thinks she sees Taylor. So Taylor is standing there ethereally, statue still, and the look on her face is one of, “I know, and you’re not crazy.” It’s recognition, it’s support, and the lyrics at this point are, “Take it from someone who had him and walked away.” And Dakota starts walking away, glass of red wine in her hand when everyone else is drinking champagne, by the way.

Playing with this light dark color scheme again. But as it turns out, walking away isn’t that simple because she starts stumbling. She holds onto a chair, and then we’re inside Dakota’s point of view, like the camera is Dakota’s field of vision, and it starts to blur. Taylor is now closer, still looking like this guardian angel, but she’s fading in and out.

And at this point, the soundscape morphs into a really loud heartbeat that starts getting faster. It sounds like the blood is rushing to her head, like she’s gonna pass out. Then this heartbeat crescendos with the music, and Dakota crashes onto the floor, spilling her glass of red wine on the carpet. We hear gasps from the crowd, and then it’s just silence and the echoes of that rapid heartbeat.

Dakota looks up like, “W-was that real? Did I really see a ghost?” 

[00:50:49] Content Warning

And then we cut to the next scene. And this next scene is where I’m gonna give you another content warning for domestic abuse, for coercive control, so heads up. If you need to skip ahead, go ahead and do that now. It’s a really hard watch if you’ve ever experienced a controlling, manipulative relationship or an abusive relationship.

So just go ahead and skip to the next timestamp if you need to because your mental health is way more important than a Taylor Swift music video. Okay,

[00:51:18] The Intense Car Scene

now we dive into the car scene. All the other sounds have faded away, and the only thing we hear is the sound of a car engine speeding down the highway.

We see Colin’s character driving, still in his tuxedo that he was wearing at the gala, and he looks pissed off. We cut to Dakota’s character in the passenger seat, still in her white dress with dark red lips, and she looks visibly uncomfortable, like, like she’s in trouble and she doesn’t know what to say

The color scheme here is back to darker grays. There’s no more of the warm browns and the creams, so we can tell visually we’re now out of the public eye. He’s not showing off for attention. This is where his dark side comes out. His halo is gone, and this is the devil on his shoulder coming out to taunt her.

The scene is already incredibly tense, and Taylor and these actors have done an incredible job just building this pressure with only looks and sound. So the engine is accelerating. There’s this really loaded silence. It’s, it’s haunting, and if you have unfortunately been in one of these moments where you’re scared of the person you love who’s driving, you know exactly what this feels like.

Finally, Dakota breaks the silence and she says very quietly, “I’m sorry.” And in response, Colin says nothing. He just kind of clenches his jaw and presses the accelerator. The sound of the engine’s just getting louder and louder, and the car is going faster and faster, and this makes Dakota incredibly uncomfortable.

But more than uncomfortable, she’s now terrified, and she says, “Wait, can you slow down a bit?” And this is where we see the devil on his shoulder really pop out and say hello. He says sarcastically and really condescendingly, “Slow down? You don’t really know how to slow down, do you?” And the look that he gives her is ice cold, like she is nothing, like she is gum on the bottom of his shoe.

And remember just moments ago when there was a crowd, when they were in the lighter side of his personality, he was thanking her from the podium. Now, Dakota’s character is, is taken aback like this. She’s got whiplash. She goes wide-eyed, and she says, “What do you mean?” And he retorts, ” How many drinks have you had tonight?”

He’s accusing her of getting drunk and falling down and spilling her wine and making a fool of herself and therefore making a fool of him. He’s gaslighting her, and pretty soon we’re gonna learn the extent of his gaslighting because it goes far just beyond emotional manipulation. And her acting here is incredible.

We can tell she’s, like, taking a mental inventory, like, “Did I get drunk? Was I, was I not paying attention?” And she, she kind of stammers, “One,” like, “I, I think I had one.” But she’s questioning herself, which is his whole goal with this kind of manipulation. And he says, “One? Bullshit. It’s like you love humiliating me in front of everyone.”

She’s on her back foot now. She’s stammering, and he says, “You stutter. You stutter when you lie.” And she’s, “N- no, I didn’t, I wouldn’t…” She’s so confused. She says, “No, I’m not lying. I don’t feel good.

I’m dizzy, and I feel nauseous, and I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened,” she’s saying. And she’s shaking her head. She’s frustrated, and he keeps accelerating, and she just whispers, kind of resigned, “I’m sorry.”

And then this is the moment where the tone shifts almost in an instant. He looks at her with this diabolical look and he says, with all of this condescension, “I thought you were different.” And her eyes go wide. The wheels are churning, and she says, “Different from who?” And we can tell we’re in this moment where anything could send him over the edge, and that question, different from who?

That may have been the thing that finally did it. We don’t know what happens next, but we know it’s not good. So as soon as she says that line, different from who, the music returns again with the chorus, and it’s Taylor’s voice. And so if you want to party. And I love this little transitional detail.

Dakota says different from who? 

[00:55:41] Taylor on the Car

And then Taylor swoops back in the one who’s haunting them. And she’s like, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m the one. He victimized me first, and I’m here to make sure it never happens again.” Then we get my favorite shot, and probably your favorite shot and everyone’s favorite shot of this whole video.

And it’s Taylor draped on top of the hood of their speeding car, still in that matching white angelic dress with Dakota. And she’s singing as this, like, ghostly, spectral presence as the car continues flying down the highway. And this is the point of the plot where it gets kind of choose your own adventure.

The ending will be ambiguous, but from this point on, we don’t see Dakota and Colin’s characters alive together anymore. The last time we see them, they are in a speeding car with Taylor haunting them. But haunting isn’t even really the right word because she’s really Dakota’s guardian angel and she has become the devil on Colin’s shoulder.

What happens here is totally up for debate. I’ll tell you my personal opinion when we get to the end, but I think the car being an Aston Martin, like I’m an Aston Martin, you drove straight into a ditch. I think she could be foreshadowing a massive car accident here.

[00:56:58] Colin & Taylor’s Backstory

But next, we cut to a new scene. The chorus is at the point where the lyrics are when the toxins take their hold and we are now back in the brutalist house, those dark gray tones, and we see Colin’s hands using an unlabeled medicine dropper to dose a coffee cup.

And it’s the same coffee cup that Taylor previously knocked off the bathroom counter. Other than those clues, we, we don’t know where in space and time we are, and it’s meant to be ambiguous. He could be dosing, poisoning either one of them because he did it to both of them. Then in the next shot, we see for sure that this is a flashback.

We see Colin carry the cup back to the bedroom, and this time it’s Taylor in the exact same bed. He hands her the coffee cup just like he did for Dakota. He kisses her on the head just like Dakota. And the lighting in these two bedroom coffee scenes is exactly the same It’s brighter. It’s daylit. This is the calm before the storm.

The, the halo bringing her coffee in bed before the devil comes out. But when the lyrics are, “If you’re sick of him, I got you. I was patient zero,” we see Taylor crouched over the toilet being sick. She’s wearing this white silk cami set, which implies innocence. She didn’t know what was happening. But it, it’s also giving bridal, like first wife.

Now we get a quick shot of them drinking at the house. She’s having a glass of red wine, just like Dakota at the gala. And this was already ominous, but now it’s more ominous. The next shot is actually the whole- the lightest and brightest of, of the whole video, and it’s this really fast scene of Colin proposing with this huge diamond, and Taylor being surprised and saying yes.

So in the color story, this is where it all began. This was her patient zero moment, getting hitched to a man who meant her nothing but harm. And then right after we see this bright proposal scene, we get what should be another happy scene. He’s carrying her down the hallway in his arms. Her high heels are kind of swinging from his hands.

She tosses her head back. It should be this carefree, romantic moment, like carrying her across the threshold, like after you get married. But the setting and the colors tell us otherwise, because this is the same hallway that Dakota was stumbling down previously. And h- he’s also kind of symbolically carrying her to her doom in this dark hallway, in this house that will soon be essentially a tomb.

At this point in the chorus, it’s, “If you wanna kick it, then I’m with it. I’ve been there.” And we’re now getting these very quick flashback shots of Taylor in the light, wearing a massive ring, but looking despondent. And the two of them are fighting, arguing. She walks away. At one point, he grabs her arm trying to stop her from leaving, which is foreshadowing this, this violence that he’s capable of And then we see more shots of Taylor getting sick.

And during the lyrics, “Felt the reeling, done the healing, said the curses and prayers,” we see her in that hallway wearing the same sweat set that Dakota was wearing in that hallway, clutching her stomach and writhing in pain. We get a shot of her in the mirror wearing red lipstick and just bawling her eyes out.

And then we hear the lyrics, “When the fever turns a dreamer into a pathetic ghost.” And here we get two really crucial shots. The first is of a newspaper clipping which says, “Heiress dies of mystery illness. Husband inherits billions. Spouse inherits estate amid unanswered questions.” Next to this newspaper clipping is ironically the answer to those unanswered questions, the coffee cup.

The murder weapon, as it were. And then the next shot puts all of the pieces together, because during the lyric ‘pathetic ghost,’ we see Colin walking across the house very purposefully past Taylor, who is wearing a black silk dress and just watching him walk by. And as he walks past her, she disappears. She was that dreamer.

He turned that dreamer into a pathetic ghost. A pathetic ghost of herself, but also into an actual ghost of herself. I love how Taylor has taken these metaphors in her lyrics and turned them into actual plot points in the story. Then here’s the most crucial shot. 

[01:01:41] “Run”

During the lyrics, “If he’s killing you, I see you, I was patient zero,” we see overhead shots of those spilled liquids. And in these liquids, first the coffee and then the wine, a hand that we can assume to be Taylor’s is writing “Run” in the spill. And when she’s tracing in wine, especially at the gala where it’s this really dark wine on a carpet, it looks like she’s writing in blood.

And there’s this old saying which Taylor, I think, is alluding to, “These rules are written in blood.” And what that means is that someone’s blood had to spill in order for us to learn from our mistakes. Like you could say seatbelt laws are written in blood. People had to die in order for us to use seatbelts in cars.

And this warning to Dakota being written in what looks like blood, that’s what she means. You have to learn from my-

mistakes you have to do better. And there’s also just this incredibly ironic and poetic aspect of this, which is that she’s writing a message, essentially, ‘He’s trying to kill you,’ in the liquid he’s trying to kill her with. It’s perfect, comes full circle, no notes. 

[01:03:01] The Gravestone

Then during the last line, ‘I was patient zero,’ as the music fades out, we’re back in the graveyard, and we’re zooming in on one very dark, almost black grave.

And now we can see the text on that grave, ‘Beloved wife and daughter, gone too soon.’ Next to the grave is a gold framed photo of Taylor and Colin’s wedding in this kind of sepia tone. And let me know what you think the significance of the photo tone differences are. Like, Dakota and Colin’s wedding photo was pure black and white, and Taylor’s is, is sepia toned.

But there are several things we need to talk about in this shot. Number one, it’s the symbolism. Of course, we all know that Taylor married Travis Kelce over the summer. Biggest wedding of a generation. And the question on everyone’s mind is, will we get to see wedding photos? And I think that this i- is the only way that she could ever answer this.

You will see my wedding photos over my dead body, which is hilarious. I love it. I love that she’s doing that. Um, and I also personally don’t care if we ever see a wedding photo. If she wants us to see them, she will show us. And if not, that is her private life, and we’re not entitled to anything. But that’s also what Showgirl has been all about, the, the public spectacle versus her, her private world, her inner world.

But second, there is no name on the grave. It’s just beloved wife and daughter. And this i– this is signaling a couple things. One, she wasn’t her own person to him. She was just a wife. In, in the free solo social climb, she was just another rung on the ladder. She was only a wife to him and a temporary one at that.

And now her identity, her name has been erased. What other situation in Taylor’s life does that remind you of? Being robbed of your identity, blood, sweat and tears being erased. Her name traded like social currency. You know where I’m going with this. The Scott Borchetta, Scooter Braun masters heist of it all.

Because other songs on this album, particularly Father Figure, are all about reclaiming her name, reclaiming her life’s work. And in this video, Taylor’s story is a cautionary tale written in blood. The masters heist for those in the music industry is written in blood. Be careful or this will happen to you too.

Am I making leaps? Is it a stretch? Kind of, but also kind of not. Because we know in Taylor’s world, a grave is never just a grave. A name is never just a name. So I think at least thematically, she’s hinting at the reclamation of her name, her life’s work with this nameless grave. Who she was to these people, a paycheck, a name on an album, not a real person.

What do you think? Tell me in the comments. The years on the grave are 1986 to 2022, which I’m sure a lot of you have theories on. I don’t… I haven’t found anything that I love so far, so let me know what you think.

But the final scene in this video, we now get a different angle of this gravestone, and Dakota is standing over it. She places one of her black roses on top, and then she turns and walks away with the other rose in her hand. But what’s most interesting to me is going back to these two graves. They seem to be identical, right next to one another.

They’re the same polished black granite or whatever they make headstones out of. They’re both the same shape. They both seem to be about the same age. So when Dakota turns and walks away, she walks over this other gravestone, walking directly over where the body would be buried, and she doesn’t stop and put a rose on that one.

She doesn’t even turn back to look at it. She turns her back and walks directly over it. So here’s my theory. Taylor caused the car to crash in some way, and Colin’s character died in that crash. But Dakota survived. Remember, the last time we saw them alive and together was in the car. Maybe Dakota survived thanks to her guardian angel, Taylor, and now she’s coming to pay her respects after she finds out the truth of what really went down.

And then she’s walking over Colin’s grave without looking back as she leaves the cemetery and goes on with her life. So Taylor was patient zero, but I think she also made sure that she was the only patient there was ever gonna be. There wasn’t gonna be a one or a two or a three because she came back to haunt him literally and metaphorically.

So who is the other rose for? For herself, for Dakota to remember what she’s gone through, to grieve the person that she used to be and remember where it all began and where it ended with patient zero

[01:08:01] What Does it All Mean?

So that is the epic, haunting, electric Patient Zero music video, and I had so much fun going through this and connecting the dots.

Tell me in the comments what you think about the ending. What was your interpretation of how this played out? Because Taylor has left it ambiguous on purpose. We each get to fill in our own blanks here. But her storytelling in this video, and really in all of her videos lately, has been incredible. I love how she’s really diving deep into filmmaking and finding these new ways to interpret her own lyrics for the screen.

It adds so much depth and meaning, and just deepens this whole world that she’s been building. This whole Showgirl album really has been so much more visual than her previous albums. She’s really been focusing on the imagery. And yes, she’s just moving with the times. She’s more focused on video content because we all are.

You know, even three, four years ago, even one or two years ago, we were not so much focused on video-only content. That’s why I have a video version of this podcast, because audio-only just doesn’t do it anymore. But I think it… This medium allows her to just weave so many more stories into her lyrics, and I, I’m here for it.

I love it. I always want more Taylor Swift music videos. Thank you so much for hanging out with me here at Swiftly Sung Stories. If you have enjoyed this kind of deep dive into the more literary side of Taylor, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify or anywhere and everywhere you get your podcasts.

It really helps me grow this channel and reach the right people. I’m also on TikTok and Instagram with the same handle everywhere, Swiftly Sung Stories. And you can also check out my website linked in the show notes, where I have lyrical analysis of every single song on every one of Taylor’s albums.

There’s also lyric quizzes, courses, so much more. Go check it out. And thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the next episode, where we will continue looking at The Encore. See you next time.”

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