The Walking Dead: Is Carol Faking Her Injury?

SPOILERS AHEAD for tonight's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead.

Tonight's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead ended with the re-emergence of Carol.

Well...kind of. She appears in the final moments of the episode, unconscious and carried into the hospital at the center of "Slabtown" on a gurney.

And that, of course, has everyone wondering: is she playing possum?

I mean, it's Carol, right? She's the one who single-handedly razed Terminus and rescued the rest of Rick's group, survived on her own after being expelled for weeks and kept Judith alive in spite of Tyreese for all that time.

Still, Daryl Dixon seemed pretty dejected when Carol's name came up at the end of last week's episode.

So...what to make of it?

First of all, it's more likely than ever that Daryl's "come on out" was directed at Noah, and that this weeek's episode happened prior to last week's episode. That's one of the things that's handy about Beth's timeline not being crystal clear. She woke up and  while it's easy to assume that she's existing more or less at the same time as the rest of the group, it's certainly not a given. She could have been unconscious for days, weeks or months -- and we know that from the time she disappeared until the day Rick massacred the Hunters and Daryl returned to the church, it was only about a week's actual calendar time.

If that's the case, it could honestly go either way. It seems more likely that she's actually been injured and "savenapped," as actress Emily Kinney described the hospital's routine, since Daryl, Carol and a third party with inside information should have been able to rescue Beth on their own.

On the other hand, sending Carol in could be a useful strategic maneuver, while it's unlikely that Daryl would leave both Carol and Beth in custody without a good reason.

I mean, yeah -- that good reason could be getting the rest of the group to mount a siege, but even a "returning for reinforcements" type of leave seems difficult to imagine Daryl doing unless it was necessary.

What do you think?