Carol (Melissa McBride) cuts a deal with a jailed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the opening minutes from The Walking Dead 1014, “Look at the Flowers,” revealing how Carol and Negan secretly plotted to kill Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton). In their first meeting, taking place during the events of Season 10 episode 4, “Silence the Whisperers,” Carol sneaks into Negan’s cell as he awaits a vote by the Alexandria council to determine if he will be executed for the death of Margo (Jerri Tubbs), accidentally killed by Negan when he rescued defector Whisperer Lydia (Cassady McClincy) from an ambush committed by Margo and accomplices Alfred (David Shae) and Gage (Jackson Pace).
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Expecting Carol to be Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) coming down to give him his last rites, Negan is unfazed when Carol asks if he wants forgiveness. “I done what I done,” he tells her. “I ain’t getting on my knees about it.” Asked what he wants, he picks a T-bone steak, a beer and a scoop of Rocky Road as his last meal.
“What if you didn’t have to die?” Carol asks, catching his interest. No one told him Carol had a say in the “kangaroo council” deciding his fate, but she’s not here for them. “I’m getting that,” he says. “What I don’t get is coming down here and dealing with me when, seems to me, you oughta be lining up the ol’ skin queen in your crosshairs.”
Staring him down, Carol asks him, “What do you think this is?”
“Damn,” Negan says, genuinely impressed. “The stones on you. Word has it you are a certified badass. But you missed your shot. What happens if I muff it too? It could make things a hell of a lot worse for every man, woman and child behind these walls.”
“And despite what people might think of me,” he says, meaning it, “I am absolutely not down with that.”
“I need this done,” Carol says, meaning it. “And it will help every man, woman and child here.” When he asks what he gets out of it, she answers, “You’ve been eating whatever shit we throw your way, hoping that one day they’ll all forget. They won’t.”
The murders of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun), the countless other crimes committed by Negan and the Saviors when they were at war with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his people. They won’t forget “unless you do something to make them forget,” Carol says.
“So you bring me Alpha’s head, and that’s what the people will remember you for,” Carol tells Negan. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“I have your word?” he asks. Yes, she says, “If you do it fast.”
In the present, Carol places Alpha’s decapitated and zombified head atop a spike belonging to the Whisperer border, the same place Carol discovered son Henry’s (Matt Lintz) own decapitated head months earlier. The murdered Kingdom prince, her son, has been avenged.
Negan gifted Carol Alpha’s head after killing the skin queen in 1012, “Walk With Us,” where Negan lured Alpha to a shack before slashing her throat to spare Lydia from being killed by her mother. It was then revealed it was Carol who set Negan loose when she told him, “Took you long enough.”
“Look at the Flowers” premieres Sunday, March 29 at 9/8c on AMC. For AMC Premiere subscribers, the episode can be viewed 48 hours earlier starting Friday, March 27.
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