The Walking Dead’s Melissa McBride on Carol’s Emotional and Unexpected Season 10 Story

In her tenth season of The Walking Dead, Melissa McBride says Carol does things the actress has “never seen her do before.”

“I can’t be too specific, but I’ll say that she’s doing some things I’ve never seen her do before, [that] I as an actress have never done before,” McBride told Skybound during TWD‘s Season 10 premiere in Hollywood. “Some fun stunty stuff. There’s some emotional aspects of Carol, too, that I haven’t experienced. Which, to me, says a lot.”

Season 9 ended Carol’s fairy tale life with husband Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and their son, Henry (Matt Lintz), when Alpha (Samantha Morton) abducted and then murdered the Kingdom prince. Now separated from Ezekiel — who has taken on leadership duties at “Kingtop,” the merged Kingdom and Hilltop communities — Carol reunites with Daryl (Norman Reedus) after months away at sea.

“I think that she’s just looking for a place that she can get away from all of the grief,” McBride told ComicBook.com at the season’s carpet premiere. “The loss of Henry, the loss of everyone else that took place at the hands of Alpha and her Whisperers, the enemy that you can’t see. And also, the fairy tale that never was. The fairy tale that was that never really was.”

Carol returns to find Daryl and Alexandria begrudgingly living with the rules imposed by Alpha, who threatens war should the survivors cross her borders. Will Carol abide by these new laws, or will she stop at nothing to get her revenge on Alpha?

“We’re gonna see some ‘I see you, looking at me, looking at you, looking at me,’” McBride teased, “we’re gonna see some of that. ‘What are you gonna do about it?’”

Year ten is wildly different for both Carol and McBride, who says everything was “shook up” in the wake of those devastating losses of Season 9.

“You get [on set], and then it’s ‘No, this is so different, wait, what are they doing? They’ve really shaken things up,’” McBride said. “This year, things are really shook up.”

Whatever is in store for Carol, audiences will see the mourning mother driven by her vendetta against Alpha.

“I mean, we’re gonna see some Carol-Alpha, and it’s gonna be awesome,” showrunner Angela Kang teased during TWD Season 10 Preview Special in August. “I’m just thinking about this scene that they have together which is just epic, that’s so cool. Yeah, there’s a little bit of a beef there.”

The Walking Dead Season 10 premieres Sunday, Oct. 6 at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.