The Walking Dead Teases Carol’s Comic Book Death

The Walking Dead made a nod towards Carol's (Melissa McBride) comic book death in Sunday's 1012, "Walk With Us," which saw Carol, Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and freshly reunited former couple Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) and Magna (Nadia Hilker) retreat to the woods following the Whisperers' fiery attack on Hilltop. Magna reveals she only narrowly escaped the cave where she was trapped with the still-missing Connie (Lauren Ridloff) — caused by Carol's attempt to destroy the walker horde collected by Alpha (Samantha Morton) — and a confrontation between a furious Yumiko and a remorseful Carol ends with Carol fearing the worst for friend Connie, someone who is close with best friend Daryl (Norman Reedus).

"Maybe instead of ignoring her," Yumiko says through gritted teeth, "you try begging for forgiveness after the shit you put her through."

"If you think that's what she wants from me, like it'll fix anything," Carol tells her. "We go through shit, to go through shit." Yumiko punches Carol in the face, surprising them both.

Without another word, they part ways, and Carol retreats into the woods alone.

Sitting on a log, Carol spots a walker claw its way free from beneath a mound of leaves. It limply tries to grab her leg, but Carol swipes it away.

The walker weakly tries again, moving its blackened hand towards Carol's exposed skin, and she briefly hesitates — letting it happen — before she smacks its hand away.

When the walker clutches at her, Carol only sits there, before finally drawing her knife and stabbing the creature in the brain.

In issue #41 of The Walking Dead comic book, during a time where the survivors are holed up in a prison, a depressed Carol approaches a walker chained in the prison yard for study. Confessing a past suicide attempt, and admitting the other survivors think she's "crazy," Carol inches forward and commits suicide by walker when she lets the walker sink its teeth into her throat.

The others attempt to save her in issue #42, but she tells them, "Just let me die." When she does, her reanimated form is shot and put down by Andrea.

After Carol's actions left Connie and Magna trapped in a cave teeming with walkers and Whisperers, showrunner Angela Kang said Carol hit "rock bottom."

"Vengeance is complicated and there's got to be consequences to it because you can have blinders on. So that's part of the story that we're telling with Carol," Kang previously told EW. "Now in some ways, she's motivated more than ever to try to finish this mission, because otherwise it was all for nothing. And yet she knows that she has things that she needs to repair. She knows that she's going to want to redeem herself at the same time."

"I think Melissa does a beautiful job playing all these complicated layers of the character throughout the season. So we will see Carol pursuing multiple things for the rest of the season," Kang added. "There's obviously the Alpha of it and the Whisperers, but there's also the feeling of, 'I might need to make things better with some of the people that I love too.' Lots to come for Carol."

Carol recently reignited her romance with estranged husband King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) but has yet to repair her fractured relationship with Daryl.

Following the bombshell revelation that ended "Walk With Us," Carol will get a focus in episode 1014, "Look at the Flowers," premiering Sunday, March 29.

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