The Walking Dead’s Lauren Ridloff Reacts to Midseason Premiere’s Touching Connie and Carol Moment

Lauren Ridloff opens up about a bonding moment between Connie and Melissa McBride‘s Carol in The Walking Dead‘s midseason 10 premiere, “Squeeze,” which picks up with our heroes trapped in a cave teeming with walkers. When the confined space triggers Carol’s claustrophobia, she’s comforted by Connie, who signs into her palm: “U R OK.” Connie offers another reassuring touch when the group is forced to squeeze through a narrow tunnel in their path to freedom, later putting herself in danger to help Daryl (Norman Reedus) escort a weakened Carol out of the cave as it starts to collapse. Reacting to the episode on Talking Dead, Ridloff said she was touched by Connie and Carol’s “great bonding moment.”

“Wow, what a moment. It was one of my favorite scenes I did in the episode,” Ridloff said. “It’s hard to pick a favorite scene, but that might be it. When I first read it in the script, that they had come up with this, I welled up. It was so moving. It was a moving moment. It was humanity.”

Audiences are “so used to seeing Carol be this strong woman and just keep going, and for her to have that moment of weakness, I just love how Connie was able to just take a moment with her and have that communication with her,” she continued. “And to use print on palm to spell it on her hand, it was such a great bonding moment between the two of them.”

Ridloff also addressed fan fervor surrounding “Donnie” and “Caryl,” portmanteaus adopted by fans hoping to see a romantic pairing between Daryl and Connie or Carol and Daryl.

“Right now of course they have the Donnie shippers and the Caryl shippers, the wars with the fans, but I think it was just a moment to show everybody that Connie and Carol are two very mature women who have a relationship and a rapport outside of this man, that he doesn’t even have to be involved,” Ridloff said. “And the fact that Connie was able to do something that involved just the simple touch of the hand, and to have that moment of humanness, it’s almost like holding her hand. Holding her hand would have been babying Carol, and it wasn’t anything like that. I think it was a creative way for Connie to give Carol that support.”

Coming episodes this half-season will see Carol grappling with guilt over actions that left Connie and Magna (Nadia Hilker) trapped in the cave as it collapsed.

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays on AMC. For more TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.