Melissa McBride’s Carol Makes “Big Moves” on The Walking Dead

The end of The Walking Dead is not the end for Melissa McBride’s Carol. As the flagship wraps up with its final eight episodes (premiering October 2), one of the last-surviving Walking Dead OGs has a lot of story left to tell in Season 11C. A covert Carol spent the last half-season making moves and currying favor with Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), the Commonwealth’s ambitious and duplicitous Deputy Governor gunning for Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan). While Hornsby hunts her friends under the Commonwealth flag outside its walls, Carol cooks up a plan to save their people still inside the community governed by Pamela Milton (Laila Robins).

“Carol has some big moves in 11C,” showrunner Angela Kang teased on The Walking Dead: The Final Episodes Preview special. “Melissa is always amazing at everything she does and just brings so much depth to that character and is a badass, so I can’t wait for people to see what she does. She’s amazing.”

Kang and McBride were set to reunite on the untitled Daryl/Carol spinoff series that will now send Reedus’ Daryl overseas on a solo mission in France. In April, the Walking Dead veterans dropped out of the show Kang developed with AMC’s TWD Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple; Kang will stay on as an executive producer with David Zabel (ER) taking over showrunning duties on the reworked project.

“Melissa McBride has given life to one of themost interesting, real, human and popular characters in The Walking DeadUniverse,” an AMC statement read at the time. “Unfortunately, she is no longer ableto participate in the previously announced spin-off focused on theDaryl Dixon and Carol Peletier characters, which will be set and filmedin Europe this summer and premiere next year. Relocating to Europebecame logistically untenable for Melissa at this time.”

The statement continued: “We know fanswill be disappointed by this news, but The Walking Dead Universecontinues to grow and expand in interesting ways and we very much hopeto see Carol again in the near future.”

In a recent interview with EW, a tight-lipped McBride teased, “I feel like Carol has more story to tell. I’ll leave it at that. I think she’s got some more story.” Gimple — who is overseeing the Daryl Dixon spinoff, the Rick/Michonne series, and Maggie and Negan’s Dead City — confirmed that there’s “more story to tell” with Daryl and Carol.

“I love both characters so much that we will be telling stories with each of them moving forward. And who knows beyond that?” Gimple told EW. “But I’ve never stopped talking to Melissa about this. I’m thrilled at the idea of it and I’m very optimistic for the future of telling some cool Carol stories.”

The Walking Dead: The Last Episodes begin October 2 on AMC and AMC+.

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