The Walking Dead Recap: Carol Gets Her Groove Back

Ok let’s be for real, she never lost her groove, she was just quietly hiding her bad&*$ nature until it was needed. And it was needed this week. This post is going to basically be a love letter about how much I love Carol, so get on board with that please.

So the show opens with Enid watching her parents get eaten and then wandering around being miserable on her own before showing up at Alexandria. There is apparently a whole theory about her being a spy for the Wolves, which might be interesting but at the moment I don’t care at all because CAROL. But the JSS she writes on everything is the “Just Survive Somehow” that the episode is named for so, you’re welcome.

The first scene I care about is in the pantry with people complimenting Carol on how she makes good food out of crappy things like celery soup. Still playing the sweet housewife, Carol plays along, though she does chide one of the other women into not smoking inside anymore, calling it a “filthy habit”, after the woman annoyingly goes on about how if someone could just find her a pasta machine they’d be eating like they were “in Tuscany!” – OK, you’re in Alexandria in the zombie apocalypse, not Stepford, Connecticut in the 1970s. Settle down.

We see Maggie and Deanna discussing the expansion to incorporate gardens and how they can plant and grow things, and Maggie gently reminds Deanna that her people need to see her interested in growing the community. Then everything goes right to hell. I don’t remember if we first see the woman smoking outside hacked to bits or if we first see people trying to get over the walls near Deanna and Maggie but it all goes down fast.

Of course the only people who have any idea what to do are Rick’s group, so nameless Alexandrians are being hacked to bits by the Wolves (we quickly learn when we see Ws on their heads, though frustratingly we still don’t know what their deal is) while Carol, Rosita, Tara, Maggie, etc., do what they can to help the injured, protect the armory, and mostly, to kill the bad guys.

Carol goes into immediate bad%$$ mode, grabbing her knife and killing a Wolf and then putting her friend out of her misery on her porch (she’s just been gutted, there’s no fixing her). She quickly dons the dead Wolf’s gear, puts a W on her forehead and takes off, now in disguise. She happens upon Morgan quickly and tries to pull him into her scheme. But wait! He almost hits her with a broom handle!

I was actually nervous for a lot of the episode that one of Carol’s own people was going to kill her thinking she was a Wolf, but I guess since there are about 5 of them inside the walls, she wasn’t too concerned. Morgan, of course, plays along for like 30 seconds because he’s not into killing people anymore for some reason. Listen, I get not wanting to be a monster, but these people are literally hacking up innocent people with machetes all around you. Make a choice, Morgan, stop being a Travis.

Carol basically runs around town killing most of the Wolves singlehandedly while Morgan does stupid things like stand around with Gabriel talking about how they should arrest them or something. Although it’s hard to pick a favorite, my favorite scene of the episode might have been when Morgan and Gabriel were wrestling with the Wolf on the ground trying to tie him up or whatever, and Carol just walks over, shoots him, hands them each a gun, and leaves, giving them a look that says, “Get your s$%# together, guys. I don’t have time for this.”

So let’s see what Carol does – she secures the armory, kills about a half dozen Wolves on her own, maybe more, and does it all pretty calmly and quickly, in a no nonsense way.

At the end, she has a moment of possible regret, or just sadness maybe, that she had to do this. I hope it’s not regret. Regret nothing, Carol. You almost singlehandedly saved the town of stupid stupid people.

Let’s not forget a couple of other major events for the night. First, Jessie stabbed a woman to death with hair cutting scissors in her own kitchen.

Don’t mess with mama bear, lady. She’s done taking crap from people now that her horrible husband wife-beater-Pete is dead and gone. I also like that she tried to talk to her annoying angsty son Ron, and that she told him “Yeah, Rick is my friend.” I know Rick wants to get in her pants but still, it is legit that Pete was a bad person who needed to be taken care of a long time ago by this town and nobody handled it, and whatever the reason, gallant or selfish, Rick saw that immediately and wanted to help. Ron, get on your mom’s team here. Your dead dad was wrong.

Also, we met Denise, who had to immediately do something really hard, not only trying to save poor Holly, who died, but then being told by Tara not to forget to “take care of her brain” so she didn’t wake up and eat her in the infirmary.

In addition, we saw Deanna telling Maggie she’d better stay outside because she would be useless inside. Yes, that’s right, Deanna, I hope you finally get it. Also, maybe your stupid son should have some target practice if he’s going to be in the watch tower. I hope you are going to really be fully on board with Rick now. Granted, you seem to be already but no wavering. Clearly these people know what’s up and your folks are all completely clueless, like lambs to the slaughter. (Lambs, wolves, get it?)

OK and Morgan. I see your disapproval.

And I don’t care for it. I don’t care for it at all. I’d like you to get with the program already. Carol knows what’s up, Rick knows what’s up. The biggest threat isn’t zombies, it’s regular old living human beings that do terrible things like invade your town and hack up random people for no reason while also dragging others off in chains for who knows what terrible ends. There is no need to keep those sort of people alive. This is not right to a fair trial by a jury of their peers times, guy. This is kill or be killed. I know at the end he finally killed the super creepy Wolf, but I really am going to need him to not apologize for that anymore.

Also Aaron, I kind of love. He’s this sweet gentle guy, but he seems to believe in Rick’s crew, and I know he has a special friendship with Daryl. I like that despite being kind of super terrified, he went out into the fray with a gun and took care of business. Good for you, Aaron. See, Morgan, that’s how it’s done. You realize the error of your ways and you make a change.

In short, Carol is the bomb, Jessie, Aaron, and Denise stepped up, and Morgan needs to hush his face and get himself in line. I kind of want to watch it again already. I know I didn’t even mention Carl and Enid but I can’t even because I just don’t care. Why didn’t Carl die when Lori never kept an eye on him? And Enid, ugh, go eat a tortoise or something.

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