Note: Major spoilers for the episode of The Walking Dead, you have been warned.
This week's episode was all about Carol, and I must say that she did a fantastic job with it, even if not much really happened throughout the episode. We start off by seeing what happened with Carol and Maggie while the others were clearing out the compound, and then a group of the Saviors sneak up on the two women and take them hostage. We then get to see their side of the conversation with Rick on the walkie-talkies, and we see them trying to decide if they want to make the trade or not. Ultimately, they say they will think about it and they leave to go to some sort of safe house nearby.
Upon arriving at the safe house, they put Carol and Maggie in a room, and the Saviors are discussing what they should do with the two women. They have called for backup at this point, and so they decide to wait until their backup gets there before they decide what they want to do. During this whole thing, we see Carol has taken on the weak, old woman persona that she has used at Alexandria, to make people think she isn't stronger than she is, and she does a fine job with it. First, as they drag a walker out of the room, a rosary falls off the walker and Carol picks it up to use later. She also acts like she is having a panic attack so they will think that she is losing it, which works out exactly as she plans.
We get a lot of back and forth between Carol, Maggie, and the Saviors, as Carol tries to get them to let Maggie go because she is pregnant. They don't believe her at first, but then realize she may be telling the truth. One of the Saviors takes Maggie out of the room to question her, so they can find out where Maggie and her group came from. We also get a scene the Savior that Carol shot at the beginning of the episode attacks the woman leader of the group, and then goes after Carol for shooting him, but then the woman leader knocks him out. This only helps Carol with her plan, as she gets kicked a few times first, and so she looks weaker again.
Later on, the Saviors decide they want to make the trade after all, as their backup has almost gotten there. They figure they can get the jump on Rick's group before Rick's group can get the jump on them, and so they leave Carol by herself. Carol quickly proceeds to whittle the cross from the rosary down to a sharp point, and cuts her bindings to get free. She then goes and finds Maggie and frees her as well. Carol says they should just leave, but Maggie says they need to kill everyone before they go, so they can end this. Carol reluctantly agrees and they proceed to make plans.
They go back to the room where Carol was being held and they find the gunshot guy has died, and is about to turn, so they tie him up by the door and wait for one of the Saviors to come back and check on them. When she walks in, the walker attacks the woman and Maggie jumps her from behind and kills her. They take her weapons and go looking for the others. They come across a hallway that has been set up with walkers to not let anyone out or let anyone in, in case Rick's group followed them.
The leader comes across them and starts shooting at them, but Carol gets a jump on her and puts a gun in her face. She tells the woman to run, but the woman doesn't back down. She attacks Carol and they fight back and forth, until the woman gets shot, and ultimately bitten and killed by one of the walkers. The only other Savior from the group hears all this and comes in to see what is going on, causing her and Maggie to fight for a bit. The woman slices a knife at Maggie, and it looks like she almost cuts her stomach open, but just missed it. Carol steps in and shoots the woman in the head.
Carol and Maggie then use the walkie-talkie to tell the backup people to meet them on the Kill Floor. The men go into the room, and Carol shuts the door behind them, while lighting the room on fire, which they had doused in gasoline. The men burn alive inside, and the two women leave, killing the remaining walkers as they go.
As they open the door to leave, Rick and the others are there, and they ask if they are alright. Both women basically say no, and they are both visibly shaken by the whole experience. Rick asks the hostage they have if Negan was at the outpose the night before, or if he was there at the safe house today. The man says that both are true, and that he is Negan. Rick says he is sorry for this, and shoots the man in the head.
As I said above, not a whole lot really happened during the episode, other than that the group is back together. Carol did a really good job of playing possum, so to speak, to set this group up and then took them out. My only problem with this is that Carol seemed to genuinely not want to kill them, so I guess all of her acting was out of just plain survival mode. She tried everything she could to not have to kill them, but it felt like she was playing them the whole time, so I thought it seemed a bit out of place. I thought it was all an act until she said she just wanted to leave, and then tried to get the leader to leave more than once before having to kill her anyway.
Another glaring problem to me is that this group of Saviors, and Negan (whom we all known was not really there and is still coming), are supposed to be so savage and ruthless, but so far, they have just been massacred by our group with little effort. Not a single member of our group has even died, and they have killed, what, maybe 40 of the Saviors at this point? Maybe its just that they are so used to ruling by fear, and they haven't come across an organized group like Rick's before, but still, it seems a bit of a stretch to not lose a single member yet. I'm sure they will be making up for that soon enough, but I just thought at this point they should at least be trading off a bit.
With only three episodes to go, I thought that this was kind of a throw away episode, in that not much really happened, other than fleshing out Carol a little more. Does this lead us to believe that Carol is going to die soon? Maybe. They have done similar things with Abraham and Daryl in the last few weeks, so maybe they are just trying to get you thinking that any of them aren't safe, or maybe they are going to throw a big swerve at the end and will kill off someone else. For all I know, maybe no one will die this season, and it was all just a bunch of setup for nothing, but I find that hard to believe. I think the next few episodes are going to be some of the most violent episodes in the series, which will culminate in the season finale, when we finally get to see Negan and what he is capable of. I just hope the rest of the season picks up the pace from what this episode was.
My rating for the episode is 6/10.
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