Erm…so Carol is not quite as ‘Carolly’ as she once used to be. And this makes me a little sad.

Watching episode 13 of the latest season of the Walking Dead, I loudly said that she must be acting; playing the part of a nervous, scared and ultimately frail woman to trick her captors into not seeing her as a threat.

But as the episode went on I realised, Carol wasn’t acting, she really was afraid and she really didn’t want to kill anyone.

I feel like Morgan is having an influence on her decisions, after she was unable to shoot Owen, who took Denise captive once the walkers attacked Alexandria. Her kill count in her notebook also indicates that she’s dealing with some serious guilt right now. I understand that people will be struggling to deal in this new world, and killing the living feels wrong but it’s something you would have to do at some point.

But what I find difficult to understand is her sudden remorse for her actions, everyone she has killed so far has been pretty necessary. After all if it wasn’t for Carol, Rick and the guys would have had their throats slit at Terminus.

However, I think this latest story arc is testing a few members of the group and making them question their morals. Killing people in their sleep feels cheap, they’ve basically hired themselves out as mercenaries, and while there are indicators that the Saviours are  definitely bad people, they haven’t attacked Alexandria or Rick and Co so this fight doesn’t feel necessary.

This whole Negan storyline is also questioning everything we think about Rick’s group. Are they actually the bad guys, as one of Saviours said in this latest episode?  Was Paula an indicator for Carol of what she could become if she didn’t repent, and her death a horrific punishment for her actions? (And it was a pretty horrific death, what with being impaled then having your face eaten off.)

I get why things are happening, but Carol’s sudden change of heart feels a little unnatural and sudden. You can’t develop a character into a complete badass then completely flip it in an episode. But what do you guys think?

Jade