Obvious spoilers up through the walking dead season 4 episode 2, but lets say light spoilers through season 6 just to be safe.
I didn't like carol at all my first watch through. Maybe its because I was rejecting any change from the comics, I don't know. I know everybody else apparently worshipped her. It could also be because I was spreading it out over YEARS. Now i've watched up to where I am over the course of under 2 months.
Originally, I thought carol's transformation from weak house wife to badass nina assassin was always hamfisted. But now that I have a chance know what's coming and analyze it over a much shorter period, I can say I still just don't buy it.
Yes, they start hinting on her being a "badass" starting probably after she almost died alongside t-dog. She gave andrea the advice to sleep with the governor and then kill him in his sleep. That's dark. But ok I'll allow it. And then it basically just kinda jumps to her doing knife training with the kiddies.
What baffled me about this was, at this point we have no reason to believe carol even is a knife expert. Were they trying to set that up with her practicing a c-section for lori that one time? We have never even seen her participate in any of the survivor on survivor fights. She's not a soldier in the group at this point. During the season 3 prison attack, she hid behind a body the whole time.
My point being, if they were doing this with maggie for example, who's been constantly in the fighting, I'd buy it. But they didn't have carol go on runs, they didn't have her killing walkers in the field. They just jumped to "she's telling andrea to murder someone while they sleep and then now she's giving the kids knife training".
Seemed really clumsy to me.
And then we get to the big one. Carol murdering Tyrese's girlfriend and that other guy who was sick. This is completely crazy. I remember at the time thinking "well it had to be done, and she was the only one with the stomach to do it". But thats just not true. She went the nuclear option when there was no need. They were already quarantining the 2 people we knew were sick. You could lock them behind a cell door. This isn't like the walker sickness that's a 100% kill rate. They might survive. Mange their fevers, give them antibiotics. She murdered 2 people. There's no gray area about it. Its not as if they weren't complying and mixing with the other people. They were already quarantined. Any disease spreading they had done was already done. Killing them and burning their bodies did NOTHING.
Lastly, I want to talk about the "will they won't they" with daryl. At the time, I didn't like that it looked like they might be setting up that relationship. I thought it felt weird. I know norman reedus is only a few years younger than her, but they just do not look compatible. I never shipped it. And upon a rewatch... the relationship seems 100% one sided. She jokes "wanna fool around" in the season 3 premier and he plays it off "oh stop". Then daryl briefly leaves with merl without saying anything to her but she acts as if her boyfriend left her.
Then again in season 4 premier when she sees people all liking daryl she said "don't forget I liked you first" and again he is like "ha, stop". I think he cares about her. they bonded over losing sophia. I detect zero.zero percent romantic attraction, at least from daryl's point of view.
Anyway, it seems as though my negative impression of carol is persisting on this rewatch nearly a decade later. I'll maybe update again in a couple seasons
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