So I’ve finished s10 and honestly? Bless Covid for giving us all this lovely character work to conclude the season, rather than another fucking war. I’m gonna guess the dude bros who are into the comics and the whole GENRE of it all just HATED this season. I bet the fan discourse was all: it’s not the same without blah-blah, the show has gone too long, lost its magic. But for Caryl shippers it GAAAVVVEEEE. And gave and gave and gave until it hurt. Hurt so good. Based on the pattern this series has set up in the past, both for romantic relationships and established communities, I should’ve expected the heartbreaking disintegration of Daryl and Carol’s relationship. They were just too happy to see each other when Carol got off that boat. They went on a fucking DATE, they exchanged TRINKETS. We got extended scenes of them flirting and bantering and MAKING PLANS TO FUCKING RUN AWAY TOGETHER. They share a DOG NOW, okay, a DOG. I should’ve got flashbacks of Richone making baby plans the season before but I was having too much fun and didn’t anticipate just how far they would push these two and their relationship. And know what? I’m not even mad about it. Because the angst is so exquisite. The acting is chef’s kiss perfect. The writing is SO on point. And they were actually EXPLICIT about the romantic nature of this decade-long relationship (longer including time jumps). I can’t believe, as in CANNOT FATHOM, how anyone can be in doubt of that anymore. How can people STILL insist on them being PLATONIC?? Lit-er-al-ly WHERE?? WHAT show are you watching??? I also cannot believe it took me this long to find this fucked up, torturous ship. Like what the fuck have I been doing with my time, because this shit is right up my alley. The off-the-charts chemistry, decades-long irresolution and gaslighty platonic-washing included.
Gotta rewind a moment tho. Cos I need to process some feelings about “Find Me” and the final scene of that ep in particular. I watched it two nights ago and was just kind of stunned by it. I sort of half-watched the next episode (I don’t really care for Gabriel or Aaron that much so eh) and then went back and watched “Find Me” again. I knew that at some point Daryl was going to be retro-fitted with a girlfriend, a narrative move that I do NOT enjoy (e.g. Mulder and Diana grr). But I gotta say, I didn’t hate it. Because basically, Leah is Carol. I mean hello? An independent badass with a cute face and curly hair. (I have a personal head canon/fic idea in which Daryl is curious and asks about Carol’s hair color before going grey. So to me, this is the color Daryl would imagine Carol’s hair would’ve been when she was younger). We get a lone wolf (Kelly's words) with a wolf pup who has become separated from her group. A grieving mother, one who adopts others’ kids as their own despite the high potential for heartbreak during a zombification pandemic. They literally have the same conversation re: spear fishing. Leah’s living alone in a cabin out in the woods, a la Carol in s7. Which is when it all went wrong for them, so Daryl kinda gets a do-over on staying at that cabin and doing all the things he didn’t do with Carol. For instance: watching eclipses and making out by the fire. Except that Leah isn’t quite Carol enough. And also Carol is still visiting and reminding him of who he is really deeply and honestly tied to and hopelessly in love with.
(Sidenote: listen to @9lives2mics outline the parallels between Leah and Merle. Shows that while Carol was caught in what I view as a somewhat controlling relationship with Ezekiel, Daryl found himself falling into a similarly controlling dynamic, if more short-term. Sidenote to sidenote: during one of the flashbacks in this ep, Carol once again mentions being needed at the Kingdom. Considering Ezekiel was not shy in his attempt to pressure Daryl into seeing less of Carol, it’s a pretty good bet that he had few qualms about persuading his wife to visit her best friend at the river a little less. To stay focused her duty to her king and his kingdom).
Okay so, let’s just start with the fact that Daryl writes FIND ME. And the episode starts with Carol finding him on the road, heading out on a hunting trip. She uses the same tactic to reconnect with him as he did in that first episode when she got off the boat after a long absence. They go riding, hunting and bantering. In both scenes, they are (re)finding each other. Or at least trying to. So they revert to what they know, how they initially closed the distance between them after Sophia’s death bound them together in guilt and grief. Presumably this is how they found each other in between s2 and 3, which is why by the time they arrive at the prison, Carol can shoot and stab and DarylandCarol are now a kickass killing duo. No doubt it’s also why they are milliseconds away from jumping each other on that upturned bus. Carol’s effort to reconnect with Daryl post-Alpha-etc doesn’t work out quite as well but the salient point is: she finds him at the top of the episode. She finds him in each of the flashbacks. No matter where his search for Rick has led him, she finds him. She has always found him and brought his scraggly, reluctant ass into the heart of the group. And she is the one he wants TO find him. Daryl is defined by the fact that he is always out there looking for something. He’s a hunter. He’s looking for tracks. He’s looking for clues, for prey, for materials, for food, for routes, for roots to put down. Tirelessly looking for a little girl in the woods, even after all hope was lost, is what defined his character and their relationship. Whatever group he’s part of, he’s their most valuable finder. But who finds the finder when he needs to be found?
So when that note ends up in Carol’s hands, it's because that’s where it was meant to end up. That’s where it belongs. That’s who it was cosmically addressed to. That’s their luck at work. The luck of the double-capped acorn. That low-key blew my mind when I first watched. But I had to watch again to see that Carol holds Daryl’s note in her hands throughout their final argument.
Every single line of this exchange resonates with their shared history. Daryl blaming himself for not being there, not helping Leah (just like with Sophia, just like with Carol whenever she got hurt or taken, just like Beth or whomever he feels responsible for). It should feel like familiar territory and their responses are similar to prior exchanges but, as with the entire episode, something is off, some other tension underlies everything, threatening to explode. The first bomb in the ensuing emotional cascade goes off when Carol hesitantly asks:
She’s being as gentle as possible but she can’t help triggering Daryl’s crushing sense of culpability. Especially since the person who “just left” was her. The blurring between her and Leah continues when she tells him that people don’t leave because of something he did. Cos we all know that, after Carol left, he had to have silently tortured himself for years afterwards wondering whether there was something he could have said or done to make her stay. To prevent her from disappearing from his orbit, abandoning him for another community, another life, another man and another man’s child.
The second bomb goes off in Daryl’s head when Carol mentions Connie, her voice trailing off (pure guilt or was she going to mention another name at the end of that sentence….?). She moves a little closer as she does, trying to lessen the distance between them, but she also shuffles on the spot, clearly uncertain. She’s saying all the right things but they aren’t landing with Daryl, not the way she means them. She’s saying Leah. Rick. Connie. But he’s hearing her name. Over and over again. And he is not in the right headspace for her continuing disavowal of her importance to him. He needed space from her on this day and she refused to give it to him. She was trying to repair them. He was trying to repair him, after all she’d put him through of late AND in the period that she just made him recall. Personally, I am not mad at Daryl for turning on her here. Or for falling in with Leah then. Carol has put him THROUGH IT. That flashback scene where he’s literally weathering the storm while she’s probably tucked up, all cozy in bed with Ezekiel. Yikes.
Even if it’s a little raw, I like Daryl speaking up for himself, saying that Connie’s death was on her. (Reminds me of the scene back before Rick banished her in s4 and he said he’d never killed two of their own, to which Carol replied: Just one). Where I think he’s unfair is in saying that she never knows when to stop. It’s a direct echo of her words to him in one of the flashbacks following Rick’s death. So he knows that that’s both of them. Throughout s10, there’s this recurring motif of them running and not stopping, leaving and not staying. This constant movement is partially a necessity of the world they live in, the worldwide disaster that threw them together in the first place. Ironically enough, they also had the solution to this problem right at the beginning of this season. Run. Just run together. Outrun the threats. But make sure you don’t lose each other in the process. Of course, solutions to zombie apocalypses are so much easier to come by than solutions to past trauma. Also unfair is Daryl telling her that being right is all that matters to her. That seems to come more from anger than anything else because we all know that Carol’s overriding motivation is love. Empathy. Extreme care. That’s why she kills. And that’s why she needed her revenge on Alpha.
It is perhaps this inaccuracy, this uncharacteristic unfairness that FINALLY clues Carol into the fact that they are conducting two parallel conversations.
Welcome to the conversation, Carol, nice of you to join us. Correct, it is not about anyone else. This is about YOU and the fact that you ran off and married another man despite the fact that you two were fucking MADE for each other and head over heels in love for like five years before you inexplicably decided that being a crunchy almond mom was your ultimate calling. Here, the camera cuts to an extreme close-up of Daryl who suddenly retreats back into his shell, nothing more to say now that she’s actively inviting expressions of undying love from all sad-eyed hunters and gatherers in the area. He reverts to s2 Daryl, he of the heated accusations and the “you ain't my problem”. Then the final bomb goes off in his head when Carol tells him that what she needs is a friend. A fucking FRIEND. And her friendship was enough for him once. Her friendship was a revelation to him once. All the comfort and motivation he needed. But Daryl is no longer a boy with sweaty hands and self-worth issues. The boy is still there but he's also grown the hell up. Years later, he wants more. Meanwhile she struggles to even call them “best friends”. All season, he’s been placing his heart on a platter and laying it at her feet, and she’s been like: Nice heart, friend, who’s that for? So is it any wonder that Daryl says:
and part of me was internally cheering at this point. Because yes. Correct. They do not. The first time I watched this ep and saw the scene by the river with them filleting fish, I was like: okay guys, it’s cute but we’ve had a lot of these scenes this season, where are we going with this? Let’s keep the pace up. And when he said this I was like: oh snap, show, you got me, that was the point!! In that scene, Carol was trying to connect, trying to flirt and get them back on familiar ground. She was putting in the effort after putting him through the wringer. But Daryl was having None. Of. It. He didn’t want to go back to what they were. He wanted to know whether there was more. He wanted to know where they were going with this thing that’s silently/loudly existed between them for over a decade. That’s what he’s been wondering aaaallllllll season long. He’s been holding his tongue while she got Alpha out of her system, while she was grieving Henry, separating from Ezekiel, married to Ezekiel, sleeping with Tobin, grieving Mika and Lizzie….and so on and so forth, going back years. He’s been holding his tongue so long, which is why it’s fair that this is all coming as a surprise to Carol. She’s completely caught off guard by all that he’s been bottling up and not expressing to her, and now she’s struggling to retain her somewhat willful ignorance around who they are to each other.
Her confusion is valid but so is his frustration. The spotlight is finally on him and his feelings/experience so he tells her in as clear a way as he knows how that he is ready to stop running and be found. He’s done chasing. Done hiding. Done denying. Done flirting round the boundaries. He doesn’t give a fuck if it’s on a boat up the coast or on a bike to New Mexico, he wants something new and he wants it with her. Not fucking Leah or Connie or anyone else she dreams up to match him with. If she runs, that’s what she’ll be running from. And this time, he won’t be running after her. Because his self-worth hasn't progressed far enough to keep chasing someone who doesn't want to be found. And at this point in the Caryl metacomm, we will pause to admire this shot of Melissa McBride. Acting her heart out. With her teary, pale blue eyes. And her gorgeous hair drifting across her face thanks to an exquisitely timed breeze. Must say, after hating on her married hair, I grew to love her longer locks this season.
So Carol is shook to her core and rightfully so. She turns to the door and glances down at the paper in her hands. Because she’s been holding Daryl’s declaration of love and devotion the whole time. The answer to her confusion. The subtext to this entire exchange. It’s all right there. Laid out clearly in black and white. When Daryl leans in, holds her eyes and declares: “I know where I’m s’posed to be”, he’s telling her as explicitly as he dares: I belong with you. When he adds: “I won’t stop you this time,” he’s begging her in desperate, hopeful capitals: FIND ME. Please please please. I’ve tried to find you. Now it’s your turn. You know where to find me. You always have. Right here. Always here. Ready. Willing. Waiting. Carol hears the hurt she’s caused for him but not the love she inspires in him. Her “you and me” positions them not just as a kickass duo facing the apocalypse as a united front but as a romantic pairing who just can’t seem to find each other through the maze of their mutual damage. (Oh, the validation!) Just as she’s done all season, she stubbornly refuses to believe that he could love her after everything she’s done, who she’s become. In an attempt to not hurt him, she refuses to love him or be loved by him, not realising that that refusal to give and receive love is the deepest way she has wounded and continues to wound him. She can’t conceive of a way to repair the damage she’s done to him, to them, so she sets to work instead on repairing the door so they don’t get eaten alive. Cos life in the apocalypse goes on, even when your heart is broken.
Carol’s chronic fix-it coping mechanism continues in “Divergent”, but neither episode resolves the sexual/romantic tension that exploded all over the screen in this episode. I’m doing a very bad job of staying unspoiled so I know that resolution isn’t forthcoming in s11 either. So once again, if anyone has post-ep recs either for “Find Me" or “Divergent”, PLEASE send them my way.
finished another piece for my personal walking dead rewatch art challenge - Me and my friends are watching in batches, and for each set of episodes, I’m drawing one scene that hits me in the gut. 💗😝
This one’s from Season 2A — Carol and Daryl seeing the growing Cherokee Roses. 🌼
How Carol Peletier became one of the most impactful characters on television
The world is on fire, and we’re running out of heroes.
We live in a world full of superheroes, traditional heroes, anti-heroes, complex heroes riddled with a traumatic past, surface-level heroes with a snippy sense of humour, and Deadpool. But the world is on fire, and you’re running out of heroes if you’re a woman. Or a woman raising a woman. Or a woman godmother to women. Or a woman who is friends with women. We can relate to male superheroes, of course, but it hits differently when you look at the screen and see someone like you – struggling like you, living like you, loving like you, giving like you, surviving like you.
In the last few years, I’ve turned towards television for solace, and I've realized that the few women whom I looked up to are gone or forgotten. As we rapidly descend into what feels like a psychedelic dystopian hellfire trip inspired by A Handmaid’s Tale, I find myself wondering – who do I hold on to? I grew up living and breathing television and struggling to find multifaceted women who were flawed and messy and real and powerful. I watched demure, dainty, traditional, and feminine women who were punished if they strayed away from gender roles, and whatever mortifying fever trip I Dream of Jeannie was.
For a WOC like me, the world is an even scarier place right now. Building connections is tricky. True allies are few and far between, and sometimes you don’t find out until it’s too late – and if you’re lucky, you get to leave the situation without scars (physical or emotional). And I have come to an important realization after coursing the tumultuous waters of the past few years.
When you’re drifting in the darkness, find your lighthouse – for me, that’s Carol.
The Beauty of Carol
Carol is deeply flawed. She’s messy, quirky, sensitive, unafraid, ruthless, soft, and terrifying. When I think of her growth, I can hear her beating heart. When she’s in pain, I can feel the ridges of the scars she carries with her. I wonder sometimes if the old bullet wounds that almost killed her still hurt. I want to know if her pregnancy with Sophia was a difficult one, and if she thought of it a lot when she was raising Henry. I want to know what her favourite brand of chocolate is. I want her to tell me what young Carol wanted to be when she grew up.
I want to sit with Carol, and talk to her about her life over an empty bottle of cheap Moscato, and make the three-and-a-half sips left in chapstick-stained wine glasses last a bit longer. I want her to catch me up on her woes and stories, as if she’s a childhood friend I haven’t seen in ages.
If I’m starting to worry you about my mental well-being, let me assure you that I know Carol is fictional. The beauty of Carol is that she thins the veil between you and the screen and makes you feel for her. She can disarm your guard with a blink of an eye, and before you know it, you’re holding her up as she weeps for her little girl. You’re starting to move in front of her to shield her from a grown-ass man who throws a tantrum and makes her flinch. You’re feeling the pain she feels.
She fucks up, makes mistakes, tries her best and fails sometimes, faces heart-cleaving loss – and when she’s given the space, she grows from all of it. This quality may not appeal to those who prefer characters to be flawless, but to me, her perfection lies in the scars she's still healing. It niches down her audience to those who won’t admonish her for her mistakes, but will revere her for continuing to do her best.
That right there is why she continues to build a loyal fanbase who will stand up for her when necessary. She doesn’t feel like a character; she feels like a dear friend who deserves the whole world.
The Flawed Perfection of Carol
Melissa McBride recognized Carol's imperfection and adorned it with gold.
Carol has found her kin in the deep crevices of this world where the misunderstood folks reside. People who are deemed unconventional because they don’t conform – the misfits, the mavericks, the lonely, the survivours, the neurodivergent, the POC, the queer folks, the forgotten. Melissa gently picked up the pieces from all of our lives and melded them into Carol’s.
We are often harsher on ourselves than others, but through Carol, we have the space to heal the wounds we carry within us. By standing up for her, I have learned how to stand up for myself. She has helped me heal wounds I had forgotten about. I’ve learned discernment by seeing her in her light and her integrity, and by refusing to fall for whatever drivel is being served by the current leadership. Finding a woman to root for means everything in a world where we’re watching rights being stripped away from women. And I’m rooting for her.
A Lighthouse
Carol exists because Melissa had the courage to dig deep into this character’s psyche. Because of her, Carol has loved deeply, she has felt her life’s jagged edges, she has rooted in her empathy, she has drowned in sorrow, she’s been crippled by guilt, she has watched her heart shatter into a million pieces, and she has fallen into a bottomless pit of darkness and crawled her way out through it to find her light.
She is here because Melissa refuses to give up on her. She’s here because Melissa is still fighting for her the best she can. She is here because Melissa refuses to leave her side. She’s here, shining bright – stalwart and strong – guiding us all so we may find our way back home to ourselves the way she is trying to.
No matter what happens or what the current EPs try to tell you about Carol, remember that many men before them also underestimated her. Yet, Carol is still here and she always will be. Because we won’t forget who she is. Melissa has made sure of it.
Melissa has dedicated years to building this character, and it is time Carol gets to live the life she has more than earned.
If you’ve found your way all the way down here, I hope you’ll join me in wishing a very happy 60th birthday to the radiant, the beautiful, the generous, and enchanting Melissa McBride. May this be the year that all her wishes come true.
when negan said "ur girlfriend" daryl immediatley thought of carol 💅💅 and yall still refuse to believe they're soulmates.. stop w the jealousy "aaaw but negan meant girl/friend not in a romantic way!!" SHUTTTT ITTTT he couldve said ur friend but naahhh
chatgpt is the coward's way out. if you have a paper due in 40 minutes you should be chugging six energy drinks, blasting frantic circus music so loud you shatter an eardrum, and typing the most dogshit essay mankind has ever seen with your own carpel tunnel laden hands
Most of my job is marking essays and I will tell you this:
1. Most of the time it's painfully obvious when you're using AI because it spits out the most generic takes possible, and it often attributes statements to people who did not make those statements.
2. An AI paper fills me with a vitriolic rage the likes of no other. It makes me viscerally angry that you're wasting my time and yours this way. School is expensive. There are so many people who would love to be here, who would love to actually be learning but they cant afford to. Have some respect and actually use the education you're privileged enough to be able to pay for.
3. An AI paper will get you reported to the academic integrity office, because it's plagiarism. This is not an opinion of mine its a school policy. An academic integrity violation will follow you for the rest of your academic career (if you're even able to get anyone to give you a second chance) and beyond. Its not worth it.
4. A half assed, insane, incoherent paper that I know you wrote the night before? Relatable. Endearing. Ive been there, I can see you trying. You'll get the best mark I can reasonably give you- it might not be a great mark but it won't be as low as a chatgpt mark. You won't get an academic integrity violation on your record and you might actually learn something.
As a TA im always willing to help people if they ask for help. If you're confused or behind in a class I'm paid to help you keep up. Most schools also have writing centers, where you can access free tutors who will help you with outlines and editing your work.
There is no shame using those resources. The students that do use them reliably end up with better grades at the end of term, and they also save time because its a lot harder to spot your own mistakes than it is to have someone else point them out to you.
University tutor/TA here and I can second ALL of the above. Red Bull will destroy your evening. AI will destroy your academic career.
Writing a 40-minute paper on energy drink fuel is a time-honored tradition and infinitely more valuable to you as a person. We don’t assign essays for the purpose of gathering essays—we’re trying to teach you how to think critically and argue for your observations. There’s no point in having a degree if you don’t have the skills the degree confirms you were trained in.
