Thinking about the different ways Kelly, Connie, Daryl, Magna, Yumiko and others responded to Carol after the cave...
It feels like this is super contentious bc it touches so deeply on how people feel about the way women like Carol are treated - especially in response to their grief and their right to exist imperfectly. And I know some people don't like the way that story was handled bc at times, it felt like Carol was being punished excessively.
And I think about that quite a lot, because I adore Carol, and I know how much it hurts to see her treated badly, especially when the reason is bad writing.
Lately, l've been thinking about how that storyline, to me, doesn't just tell a story about Carol's actions and the weight of them. It also tells an important story about how we respond to harm, guilt, grief, and complicated love.
I think Angela Kang once said something like that it's valuable to tell stories about realistic, complex women; to depict them not just as perfect heroines and role models, but to show them in their messiness and their pain too. And I feel like the ways we see characters like Yumiko, Magna, Kelly, Connie, and even Daryl respond to Carol is similar. Their responses aren't alwavs clean or morally comfortable or even fair, and there's truth in that. It's real.
Sometimes we respond like Kelly, with compassion. Sometimes like Connie, with kindness. Sometimes like Yumiko, with anger/ fear. Sometimes like Magna, with both anger and compassion. And sometimes like Daryl, with a messy mix of displaced emotions, hurt, and love.
All of these reactions represent something real, because harm was caused, regardless of whether or not Carol was at fault. The show makes space for that emotional complexity.
It feels like that arc never quite got fully tied up, but the ingredients were there, idk. I'm sure this isn't a perfect analysis. Just some thoughts I'm having about it. Idk idk.
I think for us, it’s always been important that the women be complex, so not only do they kick ass, but they have full emotional lives.
They can make mistakes.
They can be awesome.
They can be smart.
They can have moments of weakness.
Having fully formed people is what allows you to look at characters as humans and not just this construct of what you want them to be. I do think that there’s this kind of toxic perfectionism that can come with female characters. I don’t want to lean into that, and it’s not always popular when we have the women on our show make mistakes. But I would tell that kind of story for a male protagonist. That’s how they get to have a better story. They’ve got to struggle.
So, if you’re going to have female characters who are heroic, they also have to struggle against themselves, and against external forces.
Of course, we don’t always know our own gaps in understanding, but we’re always trying to evolve the conversation and be truer to who we think these characters might be if they were living, breathing human beings.
Angela Kang, "Permission to Go After What I Love".
Conversations with Women Showrunners - Marygrace O'Shea.
So, why was Carol saved in season 3? Or was that all made up starting with Nicotero? Surely not, since MMB said she was told on the phone by GM that Carol would be killed.
And why did Andrew Lincoln tell Melissa that Sarah Wayne Callies fought for her if that wasn’t true?
I do think I once heard that they changed it T-Dog because IronE Singleton kept showing up late to set, but I don’t know if that’s true.
Could it not be true both that SWC spoke up on Melissa’s behalf and that she didn’t actually have any power? Melissa said she was asked what she thought of the decision to kill Carol, and that all the writers were on the phone at the time. That seems unusual to me. It seems possible that when SWC was told about Lori’s death, she might have said something similar to what Melissa said, like expressing that she thought it was a shame or a “mistake” as AL put it. She might not have literally lobbied for it, but she might have expressed an opinion here or there, which is still something.
For the record, I like Sarah. I wasn’t saying she’s anything like Gimple. As a woman in the industry, it’s just fraught with danger to voice your opinion on anything outside your own job description. (Telling insecure white men that they’re making “mistakes” is how you get labeled as difficult to work with and potentially fired yourself if they’re petty enough.) Obviously, I wasn’t part of whatever conversations Sarah had with the EPs, so I can’t say for certain what she did or didn’t say, but I am dead sure she wasn’t the first person they told about writing Carol off the show.
Melissa knew before any of her castmates did and would have made her plea first. She saved Carol with how she had created a fleshed out person from the stereotype she was given.
The normal procedure for an actor to be told their option isn’t picked up is for the showrunner or another senior EP to call them. If the actor is a lead, the call is made by the showrunner. For supporting cast, the showrunner’s #2 could place the call because showrunners are very busy during pre-production. If there’s an expectation of trouble, there could be one other person on the call too, like a senior EP or someone from legal, depending on the circumstances surrounding the release. Otherwise, it’s a private conversation.
An actor will not get a termination call in the middle of a writing session. The showrunner needs to run the decision by the studio and get approval before they can let a main cast member go and nobody gets fired with an entire audience. Melissa could’ve been invited to speak to the writers’ room after initially having talked to the showrunner, so they could all hear her thoughts on Carol. It would give the room some inspiration to get an outside perspective if they were unable to see beneath the surface of ‘battered wife.’
Re-watched the finale last night cos @patienceisavirtueidonothave cruelly made me and got re-annoyed at how Carol's story on the show ended (spin-off idiocy notwithstanding). So let's just step this thru for the dummies (what I affectionally call the showrunners).
Carol's whole story is defined by loss, sadness and grief. So. Someone (*looks pointedly at Gimple*) made the brilliant decision to have her final scenes defined by what? That's right. Further sadness and loss. Not crushing grief on the level that she's experienced previously, but still. The loss of her best friend and significant other, leaving to go look for "The Future" (how that tracks -- or doesn't -- with Daryl's character trajectory is a whole other issue). Now. Does Melissa McBride cry beautifully? Yes. Did I need to see Carol cry one last time?? NO WTF!???!! Is the sequence emotive and (almost) convincing? Yes. But does the sweeping cinematography and music completely cover up the fact that this ending makes sense for neither character? Ah, no. It doesn't.
So. If loss, sadness, grief, abuse and pain define Carol's arc then what would be the end point that we are all waiting and hoping for for this long-suffering, much beloved character? The opposite, right? Peace. Healing. Happiness. Relief. Love. And whatever the opposite of loss is. Having. The possession of something/someone. Which is where Daryl comes in. Because from s2 onwards, Daryl was set up as Carol's thematic parallel, her narrative significant other. And vice versa. That's what they are to each other. That's why there is something perfect and elemental in their presence onscreen and something missing when they are apart for too long. They are narrative mirrors. They're yin and yang, two sides of the same coin. They don't just embody each other's wounds, they also embody each other's cure. Because in meeting, seeing, acknowledging, affirming, accepting, loving and at last embracing each other, they finally meet, see, acknowledge, affirm, accept, love and fully embrace themselves. In life, it is true that we don't need to heal through another, don't always find peace in partnership, in romantic union. But this isn't reality, this is fiction. This is about closing the open loop of symbolic and narrative trajectory.
And look, you can score it magnificently, light it romantically, tell us directly that this is a good ending for both of them but if it doesn't track with everything that's gone before, it's gonna hit a false note. It's gonna cause some cognitive dissonance for anyone who's been paying actual attention. Let's just skip over the fact that at this point we have seen (multiple times!!) how Daryl and Carol do when they go solo and it is not good. For either of them. Let's focus instead on what Daryl's departure leaves Carol with:
A job. Now if at some point on her journey, Carol had spoken about how Ed refused to let her work and earn her own money (which no doubt he did) then yes, a high-ranking paid role at the Commonwealth might have been a great place to leave her character. If Carol had earlier expressed some burning passion to work in local government, if she had been the one working with Deanna and Georgie, then yeah, taking over Lance's role might represent a happy end point for Carol. And I think we all agree that Carol deserves to be happy. But Carol didn't attach herself to Lance out of some deep desire to be a part of the governance of the Commonwealth, out of some personal commitment to that community. She was a spy infiltrating a corrupt system in order to get info and ensure her family's future.
Lance's role is front-facing, has him setting out rules, overseeing entries and even staring in commercials. He was Milton's dog's body. What exactly about this screams Carol? None of these things have ever been Carol's bag. Is it something she could do? Yeah, I guess, if she wanted... (except the commercials). Is it something we've seen her do and therefore have a good idea of what her post-series life might look like...? No. We're told Carol has made the role her own, but we're not told/shown how. And perhaps most significantly, what do we know about communities that resemble the old world and assign roles/jobs in this manner? They are destined to fall. We literally just watched them tell us this for over a decade.
Ezekiel x 2: Carol had the potential to be a leader but that was never really developed. Leaving her in charge of Alexandria would've made a little more sense since that's the community we/she most connect to. But instead, they have her back playing second fiddle to not one BUT TWO self-important, cowardly, vain leaders. Ezekiel and Mercer stepped up at the last possible minute when everything had already escalated, but they had to be endlessly prodded and prompted and pushed to do the right thing by everyone around them. They were the last to get onboard with the workers' revolution and ushering in a new world order. And now they get to sit at the top of it and dictate how this new world order will function...??? When they were quite happy to live in a cruel, inequitable system as long as they personally were safe and comfortable. They are nice men but not strong leaders. And we're supposed to be HAPPY that instead of being Ezekiel's Queen (a role she never wanted or accepted fully), Carol is his now his Deputy?? His dog's body?? At least at the Kingdom, she was getting sex and a kid out of the deal. Now she's going to be the living and walking embodiment of the adage: Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes and doing all of the fucking grunt work while he takes all of the praise and applause in his little outfit. Give me strength.
Kids. Not only does Carol appear to be working with/for her ex, she seems to be co-parenting the new princess and prince of the Commonwealth with him. Judith and RJ are the only family she has left there. Aside from them, there is Ezekiel. And Eugene, who has his own family now. But everyone else is spread out over the other communities, dead or gone. Carol staying behind for Richonne's kids is the explanation that makes the most sense. She would actually do that (even though it's also completely OOC for Michonne and Daryl to abandon their kids). But just because it makes sense for her character to choose that, that doesn't mean it makes sense for her character arc to end there.
Carol has already taken on a caregiver role multiple times AND been robbed of it in the most painful way multiple times. Taking on the care of Rick and Michonne's kids and raising them with Ezekiel takes Carol backwards, not forwards. It's giving Kingdom 2.0. Carol's arc has been all about her moving beyond the role of mother and caregiver. Carol is a natural caregiver, an instinctive protector. Love for her family is her core motivator. But she has never quite learnt how to receive love and care. She's always been the protector, not the protectee. Like Daryl, she's always felt she had to fight for her survival, earn her place, make herself useful. She had to prove her worth to others. She had to give, to act. She could never just be. Not being a mother challenges Carol to be an autonomous individual worthy of love for her own sake. Not because of what she does or who she serves. Not because of any relational connection. But simply because of who she is.
“… self-important, cowardly, vain leaders... And now they get to sit at the top of it and dictate how this new world order will function...???” Now why does this power dynamic remind me of a certain Chief Content Officer for TWDU?
“When they were quite happy to live in a cruel, inequitable system as long as they personally were safe and comfortable.” And this is Antonio in the spinoff too. Will literally never forget that our introduction to him had him telling Daryl that underage girls are trafficked out of the town to secure the community’s safety, and he presents it as non-ideal “but if it keeps my boy safe, then that’s all I really want.”
This was supposed to be 3 brief points under another QnA from @my-mt-heart but it got obscenely long. Didn't wanna hijack so here's the original post and here's my take:
1. Daryl's default emotion is anger. We see this in the first 2 seasons. Whether he's feeling fear, guilt, grief, insecurity, confusion, offense -- literally everything comes out as anger. Impetuous, protective fury. We esp see it in how he responds to Carol during s2. When she approaches him, over and over again, sees him instead of dismissing him, talks to him instead over/about him, and actually expects him to stand up and be a man and speak honestly and have his opinion counted, his emotional regulation just spins wildly out of control. He has never experienced this, doesn't know what he's feeling or what to do with it, doesn't like being actually seen and the perceived pressure it puts on him, so he just lashes out. (And then apologises. Like he does after lashing out at Carol in the stables. And I always wonder if Ed used to apologise to her too. Once he was sober. Once his rage had passed. He'd reel her back in, charm her into staying. In the scene by the pond, Carol looks uncertain as to whether she can trust his apology. But I think she also senses that she can, that he's not like her late husband).
Obviously, as he grows, he learns to regulate his emotions better, express his feelings in more healthy ways. But occasionally, when hurt or triggered or flooded with unfamiliar emotion, he still reverts to this ingrained behavior, this psychologically familiar trauma response. Daryl also regresses in this way when isolated from the people who ground and affirm him in this newer, calmer adult self (Rick and Carol esp, but Team Family follow their lead in how they treat Daryl and he accordingly rises to their greater expectations of who he is). He regresses into anger (to cover other emotions: grief, loss, guilt, defeat) when isolated in the woods with Beth (who can't ground him, he has to learn to ground her, which he does. Which is part of him growing up during that arc, moving beyond his wounded, reactive teen self). He also regresses when isolated in the woods after Rick's death. Which is why many of his interactions with Carol and Leah are so punchy.
2. Daryl does genuinely care about Carol's peace and happiness. He wants her to find it with Ezekiel, if that's what she wants, if that what's best for her. But that doesn't mean he isn't hurt by her decision to marry another man and invest in a family other than theirs. Or by her not seeing him as a romantic prospect, a potential life partner. It doesn't mean he doesn't internalise that as some kind of fundamental inadequacy, some kind of profound failure of his masculinity (a new kind of masculinity that he has had to build from the ground up, modelling himself on Rick and Aaron and Hershel and others, living up to Carol's expectations instead of the toxic expectations of his father and brother). He wanted to be her man of honour. He's spent years proving himself, performing honourable acts in her name. He's spent years at her side, as her closest friend and confidant. But he can't do what Ezekiel so effortlessly can. He can't do corny. He can't give speeches. He can't give her a son and a crown and a Kingdom. He can't do easy, confident physical contact. He can't sweep her off her feet. He can't just laugh heartily and mutter an affectionate Haahaa heehee I love you. Even if he had the words, his feelings go beyond that. So he does the honourable thing (proving himself again) and lets her go, despite the wound she's inflicting on his feeble ego. Daryl has grown up feeling inadequate, has a gaping wound around never being enough. No matter how much he matures, that will never entirely go away. The kicker is, of course, that Carol -- the person who has affirmed him since the beginning, the woman he has built his idea of healthy masculinity around -- is now wounding him in the exact same spot that she once healed him. And all without ever having the faintest clue. Because she carries the exact same wound. How could she possibly be important enough to anyone that losing her would break them?
So this discussion was centring around "Find Me", which is not where Daryl says he's happy for her etc (that's earlier in the show and relationship). I think the questioner was asking about Carol's final flashback visit to Daryl where he says that she doesn't need his permission to move on (letting her go but also saving himself the pain of seeing her). By this point, cracks seem to be appearing in Carol's marriage, tho I think Daryl tacitly refuses to even think about that, delve into what's happening there or what it might mean. In his mind, that's not his business. If there were any sign of Carol being hurt/abused he would intervene, but there isn't. Carol is mildly controlled under Ezekiel's reign but she's safe, seemingly happy with her choices and capable of leaving whenever she wants. Which she does. Frequently, it seems. What we do know he thinks about and questions (as he does in 'Stradivarius') is why she keeps coming out there to see him. He thinks it's out of obligation -- queenly, motherly or friendly duty. He thinks she's bringing him stuff and checking on him cos she's worried about him, not because she wants or needs to see him. Not because she misses him as much as he misses her. Not because she loves him. He thinks it's lingering loyalty from the old days, not an underlying unfulfillment in her new life. He thinks she's acting as the local social worker, taking pity on the river-dwelling vagabond, making sure the unwashed peasant has a poncho to keep him warm at night. So he tells her he can look after himself, he's fine, she doesn't have to worry, she doesn't need to bring him supplies, he's got everything he needs, including a lost cause. And he reverts to isolation and anger. Again.
3. I don't think something happened between Carol and Daryl during the time jump (aside from the boat/scar thing, which I've given my take on). I just think there has always been a potential between them that they have both been aware of. Silent but tangible and enduring. An escalating, alchemical tension that's never been spoken, let alone released. Carol was ready(ish) at the prison, but Daryl wasn't, he still had growing to do. By the time they re-find each other, Daryl is all growed up and ready to proceed but Carol is in her head, steeped in grief and not the same person. At Alexandria, they get pulled in different directions and Carol starts acting like someone else before splitting entirely. Then she falls into a relationship with Ezekiel. (I speculated on another post of MT's recently that I wonder whether this habit of just taking up with whoever shows interest in her is a pattern Carol inherited from her mother). After Henry's death, Carol needs to heal, their world needs to right itself. But then, THEN, I think Daryl is like: Well, now is the time, right? We're in the same place, logistically as well as emotionally etc. He's been waiting, sensing the vibes, feeling her out... And I think he is right, in a way. It's time. It's finally, finally their time. Only he still doesn't have the words. That's what I think that fight is about at the end of 'Find Me'. He's trying to talk about them without really talking about them, without using his words. Without really naming what they are, how he feels and what he wants. He's trying to put words to/tangibly acknowledge this other potential between them, bring it out of the shadows, make it text instead of subtext so that they can finally address it, resolve it, realise it. Meanwhile, Carol is resisting his efforts to move them forward, acknowledge where they are, point out that it is their time now. This is it. She's desperately denying the very existence of this potential that he is trying like hell to point them towards. Probably because she's lost so much and doesn't want to lose him. But also probably because she's just come out of another marriage in which she was controlled and unfulfilled. Not realising, of course, that a relationship with Daryl wouldn't look/feel like that. She'd finally be freed, rather than kept. (Hence the imagery of them on the bike and the constant conjuring of New Mexico. That's what we lost with the spin-off. Carol's freedom. Their mutual release from the demons of the past).
Like many of the ethical or political disagreements on TWD, I love the FM fight because I can see both sides. They are both right in some way. I love Daryl finally standing up for himself, expressing himself, (half-)acknowledging this thing between them and telling her what he wants, what he can offer her, what he has been offering all along....but he doesn't actually say the words. Everything is expressed in code (tho this is also the writers wanting to have their cake and eat it too). Everything is tinged with frustration and hurt, which of course comes out as anger, which only confuses Carol. I also understand why Carol is so confused, cos while he's been living with this reality for years, she's seeing/hearing it for the first time. She's been expending all of her energy and resilience and (somewhat forced) charm on getting them back to where they were and now he wants to go somewhere different?? I can also understand her not wanting to enter another relationship since all of her relationships thus far have entailed some level of erasure for her. She's never had a partnership of pure equals, and either she doesn't know whether one is possible, what it might look like etc or she is just too damn scared to see that the potential for a fulfilling, equitable union has been right in front of her the entire time.
Your favorite episodes answers got me thinking. I can't like the episode, Find me, because they fight. I can't like the episode, New Best Friends because, that was the episode the audience was told that Carol and Daryl were no longer going to be together. The hidden subtext makes me hate those episodes. I think I have an issue with the network ruining them :)
So, so valid.
Find Me is a tough one especially. I think part of the reason I actually like that episode is because I have a weird amount of faith in the intentions of its subtext.
The scenes with Leah are jarring and uncomfortable, and the fight between Carol and Daryl is upsetting. At the same time, there’s a lot going on that carefully and subtly communicates something important about their relationship. And then the follow-up, in Diverged, expresses that message even more. It feels like blueprints to a grand reveal.
The disappointing part now is that the grand reveal never came. There are little moments in season 11 that feel like they confirm those earlier intentions (like Leah telling Pope that she never said Daryl loved her, and Daryl telling Leah that he left her because he was “scared of letting go”), but they’re not the big payoff we should have had. The fight in particular is the real sore spot for that. It was tough to watch, and I remember thinking - ‘Wow, this is brave. A writer challenging THEIR relationship? The most loyal and longstanding of TV relationships. Brave. So brave.’
I think that to introduce conflict at this stage, you have to have a lot of faith in the strength of the duo and in your writing. And actually, kind of strangely, I thought it was pretty refreshing to see that. Their fight didn’t even fall into any of the traps that a lot of more formulaic TV drama often does - it wasn’t toxic, it wasn’t petty, it wasn’t loud, and especially with Diverged, you could still feel the love. I was genuinely interested in where it was leading. Especially because I did feel like they needed something to shake them up. The unspoken needed to be spoken, and there had to be some sort of change that would act as a catalyst for that. The issue for me is that, in the end, it remained unspoken, because season 11 deflated like a wet balloon. And that makes the fight feel more sour, because we had to endure the gutting discomfort of that with no reward for doing so.
But I also think about how season 11 would have felt if we never got those bonus Covid episodes. As I understand it, the bonus episodes were meant to add extra context to what was coming, but they weren’t necessary plot drivers. To me, that indicates that Carol and Daryl were meant to carry tension into season 11 regardless of what happened in Find Me. Not so dissimilar from the mysterious energy between them following the 6-year time jump in season 9. Find Me fills in more clues for us as to why that tension exists, why it matters, and why it persists in spite of “I’m never gonna hate you” and “New Mexico’s still out there.”
So, I do absolutely understand the negative feelings associated with Find Me, and I share a lot of them. But I think, for me, it feels like Find Me has ended up taking most of the heat for the disappointment that followed with season 11 and then with the abandonment of the original caryl spinoff. I feel like, in better circumstances, it had the potential to be a hugely rewarding component in what could have been a satisfying story.
I’m so sorry for the novel size length of this reply 🥸 I saw an opportunity to talk about Find Me and I ran.
Listen. If you don't appreciate Carol Peletier at her most unhinged (offing incidental love interests, scaring small children, releasing problematic lifers, hurling herself off cliffs, messing with dynamite and pissing off her patient, handsome bff (who also happens to be one of tumblr's fave daddies)) then you don't deserve her at her most hinged (single-handedly saving Team Family multiple fucking times).
About Glenn's death: it just felt like yet another example of this classic dudebro idea of "good people are too soft for this world, you have to *adapt* to survive" that the show seems to push. It's just age old toxic masculinity propaganda wrapped up in a new coating by establishing Glenn as the moral compass and then basically punishing him with the most gruesome and painful death possible for all the dudebros to point to and go "see what happens when you're not heartless enough?!." Not a fan.
I'd call it classic Gimple 🤷♀️ He thinks he's being cool and edgy when in reality, he's just being vile, especially toward characters of color. Take another look at Tyreese's last episode. It's basically suicide propaganda for those who don't belong or can't handle the real world.
Tyreese's death being suicide propaganda. And also Sasha. And Jacqui. All suicidal, all died.
Andrea, Beth, and Carol all struggled with suicidal ideation and survived it. They all got to have a (comparatively) empowering arc about resilience in the face of depression, grief, and suicidal ideation.
And don't get me wrong, because Andrea, Beth, and Carol have all been treated awfully, and I wouldn’t say that all of their arcs surrounding suicidal ideation are necessarily particularly well done. But there is an undeniable difference in how their arcs surrounding suicidal ideation were handled vs how Tyreese’s, Sasha's, and Jacqui's were handled.
In fact, Jacqui's is a particular sore spot. Nobody talks about it. She's treated as an expendable member of the group so that she can demonstrate the right to choose whether to opt in or out of the new world. Meanwhile, Andrea makes the same choice and is taught that her life has value, and that she's loved. Jacqui’s choice to die is presented as empowering in the sense that she chose it… I have such issue with that.
Also, where even did Jacqui's suicidal ideation come from? To have a character make such a huge decision and there was no buildup? Like, at all? In fact, Jacqui had only ever demonstrated a strong desire to live.
Thoughts on whether Angela Kang intended endgame for caryl…
Aside from the writing that heavily positioned them that way, we’ve got LaToya Morgan. A writer on TWD who knows Angela Kang professionally. She is very, very vocal about her love and support for caryl as a romantic ship. She went as far as to say they’ve been in love since season 1. And she strongly supported Angela leading the caryl spin-off.
I’m sure that she supports Angela’s work beyond whether or not she would have made caryl canon, but I just think it’s worth mentioning, because LaToya Morgan was vocally supportive of the romantic ship at the exact same time that she was vocally supportive of Angela being the caryl showrunner. Maybe people looking for someone to target with blame with will still find issue, but personally, I think that’s a big clue that AK was pro-caryl.
For what it’s worth, AK doesn’t deserve pile-ons or dislike from the fandom even if she didn’t plan to make caryl canon. I understand why carylers struggle with trust and that the fandom has been badly burnt, but sometimes I think Angela is punished by the fans for the issues that men before (and after) her caused. But regardless, I do think there’s a lot of evidence that she was pro-Caryl endgame.
And while I’m here, I’d also like to point out that for all some carylers like to praise Mazzara for getting Caryl to talk about screwing around on a bus, I’m pretty sure he would have been quite happy making caryl canon and then killing Carol. So, maybe let’s not.
"...sometimes I think Angela is punished by the fans for the issues that men before (and after) her caused. But regardless, I do think there’s a lot of evidence that she was pro-Caryl endgame." 👈 Exactly.
Angela *was* pro-Caryl. If she had been allowed to finish telling their story the way she planned to, there'd be no doubts about that, but some people would rather listen to ridiculous rumors started by a petty manchild with a selfish agenda right away than trust a woman of color in power, even after she had given us some of the best Caryl content of the entire series and centered an entire season around their relationship 🤷♀️
Mazzara was smart to lean into Caryl's/McReedus' chemistry and he set the stage for one of the most compelling relationships on television. I give him credit for that, but he got fired for a reason. Angela got fired too, and yet Melissa still brings her up without any prompting so that she can praise her writing. That should tell us something.
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