Team Rick may have gone on the offensive, but without doing the proper reconnaissance, they may have jeopardized the entire mission. On last week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” Team Rick thought they had the upper hand and the element of surprise, but… what they got was Carol and Maggie captured. We can only hope that Daryl brought along his bazooka to this party.
Paula
After all these seasons, when will people start paying attention to Carol when she tells you that dumb ass idea of yours won’t work? Carol didn’t think that Maggie should have been included in the attack mission. She was right. Maggie’s being there only placed our Ninja warrior in a position to be captured. The reason you do Recon is to make sure you know if the entire enemy force is contained before you attack. Since this wasn’t done, Paula and her fellow Saviors were able to get themselves two bargaining chips.
Paula is tough, smart and ready to take the lead until Negan and the others return. Alicia Witt plays her character as someone you’d like to know better if you weren’t busy pissing yourself because you were afraid of her killing you just for the hell of it. While Paula thumps her chest, Carol has a freaking panic attack and I’m wondering if our Ninja warrior has gone flat out crazy.
Carol
From the moment of their capture by Paula and her team, Carol is submissive in both her actions and words, leaving Maggie to be the unruffled captive. It is Maggie who tells Paula their names Once back in the slaughter house, the bound captives wait to have their fates decided… just like those poor cows in the good ole days before the apocalypse. When Carol made a grab for the rosary beads, I was afraid that the following panic attack was not an act, especially when she reveals that Maggie is pregnant. Was she going for the pity ploy?
The men are strangely absent from this episode. Sure we hear the voices of Rick and Negan’s group on the walkie and sure there’s Donnie, the wounded Savior who is pissed off at Carol, but this episode, my little walker snacks, is all about the ladies.
And before we get into the heads of Paula and Carol, I have to give a special shout out to the actress who played Moll. She was actually funny and I loved her suggesting a yoga technique to help Carol’s hyperventilating and telling Maggie that second-hand-smoke was the least of her problems. Moll took the edge off tonight’s tense episode, long enough for us to pay attention to what was really going down.
Why did Carol tell Paula about Maggie? Was it a ploy to gain sympathy? Maybe, but Paula, we learn lost four of her own children at the start of the apocalypse and she wasn’t about to be planning a baby shower anytime soon for an enemy. Maggie is put in another room with Chelle after Donnie gets a little crazy and had to be knocked out. Maggie and Chelle talk boyfriends, fathers and possibly saving Donnie’s arm. The fingers are pointed at each other and the accusations begin on who started the fight.
Paula sees something in Carol that mystifies her. Is Carol’s belief in a God as strong as she claims? Paula tells Carol what she was doing when the proverbial dog doo hit the fan. Paula hated her job and she hated her boss, but the soldiers wouldn’t let her go home to her family. She handled her problem the best way possible. Paula has her own tally list of kills.
Watching the give and take between Carol and Paula was mesmerizing because Paula was the mirror image of Carol and vice versa. But, while Paula cared for no one not even the man she shared a bed with, Carol was in full protective mode for Maggie and Maggie’s unborn child.
Although Paula, after losing her own four children, considered babies “bite sized snacks for the dead”, Carol, who’d lost her own daughter, considered babies a sign of hope. And so, this little game of cat and mouse played on as the two warriors searched for a weakness in the other… there was none to be found.
Conclusion
“You attacked us,” Paula tells Carol, adding, “You’re not the good guys.” Carol blamed the attack on their fear of Negan. Then Moll tells Carol “We are all Negan!” Are we talking about a hive mind-set… like the Borg? It’s what gets Primo killed in the end.
When Paula told that little story about the three pots of boiling water one filled with carrots, one with eggs and the third with coffee, there was a moment when Carol and Paula seemed as one mind… almost friendly, but Carol is and always will be the ultimate warrior. The rosary beads helped with the restraints and Carol freed Maggie. They could have snuck away unnoticed, but Maggie had developed a good case of “Mother Rage” and she went on the offensive.
I don’t think Carol wanted Paula to die even though Carol did warn her that she would. But, when you keep a tally sheet of your kills, sometimes death is a necessary occurrence. Carol may be a few notches lower on the tally sheet than Paula, but that didn’t stop her from setting that fire and locking those men on the kill floor.
Maggie finally understood the most important job of a mother: stay alive to keep your baby alive. That means staying home. When Daryl asked Carol if she was okay, she said no. She’s not and we know it. Carol can be outright scary, but I trust her to have my back and in the end that is all that counts on the tally sheet. See you next week, my little walker snacks.
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