Carol: One Day You Just Change

[Bongo Fury]

I really liked Tobin's characterization of Carol as a Mother. I never thought of it before, but she's not some Rambo type, or a ninja, she's a mother bear. Tender and nurturing, but when she perceives that someone is threatening hers, she is savage and ruthless and merciless with extreme violence. Good call red shirt, I hope we don't lose you too soon.

[catrox14]

Carrying over from the episode thread re Carol ditching CDB via Dear John note.

 

IMO Carol's characterization is plot driven and why IMO it's inconsistent and why certain things seem OOC to me. It's a poor use of a good character and a fantastic actress. IMO in the earlier seasons she didn't have a lot to do but what changes she did experience were more organic to her and the story.  I have no idea what making Carol a murderer did to really advance her characterization because they have spent precious little time allowing anyone into Carol's headspace. Her POV IMO is sorely lacking which to me makes her little more than a plot device of late.

 

Like with her suddenly teaching the kids how to kill but keeping it a secret. And then killing two people whom she thought she was protecting the group. Her stopping communication with others never made sense to me.

 

Carol killing Karen gave Tyreese an arc. It was about how upset Tyreese will be and he would kill whoever killed his GF.  They could have had anyone in the prison non CDB division be the killer and for whether Rick was still too crazy pants to be a good leader. Tyreese could have exacted his revenge or Rick would have still exiled the killer.  It didn't need to be Carol.

 

Buy they did need Carol exiled to split up CDB for the Terminus arc. They needed Tyreese to find the killer of his GF and help her without him knowing it was his GF killer but still have his own crisis about killing.

 

Carol's decision to kill Lizzie was done without consulation with CDB because she wasn't with CDB.  It was her, Tyreese, Mica and Lizzie.  Tyreese was in the middle of his own crisis about not killing anyone so it was up to Carol. Lizzie was a lost cause and was endangering the 4 of them. 

 

But they found each other and Carol was a hero and redeemed.  She reconciled with Rick and everyone else and really stepped up her game.

 

I thought alright well she's become a tough cookie, has accepted that sometimes in the ZA you have to do shitty things to survive like killing Lizzie. 
 

Her stealth game at ASZ was fantastic and even her cookie baking didn't take the edge off her badassery which I now accept as a character trait. I could live with that change because they kept her consistently hard core and she was helping everyone with her Ninja!Mom tactics. 

 

And now she just ups and leaves with no warning when she is important to that group. She has an obligation to tell them to their faces she is leaving and tell them ahead of time. But she doesn't do that? WHY?? They've been making decisions like that together for some time. 

 

What made this strong, group leader just opt out?  I don't think reading her journal and crying about killing 18 people is good enough setup for a major character to make such an about face in such a short time.  And the voice over reading of the Dear CDB letter is woefully insufficient

 

Then I realized it has to be setting up that someone in CDB is going to be put in danger or killed because they seek to find her and try to convince her to return to CDB...

 

...OR she'll be kidnapped by the Saviors and they have to rescue her. That's not spoilers but that seems like the only reason to have her leave without talking to anyone before hand. 

 

Although maybe she's going to go all Ninja and infiltrate the Saviors. If that happens then I will give the writers all credit for giving her not telling anyone and just leaving.  That would be an actual arc of her own that isn't about advancing any other characters arc. Just her own, to be a hero.  

 

I'm not holding my breath though.  

Edited March 21, 2016 by catrox14

[Pete Martell]

I was skimming through "The Same Boat" for a second time, and I'm even more impressed by Melissa McBride's performance. Her one-on-one with Paula reminded me a lot of the some of the Steel Hour-type plays that used to be live on TV in the '50s. It felt like live performance. The use of the smoke made it even more atmospheric. I love the way she delivers Carol's lines about how they don't want to make her start killing and that is her worst fear. These could have been done in a badass, gruff way, but instead they're just broken, yet somehow full of awareness, resolve. And to the end, Carol never goes into an autopilot badass. She doesn't want to do anything she has to end up doing. It's not lip service or a way to make herself feel better. It's the truth.

 

Even if a few scripts have been better, I think this was her best performance on the show, and it's saddening to me that she probably won't get any recognition for it.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Pete Martell

[diebartdie]

Well since I refuse to talk about "the cliff hanger", I do want to talk about Carol, especially the past few episodes. I get Carol, I really do. Maybe it's because Ive been through a lot of horrible things, maybe it's because I suffer from depression and anxiety, who really knows? To me, Carol is doing that whole "I love you I hate you Dont leave me alone" thing common to many abuse survivors. Sure to us on the outside her behaviour lately has been weird!  She goes from "I can never kill again because it's killing my soul" to the very next instant KILLING half a dozen men. She goes from baking acorn and beet cookies and handing out to the community she loves to packing her bug out bag and bugging out. Smooching Tobinbear to leaving him asleep in bed.

 

Which is it Carol?

 

Obviously it is all of the above. She's conflicted, so damn conflicted, that's why she can never kill again until she kills again. Why she is so fierce about protecting the community that she leaves the community.....maybe she left them because she see's herself becoming more like Lizzie or like Shane, people who were incredibly dangerous to the very people they loved.

 

I think I, as a fan, as a viewer am doing a lot of heavy lifting here though if so many people are struggling to understand Carol, are just seeing the contradictions and not understanding the underpinnings of those contradictions and that is bad story telling. Ideally we would have seen more of this for a longer period of time but it feels like Carol only started thinking about this when she was exposed to Morgan's pacifist philosophy. Because of who I am and what Ive been through, my mind fills in the blanks and Carol's story makes sense but without me projecting, does it make sense?

 

I think it holds together if the viewer grants Carol PTSD (assuming the viewer understands PTSD) and if the viewer has been paying close attention to Carol. She has always been conflicted about many things. After the farm burned down, she started whispering in Daryl's ear in an attempt to get Daryl to overthrow Rick. Was that because she hated Rick or was it because Carol saw what the audience saw, she saw in Rick the monster in his heart, saw that he could be so much worse than Shane under the right circumstances and she was afraid. Not long after that though, she was one of Rick's very best lieutenants, she trusted him and followed....and then read too much into it and murdered Karen and Dave.

 

Rick exiled her and that was probably the most devastating thing he could have done. Seriously, everything she loved, everyone she trusted, all the comforts built up there in the prison Rick ripped away from her. This reinforced the message Ed was contantly pounding into her head, she wasnt good enough, she was bad, she was dirty, nobody loved her nobody cared if she was dead, man that was terrible! But like a whipped dog or an abused wife, she went sneaking back just in time to see the whole damn thing blow up! WOW. I mean can you imagine her state of mind? "Holy fuck, I knew Rick wanted me gone but did he really have to blow the place up to keep me away?!?" Not a normal train of thought I know but still, a very common one for someone who was abused (most of that abuse was mental you know).

 

So she finds Tyreese and the little girls, settles back into her role as protector......who ends up having to murder Lizzie. Seriously yall, if nothing else did it, that act alone is what broke Carol. She kept limping along emotionally for quite a while, murdering along the way....drip...drip...drip. Is murder easy?

 

I mean I suppose in some instances it is......and obviously some people are born without the ability to empathize so for them I guess maybe it's easy......but Carol has always been shown not as remorseless, cold, heartless, no she's been shown as someone who loves, who cares, who is tender hearted so even though she could do all the horrible things she has done, all those terrible things were tearing her apart. Sometimes she had to embrace her inner Ed (the violent part, not the child molesting part) I think and that alone would be enough to make her suicidal, enough to make her of divided mind, enough to make her leave her love, her comfort....make her believe yet again that she is the bad one, the dirty one, the wrong one, the one undeserving of any life at all, even a miserable one among zombies.

 

I hate that she got shot however many times but I know it's tvland so she will recover and not have a limp, still be able to fully use her right arm, we'll never even see any scars. I guess we're not supposed to want to see any of that but I wish we would for a change. I think more people would understand her physical limitations caused my trauma than they are understanding her emotional limitations caused by trauma.

 

Last thing, I was so relieved she did NOT show up and save the day, that would have been my last straw for real.

[lulee]

I think I, as a fan, as a viewer am doing a lot of heavy lifting here though if so many people are struggling to understand Carol, are just seeing the contradictions and not understanding the underpinnings of those contradictions and that is bad story telling. Ideally we would have seen more of this for a longer period of time but it feels like Carol only started thinking about this when she was exposed to Morgan's pacifist philosophy. Because of who I am and what Ive been through, my mind fills in the blanks and Carol's story makes sense but without me projecting, does it make sense?

Great post, diebartdie! I haven't had the experiences you've had but your analysis made a lot of sense. And I completely agree about the viewer "heavy lifting." The writers kept her internal state internal for too long. Her actions in the immediate aftermath of the charred bodies of Karen and David was the first misstep on this trajectory. Many posters to this forum objected to Carol's silence then. She cried alone later in that episode but she didn't speak up. At the very end of the episode, she says "yes" when Rick asks her if she killed, but it was the next episode before the audience got to hear about her thoughts and feelings and when she did, many viewers here found her very unsympathetic and unrelatable.

 

Then next we saw her connecting with Tyrese and the girls and she was shaking when she shot Lizzie and sounded remorseful when she told Tyrese about Karen, but by that point, many posters (or at least a vocal minority) seemed to view her as a cold-blooded killer. Then when Terminus happened, she was so slick, so Rambo, and killed humans there with seemingly no hesitation and no signs of conflict. Could there have been internal conflict? Yes, many of us guessed that there was, but there's some of that lifting that Bart referred to.

It's when she, Judith, and Tyrese are almost to Terminus that she says that she won't stay -- her first, I think, indication of wanting to go it alone and not be with the group anymore. Soon after, at Gabriel's church, she tries to leave the group, but Daryl catches her but then they're off chasing the Grady lollicops. The most internal we get of Carol from that arc is when she and Daryl are at the women's crisis center and there are flashbacks to times she was alone or struggled (after being banished by Rick, burying Lizzie and Mika's bodies, etc.).

 

The next sequence is at Alexandria when she immediately goes into her undercover happy homemaker persona while out in the open but conspiring with Rick, especially, in secret. Her threat to Sam has been pointed to many times as her character going too far over the edge, etc. Any continuing/ recurring feelings of conflict about her previous killings were not shown to the audience.  And her previous attempts/inclinations to leave the group were not referenced during this time. So the audience saw - in terms of what was observable her being ruthless, menacing, and deceptive, and in a lot of ways, different than she had been, and it wasn't until after she killed the Wolves and then smoked the cigarette and cried. That was really the first time in Season 6, I think, that her facade broke down, and then after that, she became more and more conflicted and her struggle became more external, culminating in her leaving again.

 

But for many viewers remembering her desire to isolate herself both before and after Terminus and recalling the times she did struggle about the killing may have been too much lifting again. They saw cutthroat early season 6 Carol contrasting with the shaky desperate Carol of late Season 6 and not what had happened prior to season 6 that mapped onto the late season 6 Carol.

[Nashville]

Nothing new has been posted here in quite a while, so I'd like to add some observations/conjectures to get a little more current:

In the beginning of the series, Carol was a devout Christian; this was clearly communicated in Season 2, first with Carol praying fervently for Sophia's safe return, then - after the barn incident - Carol’s statements that Sophia was in heaven (to Carl, who mocked her).  Over time, however, Carol's faith appeared (at least temporarily) to take a back seat to a pessimistic pragmatism born of the exigencies of survival.  The most dramatic demonstrations of this evolution in attitude were seen in Season 3 with (a) her surreptitious "story time" weapons training sessions with the small children, and (b) her murder of Karen and David in an (ultimately futile) attempt to forestall an epidemic within the Prison.

In successive seasons and episodes Carol continued to transform into an increasingly skilled and increasingly amoral killer - the only exception being her emotional execution of Lizzie in "The Grove".  Carol's divergence from her original persona is never more evident than in Alexandria where she shifts seamlessly between Carol the Homebody (maker of cookies and casseroles), Carol the Agent Provocateur (raider of the ASZ armory), and Carol the Counter-insurgent (effortlessly disguising herself as a Wolf and dispatching the invaders) - whatever survival in the immediate situation requires.

Carol, however, is anything but static.  Toward the end of Carol's tenure in the ASZ - and probably due to Morgan’s influence - we see, if not quite a resurgence of her original religious beliefs, then some level of heightened moral consideration and/or regret for her accumulated body count.  Whether it be fear of Hell or of karmic imbalance, the weight of souls dispatched by Carol appears to be sitting heavily upon her.  This karmic burden is not so massive as to render Carol incapable of lethal action, but her increasing distaste for killing is obvious.  Carol literally destroys the Savior crew (both original and reinforcements) who capture her and Maggie after CDB's attack on the Savior outpost, killing all but Molly (who was killed by Maggie); Carol's growing ambivalence toward killing, however, is prominently featured throughout the episode.  Carol also decimates the truckload of Saviors who ambush her shortly after her departure from Alexandria. 

Her subsequent conversation with Morgan reveals her quandary: Carol doesn’t want to kill any more, but being a part of the CDB family requires one to be ready and willing to kill any threat to the unit.  The only solution Carol can see is to separate herself from CDB, as she sees her own unwillingness to kill as a disqualifying factor.  We are subsequently left with Carol living a solo existence outside the Kingdom, attempting to find reconciliation in isolation.

So, now we’re caught up.  :)

What alternate paths to reconciliation - if any - do YOU see for Carol?

[Ohwell]

I see her as Zombie Chow.  

[AngelaHunter]

Good post, Nashville. The problem I have is that I no longer care much about anyone in this show. I don't know if that's the fault of the writers or that it's all gone on too long, or if it's my fault for having too many expectations. I used to really like Carol and understood her moral and emotional dilemmas. Now her never-ending angst and depression (and I do think she's clinically depressed) just bores me. I'll keep watching (as I did with Dexter long after it turned to utter garbage) just because I've invested all this time, but it's no longer a pleasure as it used to be.

[nodorothyparker]

It's a good question and I struggle with the same disconnect.  Watching the groupings of our gang at first Hilltop and then the Kingdom this past episode, I realized that I don't really feel much of anything for any of them at this point.  They've all been so generically underwritten for so long as the show has crowded more and more single name characters on the canvas that it's hard for me to identify much more than the most superficial characteristics about any of them.  They've nearly all been reduced to "we go fight now" or "I don't wanna."   Anyone I do still care about I think is for nostalgia's sake as much as anything left over from the earlier seasons when the show did manage to squeeze in time for us to know them.

I do still like Carol a lot, but they're not making it easy and I'm not sure I would had I not been along for the entire journey.  I find myself having to fanwank a lot in rationalizing her behavior and choices because the writing just isn't there.  If I can remember that it's been less that two years in story time since the entire world went to hell and life as she knew it with a child and SOB husband ended, that everything that happened from the prison murders to banishment by Rick to putting down replacement daughter Lizzie to blowing up Terminus to going Assassin's Creed on the Unfair Wolves to whatever the hell that was with Morgan and the zombie bloodbath as Alexandria's walls came tumbling down occurred over maybe a six or eight week period, it becomes a little easier to have some idea what must have been in her head during their blink and you'll miss it downtime.  That would be the downtime when she came off autopilot and got to be her most integrated self, where she didn't have to hide that she's the gunslinger now and could still be the community mom who baked everyone cookies.  But that's also time she had to think about what she had done, and she barely had time to sort that out before Rick rolled up and announced that it was time to go a murderin'.  At least that was my read of her bouncy musical montage.   That last foray with the Saviors Bad Girls Club with the killing and setting people on fire was just the final straw.

I'm not as bothered as a lot of people seem to be by her decision to basically check out of the zombie apocalypse in her little cemetery house.  It actually sort of amuses me.   Right now, she doesn't seem to care much whether she lives or dies as long as nobody is depending on her and she doesn't have to feel anything.  If only those nice boys from the Kingdom would leave her alone.   It does read as depression, which is certainly understandable enough.  When I really think about, none of these people should be sane or anywhere close to mentally or emotionally okay.  I will agree with whoever in the main thread said they don't think she really wants to be completely alone as much as she believes or at least says she does.  Hey, it happens.

Where does she go from here?  My hunch is we're going to be seeing both her and Morgan clawing toward some kind of balance that means neither of them will be going unleashed Assassin's Creed Carol or Morgan again but also not being left stranded in the untenable no man's land of trying to save or reason with people who can't be reasoned with.  Or least that's my hope since they're both two of the better written and acted characters on the canvas.  It's hard to imagine either of them back in Alexandria.  Luckily the Kingdom seems the far more interesting option if only it can survive contact with Rick and his wrecking crew.

[AngelaHunter]

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 9:34 PM, nodorothyparker said:

It does read as depression, which is certainly understandable enough.  When I really think about, none of these people should be sane or anywhere close to mentally or emotionally okay.

As I've said, everyone here would and should be suffering major PTSD. However, Carol's should be the worst, since she's the only person on this show who murdered a human child in cold blood - something I'm sure that would make even Negan (and maybe even the cannibals) recoil in horror. I know Lizzie was very disturbed and a danger, but still, she was just a little girl and if I imagine myself shooting a child in the head, I know I would never be able to function normally again.

[nodorothyparker]

I'm generally not a fan of playing who's had it worst or whose suffering is the greatest.  Grief is such a personal thing in both how it affects people and how they choose to handle it.  And frequently, I see it used as some kind of competitive thing as in character X had this many losses and character Y had one fewer so only character X is entitled to feel anything about it or act out in any particular way.

That said, I have a soft spot for any character we know has lost a child because I'm pretty sure that's the one that would permanently break something in me too.  To see them come back and have to be put down, and then to later even begin to contemplate having to murder an entirely different child you were begrudgingly starting to see as another chance ...  I don't know how you come back from that.   If it makes you come across as cold or hard after that?  Can you really be surprised?  No wonder she doesn't want anything to do with any other child ever. 

[Nashville]

My personal impression? 

1. Initially, Carol will enjoy the insulation of her false security - that (a) she is, by her departure from CDB, insulated from having to kill to protect it, and (b) CDB has the capability to continue its journey throughout the perils of the ZA unscathed.
2. At some point Carol will, however, learn of the deaths of Abraham and Glenn - and that knowledge will be accompanied with the epiphany that the people she loves will always be in peril, whether she is there or not.
3. At this point I expect Carol would be prompted back into action; whether in the form of a return to CDB or a suicide assault on the Saviors, only time - and the writers - will tell.

[ghoulina]

Carol's story has been hard to watch lately, because I feel it's just too similar to Morgan's. Also, there was little build up to her decision to just stop killing and check out. That's what happens when you have such a bloated cast - no one is getting the attention they deserve. But the one thing I appreciate about this Carol is that she is not trying to preach her newfound beliefs on anyone else. She is not saddling the group with her reluctance to kill. That's where Morgan missed me. He's living with ASZ during the Unfair Wolf attack, but not only refuses to kill those psycho killers, but he actually lets 4 of them go! At least Carol's isolation removes any responsibility from her shoulders. 

And I do get why she's struggling. It makes total sense. But in the framework of a weekly television show, it's just not very fun to watch. Plus, I think they're playing her a bit too bitchy. She gets all pissed off when people keep showing up, but she chose a place that's spitting distance from a large community. What does she expect? 

I'm hoping the ultimate goal, for both Carol AND Morgan, is to find a happy medium. To be able to kill when need be, but not go off the deep end. I'm sad to say, though, I have little faith in the writers of this show anymore, so who knows.....

[nodorothyparker]

The show really did itself no favors by delaying the resolution to the whole Anderson family mess/the walls come tumbling down at Alexandria to after the midseason break.  I will forever maintain that had that been the midseason finale as it should have clearly been and they started the next half season making it clear that some time elapsed since then in relative peace and quiet, so many of these stories from Carol's break to the sudden Rick-Michonne pairing would have made so much more sense and felt so much more organic.

I'm apparently at a table by myself in finding most of Carol's interactions with the Kingdom boys pretty amusing.  She keeps telling them to go and they keep coming back anyway because I think they realize too that if she had truly and sincerely wanted to be completely left alone she wouldn't have set up housekeeping five feet from them.

[Nashville]

4 hours ago, ghoulina said:

Plus, I think they're playing her a bit too bitchy. She gets all pissed off when people keep showing up, but she chose a place that's spitting distance from a large community. What does she expect? 

This reminds me a lot of my wife.  Our house used to be on the extreme edge of town; the view out our bedroom window for years was a 1-1/2 lane country road, with a cow pasture on the other side.  Town has grown out around us, though, and the cow pasture is now a full-blown housing development.  We occasionally discuss putting our house up on the market and getting a place out in the sticks (a small farm, maybe), and she loves the idea; problem is, she also doesn't want to be much more than  15/20 minutes away from a Publix, or other easy shopping.  The two (remote vs. convenient) tend to be kinda in direct opposition to each other.  :)

 

3 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I'm apparently at a table by myself in finding most of Carol's interactions with the Kingdom boys pretty amusing.  She keeps telling them to go and they keep coming back anyway because I think they realize too that if she had truly and sincerely wanted to be completely left alone she wouldn't have set up housekeeping five feet from them.

You're not alone.  The whole thing is so high-school.  Cracks me up.  :D

[smorbie]

On 3/23/2016 at 10:36 AM, Pete Martell said:

I was skimming through "The Same Boat" for a second time, and I'm even more impressed by Melissa McBride's performance. Her one-on-one with Paula reminded me a lot of the some of the Steel Hour-type plays that used to be live on TV in the '50s. It felt like live performance. The use of the smoke made it even more atmospheric. I love the way she delivers Carol's lines about how they don't want to make her start killing and that is her worst fear. These could have been done in a badass, gruff way, but instead they're just broken, yet somehow full of awareness, resolve. And to the end, Carol never goes into an autopilot badass. She doesn't want to do anything she has to end up doing. It's not lip service or a way to make herself feel better. It's the truth.

 

 

Those scenes told exactly what is going on with her right now.  It amazes me that people still don't get it.

Carol has PTSD.  Who wouldn't?  She saw he husband die, she lost her little girls, all three of them.  And one of them she had to kill to protect Judith, Tyreese, and herself.  She's had to become someone hard in order to survive, and she had to change fast.  She's seen and lived more horrors with every day almost bringing something worse.

Like Michonne, but in her own way, Carol shut down emotionally for a while and just moved forward doing what she needed to do to protect herself and her "family".  

Eventually, though, she began to let others in.  With Michonne, it was Coral.  With Carol, it started when Morgan said he knew she didn't like to kill people.  That thought stuck in her head and made her open herself up again and see what she had been covering.

The scene with the woman at the outpost showed exactly what she was thinking.  She could kill them all; she's tougher than nails and probably the smartest one of her whole group, especially when it comes to "military" strategy.  But, she really wanted that woman back, the sweet, loving mother Sophia had, the good woman who made a pact with T-Dog that they wouldn't let each other turn.  She wanted to be a woman who wouldn't have tried so hard to frighten Sam and push him away.  She wanted to be worthy of Tobin the Torpid.

She's afraid that woman is gone.

On 2/26/2017 at 7:01 PM, AngelaHunter said:

As I've said, everyone here would and should be suffering major PTSD. However, Carol's should be the worst, since she's the only person on this show who murdered a human child in cold blood - something I'm sure that would make even Negan (and maybe even the cannibals) recoil in horror. I know Lizzie was very disturbed and a danger, but still, she was just a little girl and if I imagine myself shooting a child in the head, I know I would never be able to function normally again.

I wouldn't, either, but I understood her decision.  And since I hated Lizzie anyway.....

[Nashville]

37 minutes ago, smorbie said:

I wouldn't, either, but I understood her decision.  And since I hated Lizzie anyway.....

⚠️ Warning - Comic spoiler below: ⚠️ 

Is it just me, or did Lizzie's character come the closest to...

Spoiler

...emulating the fate suffered by the Carol character in the original graphic novel series?

[Ocean Chick]

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 10:11 AM, Nashville said:

⚠️ Warning - Comic spoiler below: ⚠️ 

Is it just me, or did Lizzie's character come the closest to...

  Hide contents

...emulating the fate suffered by the Carol character in the original graphic novel series?

Not really, no, since I don't think Lizzie

Spoiler

wanted to die, so it wasn't suicide by zombie.  I'm not a comic reader, but from what I've read, Lizzie and Mika were a re-do of the Ben and Billy story arc.  And really to show that people with mental health issues before an apocalypse, no matter what the cause, are going to go downhill fast just because there will be no meds or doctors available to keep them at any sort of level.

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, Ocean Chick said:

Not really, no, since I don't think Lizzie

  Reveal hidden contents

wanted to die, so it wasn't suicide by zombie.  I'm not a comic reader, but from what I've read, Lizzie and Mika were a re-do of the Ben and Billy story arc.  And really to show that people with mental health issues before an apocalypse, no matter what the cause, are going to go downhill fast just because there will be no meds or doctors available to keep them at any sort of level.

You're right...

Spoiler

Lizzie would have almost certainly ended up eventually auditioning for the ZA version of Suicide Squad - and probably in very short order - but she wasn't there yet.

And I had totally forgotten Ben and Billy.  It's been a minute since I read any of the GN.  ;)

Edited April 25, 2017 by Nashville

[Smad]

I was doing a rewatch from the beginning and paying closer attention to Carol's arc. It's interesting to me that a lot of the qualities that people would use today to describe Carol's badass-ery were probably formed prior to the ZA in the abusive marriage she was in.  Carol's acting abilities, for one. The Carol that she was behind closed doors with Ed must have been a very different one from the one she would present to the outside world, so as not to draw attention to the bad home life. Her ability to improvise and think on her feet, I imagine that came into play in various ways before the ZA. Whether that's how to lessen the abuse to herself (similar to how Jesse pretended to be knocked out when the wolves attacked, something she clearly did previously to protect herself from Pete), protect her daughter from being in Ed's hands, the excuses she had to come up with when an outsider saw her with bruises etc.. Carol's ability for strategic planning to a certain degree. How many plans had she hatched over the years in regards to running away from Ed? And not just to the nearest shelter but really get away for good.

It's an ironic twist in a way, that things she learned and adapted under such horrific circumstances (abuse) would actually come in handy in an apocalyptic situation.