The Walking Dead – Diverged

By: Kelly Kearney

In a world where friendships and love fall victim to the dead, Daryl and Carol have beaten the odds more than once to form a bond that could only be described as deep, unfaltering, friendship goals; with a hint of something more that neither the showrunners nor the actors have ever defined. Over the years we have seen these two conquer the dead and defeat whatever threat crosses their paths while always remaining true to each other. It is that invisible string tying their battered hearts together that broke when Daryl called Carol out for leaving rather than facing her pain together. They are a constant and inevitable tag-team that can only be knocked down by an inability to recognize their own truths and for these two friends their truth seems to be glaringly obvious. Capable on their own, together is where they find their strength, which is why they struggle so much when they go their separate ways. If fans were looking for a happy resolution to their fractured friendship, they won’t find it in this episode. But what they will find is a deeper understanding of Daryl and Carol’s bond and why it’s the most important relationship on this show.

Daryl and Carol and Dog

Stewing in their uncomfortable awkwardness Carol, (Melissa McBride) Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Dog (Seven the dog) make the silent trek back to Alexandria. The mood between the two seems less volatile and more pained and restrained with a touch of guilt that’s wafting off of Daryl like some desperate cologne. He seems to know that his words upset her and, like a peace offering, he hands her his pocketknife as she struggles to remove the lid from their water canteen. The exchange is tense and as they approach a fork in the road Daryl tries to say something but Carol cuts him off before he can apologize. Claiming he wasn’t about to say he was sorry but wants her to be safe as she makes her way home must mean he isn’t coming with her. Instead, he plans on staying out in the woods until he can score some food. With all the new mouths to feed now that Maggie and her people are staying in Alexandria, Daryl has no intention of coming home empty handed. With a break in her voice Carol tells him to be safe and starts to make her way back to Alexandria, but she isn’t alone. Dog ditches Daryl to go off with Carol because this furry companion goes where he is needed and, right now, Carol needs a friend.

Back at Alexandria Carol seeks out Jerry (Cooper Andrews) who notices right away that Daryl didn’t come back with her. Unsurprisingly, she deflects the conversation away from her missing BFF and asks him for any work to keep her busy. Tip toeing around the obvious, Jerry offers up a cautious smile while attempting to keep the mood light and friendly. Everyone knows this deadly woman’s weak spot is Daryl and if he is not by her side then that smile she plastered on her face is a cover for her pain. Jerry is not about to be the one to rip it off her mask with questions he already knows the answers to. Pleading with her friend to give her something to occupy her mind, Carol is so desperate for busy work she mentions a bloody and torn scarf she found that she might wash and repair. If she cannot fix what she broke with Daryl then she can concentrate on what she can fix: Alexandria. Unfortunately, all the tasks are already covered by Rosita and the others, so Carol decides to do what she does best: dinner!  There is just one problem…rats got into the grain and the solar panels are down so there is no electricity to cook. There goes her mushroom and nut soup idea, but she will make it work. Like Jerry says, “You always do.”

Two Halves of One Whole

First things first! Get Dog settled in so she can get to work. When she enters Daryl’s basement bedroom she assumes Dog’s excitement is because “it smells like Daryl,” making you wonder what exactly the archer smells like that is so distinctive she can recognize it in one whiff. We soon figure out it isn’t his motor oil and zombie guts smell that makes Dog crazy but the scent of a rodent intruder hiding in the walls of their house. Her couch snuggles with the pup get interrupted by a very real-world skill: building a rat trap with that pocketknife Daryl leant her. Every obstacle she faces the pocketknife is right at her fingertips as a reminder that things wouldn’t be so difficult if Daryl had been by her side.

Speaking of Daryl, his hunt also hits a few snags when his motorcycle comes to a sputtering halt. It’s a simple fix but he needs to scavenge the area for the part. Looking under the hoods of abandoned cars he finds what he needs in a walker occupied ride that sits precariously on an embankment. Extricating the hose turns into a frantic moment when he climbs under the car and almost gets crushed curtesy of the wiggly walker locked inside. Luck is on his side because he manages to escape seconds before the rusted tin can falls over the ledge. If only Carol was with him to be his spotter and if only he hadn’t given her that pocketknife! The hose is a good fix but without his handy tool he cannot get the bike up and running. Today is not going as planned for either of them. It is another in a long list of constant reminders that they are at their best when they are together. The mood isn’t much different for Carol, who is also noticing he distance from her friend. She tries to ignore it by playing a little murder tag with walkers while picking herbs for her soup. Typical Carol, she gets her yah-yahs out as the piles of bodies outside the gates grow. Nothing lights her fire more than taking out her aggression on the dead; for Carol, that’s therapy.

Covered in blood, she straps on her happy and helpful mask as she heads off in the direction of her next task: using Daryl’s knife to fix the solar panels. You cannot make soup without electricity and luckily this woman is both smart and resourceful enough to know how. She’s come a long way from that abused housewife in frock. Meeting Daryl was the big bang in her evolution, so it makes sense that he is part of everything she does. With the power back on and her, her next task is evicting that rat. The trap she built worked but when she goes to remove the furry rodent it takes off under the cabinets and shelves sparking a hilarious chase across the kitchen floor that ends when the rat escapes into a hole in the wall. Like the pocketknife, the rat is a symbol of Carol’s need to make things right. Right with Daryl, and right with the people of Alexandria who blame her for the Whisperer War and the losses they endured because of it. She has her work cut out for her, and so does Daryl who finds himself in another deadly encounter as he now is forced to search for a replacement knife to fix his bike. He has other weapons with him, any trained hunter would, but his bowie knife is too big to attach the hose. He needs to find another pocketknife and lucky for him a few walkers dressed in military fatigues wander on to the scene. Getting the supplies off of the dead soldier proves more difficult than he thought when he slips and falls right into the path of their hungry jaws. He reaches for his other knife, but the walker is on top of him and the blade is just out of reach. Wrestling with an animated corpse was not on the menu for the day and, of course, wouldn’t be this terrifying if he had some back up. Eventually, he gets the upper hand and manages to take the walker out and steal his supplies. SCORE! He finds a pocketknife and two MRE food rations. “See ya later a**hole,” he says to the walker as he heads back to his bike with the knife and other supplies in hand. The army walker is the rat in Daryl’s Carol-less day. It mimics what she said to the rat back at Alexandria because sarcasm is definitely on the list of the many things these two share.

Converged

As night falls, Daryl is still gone and Carol welcomes Dog into her bed she they can both find some comfort after a day of mishaps and missing him. She pets and comforts her worried bedmate, promising that Daryl will come home. Like a boomerang, he always comes back. His loyalty to his family defines him. It’s Carol that doesn’t come back and it is the entire reason why they had they’re falling out. So, it is shocking that her knee jerk reaction to him not coming home would be to run again. Even Dog grunts his disagreement, but she seems to think that the damage she has done is so beyond repair that leaving might be better for everyone. For a smart woman, Carol is totally clueless here because all Daryl wants is for her to stay. He knows where he belongs, the question is when will she?

Later that night Carol is awakened by a rat-panicked Dog who leads her to the scene of its earlier escape. Overwhelmed by her feelings, her frustration over this hunt flows from her like lava, fueling the embers of her fire until an inevitable meltdown. In an epic moment of anger, Carol slashes, punches, and kicks at the wall in until she is left exhausted and covered in sweaty plastered emotions. The wall crumbles, like the mask she wears to hide her true self. It’s the same mask that has kept her alive up until this point and the one Daryl can always see right through. That rat was more than a diseased ridden symbol, but a realization of her need to fix what she broke – to admit to herself that she has a purpose and to finish what she started rather than running from her pain. Nothing was solved from her rage, not the rat and not Daryl. But at least Dog was entertained. After all, it’s not every day you get a front row seat to your new Mom going BEAST-MODE on some drywall.

Cut to the next morning and Jerry is at the back door looking for a reason to check up on Carol. If he were wondering how she was doing, the destroyed wall was a good indication she could be better. Like the standup man he is, he offers Carol some Ezekiel-isms and words of wisdom to lift her spirits, but all she really needs is a hug. Luckily, for her he is an arms open kind of guy. He envelopes her in his warmth, reassuring her that real friends see beauty beyond our broken parts. He hints at the fact Daryl sees it, too.

The hug helped but not nearly as much as the sound of a motorcycle in the distance. Daryl is home and both Dog and Carol are ecstatic, although she does a better job at hiding it. The two make awkward small talk while avoiding the giant “I MISSED YOU” elephant in the room because neither of them are good at putting their feelings into words. Friends fight and hearts break, but it’s in the healing that makes us stronger. Maybe their brief separation didn’t fix everything, but it did make them realize life is much harder without each other. Before the two part for the night, Carol tries to fill the silence with an apology for not returning the pocketknife, but Daryl acts like it’s no big deal and tells her to keep it. The same knife he almost died for, Leah’s knife, Daryl just nonchalantly gives to Carol because maybe he is ready to move on from this fight, too. The gift unsteadies her, almost like the ground beneath her feet momentarily shakes as she struggles to get the knife back into her pocket. Was this a peace offering or something else? Whatever it was, it seemed like the first step in finding their way back each other. Two roads “Diverged” only to converge once found it’s heart in its subtlety. The hour did not end with any declarations or apologies, and it did not move the story forward in any typical fashion, but what it did do was give us a glimpse into what makes these two friends tick, and spoiler alert: it’s each other.