The Walking Dead – The Same Boat

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

Well then, are we doing alright? Last night’s episode may have continued that tradition of Season 6. You know, the part where things keep getting crazier. After last week’s episode, we are ready to find out the fate of Maggie and Carol, as well as their captors. This was a very Carol/Maggie-centric episode, indeed. So, without further ado, let’s get to it!  
  
“Stop or she’s dead.”  
  
The episode starts off with Carol (Melissa McBride) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) running towards Negan’s compound at the sound of the alarm going off. They encounter a man in the woods who appears to be one of Negan’s men. Carol shoots him in the arm and then urges Maggie to flee the scene just in case there are others. Maggie, who wants to make sure there are no others, hesitates in fleeing with Carol. When Carol confronts Maggie about her need to stick around and investigate further, the remainder of the man’s group catches up and takes two of our favorites hostage.   
  
Cut to the scene last week where Daryl is taking the man off his bike (we learn his name is Primo). We also find Paula (Alicia Witt), the leader of this pack, who uses the walkie-talkie to tell Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the gang that they’re all dead and that they have a “Carol and a Maggie” in their possession. Carol and Maggie are allowed to speak into the walkie as assurance that they are alive, but that is all. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) wants to discuss trade of the prisoners, to which Paula and her group are intrigued. Primo (Jimmy Gonzales) is the one who can patch up their friend who has been shot and Paula says that she will contact him when she’s thought about it, effectively ending the conversation. Carol and Maggie are then blindfolded with their own jackets and marched off.  
  
“Ain’t nothing safe about this place.”  
  
Carol and Maggie are being walked into a safehouse known as Alpha, where the both of them are gagged and bound. Once in the safehouse, Carol and Maggie hear the voice of Paula telling another group about “saviors down” and how they will need help. When both women get the blindfolds off, each is placed facing one another. As Carol is placed against the wall, her feet snag on the rosary beads on a dead walker that was in the room with them. She quickly pockets them without their captors noticing.   
  
Paula and her two other cronies, Molly (Jill Jane Clements) and Michelle (Jeananne Goossen), leave the two women in the room while they grab their friend Donnie (Rus Blackwell), the one Carol shot in the arm. Paula advises for the both of them to not try anything, but Maggie and Carol start testing ways to get out of their bindings. Once they return though, Carol thinks quickly and starts to hyperventilate in her gag. As their abductors are clueless as to what’s happening, Maggie alerts them so they remove Carol’s gag and she starts to breathe easier. Secretly, Carol grabs for the rosary beads in her pocket.  
  
With the abductors now believing that Carol is some kind of religious nut, Carol also alerts them that Maggie is pregnant and not to hurt her. Their captors think they are weak, letting their guard down only a fraction. Molly even chooses to light up a cigarette in the room. When Carol calls her out for it, Molly pokes fun at her because in the middle of the zombie apocalypse there are worse things that could kill them than a little cigarette smoke. Also, it won’t matter because Molly starts coughing into a piece of cloth she has and shows that it is covered with her blood. She has let Carol and Maggie know that she is a “dead woman walking.”   
  
 “You’re not the good guys. You should know that.”  
  
While waiting, Donnie starts getting angry at Carol. She is the one who shot him and he wants to take care of business by hurting her. Paula advises him not to, as they need insurance since Rick is holding Primo captive. Donnie gets impatient and hits Paula. Maggie, immediately reacting to the hit, sweeps Donnie’s feet from under him and Carol proceeds to knock Donnie out. Their good deed does not help them, as Paula regains control and kicks Donnie to the point of death. She also has Michelle escort Maggie out of the room for interrogation.   
  
While being interrogated, Maggie notices a tattoo with the name “Frankie” on Michelle’s arm. She asks if that was her spouse, to which the woman explains that the tattoo is in honor of her father and the baby she was going to name after him. Unfortunately, there would be no baby because Maggie’s group blew up her boyfriend. Michelle then starts to ask Maggie where her camp is located.  
  
“I lost everything and it made me stronger.”  
  
Paula, now alone with Molly and Carol, starts to ask Carol questions still believing that she is weak and unable to overcome everything that has happened. Carol continues to hold onto her rosaries as Paula and Molly wonder why Carol continues to hold onto her faith when clearly there is no God in her eyes for what has become of mankind.  
 
But mainly, Paula wants to know more about Carol’s group and why they blew up some of their men. Carol explains, with a tearful demeanor, that they were going to hurt their people so before that could happen they needed to be taken out. That Negan was a threat to their group. Hearing this, Molly gives a little laugh and let’s Carol know, “We are all Negan.”    
  
Paula then starts to tell Carol an analogy about three boiling pots of water and the carrot, egg and coffee bean. She explains how in boiling water the carrot became soft, the egg became hard, but the coffee beans changed the water. One is supposed to assume that the coffee bean is the desired result, but Paula then talks about her former life before the downfall. She was a secretary, married with four children and by the time the zombie apocalypse happened she was stuck with her boss instead of being with her family. Paula saw her boss as a weak person and made him her first kill.   
  
With losing everything she held important, Paula became a stronger person in the end – one that isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to live. She even explains to Carol that by the time her kills reached double-digits, she stopped caring. As Carol holds onto her rosaries, Paula hears Rick come over the walkie, clearly breaking the rule Paula set in place for her to think about the trade. Carol assures Paula that Rick is a man of his word and wouldn’t deceive Paula for any reason. After reaching out to another group of the Saviors on their way, Paula agrees to the trade, ready to ambush Rick and the group upon arrival. But then realization comes on Paula’s face: the walkie-talkie wasn’t crackling too much, which meant Rick was not too far from where they were hiding in the safehouse.   
  
Disturbed by that realization, Paula rushes out of the room with Molly in tow. By herself, Carol starts to take the cross on the rosaries, sharpening it to a point where she uses it to break free of her restraints. Once freed, she leaves the room to find her way to Maggie.  
  
“We can’t leave them alive.”  
  
Carol finds Maggie, who is alone in the interrogation room, attempting to break free of her restraints. Once both are free, they come to the realization that they will have to kill their captors in order to make it out of there alive. Heading back to the initial room they were both held in, Maggie goes over Donnie, who is face down on the floor. She undoes the binder that was keeping his arm wound from bleeding out so he will die and come back as a walker. Using some of the rope that was used to bind them, walker Donnie is tied to a post near the door. When Molly returns to check on Carol, she is bitten and then tackled by Maggie, who hits her repeatedly with the butt of her own gun. Once she is incapacitated, Carol and Maggie flee the scene.  
  
Paula returns to the room and upon realization that the women have escaped, goes in search of Carol and Maggie. She wants to hunt them down before they can make it to the entrance.   
  
“Just run.”  
  
When Carol and Maggie reach the exit, they find a booby-trap. There are walkers tied down and impaled into the wall at the exit, effectively keeping anyone from leaving. Before they can try to get through it, Paula comes out shooting at Carol and Maggie. Carol tries to urge Paula to just run and not look back, but Paula refuses and runs for cover as Michelle then comes out of nowhere at Maggie, almost slashing Maggie in her abdomen. The thought of being harmed terrifies Maggie until Carol steps in, shooting Michelle in the head.  
  
Once the coast looks clear again, Paula reappears, asking Carol what she is so afraid of – taunting Carol as she has done this entire episode. Also, she realizes that Carol has been playing her this whole time. The final result ends up with a grappling between Paula and Carol, effectively ending Paula’s life as Carol impales her on one of the steel spikes and then eaten by the walkers.   
  
While the threat inside is gone, the fight is not over. Hearing the Saviors rescue team on the walkie talkie, Carol takes charge and grabs it to tell the men to meet in the “kill floor.” Carol and Maggie then set the trap, getting the men into the room. Carol flicks her lit cigarette into flammable liquid and shuts the door. The men burn alive and now Carol and Maggie are free.  
  
“I can’t anymore.”  
  
The threat now gone, Carol and Maggie make their way to the doors, killing the walkers along the way. When they open the safehouse, they are greeted with the sight of Glenn (Steven Yeun), Rick, Daryl (Norman Reedus), Michonne (Danai Gurira), and Primo. Finally reunited with their group, Daryl asks Carol if she is okay, to which she replies “no” and is immersed in a hug.
  
When Glenn asks Maggie if she’s okay, she finally realizes she can’t be out in the field anymore killing people. As they explain that Paula and the Saviors inside are dead, Rick turns to Primo, who is now questioned as to where Negan is. Primo looks at Rick and says that he is Negan, which follows with Rick shooting Primo in the head. Our last glimpse is at Carol’s hands, who is still holding the rosary beads, squeezing them until blood drips down her hand.   
  
The Final Verdict:  
  
While this episode was not quite as crazy in story-line, we got a whole new level of crazy when Carol and Maggie are taken captive. We see women who have reached that level of coldness that even our favorite characters have not quite reached. Carol got a good glimpse into who she could become when she met Paula. Paula was in a similar boat as Carol where she lived a domesticated type of lifestyle. But yet she’s not Carol. She was scarier, colder and much more calculated. This new world has hardened her in ways that as a viewer, I can’t even begin to imagine.   
  
During this episode, I started to wonder whether or not Carol’s “act” was in fact all an act. Carol has killed in the double digits. She has killed to protect those that matter to her, taking on an almost motherly quality. She has been ruthless, cunning and at times, brutal. I was truly scared during these past couple of seasons of the person Carol was becoming. After Sophia, Mika, Lizzie, and even Sam, Carol had to do and witness things that hardened her heart.   
  
And while the “weak” act worked for a while, I started to believe that some of those tears in this episode were real. Maybe she was scared of Paula because Paula represents the final outcome of who Carol will be if she continues down this dark path. And the symbolism of Carol holding onto those rosaries so tight it could draw blood? She’s grasping to hold onto something. Also, who didn’t “awwwww” when Daryl hugged Carol? That was a truly deep moment in their relationship, watching Daryl comfort Carol at a moment that she told him (for what felt like the first time) that she wasn’t okay. Her vulnerability really hit me hard.  
  
Then, of course, we can’t forget Maggie. She’s always so eager to keep fighting and playing out that brutality. But she hit a point where she realizes that she can no longer do it. She, too, became vulnerable. Watching Michelle go for her belly and almost slice her, that was scary. The look on Maggie’s face was one of fear. She has something to care for aside from Glenn. She has a baby on the way, a future to protect. Although, watching those pregnancy hormones get Maggie riled up and defensive? I was terrified to cross her.  
 
And we can’t go without discussing Negan, whose influence reaches farther than the group realizes. His followers step up and claim how they are Negan, almost like an “I am Spartacus” move, but scarier. They’re all willing to die, but for what? We don’t know yet.  
 
Join me next week as we watch the group come to terms with the aftermath of the raid on Negan’s compound (and yet even more danger) in Twice As Far!