In The Walking Dead recap, Carol and Maggie face off with the Saviors after being captured following the raid on the compound….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer @DamonMartin
If it wasn’t evident enough by last week’s episode of The Walking Dead, Carol might be the biggest bad ass this side of the apocalypse, but that doesn’t mean she’s enjoying herself while offing 18 people since zombies took over the world.
Carol’s instincts have played a major part in saving a lot of lives — at Terminus when she single handedly took down a camp full of cannibals, during the Wolves attack when she camouflaged herself and helped stave off an attack on Alexandria and now when she knew after being captured by a small band of Saviors that eventually she would kick into survival mode and take out each and every one of them.
That’s what seems to scare Carol the most right now.
She went from abused wife and mother to apocalyptic mercenary and that just doesn’t sit well with her. As easy as its been for her to pick up the gun, pick up the knife and then calculate the best possible course of action that typically ends with maximum body count, that’s not who Carol wants to be anymore.
But that’s who she needs to be to survive.
It’s that internal battle that fuels the latest episode along with some taut dialogue scenes feature Carol, Maggie and a Savior leader named Paula, who actually gives some insight into adapting for the better in this world gone to hell.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘The Same Boat’…
The Kill Floor
Picking up right where we left off a week ago, the group of Saviors who managed to get the drop on Carol and Maggie are bargaining with Rick to exchange these two hostages for the one named Primo was captured alive back at the compound. The leader of this group of Saviors is named Paula (Alicia Witt) and she’s not ready to make a trade just yet so she decides to lead her people back to a fall back spot — which just happens to be a former slaughterhouse.
We also find out that when Paula’s group got the jump on Carol and Maggie that one of their people got shot in the process. In actuality, Carol shot the man we come to know as Donny, but she went for a wound on the arm rather than planting a bullet directly between his eyes. Why didn’t she kill him? Stay tuned for that later.
Back at the slaughterhouse, Paula and her cohorts clear out some walkers who have managed to make a home there since the last time the Saviors actually cleaned out this safe house. Maggie and Carol are bound and gagged while the Saviors determined what to do with them. The prevailing thought is the group who took out the compound would never actually negotiate and no matter how much they want to exchange hostages, this will likely end up a blood bath.
All the while this is happening, Carol is clutching onto a set of rosary beads, hyperventilating and shaking like a leaf from fear. This isn’t the Carol we’re used to seeing, but it appears to be another acting job where instead of cardigans and flower draped blouses, she’s wearing tears and a mask of fear to lull the Saviors into a false sense of security when dealing with this frightful, timid woman.
To add to the situation, Carol also reveals to the Saviors that Maggie is pregnant — possibly making her a sympathetic figure as well and keeping their captors from harming them.
Paula is a cold, forceful leader who doesn’t seem to care much about Carol or Maggie’s personal woes because all she’s waiting for is the retrieval group she called to come pick them up to arrive. Paula isn’t playing any games because if Carol and Maggie are going to survive this, they have to play by her rules or they won’t leave the kill floor alive.
Getting to Know Your Captors
As Carol and Maggie either wait for help to arrive or for the rest of the Saviors to show up, the ultimately spend the time getting to know Paula and the rest of her group between several conversations and even an interrogation.
Paula reveals that before the zombie apocalypse she was just a secretary, whose main purpose in life was fetching coffee and serving at her boss’s beck and call. She missed out on a lot of precious time with her husband and four daughters but when the world came to an end, Paula finally got her revenge. As soon as the dead started walking the Earth and her family was killed, Paula wasted no time going after the person she believed to be most responsible — her boss.
She killed him dead because if not for him, Paula might have spent more time with her husband and girls before they were gone.
As far as the other captors, we find out that Donny is Paula’s current main squeeze, but when he gets out of line and insists on killing Maggie and Carol, which eventually leads to him smacking his girlfriend, we find out that he’s not the one in charge. Paula pistol whips him to the ground and explains that he’s never been anything more than someone to keep her bed warm at night. She could kill him dead right now without batting an eye.
One other side note — when Carol is questioned about why they attacked the compound, rather than ratting out the Hilltop colony, she explains that a group of Saviors attacked Daryl, Abraham and Sasha and they felt it was necessary to strike first rather than waiting for the enemy to strike back. When she mentions the name Negan, the group of Saviors still in the room give her one message to return to her friends just in case she makes it out of here alive — We are all Negan.
A chilling warning indeed, especially when we finally meet Negan later this season.
Meanwhile in another room, a woman named Molly is interrogating Maggie to try and find out where she lives — undoubtedly so the Saviors can add another stop on their next looting trip around northern Virginia. Maggie doesn’t give up a thing, but she manages to find out that Molly actually had to watch her boyfriend get murdered and she lost a baby of her own after the apocalypse started. So rather than find out anything about Alexandria, Molly just gives Maggie a window into her own soul.
It’s clear that the Saviors have more to them than just killing and taking what they want and as Paula points out — the survivors led by Rick might think they are the good guys, but they aren’t the good guys. They are killers just like everybody else.
Basic Instinct
Before Paula can get back up to the slaughterhouse, she gets a call from Rick asking about the exchange. She agrees to the location and a meeting in 10 minutes time, but there’s one problem — the static on the walkie is no longer thick, which means Rick and the others have managed to track their movements and they can’t be that far away from the safe house.
Paula orders her team to scramble while waiting for the other Saviors to arrive in about 10 minutes as well.
While she tried to talk sense into them and attempted to wait for the cavalry to arrive, Carol realizes it’s time to switch into work mode, find Maggie and get both of them out of there in a hurry.
So Carol uses the rosary cross to slice through the duct tape holding her hands, and she makes her way to the second holding cell where she frees Maggie. Carol knows they’ll need a weapon if they are going to escape but once again it’s her ingenuity that saves the day. Donny — the asshole who got shot and this hit his girlfriend — has bled out from wound and he’s beginning to turn into one of the undead. So Carol devises a plan to tie Donny up to a post near the door and when the cigarette smoking Savior comes walking in to check on the hostages, she gets bitten immediately. Carol and Maggie take her gun and that’s one down and escape is imminent.
Out in the hallway, Carol and Maggie encounter one road block — a group of walkers impaled and left to block their exit from the compound. Just then, Paula happens upon them and Carol struggles to pull the trigger. It seems through that haze of tears and timid fright, Carol really was shaking with fear — the fear of what she’s been capable of doing lately and the person she’s become. When Paula explained how she thrived in the apocalypse after just being a secretary in her previous life, Carol saw a little bit of herself there and maybe felt a slight tinge of sympathy.
So Carol can’t pull the trigger, but when a walker breaks free and nearly bites her, Paula rushes in and gets caught with a bullet.
Maggie ends up running into Molly again, who not only tussles with her in the hallway but ultimately pulls a knife and nearly slices into her belly. Carol might have struggled to kill Paula, but a threat to Maggie’s baby is more than enough to pull the trigger. Molly gets killed and there’s only one Savior left.
Carol tries her best to reason with Paula but there’s no talking her down and after a fight, she ends up impaled on the same pipes that once held the walkers. To make matters worse, Paula gets her face eaten off by one of the captive zombies before Maggie finally puts a knife through her head.
And one final thing — when the Saviors show up to rescue their friends, Carol uses the walkie to lure them back into the kill room. Carol has spilled two vats of gasoline in there and when the Saviors flood into the same room, she locks the door behind them and drops a cigarette on the floor. As the Saviors all burn alive, Carol once again wonders — what have I done?
Rick, Daryl and the others show up to rescue Carol and Maggie but a lot has happened in these last few hours. Maggie proved that she is already a proud mama bear willing to protect her cub because at the first sign of trouble, she wanted every single Savior dead and buried without remorse.
We also learned that Carol is made for this world in every sense of the word but it’s also clear that’s not who she wants to be anymore.
Before it’s all over, Rick finally questions the final captive they have left over from the raid on the compound. He wants to know if Negan was inside but the hostage screams back that he is Negan. Rick quickly puts a bullet in his head but little does he know that this wasn’t Negan and no one inside that compound was Negan. But Negan is coming and Rick, Carol, Maggie and everybody else will know without a bloody doubt when he arrives.
The Walking Dead returns next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC with only 3 episodes left this season so take a sneak peek at what’s coming soon!
