Here’s The Single Greatest Decision ‘The Walking Dead’ Has Ever Made ~ Not Killing Carol 

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Here’s The Single Greatest Decision ‘The Walking Dead’ Has Ever Made

The Walking Dead, “The Killer Within,” a crowd of walkers are lured into the prison, and chaos erupts. T-Dog is bitten by an invading walker, and while Carol initially tries to help him deal with the bite, T-Dog eventually sacrifices himself to save Carol’s life in the melee. Later in the episode, Lori dies when her natural childbirth goes badly, and she has to be cut open to save her baby.

That’s the episode we all saw air on AMC. But that’s not how the episode was originally envisioned. Killing off T-Dog was a last-minute decision. It was Carol who was supposed to die, along with Lori, in that episode, and the writers only switched it up after Melissa McBride lobbied them heavily to spare her character.

That was the single best decision anyone has ever made on The Walking Dead, and it’s not just because of what Carol has contributed to the series since Season 3. It’s what they spared that character from in the comics storyline.

If the series had chosen to use Carol’s comics storyline, not only would she have died in the prison, but she would’ve developed a relationship with Tyreese, which would’ve fallen apart under a cloud of jealousy after Tyreese hooked up with Michonne. Afterwards, Carol would’ve not only attempted to sleep with Rick, she would’ve made a play to get Rick and Lori to welcome her into a three-way sexual relationship.

It was Rick and Lori’s rejection of an open relationship that essentially drove Carol to kill herself, allowing a zombie to bite her. She would’ve died in Tyreese’s arms, and Andrea would’ve killed her zombified character.

Given what we know about Carol now, how terrible would that have been?

More importantly is what we would have lost. Without Carol, the sickness plotline in the prison loses some of its power because it wouldn’t have resulted in Carol’s banishment by Rick.

Without Carol, there’s probably no heartbreaking Lizzie Samuels plotline (had they kept T-Dog instead, can you imagine him asking Lizzie to “smell the flowers” before putting a bullet into the back of her head?)

Without Carol, there’s probably not a huge rescue made on Terminus because Carol wouldn’t have existed to save them.

Without Carol, we would’ve also lost that powerful reunion scene.

Without Carol, who poses as den mother in Alexandria? Who defends Rick? Who brings Pete a casserole? T-Dog? I don’t think so!

The point is, Carol was supposed to die both in the comics and in the television series. Keeping Carol around has changed the entire dynamic of the series. She altered storylines for the better. She created some of the best plotlines of the series so far. She’s one of, if not

the most beloved character on The Walking Dead. No one else could’ve fulfilled that role. No one else could’ve truly represented how much The Walking Dead universe can change a person because there never would’ve been the transformation from a meek victim of domestic violence into a cunning, badass who turned the tables on the abuser.

The Walking Dead is a different series, and it’s one that’s not nearly as good as it is. That’s why Carol should never die. It forces the writers to alter and improve those comics storylines. Because they are made to add new storylines to support the series’ most dynamic character. Because every scene is improved with a little bit of Melissa McBride.

"Here’s The Single Greatest Decision ‘The Walking Dead’ Has Ever Made"

still the best t-dog until Morgan came back… prisoner t dog did nothing and died a pointless death, bob t dog somehow got himself bitten and died a pointless death, tyreese t dog had potential but quickly devolved into a sniveling pussy emo and died a pointless death, everybody hates chris t dog did nothing and died a pointless death, and gabriel t dog is the fucking worst and refuses to die…

indeed he was. never understood why the change of tyrese who was part of the original team for this generic black guy named fucking t-dog and by the time tyrese shows up all the cool shit he does got spread to other folks in the group and we get a softy…smh

I wish Hambone was one of the black characters they killed off for Carol.

but you’re white kid that lives in parents basement that reads comics so ipso facto i’m not a racist.

You wished I was black and killed off…therefore you are a racist and an idiot. Does you like living in Alabama?

You should pick up a comic book that teaches reading comprehension and make sure momz pays the electric bill so you can stay on line.

You should pick up a copy of Guns and Ammo that teaches you how to pull out of your Sonic Waitress sisters vagina.

The way they’ve portrayed Carol on the show from the start is so vastly different from the comics, it never would’ve made sense to have her go out the same way.

Yeah, I don’t think they’d have gone with that story line for her, even if they had her die…

I’m a big fan of the carol character and yes she is in fact the mother hen/Den Mother whatever other euphemism you would like to use of the group. Without her the show would be much less enjoyable.

Sorry comic book readers demz da brakes. : /

Yeah comic readers can be a little annoying at times with “That’s now how someone was in the comics” But Carol is one of the most enjoyable parts of the show as is Daryl who also wasn’t in the comics at all.

I can understand if I was a comic book reader how I might be upset about the different story lines. But since I’m not it’s all new to me and no sweat off my back so to speak.

I prefer the Carol in the show to the Carol in the comics. Sure the Carol in the show wouldn’t fit with the comics and vice versa. The storyline for Carol in the comics becomes so absurd and ridiculous, it just turned into a hilariously bad road bump for the characters. While the show hasn’t gotten every character right (as great as Tyreese is in the show, his comic book counterpart is just fucking awesome), they’ve more than made up with it by putting their own spins on characters such as Carol, Michonne, and Bob Stookey (who’s a Woodbury drunk that shows up for like five pages in the comics and that’s it).

everything @Williwas said. i appreciate some of the stuff the show did making some characters better, but tyrese’s role was so important to ricks character and it was def disappointing seeing many of his iconic moments going to other characters just to have him be a waste by the time he shows up

“Smell the flowers”? The one most easily memorable lines that’s less than 5 words and you got it wrong

I know! I don’t even watch the fucking show and even I know that it’s “look at the flowers.”

You do realize that if Carol wasn’t there, someone else would be? Who knows, maybe Andrea becomes a better character to fill the Carol void and they don’t kill her off at Woodbury?

Wasn’t a fan of andrea, even if her storyline was better her actress bugged.

yes andrea had a very annoying face. i was happy to see hear her get eaten.

Annoying face…thank god no one thought Bryan Cranston had an annoying face. Jesus tap dancing christ.

I like Bryan Cranston’s face though and it’s annoying like Andrea’s.

He did enough cool science stuff to entertain your caveman brain? Magnets…so cool.

@CaptainCharisma fucking LOL.. not gonna lie, took me about 5 seconds. Made my day :P

Sadly, that type of connection that the fanbase has with Carol (and Daryl) make both of them perfect targets for a certain Big Bad with a certain baseball bat…

yes, I doubt they’ll use Glenn since he is no longer everyone’s favorite, unless he has a much bigger role next season..

Glenn is starting to dislike being in Alexandria and what the group has become. I think they’ll keep that part…but sadly we are probably another season away on that.

They would’ve had to significantly rearrange the how to make any of these comic plot-lines work. For instance, Tyreese wasn’t even introduced until long after the death of Lori, so the jealousy/three-way/rejection wouldn’t have been able to come together at all.

Although I think her character is far and away the most compelling in terms of how she’s evolved over the years. To say nothing of the incredibly brilliant manipulative con game she’s been playing since the second she stepped in front of Deanna’s video camera in Alexandria.

While any other of the dozen characters in the still over-inflated cast could’ve filled these roles, having it come from the once mousy and badly abused housewife is remarkable.

Far too many actors on that show – somebody woulda filled a Carol void.

Hell, you could make the argument that if Carol didn’t steal all the cool scenes, that the rest of the characters wouldn’t be such boring lame ass dogshits.

If anything, her presence has ruined the show. Can’t wait till Morgan kills her.

you mean the same morgan that was taking a bath in his own feces a few months ago and is now handing out life lessons? that morgan?

Morgan is icky. And black. Ugh. Carol is so much more badass. She told a kid she would rip their guts out, and then made him cookies cause his daddy beats him. Just like my mom did. Fucking retards.

well at least we got to the dumb bottom line with you.

Your ability to love Carol must also dull your ability to notice sarcasm.

You have a skewed interpretation of sarcasm. It’s almost as if you have no idea what the word means.

You have a skewed interpretation of what sex with your cousin means.

Not until he puts down the comic books, comes out his mom’s basement, and gets some sun on his pasty skin.

Ditto for you taking the swinging set of bull nuts off your pickup truck and giving them back to your illegitimate son to play with. They were his first.

When you consider her evolution was not organic but a forced mechanism…it’s not hard to see why this show lags in key areas because it has to try and fit characters that are not supposed to exist into source material that has no place for them. When you do that you get a co-dependent abused wife transforming into a counter sniper/child murder/assassin. There are people who can shut their brains off enough to swallow that lump of shit. These are the people who the show is going to be geared towards the further along it goes. These people are fucking idiots.

And you let your dog eat potato chips from your mouth.

I’m assuming your rather large. Do you wear jorts and XXXL shirts?

I’m assuming your preparing for the apocalypse…tell me how many cans of beans do you own?

Hit a nerve with the pasty skin and XXXL shirt, huh?

Jimmies rustled by outing your bean hording?

Not familiar with the term actually. Must be basement/reddit thing

I’m yank though just for clarification purposes.

Please please…I don’t need to know if your gonna yank yourself just to clear your thought process. Keep that to yourself and the flying squirrel you keep in that pouch under your goatee.

Well now you’re just being silly or are you being ‘sarcastic’ again?

I don’t find Carol’s change in personality all that inconceivable, considering that since her abusive husband died, she’s spent well over a year in a zombie apocalypse and been through some pretty fucked up situations.

Any more fucked up than other characters? Which fucked up situation would allow her to become a counter sniper? When did she absorb the knowledge to become a mastermind that can come up with a plan to undermine an entire town? I understand the theory you are proposing. Other characters have made huge leaps also…but we have seen WHY they became that way. For Carol we just have to assume she joined an SAS bootcamp during her time off screen and graduated with just enough time to save the day at Terminus.

Of course I don’t think that being in a fucked-up situation would make her a sniper. Spending several months shooting at stuff could certainly help someone improve their accuracy significantly. I mean, there’s a lot of spare time for someone who might be motivated enough. I don’t remember: was she hopeless with a gun before? I know there were a couple of scenes of weapons training early on, and I seem to recall her in the sniper tower at the prison. Maybe she trained every chance she got.

The child murder/assassin part is not so far-fetched if you’ve been hardened by whatever trauma you might encounter (in her case watching her zombified daughter take a bullet to the head). It’s not a stretch to think someone would become ruthless enough to do whatever it takes to protect themselves and the only people they have left to care about. I honestly can’t say what behaviour is reasonable to predict in the kind of world they’re living in.

I have no idea whether or not her ability to manipulate people is new to the character or not. I don’t think it’s “mastermind” to pretend to be a certain sort of person in public to fool people into letting down their guard. She might have had practice from her past having an abusive spouse and presenting a happy facade to friends and family, while at home she was dominated and mistreated. The townspeople were pretty complacent and seemed to basically take people at face value based solely on the word of two people (Aaron and Deanna).

However, the fact that they were so ready to accept that this person, who spent so long out in the open in such a horrible world, would be some helpless smiling ditzy housewife? That’s what I have a hard time believing.

I have to say…that is one of the more thought out responses I have ever gotten on Carol. And you did it all without trying to talk down to me or belittle me for having a different opinion. I like the cut of your jib. I respect your opinion. Everyone else here…well you know where to go.

You’re not just having an opinion, you’re literally insulting everyone who likes Carol. Carol is almost as popular as Daryl now – no other character has come close.

You say here that people have talked down to you, belittled you for having a “different opinion” when you are forcing YOUR opinion on others, basically calling Carol (the MOST interesting character on this show) trash and that anyone who thinks she is badass deserves to be laughed at. Then when they reply back to you, you insult the actual people replying to you because THEY have a different opinion to you. Proof? How about you fucking check this entire feed because you, sir, are so content at fingering yourself over annoying the Carol fans.

Wow, the comics sound even dumber than the show.

I don’t know…the sexual chemistry between Daryl and T-Dog could have been amazing.

the lizzie situation WAS in the books, just with different characters and carl pulled the trigger. most of the cool shit she does was done by other characters in the books they decided to nerd or change. like i said tho, i appreciate the show changes some things up to make it less predictable for comic readers. tho a lot of the changes are silly/stupid

Me and Hambone (nice name) are going at it. He’s old school (comic books) and I’m new school TV and electronic things. The 2 can never live in the same universe.

New school TV translation…books make brain hurt. Must watch vine for three hours to rest brain. Women be like…classic.

Too much thought…need check Facebook…check Kardashian twitter…Khloe such skank…

Those reunion scenes still give me goosebumps.

Me 2 but the only problem is that the carol story isn’t ‘organic’.

Things that are forced aren’t organic. You know what forced means right? You should…that paternity suit for what happened in that corn field clearly says you forced yourself on your half sister. Let’s hope the judge let’s you off on blissful ignorance.

Yeah it means grown without pesticides and the such.

You disappoint me…any good meth cook should know what organic means. No carbon. Crazy meth cooks. Don’t forget to check out of that motel before you get caught.

Another great example of comics being crap. Seriously that’s the problem with comcis. They get so much into their own universe that the writers can’t control themselves. Or as I call it the Moffat problem

I started out as having only watched the show and not the comics. Then I read the comics to essentially a little past where we are on the TV show. I have learned that both have their positives and negatives but using both equally is the way to go but then again i love spoilers.

Carol on TV is great. I find it flawed that you would suggest the drama is gone with Carol not around because literally anyone else could’ve been in the role but I get your point which is Carol is a cool character now. She was incredibly weak in the comics.

The main problem with shoehorning Carol into the show is that it’s made the show into a joke where Black men are on death watch the moment they set foot on set. Carol was pretty co-dependent until she got booted from the prison. Then on her journey she became a very independent person with amazing skills that were highly unlikely to ever be gained by her…and with zero explanation as to how she attained said skills. Not one character ever stopped and asked her how she learned to shoot with amazing accuracy from a distance over several football fields. They just took it as Carol being Carol.

I get suspension of disbelief…but there has to be a limit to what one person can be asked to causally ignore. I make fun of people who think Carol is badass…because they deserve to be made fun of. The writers took a character who didn’t need to exist anymore…transformed her into something she would never become…never once explained how it came to be…and did it all to the detriment of a strong black male lead and minimized the other strong female and male leads. They took away a very good home cooked meal and served you up a Hot Pocket…and you fucking loved it. And no one realizes how good that home cooked meal could have been. They just keep gorging themselves on Hot Pockets.

I liked Carol’s character until she got sent away from the prison. She was a very believable and sympathetic character. Much better than her comic book run. But forcing her into the story and only giving her the cool things to do to pander her to the dumbed down crowd is ludicrous. What does Melissa McBride have on the writers where they keep her around? Does she have Scott Gimple’s grade school transcripts that show he hasn’t fully completed second grade?

Figures your basement dwelling ass would be thinking about hot pockets.

Poor Hillbilly…ruining his wet dreams over Carol…where she chokes him as he cums.

Haha, you don’t pay attention, do you? On the Season 3 premiere, Rick even says to Carol that she has become a good shot. Not only that, you can see her knifing walkers in the head plenty of times in season 3. Merle himself even said that Carol is different. How she is different now, how she was so scared of her husband.

Also, can I please show you this deleted scene from SEASON 3 between Merle and Carol? You say she got all her “skills” from being exiled. Well, take note as she threatens to slit his throat. [www.youtube.com]

Because I’m a true Walking Dead fan, not a casual fan.

It’s Carol’s background that makes who she is NOW a badass. No one could have taken Carol’s role. They’d of ended up like another Michonne character, who I love – don’t me wrong, but her background is no where near as deep as Carol’s. And I can’t really see her, Maggie, Tara or Rosita pulling off what Carol is today. Carol on the TV show is a completely seperate character from the Carol in the comics.

Funny how the 2 most popular characters in the entire show weren’t even in the comics at all. (Carol and Daryl) Beth got pretty popular too.

Everyone is is saying that Sasha is taking over Andrea’s Comic Book role, but I think she is also getting Comic Book Carol’s crazy suicidal story arc.

Black guys don’t last… Unless they show up in the season finale as a ninja turtle.

Absolutely. She’s my favorite character, even when she’s acting like a complete lunatic with a knife, I can’t help but love her.

hambone29, are you familiar with the concept of tv? Most people watch tv to escape from reality, I know it may be confusing to you, but it’s true. Whether the story follows the comic is neither here nor there, they are separate entities. As to how Carol became who she is today really doesn’t matter, it’s an escape and if your putting so much thought into it, you need to get out more, it is only tv, if you don’t enjoy it, don’t watch, bashing other people for their likes is childish and immature, you need to grow up and realize that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you don’t like it, you can leave the site. There is no reason to clog the comments trying to force your opinion down someone’s throat, it reminds me of a child, stomping your feet if your disagreed with. Please grow up…and do all of us a favor and stop arguing about a TV show. Thanks

Same to you…you don’t like my opinion…avert your eyes.

Carol has, hands down, the BEST character development out of every single character in this whole series. She is truly and amazing character.

Also.. one the, if not THE most famous lines from the Walking Dead is “Look at the flowers” .. how did you get it wrong? “Smell the flowers” .. ugh I feel ill.

Again, nothing but noise from kiddie city. I would love to avert my eyes, but you take up most of the comments section.

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