The Walking Dead's Melissa McBride says Carol will be "armed" and "blowing things up" in an action-packed season 8. Rick and the Alexandrians, with Ezekiel and the Kingdom as their allies, are ready for all-out war against Negan and the Saviors as the new season season premieres (with the series' milestone 100th episode overall).
After spending much of season 7 holed up in a cabin on the outskirts of the Kingdom in the throes of existential crisis brought on by her near-death experience in season 6, Carol was finally jarred from self-imposed exile after being told by Morgan of Negan's horrific slaughter of Glenn and Abraham. Carol joined up with Ezekiel, donning his army's BMX-biker armor and rushing off to help rescue Rick and the Alexandrians just as it appeared they were about to be finished off by Negan.
Speaking to EW about the upcoming Walking Dead season 8, Melissa McBride teased that Carol is ready to leave all her moping and hiding behind her and join the fight against Negan in a big way. This season, McBride promises Carol won't be sitting in bed reading paperbacks while everyone else does all the fun stuff. Says McBride: "There is a lot of action. There is so much action. Carol’s armed. She’s blowing things up, so cover your ears!"
McBride says Carol feels the "call of duty" now that she knows the full extent of Negan's outrages against her friends and the other Alexandrians. The actress also says that Carol considers herself a member of both the Kingdom and the Alexandrians, a divided loyalty which one presumes could lead Carol to come into conflict with either Ezekiel or Rick somewhere down the road.
Over the past few seasons, Carol's basic arc has seen her repeatedly overcome her fears/moral hang-ups in order to take on sometimes horrifying responsibilities (like shooting children or threatening to feed children to walkers), only to become overwhelmed by the burden of those responsibilities and flee into solitude. And each time Carol ultimately finds herself returning to the group, compelled back into the human sphere by her love for her compatriots and her need to help them in their battle for survival.
After watching Carol spend an entire season being sad and hiding out in a cabin, it will be a relief to see her jump back into the fray and do some damage. Melissa McBride is at her best when showing the steely, sometimes scary resolve lurking beneath Carol's cookie-baking-nice-lady exterior, but she didn't get to play with that contrast much in season 7 while stuck in the cabin working through her issues. We also didn't get to see much of Carol and Daryl (Norman Reedus) and their low-key sexual tension last season, but hopefully in The Walking Dead season 8 we can get back to enjoying their interaction and wondering if they will ever hook up.
Source: EW