The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2, Episode 1, “La gentillesse des étrangers,” which premiered Sunday, Sept. 29 on AMC.

Many people died before Sophia Peletier on The Walking Dead, but the death of the child shook Rick Grimes’ group. The hope that Sophia would be found in Season 2 was what kept people going. If she was still alive, then maybe the world wouldn’t be so bad after all. But when she was found as a walker, slowly creeping out of the barn they had been sleeping beside for days, the survivors knew that the apocalypse didn’t cherry-pick who got to live or die.

Sophia was the ghost of Season 2 that propelled the story forward. Everyone was determined to find the little girl, but the true victim of the “lost child” storyline was her mother, Carol. The latter had shown signs in Season 1 that she was more than the meek housewife her abusive husband made her be. But when the deaths kept piling on, starting with Sophia, Carol had to force her inner fighter to come out. The problem with Carol growing from these deaths is that she never had ample time to process the loss of her daughter. Now that many years have passed and life is quiet on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Carol has all the time in the world to be haunted by Sophia’s memory.

Sophia Went Missing in The Walking Dead Season 2

Carol’s mission to find Daryl in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2, Episode 1 is occasionally interrupted by flashbacks of Sophia’s death. It may strike viewers as odd that after all these years, Carol hasn’t fully grieved her daughter. But come to think of it, Carol never received proper closure from Sophia. The little girl went missing in Season 2, Episode 1, “What Lies Ahead,” when she ran from walkers and was instructed by Rick to hide until he dealt with them. Scared that he’d never come back for her, Sophia wandered off by herself into the woods.

The group started a search party for Sophia when they lost her tracks, and the party grew when they met the Greenes at their family farm. It’s never explicitly said how long she was missing, but it was likely days to a week. The search for Sophia was a subject of debate among the survivors. Carol had to quietly watch from the background as Rick, Shane and Daryl fought over whether to call off the search. Shane was quick to give up, but Rick and Daryl were adamant to keep going. Daryl especially became the frontman of the search, putting his life on the line because he knew what it was like to be Sophia as a child. But he wanted to make sure someone was looking for her, unlike his neglectful father.

After Much Time Searching, Sophia Was Found as a Walker

Tensions rose among the group when Glenn discovered that Hershel was keeping walkers in the barn, in the hopes that they were only sick and would get better. Shane proposed the idea that the group leave for Fort Benning, a supposed safe zone for survivors. Although nobody felt safe living in such close proximity to walkers, everyone was mostly in agreement that Sophia still needed to be found — except for Shane. Fights were broken out, guns were drawn and words were said that couldn’t be taken back. Shane insisted that if they were going to stay at the farm to find Sophia, then they needed to be safe. This is where everyone shifted from following Rick to Shane, but only momentarily.

Like an angry mob in a village, Shane led a group to the barn to execute every walker in Season 2, Episode 7, “Pretty Much Dead Already.” Hershel had to watch in terror as his family and neighbors were blown to pieces. The last walker to come out of the barn was none other than Sophia. She had been bitten on her left shoulder, calling back to Rick’s instructions to keep the sun on her left shoulder to get back to the highway. Feeling responsible for her death, Rick killed the zombified Sophia as Daryl held back a sobbing Carol.

I’m not fool enough to think there’s any flowers blooming for my brother. But I believe this one bloomed for your little girl. — Daryl Dixon to Carol Peletier

Everyone, Shane included, felt remorse for failing to find the child. Since the person responsible for putting her in the barn, Otis (played by Superman‘s Pruitt Taylor Vince), was already dead at the time of the reveal, the group could only guess how she ended up there. The most likely scenario is that Sophia was bitten within hours of getting separated from Rick. Sophia hid in an abandoned house with her doll and turned not long after, leaving the doll behind where Daryl would find it. Soon, Otis found her and put her in the barn, since he accidentally shot Carl just a day later.

Nothing good comes from a child’s death, but Carol at least wasn’t alone. Lori tried to distract Carol by letting her cook a proper meal, as if the apocalypse wasn’t going on. In the best way he knew how, Daryl tried to be a steady figure in Carol’s life. Even Shane was empathetic towards Carol’s pain. Carol may have lost her biological daughter, but she still had a family who would protect her at all costs.

Carol Uses Her Loss to Her Advantage

After Sophia, Carol still upheld a motherly role in other children’s lives. She unofficially adopted Lizzie and Mika Samuels until their deaths, and raised Henry Sutton for years with Ezekiel. Carol never had luck on her side when it came to her children, as they all ended up dying as well. But unlike the death of Sophia, Carol got real closure with her other children’s deaths: she was never close to Mika and Lizzie, and the group forgave her for killing the unhinged Lizzie to keep Judith safe. Carol fully grieved Henry when his murderer, Alpha, was killed and the Whisperers were disbanded. But with Sophia, she lived in a non-stop fight that never allowed her time to process.

When she meets a new survivor named Ash in “La gentillesse des étrangers,” Carol can’t help but be bombarded by Sophia. Ash is a walking reminder of parents who are stuck at the exact time their child died, both literally and figuratively. Every day, Ash lives to keep the memory of his son alive by riding a plane and visiting his grave at his time of death on the spot. If that’s not traumatic enough for Carol, Ash has a Cherokee rose on his table — the same flower Daryl gave her in honor of Sophia.

In the past, Carol would’ve found a meaningful way to emotionally connect with Ash about their shared losses. Carol was the only one among her group that lost a child; Ash would’ve been someone she could relate to so she wouldn’t feel so alone. But this is not a version of Carol Peletier that’s in-tune with her emotions and desperate for a stranger’s validation. This is a version of Carol that will use someone else’s loss for her own gain.

It’s heartless and cruel, but Carol lies to Ash that Sophia is still alive, and she needs his plane to find her in France. It’s so out of pocket for Carol, and this is the same woman who’s murdered a child and threatened to murder another one. But Ash is so sweet and deserves the world, and, of course, his adorable nature falls for her act. Is this what Sophia died for? A lie that’ll end up destroying one of the most promising connections Carol could make before it even forms? It’s what she’ll do for Daryl, so if they at least reunite, Sophia didn’t die without purpose.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premiere every Sunday at 9 PM ET on AMC and AMC+.