Nobody saves the day better than Carol.

It’s difficult to choose only one moment that cemented Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) as the iconic badass she’s become on The Walking Dead. Not only did the Season 1 finale of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon confirm Carol is alive and well, but we now know that Season 2 of the spinoff will be referred to as The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol. This news has viewers excited about the character’s comeback and eager to follow Carol down whatever walker-infested path she is traveling in pursuit of Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). With the reintroduction of the fan-favorite character, all things are possible, and we can’t wait. If we had to pick one moment that redefined her, it would be Season 5’s premiere “No Sanctuary,” the action-packed episode that changed Carol and viewers’ opinion of her forever.

What Happens in ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 5 Premiere?

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In The Walking Dead’s fourth season, a deadly contagion was sweeping through the prison, and without access to antibiotics, it was becoming a life-or-death situation. In an effort to halt the virus endangering other lives, Carol stepped up, killing two infected people Karen (Melissa Ponzio) and David (Brandon Carroll), and burning their remains. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), fearing for the safety of his family and the security of the prison — and appalled by her ruthless pragmatism — exiled Carol. The events of a controversial Season 4 episode “The Grove ” shocked viewers and changed Carol, but nothing could have prepared us for Carol’s assault on The Terminians in the Season 5 premiere. In “No Sanctuary,” Rick, Michonne (Danai Gurai), Daryl, and the others are locked in a train car and unsure what awaits them at The Terminus compound.

On the road Carol, Tyreese (Chad Coleman), and Judith are the last prison survivors who have evaded The Terminians. The episode was truly ground-breaking for McBride’s Carol, as she single-handedly took out Terminus, and she earned her place as one of the greatest women of the genre alongside Buffy, Xena, and Sydney Bristow, to name a few. Carol breaks Terminus’s defenses with a walker herd, fireworks, and a gas tank. It gives Rick Grimes – who is in a queue to be bled like livestock – enough leeway to turn the tables on The Terminus cannibals. Carol comes across a room holding the personal belongings of the people who came before her and locates Daryl’s crossbow. In a tense stand-off with the cannibal matriarch Mary (Denise Crosby), we witness how far she is prepared to go by knee-capping Mary and leaving her to be eaten alive. She finds her way out and is reunited with Rick, who now seems to understand the why of Carol’s previous actions. Not only was “No Sanctuary” a fantastic episode for Carol, but it is also one of the best in the entire series run and remains a favorite among fans.

‘The Walking Dead’s Carol Was Almost Killed Off

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Carol didn’t really become a primary protagonist or an active member of the core group in the show until Season 4. Despite being in the show since the earliest episodes, most of the time she was relegated to a peripheral character remaining on the outskirts of the action and not contributing much at all to the story. The original intention was for Carol to follow in the footsteps of her comic-book counterpart and meet a grisly demise. Producer Greg Nicotero worried about the way forward, explaining that “there was some concern in the writers’ room that they didn’t know where to take her character.” The plan was for Carol to die when an act of sabotage at the prison brings a herd of walkers inside. Instead, T-Dog (IronE Singleton) and Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) exited the show in gruesome style and Carol was saved to fight another day.

Carol would remain hovering around in the background for the duration of the admittedly busy Season 3 until the death of Laurie Holden’s Andrea in the season finale. Carol would be given a larger role in Season 4, with her morally dubious lesson plan of teaching kids how to use knives, an early example of how her adapting to the new world would continue to surprise us in bold new ways. It could easily have worked out very differently for the fan favorite… but then nobody would be looking at the flowers.

Carol’s Future Storylines Are Similar to Michonne’s in ‘The Walking Dead’ Comics

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After what happened in “No Sanctuary” and Carol’s ruthless transformation, she desperately wanted to flee and leave her old friends behind. It didn’t happen, thanks to Daryl intervening. Another great episode, “Consumed,” brought Carol and Daryl to the city in search of Beth (Emily Kinney). Many of the themes explored and Carol’s mindset mirrored the much harsher trajectory taken by the comic book version of Michonne. Carol takes on The Wolves and cuts through them like a wave of death only to become conflicted later in the season and want to run away. Michonne is a far more solitary individual in the source material. At one point she lives on a boat, a plot that Carol shares, but instead she is looking for Alpha (Samantha Morton).

Both Carol and Michonne had a relationship (albeit in two different mediums) with King Ezekiel (Kharys Payton) who helps the women partially heal. Many of Carol’s future adventures and her psychological frame of mind are drawn from Robert Kirkman‘s material and applied to Carol in a composite narrative due to Danai Gurira’s character becoming increasingly stable and a logical leader within her community. Oh, and her relationship with Rick factored heavily into the new direction of TV Michonne. It would be in her pursuit of Alpha and the head-space she finds herself that Carol most resembles the Michonne character. Enraged and filled with bloodlust, her recklessness nearly got innocent people killed in a cave explosion she orchestrated to wipe out Alpha’s horde. Viewers are hoping to see Carol return to the space she occupied in earlier seasons of The Walking Dead and be the conflicted woman we know, fear, and love.