>She also killed a zombie will baking cookies and walked around
>with Zombie blood on her clothes like it wasn't anything. I
>thought the scene established a sense of setting up a sense of
>normalcy with killing zombies. Not that she forgot she's in a
>zombie apocalypse.

I didn't use "forgot" in a literal sense, I meant it as a temporary respite from reality.

And you're talking about killing zombies, which she's never had an issue with. It's the human killings she's grappling with.


>Well we as viewers were inside Sam's head but I don't think
>there is any obvious reason why she would connect her talks
>with Sam with Sam's death. But okay.

No obvious reason? She was standing at Sam's grave and there was a close up of a cookie at his grave. And the reason why she threatened him in the first place is because he wanted more of her cookies (then caught her stealing guns).

http://i.imgur.com/1n70MC2.jpg

Seriously, there can't be a less obvious connection on her being affected by his death.

>I think they did a lousy job at this. I think it would have
>made a lot of sense for Carol to walk out of that situation
>thinking we are as bad as the Saviors or the Wolves but they
>really didn't deliver this from a storytelling perspective.
>Like it could have been done. Maggie was connecting with the
>hot girl who lost a finger but rather than build on that next
>scene maggie was free and then they were killing her.

Did you miss the scenes she had with Glenn and Daryl? Carol was directly affected by killing the Saviors and tells Glenn "I can't do this anymore." Daryl asks her what'd they do to them and she responds with: “To us? They didn’t do anything to us.”

http://tvline.com/2016/03/20/walking-dead-recap-season-6-episode-14-carol-leaves-melissa-mcbride/

This is also the episode she finds the rosary, and is holding it so tightly her hand starts bleeding, setting the stage for her departure from the group.


>The problem is that she arrived at this position after her
>people kept getting killed. Something we've seen time and
>time again.

Not sure what your point is with this. Her people got killed during the Wolves/horde crises. The group resolved it, then we go into the midseason break. When we start the second half of the season, it's clear that a significant amount of time has passed in relative peace. She has time to bake cookies and have a side piece while Rick goes from someone that wants to kill strangers to wanting to recruit them. We also see her refer to her kill journal and mourn Sam.

That's not a "problem", that's an organic character progression from living without conflict and strife for a significant amount of time. Everyone is so set on focusing on what's happening on screen they don't realize that the turning point for some of these characters happened off screen.


>It would make so much more sense if she arrived at this
>position after killing someone she identified with as human.
>Never saw that. There was an opportunity for that with the
>Savior women, but it didn't happen. ( Also there was sloppy
>storytelling because it wasn't clear whether Carol was acting
>sympathetic to get an advantage with the women Savior women or
>whether was genuine emotions. Good storytelling could blur
>that line and had subtle ambiguity around this but this show
>doesn't have that so it's just sloppy. ) To arrive at her
>position that all life is precious after a bunch of her people
>get killed doesn't make sense.

It did make sense, she killed numerous humans when the Wolves invaded, then we go into the midseason break. We come back, she has doubts, then the Saviors happen, and it reinforces her doubts (see the quote to Daryl above). I stated all this in post #210 as well.


>The problem with this from a storytelling perspective is that
>the show has consistently shown, from the first season that
>this point of view is wrong. Rick has had this internal
>debate several times and now he is way closer to the take no
>chance camp.

Seriously, are we watching the same show? You can't view these characters in a vacuum, you need to view them in context. We saw Rick vs Shane, then Rick becomes like Shane, then he gets to Alexandria and he teaches them to be like Shane. Again, midseason break, turning point for Rick and Carol. Rick now wants *more* people in Alexandria.

>Even his experience with Jesus doesn't really
>show that it changed his perspective, instead, that was
>followed with killing folks in their sleep.

Remember the context though. Just like in real life, people change according to their surroundings. Rick went back to his "kill em all" ways because he felt the threat from the Saviors AND found a way to resolve their resource shortcomings. His issue was never with killing people, but rather his ability to accommodate outsiders. Don't conflate his character shifts with Carol's. Carol is the one that can't kill anymore, not Rick.


>We as omniscient viewers have seen Morgan's all life is
>precious doesn't work and the show constantly beats us over
>the head with it. If Darryl had killed dwight, they all would
>have been a lot better off.

Did we watch the same finale? Morgan just killed a dude to save Carol. Stop trying to assume that there's only ONE "right way" in this world. There are risks and rewards for the various viewpoints, the only thing that's consistent is there are consequences for every decision. If Rick had just blasted Jesus, would the group be better off? Maybe the Saviors go on the offense to defend Hilltop and they're the ones killing Alexandrians in their sleep. Who knows?


>We were giving that one instance with the Wolf who end up
>saving the doctor but that just wasn't a big enough moment. I
>never got the sense he did it out of the goodness of his
>heart. He wanted to take a doctor back to his camp.

I agree it was kind of a shitty payoff. And I do agree he wanted to take the doctor back to his camp. But whether or not you felt it was a "big enough moment" the fact is the show wanted to portray that he experienced a character shift on his own.



>Then the first day out of camp what happens? She has to kill
>like 6 people. Her new POV makes no sense unless she wants to
>die.

You're severely misunderstanding that scene. Yes, she has to kill those people, to survive. She doesn't want to though, that's why she's crying buckets. And holding her rosary. On one hand, you can argue she's crying for self-preservation (appearing weak so they don't attack her), and on the other you can argue she's crying because she knows she has to kill them to survive. I think the answer is she's crying for BOTH reasons. Her POV absolutely makes sense. Read post #210, there's been a logical progression to her character this whole time.


>BTW, I think it would have made alot more sense if she pulled
>a Tyreese and just gave up and wanted to die. She's been
>through enough where that would make sense and it would make
>her silly wandering around make more sense.

But, she DID want to die. The guilt was crushing her. Did you not see that scene with her and Morgan? She was shot several times and was prepared to die. Morgan's actions VALIDATED her actions, and showed that she shouldn't give up.


>You'll not find a single other critic or commentator who will
>think the transformation was Rock solid. If we saw her do
>something that tested even her morals up to that point, I
>would get it.

If you have issues with the quality of storytelling, that's fine. What you can't argue is the progression of Carol's character. Like I mentioned above, the killing of the Saviors exacerbated all the guilt she had built up. She's experiencing the PTSD that she's kept at bay all this time because she had survival to focus on. She got to the point where she couldn't handle being around others anymore because she'd be compelled to kill to protect them. Yes, she left people hanging but it's because she couldn't kill anymore.

Seriously, watch the second half of the season again with this in mind. There are so many nuggets of this progression of her character, it's painfully obvious once you get over the whole "Carol can only be a badass" mindset.


>Even the idea that she had time to reflect on
>it with the stability of Alexandria doesn't make sense because
>she bailed on the squad in the middle of the build up to war
>with the Saviors (how much stability has there been in
>Alexandria by the way? Seems like they are under constant
>threat). She left a lot of people hanging.

This makes no sense whatsoever. The stability of Alexandria happened at the midseason break and the war with the Saviors happened way after. You can't equate the two because SO MUCH HAPPENED between them.

And I don't know how many times I need to repeat this. Alexandria was stable for several weeks/months, which is an eternity in zombie apocalypse time. Enough time passed for Carol to be passing around cookies and find Tobin, for Rick to have a change of heart, for the whole group to be running out of food. If they dedicated episodes to the group sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya it'd be really lame.


>The other thing that sucks is that they have written
>themselves into a corner. If she goes back to bad ass Carol
>that's just retreading. Doesn't seem like much to do with her
>but kill her off.

I can't speak to what they're going to do with Carol, but this made me shake my head. It's your preconceptions of how a character *should* be that's clouding your perception of who a character *is*. Everyone has such a hard-on for Ninja Carol that they're missing the most important character arc of the entire season (remember that Morgan episode with the Cheesemaker? That set the stage for Carol's peak badassery and her complete 180 degree turn).

Again you can complain about the quality, which is fine. It's undoubtedly affected by who you think Carol should be, not who she is. IMO I thought the whole arc was handled exceptionally well, some of the best character development they've done, maybe ever (and is a big reason why McBride is getting as much praise as she is for the season). But LOL at thinking they've written themselves into a corner. If anything, it's even MORE wide open now. Carol and Morgan are now at a crossroads for each character, where each has validated the other's prior way of thinking. The notion that they should now just "kill her off" because there's not much to do with her just makes no sense whatsoever.