Spoilers below for The Walking Dead's latest episode, titled "New Best Friend."
Walking Dead fans have seen about as little of Carol in the past season or so as we have of Glenn and Abraham since the Season 7 premiere. Of course, that necessarily means Daryl had gone even longer without seeing one of the only people he considers family, but it all got rectified in tonight's episode, "New Best Friend." Unlike past reunions between the two, however, Daryl and Carol's latest meet-up was fraught with crazy problems that will only get more complicated for more than just those two characters.
Daryl and Carol didn't have a re-meet-cute over a couple of brewskies at the local pub, and it all started with the growing angst of Richard, Ezekiel's backtalking soldier. He lost a gun and forced Morgan's hand, which meant Morgan lost his beloved bo. (Really, he didn't HAVE to stop that Savior from thwacking Richard.) So when Richard hatches his plan to go behind Ezekiel's back to take out Savior outposts, he's just the right amount of locked and loaded to get Daryl invested in a team-up. Until, of course, it's revealed the lynchpin in Richard's plan is using Carol as the scapegoat to draw the Saviors' vengeance. You knew that shit wasn't gonna fly with Daryl.
To be expected, Daryl dropped out of the big plan once he realized what was involved, and everything Richard said and did then worsened things for the loyalty-lacking enforcer. But when Daryl and Carol did finally see each other again, he didn't take the moment to get super-honest about anything. Not about what might end up coming Carol's way if Richard decides Daryl's threats weren't enough, nor about what happened with Glenn and Abraham. He straight-up lied with a double dose of ""Everyone's all right. Everyone's all right." No mention of the fact that Daryl now could start a Food Network travel show about dog food sandwiches.
The reunion didn't skimp on the expected emotional beats, though, regardless of how wild the episode went about setting it up. Carol got to deliver her explanation for leaving, which boiled down to not wanting to lose her remaining humanity by having to necessarily murder a Savior, so she wanted to remove herself from a situation where that would come up. And her tears and story are obviously why Daryl chooses to lie about how Negan's introduction went down, but it's still not going to be good when she eventually finds out, assuming she does. And then, Daryl heads out to the Hilltop for some good ol' revenge scheming.
So now, Daryl is in even more danger because he's leaving his Kingdom asylum, Carol is in danger because Richard might not understand how non-expendable she really is, and Richard is in trouble because Daryl knows that he's trying to make some under-the-table plans to strike against Negan. All in all, I think I prefer this plot-forwarding version of a Daryl-and-Carol reunion than one on calmer waters, but I'll need to see more in the future.
The Walking Dead airs every Sunday night on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. Head to our midseason premiere schedule to check out everything else coming to the small screen in the near future.
