Spoilers for the most recent episodes of The Walking Dead are below, so be sure you're all caught up before reading on.
After its first two episodes, The Walking Dead seems to be building to a core matchup between a fan-favorite survivor and the most current big bad, with both installments ending on a distant stare-down between Carol and Alpha. Carol had only recently returned from working on a fishing boat, while Alpha and the Whisperers were moseying back from their latest settlement, but it didn't look like even a speck of rage had dissipated in the meantime.
Considering things are quite different from the comics at this point in The Walking Dead's TV narrative, it's hard to know what's coming, but the exclusive clip below for the upcoming episode "Ghosts" hints that either Carol is starting to lose her emotional grip on things, or that other characters are erroneously losing their trust in her. Either way, it doesn't inspire warm feelings. Check out the clip below!
Admittedly, Carol just looks like she's in Beast Mode at the beginning of the clip, where we get slightly more context behind that "The bitch has to die," line that first popped up in the Season 10 trailer. Just as Michonne sounds like she's going to borrow a speech from Rick Grimes' playbook, Carol cut her short with that vengeful proclamation that I'm sure we can all agree with.
In another context, Carol's comment might have been followed up by killer guitar riffs on the soundtrack, with some kind of a fight-training montage playing out on the screen. Instead, though, Carol just looks ticked off and exhausted, and that clearly bothers Daryl.
To the point where Daryl does something relatively unthinkable: he suggests that maybe Carol is better off back on the boat where she can find peace without the constant reminders about the deaths of Henry and everyone else that Alpha's Whisperers beheaded. Granted, I get his point, but even if he's thinking those things, Walking Dead fans don't wanna hear it!
Walking Dead Fans Can Expect 'Extraordinary' Things From Alpha's Story With Gamma And Carol
That said, Daryl reveals that Carol isn't sleeping at night, and that she's spending a lot of her time trying to track down Whisperers, so perhaps the determined heroine actually is biting off more than she can chew. But wait! Just after Daryl said that, Carol happened to catch a trio of Whisperers nearby, which sets everyone on high alert as they spread out and investigate.
But do viewers have a reason to be suspicious about those Whisperers? This clip is being presented outside of a full episode context, of course, so it's hard to know what came before, or what will come after. The timing within the clip does seem fairly suspicious, though.
Rarely does a character's sleep patterns get mentioned on The Walking Dead – which is wild, since everyone should be complaining of insomnia and back pains – so the fact that Carol's mental weariness and paranoia get brought up so soon after is curious, if nothing else. Could those have just been other protagonists that Carol saw and mistook for Whisperers? Or perhaps some kind of animals? (If they find a deer that's wearing another deer's skin over its own, though, I'm out.)
Of course, maybe the point here is to show that Carol is right on the money in being ever-aware of her surroundings, and that Daryl's concerns are all for naught. If those were Whisperers, maybe they were meant to draw Carol away from the rest, but failed to do so. There are technically lots of different scenarios to choose from, so we're on board with whichever one doesn't involve Carol losing her mind.
In the end, I would feel more confident about this situation had Carol's assertion been that she was going to kill "that bitch." And also that she was going to kill Beta and the rest of the Whisperers. What's good for the monstrous goose is good for the skin-wearing gander, right? I guess that wouldn't be so much of a "war" exactly, but still.
Having offered up more about Alpha and Beta's backstories, particularly a part of Beta's backstory that ties to Fear the Walking Dead's fifth season, The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. And to really get into the Halloween spirit, AMC is airing a Friday the 13th marathon on top of a whole bunch of other horror gloriousness this weekend and beyond.
