Every character from The Walking Dead has a fan following, and Carol is no exception.
Watching her arc take her from domestic abuse and zombie apocalypse survivor to gun-toting
badass has been an incredible journey, driven by some powerful performances from Melissa
McBride.
She's proven she can play everything from battered wife to trembling survivor to someone
capable of doing whatever it takes.
And we mean whatever.
"Just, just look at the flowers."
Ouch.
There’s no doubt McBride has become part of the heart and soul of the show.
But, you’ve seen her before, too—even if she looked so different that you might
not have actually realized it.
Born in Kentucky, McBride headed to Atlanta in the 1980s to start what's been a wildly
random career.
Throughout the 1990s, she appeared in a slew of commercials that seem to have been lost
to the mists of time, but footage of her first major acting credit thankfully remains.
She appeared in a 1993 episode of Matlock, playing the fidgety Darlene Kellogg in a bizarre
episode called "Matlock's Bad, Bad, Bad Dream."
The story starts with Matlock meeting some friends in a jazz nightclub and restaurant,
and he's introduced to Darlene, who's craving a cigarette but trying to quit.
The rest of the episode is literally right out of Matlock's nightmares, and when his
dreams transport him back to a Prohibition-themed restaurant she shows up as a 1930s-era cigarette
girl.
Her long, curly hair was the height of fashion in the 1990s for sure, but it also makes her
look completely different.
In an epic twist, it's completely possible to imagine Season 1 Carol watching that exact
show while doing Ed's ironing.
McBride still sported her '90s curls in her next role, a small part in the long-running
southern cop drama In the Heat of the Night.
Her role in the 1994 two-part episode "Give Me Your Life," is admittedly brief.
McBride plays a reporter determined to get the story during an investigation into a shady
church in Mississippi.
While she's playing a pretty stereotypical plucky news reporter, there are still some
hints of the McBride we'd later come to know and love.
It only lasted a single season in 1995 before being canceled, but the supernatural horror
mystery show American Gothic had some big names attached, including executive producer
Sam Raimi, and a cast that included eventual A-listers Evan Rachel Wood, Sarah Paulson,
Lucas Black, and Gary Cole.
McBride appeared in the episode “Dead to the World," as the sheriff's onetime girlfriend
who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Appearing in a flashback scene, Holly Gallagher is an archetype familiar to McBride's fans,
the eager-to-please woman who thrives in her caretaker role.
She's said herself that it's something she has in common with Carol, telling AMC,
"I've gotten myself into some difficult situations because I couldn't say no.
Actually, I've gotten myself into some difficult places because I thought I could fix somebody."
After appearing in a handful of made-for-TV movies with names like A Season in Purgatory,
Any Place But Home, and Close to Danger, McBride landed in a two-part episode of Walker, Texas
Ranger alongside living internet meme Chuck Norris.
Again in a nurturing role, McBride played Rachel Woods, a pediatric doctor tasked with
caring for a young patient, played by Haley Joel Osment, who's been removed from a house
during a drug bust.
"Walker told me I have AIDS."
Yep, it's that episode.
In the cult hit 1990s series Dawson’s Creek, Dawson and his friends head to a bar in an
attempt to distract him from his broken heart.
When he spots McBride's Nina from across the bar, he knows he's found the one.
Nina chats with Dawson a bit, and invites him Dawson back to her place to hang out and
watch movies, which is the 90s version of "Netflix and chill".
He passes, but they still share a kiss — making McBride the focus of all kinds of fangirl
jealously long before anyone ever started wanting Carol and Daryl to be a thing.
When McBride was approached to audition for the 2007 adaptation of Stephen King's The
Mist, she was initially reluctant.
But, she went along, and eventually landed a gig that would lead to her most iconic role.
She not only got the role described only in the credits as "Woman with Kids at Home,"
but she made such an impression on producer Frank Darabont that when it came time to start
casting for Walking Dead a few years later, he gave her a call.
It's absolutely not surprising, even though she's only in a single, early scene and in
the final moments of the movie.
The ending to The Mist is one that sticks with those that see it.
She doesn't say anything, and she doesn't have to—it's no wonder Darabont kept her
number.
Even with Carol's increasing importance on the Walking Dead, McBride has still found
time to do occasional work outside the show.
In 2014, The Reconstruction of William Zero debuted at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.
Described as a "suburban mad-scientist tale,” McBride plays one of the scientist’s colleagues
in a mind-bending drama that deals with some pretty heavy material.
The moral of the story suggests there's no shortcut around grief, and that the only way
to get through it is to deal with it head on… a message Carol would certainly approve
of.
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