The latest episode of The Walking Dead, "Diverged," picks up shortly
after long-term survivors Carol and Daryl have had a heartbreaking falling out. As
they saunter back toward Alexandria, it's clear that things between them are still very frosty
and they come to a literal fork in the road.
In the fifth episode of The Walking Dead's season 10C, Carol's search for a problem to solve
begins with her picking up a tattered scarf off the streets of Alexandria.
When she finds Jerry working in one of the fields, he eyes the dirty fabric;
Carol explains that she wants to wash it and mend the holes.
"Somebody loved it and I just want to fix something."
Although Jerry seems a little concerned, he also doesn't have any other task for Carol to take on.
She creates one for herself by announcing that she'll contribute to the rebuilding efforts by
making a pot of soup for everyone. However, that seemingly simple assignment doesn't go as planned.
Some of the problems Carol encounters while making the soup stem from the
hardships of post-apocalyptic life. However, others are the result of
her anxious desire to fix things pulling her attention in different directions.
She starts and stops the project many times, taking detours to collect more greens,
make an improvised rat trap to try and catch a rodent that's invaded her home, and fix a solar
panel so that she can get her trusty crock pot working again. By the time night falls,
none of the issues have been resolved: the rat is still loose, the soup is still just ingredients,
and the scarf is still a tattered rag. In her harried desire to fix something,
Carol ends up not accomplishing anything other than driving herself into a dark mood.
While Carol struggles with her soup,
Daryl is having a difficult time completing his own scavenging mission.
His quest to repair the motorbike takes the better part of the day
and sees him having several close calls with walkers. In the end,
he's able to get the bike working again and even finds some useful supplies,
but it's clear that his falling out with Carol both figuratively and literally set him back.
The irony of "Diverged" is that Carol and Daryl spend the episode apart looking for a solution
to a problem that the other could easily solve. If Daryl hadn't pushed Carol away,
he'd have the tool he needs to fix his bike, and if Carol hadn't left, she'd have something she
could easily fix. Had they not started the episode by going down diverging paths in the woods,
everything would have been much simpler for both of them. However, as anyone who has ever had a
falling out with a good friend knows, sometimes there's no easy fix for a problem like this.
While Daryl remains stoic, Carol gives viewers some more direct insight into how she's feeling,
confiding in Dog while the two are cuddling in bed.
"He'll come back. He always comes back."
Although she expresses hope for Daryl's return, she is much more pessimistic in her assessment
of herself, wondering if everyone would be better off if she just got out of their hair.
During the night, Dog wakes Carol up because he can hear the rat scurrying around somewhere
behind the walls. Unable to let the problem go unsolved, Carol furiously rips apart the drywall,
leaving behind a massive physical manifestation of her woes.
Jerry picks up on this the next day when he stops by to pay Carol a visit.
Although the soup is finally bubbling away in the crockpot,
she's clearly still carrying around a lot of pain. Jerry offers to tell her
one of Ezekiel's sayings to give her some perspective. But Carol isn't interested.
"Maybe I don't need a saying. Maybe I just need to fix what I broke."
In "Find Me," Daryl blamed Carol for the disappearance of his close friend Connie,
who was lost in a cave collapse that, as he sees it,
was caused by Carol recklessly seeking revenge on Whisperer leader Alpha.
Although Carol believes that her actions were in service of a greater good, she still understands
that they came with negative consequences and the guilt of it weighs heavily on her.
It's not the first time we've seen her struggle in this regard, but Daryl being the one to pin
the blame on her seems to be a twist of the knife that may be too much for her to bear.
Jerry has already intuited that her pain has something to do with Daryl.
"A friend is someone
who thinks you're perfect even if everyone else thinks you're broken."
Carol isn't buying it, though.
"What if you really are broken?
What if your best friend just realized it a whole lot later than everyone else did?"
After her conversation with Jerry, Carol apologizes to the tattered scarf before
abandoning her plans to repair it and throwing it in the garbage.
She walks outside and sees Daryl getting home from his scavenging trip.
The two have a stilted conversation and, when Carol tries to give the Swiss Army knife back,
Daryl tells her to keep it. The episode ends with them each going into their separate homes,
no closer to reaching any kind of solution.
It's clear that this rough patch in their relationship
is painful for both Carol and Daryl, but that neither is quite sure how to navigate it.
The characters have known each other for a long time and have been through a lot together,
but long-term relationships of any kind are difficult; they have their ups and downs,
and sometimes they unfortunately break apart.
It's possible that this low-point for Carol and Daryl will pass and we'll see
them buddied up again — presumably just in time for the Daryl-Carol spin-off series.
For now, though, it looks like their sorrow for the people they've lost
and the guilt of their decisions are going to keep them at arm's length from one another.
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