This episode opens with Carol and Maggie’s disagreement outside The Saviors compound, with the alarm blaring in the background. Then, suddenly, Carol pulls out her gun and shoots a man who is approaching them from the woods. When the man collapses Maggie runs over to finish the job, but that’s when a woman holds a gun to Carol’s head and demands that Maggie stop. Uh oh.
There are three very aggressive, angry women now surrounding them and holding them at gunpoint. They demand Maggie and Carol drop their weapons, which they do, and then we jump to daylight when Rick and the group emerge from the compound. The woman in charge is the one who speaks to Rick over the walkie, telling them they have Maggie and Carol held hostage. Rick is smart and asks to hear from Carol and Maggie, so the woman allows them to speak over the walkie. Unfortunately though, we’re seeing this from the woman’s point of view, so we don’t really get to see how Rick and the group are reacting to this.
We learn that the woman’s name is Paula when the man Carol shot speaks, also revealing that the guy Rick has in custody, Primo, is their doctor. That makes him very important, especially since Paula is being difficult with Rick over the 2-for-1 trade he’s asking for. When Rick asks again if they have a deal, Paula tells him they’ll “get back” to him. Before anything else can be said, one of the other women covers both Maggie and Carol’s heads by pulling their jackets up over their heads. Can I say uh oh again?
For a few moments we get to see from Maggie and Carol’s point of view, which is basically just their feet as they are moved blindly through the woods outside the compound. Once they are in a car, their wrists are bound and we can hear Paula speaking in code over the walkie talkie. At first no one answers her, but then she finally gets someone who must be part of another hidden hideout that the people at The Hilltop didn’t know about. It doesn’t take long for us to learn that Paula and her goons have taken Maggie and Carol to a “safe house.”
Carol Uses Maggie’s Baby As A Distraction
Carol seems to be having a hard time dealing with what’s going on. It’s unusual for her, which makes it hard to tell whether or not it’s an act. But, when Paula and the group leave Carol and Maggie alone in their prison cell of sorts for a moment, Carol is more concerned about picking up the rosary beads a walker left behind rather than trying to escape like Maggie is. Once the beads are in her pocket, Carol starts to hyperventilate… just moments before Paula and the group return to the room. Maggie looks confused by Carol’s actions, obviously unsure if it’s real or not too, but Carol is really going for it.
Maggie finally manages to get Paula’s attention, and she begs for someone to take Carol’s gag out so that she can catch her breath. The older woman with Paula is the one who takes her gag out, and once Carol does get to catch her breath she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the rosary beads. With that, we have our answer — she’s been faking. Paula comes over and asks her why she’s so afraid to die, but Carol tells her she doesn’t care what happens to her, she just doesn’t want Maggie and the baby to get hurt. The look that crosses Paula and her group’s faces is priceless, and can only be described as more of a disgusted awe than shock.
Things get a little tense when the man that Carol shot starts to lose his cool over how much pain he’s in. Maggie drops the bomb that his nerves are dying, just like her dad’s did when he lost his leg, and that he could die if he doesn’t get medical help sooner rather than later. The “team” coming to meet Paula at the safe house is about 30 minutes out, which means this guy has very little hope. When he threatens Carol, Paula intervenes and tells him they have to be smart and wait for the others to get there. He doesn’t want to hear this, so instead he clocks Paula and knocks her down on her back. He looks to Carol next, but Maggie uses her feet to knock him over. When he falls down he grabs onto Maggie, then stands her up with him so that he can hurt her next. Unfortunately, Maggie’s too quick for him and head butts him so that he lets go of her. Carol tries to intervene so that he doesn’t hurt Maggie, but he uses her as a kicking bag before Paula finally hits him in the back of his head with her gun.
Now that the fight is over, they take Maggie into another room to find out if she “knows anything.” Of course, Maggie doesn’t spill anything, especially when asked where she’s “holed up.” The woman holding her patches up a bandage that reveals she’s missing part of her pinky finger, and when Maggie asks why she tells her it’s because she stole something and got caught. She also shares that she went looking for her boyfriend, but that he got blown up so there was nothing to find. Apparently this puts her in the sharing mood, and she also reveals that she was once pregnant just like Maggie — but it didn’t work out.
In the other room, Carol continues to play the nice lady card. She tries to tell Paula about how her husband used to beat her, but the ruthless woman doesn’t want to hear it. Instead she wants to know why they killed everyone in the compound, and Carol delivers an A-plus tear-filled performance in which she says that their people tried to ambush them on the road and take everything they had. Paula says that’s a fair play, that they were defending themselves, and Molls, the older woman with the bad smoking habit, doesn’t seem surprised that “T’s group” probably put on a “big show” and managed to get themselves killed.
But, Paula isn’t entirely pleased with Carol’s story. She wants to know why they came after the compound even after killing those who tried to take from them on the road. Carol says that they heard about Negan and were terrified, so they felt they needed to stop him. Molls tells Carol that they are “all Negan,” but falls into a coughing fit before she can explain what she means.
Paula Reveals How She Became A Savior
For some reason, Paula decides to share some information about her past. She says that she was a secretary before the world ended, and when they put Washington, D.C. on lockdown to evacuate the important people, she got stuck in her office with her boss. Paula lets Carol know that’s the first person she killed because he was weak and she believed he would get her killed, too. Carol listens attentively as Paula tells her that they are not alike, that she’s stronger than Carol, because she lost her husband, her four daughters, and everything else but still managed to survive. Little does she know that Carol is like her post-apocalyptic soul sister.
Carol uses the moment to give Paula a glimpse of her true colors, and tells the woman in charge that she’s going to die. Paula asks Carol if she’s the one who is going to kill her, to which Carol replies: “I hope not.”
Spooked, Paula finally reaches out to Rick and decides to make the trade. She tells him where to go, they agree on a time, and it seems like the deal is set… until Paula is done talking to him. She starts to pace and shares that she’s concerned they managed to follow them to the safe house, mostly because there was no static on the walkie. This tells her that they are closer than they should be, and even when Carol explains that Rick would never put her and Maggie in danger like that, Paula doesn’t care.
Paula reaches out to the guys she’s expecting to meet them and finds out they are only ten minutes away. They decide to clear out the walkers in the building and check out the perimeter, but Paula doesn’t hesitate to say they’ll kill anyone who is waiting for them outside. They leave Carol in the room with the guy Paula clocked in the head, who is still unconscious — or dead.
Once Carol is alone, she sharpens the cross on the rosary beads and then wiggles out of the duct tape around her hands. Somehow she manages to slip out of the room and eventually finds where Maggie is, who was also left alone. Once together they hug, and Carol tries to convince Maggie they need to leave without killing alone. Obviously, her number (18) is weighing on her from the previous episode, but Maggie doesn’t care. She wants to finish it, and so they head back to the first room where the man is passed out.
Maggie & Carol Make A Desperate Escape
Maggie unties the makeshift bandage around his upper arm where Carol shot him and lets him bleed out, but they soon realize he was already dead. When he starts to breath heavy like a walker and begins the turning process, Maggie ties a rope to his belt and secures him to the pipe closest to the door. When Molls returns, the guy is already a walker and immediately attacks her, biting a nice chunk out of her arm before she can stab him in the skull. Once the walker is down, Maggie comes in from behind and attacks Molls, grabbing the gun out of the woman’s holster and then using it to bash in her skull. Carol just watches from the background.
After some time, Paula returns to find two out of three of her people dead. As the shock wears off, she grabs her gun, cocks it, and heads out to look for Maggie and Carol.
It turns out that Paula and her group set up a walker obstacle course to keep their hostages in and Rick’s group out, but it’s nothing Maggie and Carol haven’t faced before. But, when Paula shows up, they are now trying to climb through the walkers while dodging gunfire. Thankfully, Paula runs out of ammo faster than expected, and Carol points a gun at her and tells her to run. Of course, she doesn’t. Maggie is baffled, repeatedly telling Carol to shoot her, but she doesn’t listen. It takes a walker getting loose and grabbing Carol for her to fire her gun, which knocks Paula to the ground while Maggie kills the walker and saves Carol’s life.
They hear the third woman call Paula from down the hall, and Maggie doesn’t hesitate to go after her. The woman is stronger than Maggie expected and they fight for a moment, but it’s not until she slashes Maggie’s lower abdomen that Carol shoots her directly in the head. Boom. She’s back.
Both women are surprised when they find Paula isn’t dead, and that Carol only shot her in the shoulder. Somehow she manages to get to her feet, and she can’t help but ask Carol what she was so afraid of if she was fully capable of taking care of herself. Carol slowly walks towards her, gun pointed directly at her forehead, and tells her she was afraid of “this” — meaning having to kill her. Paula laughs and then attacks Carol, forcing the gun to fall out of her hand, and they go back and forth for a short moment. Suddenly Carol shoves Paula and she’s impaled on a broken pipe along with a walker who takes a nice bite out of her cheek before eating her alive. It’s one of the most gruesome human deaths to ever happen on The Walking Dead, and it’s glorious.
Rick & The Group Finally Find The Safe House
As Paula gurgles to death in the background, Carol takes her walkie talkie and responds to the Saviors that are on their way and tells them to meet them on the kill floor. When they arrive, Carol and Maggie trap them in a room filled with gasoline and drop a cigarette just before closing the door. Now they’re all dead, too.
When Maggie opens the door to leave, she finds Glenn pointing a gun at her, and the rest of the group swarm the building to make sure it’s clear. Maggie and Glenn embrace, and to the side you can see Daryl go straight for Carol to see if she’s okay. Carol tells Daryl she’s fine, but that she’s not okay, and he hugs her tightly. A moment later Maggie tells Glenn the same thing, and that she can’t do this anymore.
Now that everyone is dead Rick gives Primo one more chance to talk and asks him where Negan was last night. Primo tells him that he’s Negan, and before he can say anything else Rick shoots him square in the head.
The last thing we see is a close up of Carol’s hand bleeding, the rosary beads wrapped around her fingers. She’s using the sharpened cross to hurt herself as punishment for all of the death she’s caused, and it’s definitely becoming a bigger problem than anyone realizes.
Tell us, HollywoodLifers — What did YOU think about Maggie and Carol’s great escape? Comment below with your thoughts!