I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

The Walking Dead: Characters We Love And Hate



Carol and Sophia Peletier (Melissa McBride and Madison Lintz)


It's been a while since I've done a synopsis on a character from The Walking Dead and these two aren't the ones I was asked to do next but I was kind of stuck and thought they would be easier. As it turns out, they were harder. Carol and Sophia (along with her husband Ed) were introduced in the very beginning of the series. It was quite apparent from the start that, in a ZA, good people as well as bad would get sick, die and get back up. It was also apparent that bad as well as good people would survive. 

Ed was just plain bad. Many people identify with Carol, as she and her daughter were dominated and abused (in several different ways, some obvious, some inferred) by Ed even though there were only a handful of humans left and cooperation and kindness counts more than ever among the survivors. Carol is soft spoken and would do anything to help people. Sophia is shy, withdrawn, as would be expected of a child going through such a horror. Ed wants to fend for himself, the rest be damned, including his own family. He even verbally assaults the other women, insisting they do their 'women's work' and stop talking so much. Carol obviously has accepted her fate but does not want the same for her little girl and will stand up to Ed where Sophia is involved.


It comes to a head when, as the women are washing clothes in a lake, Ed starts berating Carol as usual and threatens physical violence. All the women gang up on him, trying to keep him away from her and getting a few blows in before Shane steps in and beats the holy hell out of him (to the cheers and applause of most of the audience I'm sure). Swollen, pride more hurt than his body, he hides in his tent nursing his humiliation and I'm sure planning revenge on everyone. And thankfully again (no tears here) a Walker finds him in the tent, killing him. This upsets Carol, it WAS her husband after all, even if he was a rotten one. But she realizes that she is now safer, even with Walkers all around, now that he is dead, and Sophia has more of a chance at a happy life than she would have otherwise. She begins to show more of the courage she already had, but with a new confidence, a new sense of pride in herself. I think a lot of people can identify with that too. She holds her own with the rest of the group, going above and beyond whatever is expected of her and loves Sophia intensely, immersing herself in the job of keeping her safe and giving her as normal a life as possible.


In the second season, Carol continues to grow, and even Sophia seems to come out of herself a little more, although she still clings to the same doll she's probably carried for years. In the second season, the group is on the run and needing shelter, not finding much. Hope for security with the CDC was dashed, and they were left adrift. Working hard just to survive, they search a highway clogged with cars for supplies. Walkers show up, and Sophia panics and runs off into the woods. Rick goes after her, finding her but a Walker is coming close and there's not much time for fast travel with a little girl in his arms. He finds a place for her to hide, expecting her to stay while he kills the Walker, telling her if he doesn't come back soon to make her way back to the group. When he returns to the hiding spot, he is dismayed to find that Sophia is gone. He can only hope that she has made her way back to the highway. She didn't. The group is devastated, but still have hope that since she is small and quick, she must still be in the woods somewhere. They leave a message and supplies on the highway. The group splits up to search for her.


Rick, Carl and Shane are together and Carl spots a deer. Having seen nothing but gross and horrible things for quite a while Carl is entranced and moves slowly closer to the deer. Unknown to them, the deer is in the sights of a hunter (Otis) whose shot passes through the deer and into Carl. Otis leads the three to a farm where Herschel, being a veterinarian, hopes to save Carl's life. The others, not knowing this yet, continue to look for Sophia. Daryl, who in the first season had been a mostly me-first kind of guy for some reason takes her disappearance particularly hard and works the most to find her. As the rest gather at the farm and time passes, the chances of finding Sophia decrease. Shane reminds Rick that any lost child not found within 72 hours is not likely to have survived but the rest of the group refuses to give up. Especially Daryl. In fact, during his most intense effort to find her he gets thrown from his horse, his side pierced by one of his own arrows, and thrown down an embankment next to a river. He lays there in a daze, but tougher than anything he makes it back, giving Carol her only shred of hope: He has found Sophia's doll. But despite everything, Sophia has completely disappeared.


In the most heartbreaking episode so far of the series called 'Pretty Much Dead Already', a mid-season finale, we get the horrific truth. Herschel has been keeping Walkers in his barn, convinced they can still be healed somehow and are not really dead. His family has been gathering them from around the farm and putting them there. Glenn finds out and, not being able to keep a secret, tells Dale who tries to reason with Herschel. Nope. So Dale tells Rick. When Herschel is confronted, he demands that everyone leaves the farm within a week, live or die as they may. While Rick tries to work with him, Shane has had enough. He makes sure everyone is armed and breaks the lock on the barn door. Everyone aims as the Walkers come shambling out. Standing almost in a row, they all fire, taking them down one by one. Finally there are no more and they think it is over.


In the saddest moment of TWD's episodes thus far, the last Walker slowly makes its way out of the barn. It is Sophia. Carol collapses and Daryl has to hold her down to prevent her from going to what was once her daughter. The whole group can only stare in silence as what was Sophia slowly comes toward them. No one can fire. No one wants to. Finally Rick, realizing his place as leader and taking the ultimate responsibility, stands before Sophia and fires. All stand stunned, looking down at her poor little body. The Walkers are burned, however, little Sophia is buried, her mother convinced she has gone to heaven but you can see the light go out of her eyes as she is totally broken.


Carol does however keep her sanity and her concern for the group as she fights with them all through the end of Season Two. Let us hope that in Season Three something makes that light come back to her eyes. If any of the group deserves happiness, I personally think it is Carol.


Melissa McBride is a film and commercial casting director in Georgia, as well as an actress. She has appeared in movies and television (in fact, she, Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale) and Laurie Holden (Andrea) all appeared in Stephen King's The Mist together).


Madison Lintz began her acting career at age six, being in commercials, TV and film. She comes from a family of actors. She jokingly said that because her character and Daryl's (Norman Reedus) became so entwined, he was her boyfriend. His response? "That makes her my girlfriend."