The Walking Dead – Recap: “The Same Boat” (06×13)
Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead “The Same Boat” raises the big question: are there any good guys left in the post apocalyptic world?
Although we as audience members have seen our main characters as the “good guys” for so long, recent events have been making us reconsider our opinions. And just to prove it to you, even the most level-headed one of the group, Carol Pettier, has a crisis of conscience in this episode.
Episode thirteen rewinds a little and takes us back to the final minutes of episode twelve when one of Negan’s men had pulled the alarm and woken up the entire compound. Instead of seeing our main group slaughter the saviors though, we get to see Maggie and Carol who had agreed to watch the perimeter. Maggie wants to help the group after hearing the alarm go off, but Carol scolds her to stay there. Suddenly, a man with a gun comes up behind Maggie, and Carol quickly points her gun at him. Instead of killing him though, Carol purposely shoots the guy in the arm. Maggie’s about to kill him, but is stopped by the people who were traveling with the guy. There’s four of them and they don’t exactly look friendly. The leader of the little band is a woman named Paula. Carol and Maggie immediately drop their weapons, holding their hands up in surrender.
Paula uses binoculars to see how the rest of her group is doing against Rick’s group. She sees Daryl attack a guy she calls “Primo” and quickly grabs a talkie-walkie to stop Rick from killing Primo. She tells Rick to lower his gun. Rick tells her to come out to talk, but she refuses to reveal herself and tells him that she has a Maggie and a Carol. Rick tries to negotiate with her and says that if she gives Maggie and Carol back, he’ll let Primo live. Paula says, “Two for one, that’s not much of a trade.” Ricks says she doesn’t have another choice. Paula tells him that she’ll get back to him and takes Maggie and Carol hostage.
Carol and Maggie are taken to a creepy building full of Walkers. Paula makes them sit across each other in a little room that looks like a cell block and duct tapes them so they won’t escape. She leaves them to help her group kill the rest of the Walkers. As soon as Paula leaves, Carol starts hyperventilating. At first I thought she was faking it and trying to make it seem as though she were actually terrified (like when she pretended to be an innocent lady when she first arrived at Alexandria only to surprise everyone when the Wolves attacked), but now I’m not so sure. She was absolutely shaken by the end of the episode. Paula and her band of saviors enter the cellar. The guy who Carol had shot earlier is scared of losing his arm and wants to get Primo back so he could mend it. Paula disagrees. She doesn’t want to take any chances with Rick’s group. Meanwhile, Carol continues to hyperventilate. She grabs a rosary she found on the ground and starts to pray. Paula and her group make fun of Carol and scoff at the idea that she’s afraid of dying. Carol tells them that she doesn’t care about what happens to her as long as Maggie and the baby are safe. Then, Maggie gets poked fun at for getting pregnant at a zombie apocalypse. A woman starts smoking in front of Maggie, which is completely inappropriate. The whole situation is inappropriate, really, but it still angers me enough to mention in. The woman tells Carol, “I’m a dead woman walking, which puts us exactly on the same boat.” Despite my hatred for this woman, I couldn’t help but agree with her. They’re all killing machines on the same boat who lose a part of their humanity each day as the title of the episode “Same Boat” suggests. The creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman even said that the title of the show as a whole isn’t even referring to the Walkers. The people are the “walking dead.”
Carol winces at this. Looks like Morgan’s lifestyle is starting to rub off on her.
Paula’s sidekick, Chelle, takes Maggie into questioning. Chelle demands to know where Alexandria is, but Maggie refuses to answer. Chelle tells her, “You are not the good guys.”
In the meantime, Paula has a little chat with Carol. Carol thanks Paula for defending Maggie and her against the guy she shot in the arm earlier, but Paula cuts her off and calls her pathetic. Then, she tells Carol that her boyfriend is just a warm body in her bed and that she could easily kill him in his sleep. Yikes. This girl is some kind of crazy.
Carol clutches at the rosary once again and Paula asks her if she really believes in that. Carol responds, “Faith got me through the death of my daughter,” which is ironic considering she lost her faith when Sophia died. Paula tells Carol not to worry and that she just might join Sophia soon.
Paula talks to Rick once more. They make a deal to meet up somewhere for the trade. Paula is suspicious because it went down too easily so she contacts the rest of her group to help her out. They don’t trust Rick and agree to kill him if they see him.
Carol uses the rosary to break free from the duct tape. She finds Maggie who’s already doing the same. They embrace and agree to finish Paula’s group off.
The guy Carol shot, Donnie, died from the loss of blood in his arm. He turns into a Walker so Maggie ties him up so that he can attack anyone who enters the room. The woman who smoked in from of Maggie earlier falls victim to this trap and Maggie brutally finishes her off with the back of her gun. Carol watches in dismay. They leave. Paula enters the room, sees the mess and then reloads her gun.
Paula finds Carol and Maggie inside a hallway full of Walkers. Carol points a gun at Paula and tells her to walk away. Frustrated, Maggie tells Carol to shoot her. Carol disappoints us for the first time and lags on shooting Paula, which leads to a Walker scrambling out of its restraints and attacking her. Fortunately, Maggie kills the Walker in time before it can bite Carol. Paula runs off. In the search, they run into Chelle who slashes out at Maggie with a knife. She cuts Maggie’s stomach, but Maggie was able back up in time. Hopefully the baby is okay.
Paula shows up and laughs maniacally. She tells Carol that she is no longer the scared little bird anymore. While Carol points her gun at Paula, she tells her, “I told you to run.” Paula replies, “If you could do all this. What were you so afraid of Carol?” And the answer is obvious. She was afraid of losing her humanity. She was afraid of starting to kill for sport. She was afraid of becoming the walking dead.
“I was afraid of this…” Carol says, but once again fails to pull the trigger. Paula launches herself at Carol and Carol shoves her into a sharp post where a Walker starts to eat her face. Paula has a painful death. Carol takes her walkie-talkie, swallows hard and tries her best to mimic Paula’s voice. “Meet us in the Kill Floor,” she says.
Maggie and Carol hide behind a door as the rest of Paula’s group make their way into the Kill Floor. Carol lights up a cigarette and then drops it into the Kill Floor where her and Maggie had spilled gasoline all over the ground. Paula’s group burn to death as Carol and Maggie walk out of the terrible building. They open the door to find Rick and the others. Both sides immediately drop their weapons and embrace. Glenn hugs Maggie. Daryl asks Carol if she’s okay. Of course she’s not. He gives her a hug. My Carl and Daryl feels are coming back.
Rick questions their hostage, Primo, who tells Rick that he’s Negan. Rick doesn’t hesitate and shoots him right in the head.
Carol tears up. She clutches at her rosary once more as blood trickles down her palm.
