Carol rises from the ashes again in The Walking Dead season 10

As she works through her grief and anger over the murder of her son Carol will become more powerful than ever in The Walking Dead season 10.

Carol’s journey on The Walking Dead has always been one of transformation. Through every loss and every adversity she has managed to come back stronger than ever, no matter how devastating the loss was that precipitated her phoenix like rise from the ashes of her old life.

This ability to constantly adapt, process, and transform is sometimes called the survivor’s gift. It’s an innate resiliency that some people have that enables them to go through extraordinary amounts of loss and still survive. From the very beginning Carol has shows that she’s got that resiliency.

But the death of Henry is a loss she won’t be able to overcome easily. Carol’s official character bio for The Walking Dead season 10 indicates that she’s going to struggle to deal with her feelings of rage and grief over the murder of her son. Her bio on the AMC website says:

"“Carol continues to be devastated by the death of her son Henry. Haunted by loss and to further guard herself, Carol left her husband Ezekiel. She is in a push/pull state of wanting to separate from everyone and everything, and seeking revenge on the mother that took her child. What is she capable of doing in order to erase the events of her past? What more is she willing to leave behind and how might her actions affect the ones she loves?”"

Henry’s loss will affect her in a different way from her other losses, and that will fuel her transformation into a more powerful adversary than she’s ever been.

A Murdered Child

Henry’s loss will be different for Carol because his death wasn’t a tragic inevitability like the loss of her daughter or the other children she cared for. Sophia’s death and reanimation was a tragic accident. Sophia was a casualty of the new world inhabited by the dead. Mika’s death, caused by her sister who loved her, was a result of the psychopathy of a little girl who couldn’t process the horrors of the apocalypse world and couldn’t adapt to living in that world.

But Henry’s death was cold-blooded murder, committed by zealots who worship death and wanted revenge. Carol can’t rationalize away Henry’s death because it was a deliberate act of savagery. And that’s what will cause Carol to rise from the ashes of this loss with an anger she hasn’t felt before.

This Carol will have a touch of that savagery in her. She won’t stand for Alpha and the Whisperers threatening or hurting anyone else she loves. Carol may end up separating from the communities, but she won’t leave until Alpha is dead and she has justice for her murdered child.