The Walking Dead 1007: Carol silences the Whisperer

Carol shows her Whisperer captive that she’s willing to do anything it takes to get answers in The Walking Dead episode “Open Your Eyes”.

The Walking Dead episode “Open Your Eyes” featured a powerful moment when Carol’s captive decides to insult his captor. Instead of leaving the consequences to Daryl or Gabriel, she shows the Keeper that she’s more than capable of handling things on her own, effectively silencing any more insults he might be inclined to throw out.

When the Keeper calls Carol an animal and references how he’d take her like an animal, Daryl doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to, because even though the Keeper just insulted Carol he knows that Carol can handle this. With overwhelming calm, Carol dons her wedding ring and starts punching the Keeper in the face. Hard.

There are lots of reasons why Carol would wear her ring to attack the Keeper.

From a symbolic standpoint, wearing her ring is a nod to the life she had with Ezekiel and the son that they both lost to the Whisperers. Their marriage is long over, and regardless of your feelings about Carol being married to the King the reality is that they both loved their adopted son and their lives were forever changed by what Alpha did. Wearing that ring to take some of her rage out on the Whisperer is also a way to honor her dead son.

On the other hand, wearing a ring makes punches sting even more as the metal band collides with skin and bone. That was a badass Carol move to put even more power into those punches, and given how he insulted her it was like wrapping those punches up with a little bow.

Seeing Daryl watch Carol with such a look of respect on his face was powerful in and of itself. While he could definitely step in and tune the Keeper up, he let Carol work out some of her frustration and anger and that says a lot about how well they know each other. He wasn’t worried because she could handle it.

And handle it she did.

There is also a lot of symbolism behind Carol being the one to deliver a beating to the Keeper given that the Whisperers are led by a very dominant woman, and now one of her followers is being beaten by another powerful woman. If nothing else, this delivers one of the most powerful messages of all.

Though the Keeper remains resolute in his devotion to Alpha despite all efforts to scare him, the fact remains that Carol made sure he knows that she’s willing to put her money where her mouth is, and that was important. He rattled on about sandwiches and nothing being important, but there’s no question that she got her message through to him.

With the season 10 mid-season finale arriving in the next episode, there’s no stopping what has already started. What we do know is that Carol is at the forefront of that movement and she has shown that she will do whatever it takes to end the Whisperers.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.