The Walking Dead: The best Carol moment from each season

3. Carol’s cesarean: Episode 302 – “Slick”

Season 3 shows us how much Carol has transformed in a short few months. She’s now competent with a gun and an active member of the group. She shows new-found confidence, flirting with both Daryl and Axel over the season, and finds her place looking after newborn and motherless Judith.

For many people, Carol’s season 3 defining moment might be when she survives in the tombs after the walker rampage that resulted in Lori’s death. It certainly showed her ability to hold on to life, but it didn’t illuminate her character path as much as the events of the earlier episode “Sick”.

When Hershel is bitten and loses his leg, Carol realizes they may not have his medical expertise to help Lori give birth, so she takes it upon herself to ask Glenn to help her use a walker as a test patient in case she needs to perform an emergency cesarean.

It’s a scene which shows the genesis of the person Carol would become – someone who goes off on her own to take care of things. She is always thinking several moves ahead, can see how things might play out, and is willing to do whatever it takes to mitigate those circumstances.

This understated, quiet determination to do what needs to be done is played beautifully in the scene where Carol is alone, operating on the female walker in the courtyard.