‘The Walking Dead’ Postmortem: Melissa McBride on Carol’s Nightmares and Daryl’s Sacrifice

Warning: This interview for the “Bury Me Here” episode of The Walking Dead contains storyline and character spoilers.

Morgan’s not the only one who left his peace-minded ways behind in “Bury Me Here”… after finding out the truth about the brutal murders of Glenn and Abraham (and Spencer and Olivia), and seeing Morgan’s devastated state after Benjamin’s murder by Savior Jared, Carol ended her self-exile and moved to the Kingdom to prepare for war against Negan and his group.

Related: Catch Up on ‘The Walking Dead’ With Our Recaps

Carol portrayer Melissa McBride, who’s been separated from her Alexandria friends for nearly a whole season, talked to Yahoo TV about what convinced Carol to return to her butt-kicking ways, when she suspected Daryl was lying to her, what she really thinks of the “Caryl” relationship, and why she refused to get close to Benjamin (R.I.P.).

It’s good to talk to you again, and after such a good Carol episode.
You know, this is one of my favorite episodes this season. The performances [are] just so wonderful.

How has this season been for you? All of your co-stars have said losing other castmates was very tough, of course, but also being apart from each other for the first half of the season was difficult. But you have been separated from them even longer, through most of the second half of the season. Has that helped a bit with Carol being isolated in the storyline?
It’s been tough. It started off brutally, and they were gone. Then being separated, it was just really hard. It’s kind of like going to a… like moving away from home and going to a new school sort of. You meet new people, and you don’t see your old pals as often, but I like to go to set when I can and watch, and try to keep up that way. Yeah, it’s been very, very different for a lot of us. More frustrating at times. I guess, perhaps a little bit, it did play into that feeling of being isolated, wandering. I felt a little bit like I was wandering around. Then, you know, Carol’s in self-imposed isolation, and I’m like, “When am I going to work again? When will we see Carol again?”

You just spoke about going to the set. Greg Nicotero told me a great story about you standing in for Judith in a scene.
Oh yeah, that was a hoot. I wasn’t standing in, I was laying in. It was funny. I was laying on the floor and playing with toys, and trying not to make goo-goo, ga-ga voices. It was fun. Alanna Masterson is a great person. She’s very funny. I think it was her idea for me to do that. Whatever it takes, you know?

Carol, when we meet up with her in this episode, is having nightmares, is clearly troubled by something. She’s very clever, very intuitive… has she suspected all along that Daryl wasn’t telling her the truth about Alexandria?
She is clever. There’s that possibility. I think she was just really in denial, really wanting to believe. When he said that Jesus brought everybody to the Kingdom, she didn’t ask why. She just didn’t ask. She wants to know, but she doesn’t want to know. If she asks and somebody tells her, then that’s going to make it real. She doesn’t want to know, but I think deep down, yeah, she’s struggling, she’s not able to sleep, it’s been on her mind, I’m sure. Finally, it’s just, I’ve got to know. Then, OK I don’t want to know. Morgan says, “I’ll take you to Alexandria and you can ask.” If he’s not willing to tell her right then, then she knows it’s bad.

Do you think she suspected right away? There’s a moment in “New Best Friends,” when Daryl leaves her house, she turns to go inside, and then hesitates for a moment, as if she’s going to go after him.
Yeah, there’s a lingering question, there’s that lingering question. Also, does she want to go with him, or does she want to call him back? Or does she want him to just stay a little longer? There’s all sorts… that moment she turns around on the porch when he’s leaving is just loaded. There’s all kinds of stuff going on there.

That eventually propels her, of course, to go to the Kingdom and ask Morgan this question. On her way there, in one of the few lighter moments in this episode, we see her stabbing the walkers with the one-way sign. Did that become a little too literal?
That was cute. Yeah, it kind of is. As it turns out, I don’t know how much I can get into that, but it just turns… we can read all kinds of stuff into that. And the arrow, I do believe, was pointing backwards.

We see all of these different moments and how they, very dramatically, shift Morgan’s resolve. For Carol, by the end of the episode we see that she has accepted that they’re going to have to go to war. For her, is it the moment that Benjamin dies? Or is it really not until she finds out about Glenn and Abraham that Carol makes the decision that this is what she’s going to have to do?
When Morgan comes and says that he’s killed Richard, tells her what happened, and knows that she’s ready to hear it, ready to face that, even if it means the end of herself. “There’d be nothing left.” She [told Daryl] that’s what she would do, and she knows it’s time. I think everything led up to that moment. Benjamin, the gun… the Saviors need to be dealt with, and she’s ready. Morgan also says Rick wants to fight. She realizes, too, Daryl did not tell her. She realizes in that moment that it’s all coming true, what she didn’t want to know is being confirmed. And for Daryl to have been so selfless like that, and put in a position to not tell her, even when it means as much as the group needs her, as much as they need people, they need numbers, that he still couldn’t tell her, or wouldn’t tell her, I think she felt guilty for putting him in that position for her sad self. You know?

Related: ‘The Walking Dead’ Postmortem: Lennie James on Morgan’s Breakdown and Why He Kills Again

I love that. She isn’t angry with him for lying to her, she does see that as a selfless act on Daryl’s part.
I [love it], too. I just love Daryl and Carol. I adore them.

What label would you put on their relationship at this point? You know that so many fans want them to become a couple. I have been among them, but then with that visit in “New Best Friends,” it felt like their relationship kind of transcended just being a couple. They have such an intense connection that goes beyond a romantic situation.
It totally is. I have never been given that direction, I’ve never been given that in a script. He was antagonistic in the beginning, like a… to me, they’ve been teammates. I don’t see her lecturing him or anything. I don’t see her doting on him, I don’t see that motherly thing. I see a protective thing, and the same thing he gives to Carol, that protection. I see them, if anything, transgress to [be] kids together.

When Carol talks Morgan into, pleads with Morgan, to stay in her house while she goes to the Kingdom, does she hope it will give him a chance to calm down a little, to regroup?
Yes. When she says to him, she hears exactly what King Ezekiel said to her when she was losing herself, not knowing which way to go, just wanting to get away from it all, and she sees Morgan just becoming unhinged… Ezekiel said the same thing, “Go, but not go. Take refuge. Here is a safe haven, here is a place where you can go, but not go. Don’t leave, don’t leave yourself, don’t leave us. Just take the time that you need to do what you need to do.” She understands how difficult this is for Morgan, that he’s killed again. What could have propelled him to kill must have been so bad. That the stakes are so high now, and it’s going to put him in that same position because he has that creed, that cardinal rule, and yet everything just flies in the face of it. “To injure the opponent is to injure oneself” was the last thing Benjamin said, and that is what Morgan had told him. Then Richard saying, “I lost everything because I didn’t do something.” And Richard says, “I’m going to lead us to squash these Saviors. I’ll be the one to lead us”… Morgan kills Richard right there at that meeting. This is huge, this is monumental, enough to drag him over the brink.

And Richard isn’t wrong. Or at least, he has good intentions…
No, he’s not wrong. Even that Savior guy, Gavin, who’s coming to collect the goods. He was like, “I didn’t come here , I didn’t sign up for [getting stressed],” for tension or whatever it was. I don’t remember the exact line, but he’s saying, this doesn’t have to be tense. Everybody in this episode is backed up against a wall. If Gavin doesn’t deliver, what’s Negan going to do to him? “You answer to me, because I answer to him. You screw me up, what’s going to happen to me?” Then here we go with the garden full of weevils… they have to burn that down, and that’s the [tribute]. It’s almost like this episode should have been named, “Right Now,” because it is. It’s all happening right now.

Related: ‘The Walking Dead’ Postmortem: Scott Gimple on Sparking Morgan’s Trauma and the New Jerry

Morgan had started to feel a very fatherly, mentor-like relationship with Benjamin and his brother. We didn’t see a lot of interaction between Carol and Benjamin, but she seemed to have a little bit of a connection with him when she ran into him in the woods, and in this episode she said, “No, don’t skip this meeting that you have to go to,” when he asked her to train him a little more. Was she starting to feel a bit of a connection with Benjamin as well?
I think just the weight of the world that Benjamin is growing up in gets to her. Of course, it’s another kid, right? She thinks, “Just don’t rely on me”… and it could be anyone. She doesn’t want anyone to rely on her for anything, she doesn’t want to be responsible for the life or the death of anybody. Just leave her alone. Especially another kid. Just pretend you never saw me and go away. I think that second time when she’s at the Kingdom, knowing the deal that the Saviors made and what Morgan had just shared with her, she thinks, “You need to go make that meeting.” Yeah, her tone changed. Then, the next time she sees him he’s bleeding to death.

The season finale is just three episodes away now. The thing everybody has said is, it’s unlike any finale we’ve seen before on the show.
This is true. It is unlike any other… unlike anything else on the show. There are a couple of moments that I couldn’t… I was just very, very, very surprised. No, I was like, “No, what? No! Wait, what? What?!” Yeah.

At the very least, it seems like the finale may be finally bringing all of our favorite people back together.
Right. I think it’s safe to say everybody’s gearing up. For something. And it’s not a picnic.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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