'The Walking Dead' Season 10 Episode 9: Carol's trapped in darkness but Daryl's light might help her out
Spoiler alert for 'The Walking Dead' Season 10 Episode 9 titled 'Squeeze'
The midseason premiere for 'The Walking Dead' Season 10, 'Squeeze' sees Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and the other survivors trapped in a dark cave, chased down by their worst fears. There's some cognitive overlap for Carol there, as she's personally been trapped in the dark for a long time, now and it's time for her to either find her way to the light or be consumed entirely by the shadows.
In the cave, her claustrophobia comes to the fore. Daryl is the one who takes the time to offer her some comfort, check in on her and urge her to see sense, as he has all season long. This is the first time that Carol has truly opened up to him about her grudge. We see that she views her grudge against Alpha (Samantha Morton) not just with rage and determination, but with fear. Everyone in the world of 'The Walking Dead' is fighting the monster inside them and Carol is seeing hers clearly - she's clearly afraid of how much she wants not to just kill Alpha, but hurt her, terrify her and torment her.
It takes the fear of the cave's darkness and enclosed space to override Carol's tough exterior and admit to what she's been feeling. Being lured by Alpha into a dark space that's closing in around her is a metaphor that's perhaps too on the nose, but Daryl's got his own metaphors to help her out with. He reminds her that, after all this time, the survivors are no longer just fighting for survival, or revenge - there's a future to be seen and that's what they need to focus on. In one of the most cramped parts of the caves, Carol freezes up, but Daryl is there to encourage her. "Follow my light," he tells her, and it's his light that's going to guide her out of darkness both literally and figuratively.
However, Carol's now quite likely directly responsible for the deaths of two of the survivors - Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Magna (Nadia Hilker) - which is a harsh wake-up call that Carol's needed for a while. It's a wake-up call that might have come far too late, as the one person who could have guided her forward is possibly too upset with her to care. Carol might be swapping a grudge out for her guilt and she's going to be trapped in that cave for a long while.
The next episode airs 9 pm ET, March 1, on AMC.