So I made it thru the wasteland that was s8 and holy hell wasn't that boring as all fuck. Literally a whole season of machine guns shooting at metal and dramatic dudes rambling ad-fucking-nauseum, with the exact same beats repeated over and over again. I am SO glad Morgan and his fucking endless will-I-wont-I-kill internal battle is OVER (I was so mad at Jesus when he triggered it again I mean WTF dude???!!!). Couldn't enjoy Carol cos she looked like a policeman in the Kingdom uniform and was surrounded by insufferable men (minus Jerry). Couldn't enjoy Daryl cos his s8 foil was Tara (??!), who I'm sorry, I like her but she is not a strong enough actor to work as a convincing foil to Norman. Didn't buy her as a badass or their shared quest for revenge. (Has Daryl ever been the vengeful type...? I'm not sure that tracks. He responds mercilessly to direct threats in the moment but I'm not sure he's the type to go back for another whack after the fact). Regarding Caryl, I have passed my initial, elated omg-they-are-so-perfect era, and then my confused, frustrated wait-wtf-happened-where-are-they era. And now I'm in my this-is-making-me-sad-now, why-Carol-WHHHYYY era. Initially, yes, I was onboard with her heading off on her own and into isolation. That totally tracks with the wound Rick inflicted on her back in s4 when he shunned her for being a liability, a threat, as well as with a bunch of different trauma responses. You could even call it a dissociative fugue, that initial instinct to retreat and lick her wounds. But dissociation is something that happens TO YOU, not something you choose. Dissociation is a short-term coping response, not a sustainable state of being. Yet 2 seasons later, Carol is actively choosing to live in a dream reality that she KNOWS isn't true. For me, that doesn't ring true to what we know of her. Carol is a realist, not an idealist. Her brutally relaying to small children the horrific realities of the world they live in? THAT is Carol. She tells them as a kindness. Because she thinks they have a right to know and she wants them to survive. One way or another. She wants to prepare them the way she didn't prepare Sophia. I enjoyed her initial interactions with Ezekiel, him recognising the mask she was putting on. But where his mask comes from amateur theatrics, hers came from actual, life-altering, heart-shattering trauma. They are NOT the same. And this little flight of fancy is lasting wwaaaayyy too long for me now. I can't imagine watching this is real time. Jfc, must have been absolutely interminable for Caryl shippers at the time. How did y'all cope? The other night I googled "when does King Ezekiel die?" cos I can't wait to get rid of this verbose mf. No such luck unfortch. But maybe it's better if Carol willingly falls out of love with him/out from under his spell than that she lose and mourn him...? Because yes, he is a hunk. And yes, he is a good dad. But if that's what she wants then so is Daryl, we established that back in s2 (his fitness as a father, not his hunkiness, his hunkiness was self-evident from the get). It was even repeated at the top of this season with Daryl being asked about being a dad and then a blatant cut to Henry! So why is she choosing the dude who fakes it and not the dude who keeps it as real as it gets?

The only thing I can think of is that when Carol looks at Daryl she sees herself and everything she is trying to avoid. She sees trauma. She sees pain. She sees loss. They have always kept it uber real with each other (except when it comes to being total simps for e/o). They have always been almost complete mirrors of each other, worst bits included. And maybe she'd rather look at a mask of a (non)person than see herself (im)perfectly reflected in Daryl's all-knowing eyes? Cos this juxtaposition of the realist/idealist is at the heart of the show, fundamental to it's themes, right? When disaster strikes, who are we gonna be, the best or worst of ourselves, individually and collectively? When a power vacuum occurs, who steps up and how do they decide to wield this newfound authority? Neither Carol nor Daryl has ever entirely taken on a leadership role, but they have had to chose sides in the realist/idealist battle and, for the most part, they choose realist, not idealist. I think they would like to be idealists, they want to believe the best of people and in the possibility of a better world, but life has beaten any such inclination out of them, even before the zombie apocalypse. Which is why they don't lead (we don't see either of them actually lead the Saviors...?), they serve. They are realists in service to idealists.

This is why Carol got in hot water with Rick in s4. Her realism overrode his idealism (while he was completely checked out from reality). And we all know who was proved right in the end. Time and again, this battle wages and sure, sometimes the underdog snatches a victory from the jaws of death. But those wins are rare and don't last long before realism inevitably kicks idealism's ass. Yet here we are again, with Daryl as Rick's 2IC and Carol as 2IC to King Ezekiel, both serving their romantic visions of the future. After the death of Shiva, you could say that Carol becomes Shiva's substitute. I already wrote a post here about how the visual storytelling of s7 compares Shiva to Carol, a caged tiger who has deliberately withdrawn her claws in order to protect loved ones. In one of their first interactions, Ezekiel talks about rescuing Shiva and he says that after that, she never hurt him, she devoted herself to him. This story is reflected in how Carol initially swipes at KE, warning him off, but warms to him after he "rescues" her from her wounded isolation. In gratitude, Carol takes up residence at his side, becoming a symbol of KE's might and power. He himself is a mere figurehead. A straw man whose mystique comes from a far finer, far more powerful creature. When that creature dies, he totally disintegrates. He is revealed to be the Wizard behind the curtain. Nothing more than smoke and mirrors, with no roar or power or beauty of his own. That's where I figured that storyline was headed the whole time, and it would have been a fitting conclusion to the Kingdom arc. Idealism - 0 , Realism - 1. Ultimately, myths can only get you so far. Shiva's death, which emphasised KE's true powerlessness, would've been a great symbol of the death of fairytale, of nobility, of worldly beauty. Or at least its long-term unsustainability. But instead, for reasons passing understanding, Carol comes along and takes Shiva's place. She props him up, talks him up, buys into the unreality and provides all the strength and cunning the Kingdom needs to sustain them through the ensuing battle. (At first, I thought this was a tactic, but now she seems to have bought in for reals).

So yeah, I get why he loves her. I get what he gets out of the relationship. She enables him to hold onto his kingdom, his dignity, his (un)reality. She makes him something he isn't, she makes him better, magical, competent, mighty. Even when he's actually none of those things. Even when everything he pretends to be actually comes from her. She builds him up in front of his son and community. But...what about her? I don't love that use of Carol, either within the show or within the relationship. Reducing her to the role of an animal? A symbol? An enslaved, devoted accessory? A useful source of power for a man who has to fake his heroism, fashion pretty speeches expounding his love for her? No, it isn't as dehumanising and destructive as her marriage to Ed, but that's a low bar. She's not being abused in her Kingdom cage. Just used. And there's still a dehumanising element in that she is used for her labour (as a mother, as a fighter), her brightness dulled in the service of a weak, puffed-up man. Ezekiel isn't dangerous, his propagandic and strategic use of Carol is self-serving but not malicious. His motivations are good, he's thinking of his community, even if he isn't thinking of her. Although he probably thinks he is. He probably thinks he's glimpsed behind the mask. He probably thinks he knows her, completely, knows what she wants. But again, her mask is more than just an illusion. With Carol, you can never be quite sure when the pretending ends (I say she was still pretending with Tobin, even on his deathbed). Are we supposed to think that she's disappeared so far into her mask that it isn't just a convenient act anymore? Are we supposed to think that Carol doesn't clock her slight suppression under Ezekiel because it isn't as obvious as the full oppression she experienced under Ed?

Personally, I'm not sure I buy the idea that Carol can't tell the difference between a real man of honour and a fake one. Because that's one of her super powers. Daryl's too. One of the few gifts of trauma is that you learn to read people. Ingrained hypervigilance means you're always on the look out for the next blow, the incoming threat. That way, you can anticipate it, avoid it, stay safe. That's why she was able to see Merle for exactly what he was and Daryl for what he wasn't. Everyone else looked at Daryl and saw a threat. A dangerous dirtbag, not a diamond in the rough. Not Carol. She saw a kindred spirit. So if she can see Daryl, Merle and everyone else so clearly then why the blindspot when it comes to Ezekiel? As their first encounters demonstrated, she is not one to be fooled by rhetorical flourish and theatrical pageantry. What works on Carol is authenticity. What a man does, not what he says. Whether a man is defined by a strong moral code, not whether he harks back to a long dead historical era in which men supposedly were.