The Walking Dead Season 9 Finale: 4 Ups & 2 Downs From ‘The Storm’

2. Carol's Conflict

Carol has had quite the journey on the post-apocalyptic drama, and she's a far cry from the woman we met during the first season. Mind you, she's continued to evolve each year, as she's done a lot of soul-searching, and is no longer the murderous woman she was in the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons of the show either. Instead, she's an amalgamation of both Carols, and she seems certain that this is the person she was always meant to be.

However, losing Henry has had a huge impact on her emotionally - as it would do - and it's brought her bloodlust to the surface once more, which is something that she understandably finds worrying. In short, she's struggling to reconcile one version of herself with the other, and this is dramatised very nicely through her altercation with Lydia.

During this scene, she must decide if her murderous alter-ego is ready to rear her ugly head once more, or if her nicer persona - whom we'll call Queen Carol from The Kingdom - is here to stay. She ultimately decides on the latter, but the conflict continues, as she attempts to return her wedding ring to Ezekiel, thus confirming that Queen Carol is finished - for now.

While we've no idea what will happen in the next season, it's pretty obvious that the series is building to a Carol and Alpha face-off. Should this occur, then it's inevitable that Carol will have to draw upon her former love of killing if she stands any hope of defeating the leader of The Whisperers, however she'll also have to hold on to the humanity she's learned while living at The Kingdom, because that's what separates her from the enemy and, as a result, that's her strength - and Alpha's weakness.