The Same Boat is an intense, character and female driven episode that leaves the audience worried about one of the Atlanta Five’s ability to move forward.
To be honest, not a lot happens to propel the storyline forward in The Same Boat. Instead the episode is very much character driven. It’s also centered around female characters that finally are able to prove that they can be just as cutthroat as the men in this new world.
It opens where we left off last week. Maggie and Carol get ambushed by another group of Saviors. As one of them approaches Maggie, Carol has an open kill shot, but she only shoots the man in the arm. This allows for the others to surround them and take advantage.
Once the negotiations fall through, Paula, their no nonsense leader, and the Saviors take Maggie and Carol to an abandoned slaughterhouse that is used as a checkpoint.
It feels like Negan is putting barriers between himself and those that might be going after him. Our group will eventually break through that last barrier, but do we want them, too?
At the slaughterhouse, Carol and Maggie are tied up and forced to sit on opposite sides of a room while Paula and her Saviors make a plan.
While Maggie is featured prominently in this episode, The Same Boat focuses on Carol and Paula. Much like we have a Rick/Morgan parallel storyline, this is our Carol one. What would have happened to Carol had she been dealt a different hand before the apocalypse and met up with a different group?
The slaughterhouse that they’re in is full of walkers because it isn’t secure, so Paula and the others leave to take care of them. During that time, Maggie works hard to get free and Carol manages to grab a rosary from her pants.
When they hear the Saviors coming back, Carol starts to have a panic attack. It’s unsettling to see Carol freak out like that, and the Saviors ignore her until Maggie tells them to help her out.
Chelle points a gun at Carol and asks her how she made it this far and Molls tells her to take some yoga breathes and calm her ass down.
“What are you so afraid of? Are you actually afraid to die? All of this and you’re actually afraid of getting your ticket punched?”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Don’t hurt Maggie. Don’t hurt the baby.”
Once they find out about the baby, the ridicule Maggie for making the decision to have one in the first place.
While all of this is happening, Donny is against the wall hurting due to the gunshot wound. Molls starts smoking, and Carol tells her to stop while being near Maggie since she’s pregnant and even Chelle backs her up.
Carol tells her that cigarettes will kill her, Molls shows her the blood she coughs up and says it’s already killed her.
(Carol told this same thing to another woman in the ASZ the episode the Wolves attacked.)
Maggie tries to convince Paula to talk to Rick since Donny’s arm is really bad off. She says that she’s not a doctor, but her father lost his leg so she knows he’ll lose his arm if he doesn’t get help. This prompts Donny to get up and hobble over to Carol.
He complains that she’s sitting there completely fine while his arm is severely injured. When he tells Paula to shoot Carol to make it even, she says no. Donny backhands Paula and goes after Carol, but Maggie kicks his legs out from under him.
He turns his attention to her and yanks her up by her hair and then head-butts him while Carol grabs his legs and drags him down. He gets the best of Carol, though, and kicks her hard twice in the back before Paula gets up and knocks him out.
This is the turning point in the episode.
After the fight, Paula separates Maggie and Carol and tells Chelle to find out what Maggie knows.
This takes us back to S3 when the Governor also interrogated Maggie about her group’s location. Maggie didn’t talk then and she doesn’t talk now. We do find out that Chelle’s boyfriend was in the group of people that Daryl blew up, though.
Chelle also tells Maggie that she was pregnant before, too, but she lost the baby. She says that Maggie will produce for them and that “they’re not the good guys” in this situation. What does she mean by produce? Is Negan creating a little War Boy army with the help of his men?
During this, Carol and Paula are playing a game of mental chess that’s nerve-wracking to watch.
Carol puts on masks easily, so at first, we don’t understand that she’s being sincere in her fears and her confessions. She tries to connect with Paula by talking about Ed and his abuse, but Paula tells her that she doesn’t care that her husband hit her.
“I see exactly who you are. Carol.”
She calls her pathetic, but she doesn’t know the real Carol. Then Paula asks if she really believes in God since she’s still clutching the rosary. Carol says she found faith after she lost Sophia when, in fact, that’s when she started losing her faith. Paula tells her that she might be seeing her daughter soon, so that’s an upside to her situation.
Rick pops up again on the walkie. He wants to set up a trade, but Paula is having none of that. When she puts the walkie up, Carol starts talking.
She tells them about the biker gang that Daryl blew up. They understand about them defending themselves, but why did they continue to go after the Saviors?
Carol mentions Negan and Paula asks her what she knows about Negan. This is when Molls tells her that they’re all Negan. She can’t explain further because she has a coughing fit and they ignore Carol asking her what she means.
We know that there are a lot of Negan’s men, and they’ve all been taught to admit to being him. So, he inspires extreme loyalty, which makes you wonder what he does to get that devotion.
(The pictures that Glenn saw last episode come to mind.)
Paula tells Carol that she’s weak and asks what she’s afraid of then launches into her story.
She was a secretary before this and absolutely hated her boss. There’s an inspirational email that she received repeatedly, too, about three things that were put into boiling water and all changed. A carrot was hard but went soft, an egg was fragile but went hard, and coffee beans changed the water itself. The camera pans to a different woman with each item, Carol with the carrot, Molls the egg, and Paula the coffee.
Paula tells her that she wasn’t allowed to leave because she was in D.C. when it started, and she never got to see her husband or four daughters again. She was stuck with her boss, and he was weak and stupid, so she killed him first.
She said she stopped counting when she hit double digits, and that she’s lost everything, but she’s stronger now.
Carol tells her that she’s with killers, and Paula points out that her people are killers, too, which makes her a killer. Carol takes a moment to gather her thoughts then says…
“You. You’re the one who’s afraid to die, and you’re going to. You will die. That’s what’s going to happen if you don’t work this out.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“I hope not.”
Even at that moment, Carol doesn’t want to add to her list. She’s going through so many changes and the writer’s are putting a magnifying glass on her development. That’s never good.
Rick comes in again, and his voice is very clear, so Paula knows that he’s close. She figures he tracked them. She doesn’t want to follow through with the trade. She wants to be proactive and kill them first.
Carol tries to reason with her, telling her that Rick is a man of his word and wouldn’t put her or Maggie at risk. Paula tells her that he’s just as stupid she is.
Once Molls and Paula leave Carol alone, she starts trying to break free using the rosary to cut through the tape on her wrists. She finds Maggie and says they need to leave, but Maggie wants to kill them all.
The hesitation in Carol’s eyes is so obvious and the tension radiates off of her.
They go back into the other room, and take the tourniquet off Donny’s arm and he bleeds out. He was already dead and turning anyway, though. They use the him in his walker form to bite/distract Molls then Maggie bashes her head in. From there they move through the building.
When Paula sees what they’ve done, she heads after them with her gun cocked.
Maggie and Carol find a hallway full of walkers and they start to kill them, but Paula finds them and unloads her clip on them.
Carol repeatedly tells Paula to run while Paula tells Carol all the bad things she’s done and how she herself has had to do many terrible things. A walker breaks off and almost gets Carol, but Maggie kills it and Carol accidently shots Paula.
Chelle calls for Molls and Paula, and Maggie meet her in the hallway. They get into a brutal fight with Chelle hitting Maggie in the stomach and then almost slicing her there but only catching her shirt. As she backs away and they stare at each other, Carol comes up from the side and shoots Chelle in the head.
They turn back around to face Paula and she laughing. She tells her Carol that she used to be a “little bird” but she’s not anymore. Paula confesses that she used to be like that, too. She wants to know what Carol was so afraid of if could do all this, and Carol tells her that she was afraid of “this”, killing another person.
They fight in the hallway, and Carol gets the upper hand and pushes Paula. She’s impaled on a metal pole and eaten by a walker. When the Saviors come over the walkie and ask where to meet them, Carol takes the walkie and tells them to meet them on the kill floor.
Before the Saviors get there, Maggie and Carol set up a trap, and when the men come in, they lock them in the kill floor and Carol throws in a lit cigarette, lighting the room on fire.
Everything sounds like it’s underwater after that. Carol is moving in a haze. She sees Chelle lying on the floor and Paula has turned into a walker that Maggie ends up stabbing in the head.
They open the outside door and the group arrives. Glen and Maggie are reunited and Daryl goes to Carol and asks if she’s good. She tells him, “No.” He hugs her to him, but Carol is still in shock.
When asked the same thing by Glenn, Maggie tells him she can’t do this anymore. It’s safe to say Maggie won’t be leaving the ASZ for a while.
Primo, the Savior that was with Rick, doesn’t offer any information, but when he tells Rick that he’s Negan. Rick says, “I’m sorry it had to come to this.” Then shoots him in the head.
Carol watches with wide eyes. The camera pans to her hand, and she’s holding the rosary so hard that it draws blood.
******
6.14, Twice As Far, is being keep under wraps, but check out the previews and stills below!
In the preview for 6.14, the threat from Negan doesn’t seem present. They’re inside the walls of the ASZ, and it’s like we’re getting a breather before the final two episodes knock us off our feet.
In the preview on The Talking Dead for 6.14, “Twice As Far”, features Carol talking to Daryl. It seems that she wants his words of hope from “Consumed” (5.06), but he doesn’t have those for her. He tells her that she did the right thing. She doesn’t look sure, and you can’t help but be worried for her.
Don’t miss Twice As Far, Sunday, March 20 at 9/8c on AMC!
