‘The Walking Dead’ season 10 episode 21 recap: Carol questions her future

**Spoilers for ‘Diverged’ below**

Something of a Walking Dead season 10c rarity occurs during the fifth and penultimate episode of this six-part mini-series, with the show refocusing on two characters who’ve already featured during this half-dozen block of special episodes. This week we’re back with Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) following the revelatory events of ‘Find Me’, with the BFFs not exactly seeing eye-to-eye at the moment and Carol considering her options at Alexandria. Here’s what went down in The Walking Dead season 10 episode 21, ‘Diverged’.

What happened in The Walking Dead this week?

  • Daryl, Carol and Dog are back on the move, but there’s tension between the two survivors (won’t somebody think of Dog?). Yearning to find more in the way of food and supplies for everyone back at Alexandria, Daryl opts to stay out hunting while Carol returns to camp. It’s an outcome that suits both parties, and as they go their separate ways Carol tells Daryl that he doesn’t need to apologise for his outburst at Leah’s cabin – which is a good job, because Daryl wasn’t about to apologise and patch things up. “I know he meant what he said – an apology is just a truce,” Carol sighs. “It doesn’t fix anything.”
  • Back at Alexandria, Carol seeks out a task to distract herself from her thoughts but lovable, jovial Jerry (Cooper Andrews) struggles to suggest a job for her to complete. Carol resolves to make soup for the Alexandria residents, despite Jerry trying to put her off doing such a thing due to a lack of power and ingredients, as well as a recent rat infestation.
  • While Carol is making the soup, Dog becomes alarmed at the presence of something – but it’s nothing too sinister: it’s just a rat. Carol, though, is elated at having something productive to do and she sets about building a rat trap. Leaving the completed trap behind, she then heads out into the wild to find soup ingredients and is confronted by a small-ish onslaught of walkers – which, to nobody’s surprise whatsoever, she deals with masterfully. Back at camp (and confidently striding past a startled Jerry), she then successfully fixes a solar-panelled power generator and gets on with the job of making soup – all in a day’s work for Carol.
  • Daryl, meanwhile, is now fixated on fixing his motorbike after it breaks down, and is nearly crushed under a precariously balanced abandoned car while hunting for spare parts due to the movement of the hungry walker trapped inside it. He then spies another walker dressed in US Army gear and goes after it. After a brief tussle, Daryl overpowers the zombie and steals its military-issued Swiss army knife before swiping supplies from the pack of another quickly-dealt-with soldier-walker. He eventually manages to fix his bike using the swiped knife and rides away from any further danger.

the walking dead daryl
Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon in ‘The Walking Dead’ (Picture: Eli Ade/AMC)

  • Back at Alexandria, the rat is loose! Carol gives chase as a bemused Dog watches on, but the rodent evades capture. The solar panel then gives out, ending Carol’s cooking ambitions for the day and further compounding her misery. Later that night, Carol admits that “all of the fight has gone out of me” to Dog (who is pining for Daryl: “He’ll come back. He always comes back,” Carol reassures him) before wondering aloud if she should “scram, get out of everyone’s hair” – but she’d miss Daryl too much to do that right now (hello, spin-off).
  • Carol is woken by Dog a few hours later and goes downstairs to investigate. Down in the garage, she hears rustling behind the drywall and carves a square out of it to look inside: nothing. She then starts hammering at the drywall indiscriminately with a knife, causing a ton of damage but ultimately finding nothing but an outlet for her frustrations.
  • The next morning Jerry comes round to check in on Carol, having been inspired to do so by Ezekiel’s kind-and-caring approach to the welfare of his other survivors. “Can’t you let people like me suffer in peace?” Carol says, before admitting that the previous day was “a bad day” for her mentally. Jerry manages to raise her spirits slightly as they both realise that they are missing their apocalypse buddies (Jerry = Ezekiel; Carol = Daryl). The damn rat then emerges and escapes, raising a smile from both Carol and Jerry.
  • A few hours later Daryl returns as Carol is seen fixing the drywall she destroyed the previous night. Dog is delighted to see Daryl, as is Carol – though she doesn’t express it. Their breakdown in communication continues, and they both resolve to go to bed in separate parts of their house as their frosty relationship continues.

The Walking Dead carol
Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier in ‘The Walking Dead’ (Picture: Eli Ade/AMC)

Walker pack put-down of the week

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“What, think I can’t take you myself?” Carol asks of a group of walkers who surround her while she’s out collecting ingredients for her soup. Naturally, she puts all of them out of their undead misery one-by-one using a simple hunting knife. Never bet against Carol.

This week’s biggest question: What will it take to patch up Daryl and Carol’s friendship?

A largely low-key affair in general, ‘Diverged’ featured just three speaking-role characters and a distinct lack of hair-raising scares, tussles or Russian roulette sequences (of all the season 10C episodes so far, this one felt like the most Covid-affected). Still, the relatively slow pace of this episode built on the current discord between Daryl and Carol after they shared some harsh truths about their friendship in ‘Find Me’. As mentioned above, Carol is still actively thinking about leaving the survivors’ community – and it’s not guaranteed that she’ll stick out the entirety of the Walking Dead‘s final season before skipping out and embarking on her spin-off series with Daryl. But there’s loose ends to be tied up in the here and now before that can happen – so who will break the ice first?

‘The Walking Dead’ airs on Mondays at 9pm on FOX

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