Melissa McBride breaks down the intense new episode of ‘The Walking Dead’

Our Walking Dead family is finally back together … but for how long?

After a long stretch of episodes where our regulars were separated and off fighting different fights, seeing everyone working together in last night’s midseason premiere was a glorious sight.

But, as regular viewers of AMC’s hit thriller know, it’s never long from the time one battle ends and another materializes and that’s what season 6B is all about.

As Melissa McBride, who brings a fierce heart to the show as Carol, told us in a preview for the return episode, there are many threats coming their way besides the imminent appearance of Jeffrey Dead Morgan as villainous Negan.

During our post-mortem chat, McBride revealed she’s more than a little excited to finally be working with a certain someone she doesn’t normally get screen time with as well as which characters are still in Carol’s heart and whether rules exist anymore in the post-apocalyptic world.

MASHABLE: This return episode really punctuated that the group is back together. Are they more invincible than ever or is there still a lot of fragility with them as a group?
MELISSA MCBRIDE: I think we all know better that nothing’s invincible in the world but they are certainly, I think, a stronger force. That’s the first time we’ve seen that whole community really band together and the stakes have never been higher either. And they really stepped up and stepped out of their fear and saw exactly how the world has changed and the threat of the walkers, especially in those great numbers face to face just trampling their community. They really all stepped forward to put them down and push them out. They come together and I love that. It’s so tragic, though.

This don’t happen a lot on the show but you had a few moments of silence in this episode before Morgan enters the room. Are there different challenges in those moments?
You know what? I love those quiet moments. I don’t care what I’m watching. I love to see characters just alone in their solitude, their private moments. I love to see what they do when no one’s watching. And I do love those thoughtful moments and you wonder what is going on in their mind, the thoughts that they’re thinking when they just take a second…I like it as an actor because it’s just a quiet, personal, private moment and they’re telling, you know, they’re very telling about that character.

What’s Carol thinking in those moments like that?
I’m thinking what are her thoughts … the situation she’s just found herself in and come out of and all that’s going on and the world’s tumbling down. As Carol, Carol’s thinking about herself. ‘Where am I at? What has this brought me to? What am I doing? What do I do with this?’

Moving forward, will we see Carol connecting with anybody that we haven’t really seen her with much before?
Yeah. Carol and Maggie are going to spend some time together. That’s going to be great. It’s great to finally get some good meaty stuff with Lauren. Our characters really have only shared a couple of scenes and just a few lines of dialogue so there’s some good meatier stuff coming. It’s something I’ve just looked forward to for a very long time so that was exciting for me. Then, obviously, we have guest appearances and characters come in. There’s a lot to look forward to.

Moving into these episodes, have you understood Carol differently in these episodes? Maybe there was something new about her you were able to explore.
There are changes and flips for all these characters in every season, every episode. That’s just the nature of evolving in what the world gives you. You trek through life and you turn a corner and here’s something else to deal with and to learn from and to grow from and to bounce off of and realize something new about yourself or to challenge the way you think about something.

Yeah, there’s changes ahead for all of these characters just because we keep living and dealing with life and what this world gives to us. In 6B there are definitely some corners [and] I experience different aspects of Carol that I have not yet. It’s exciting.

Glenn (Steven Yeun) has some dialogue in the episode where he talks about the people you carry with you even if they are no longer in the world. Who would those people be for Carol?
I think certainly Sophia and Lizzie, Laurie, T-Dog, Andrea…I think everyone in that core group. They’ve been traveling along, surviving together. They’re sacrificing themselves to different extents to keep everyone safe and unfortunately you have to do some horrible things to make that happen.

At this point, what are the rules for Carol as far as survival and killing? Are there rules left at this point?
I don’t think it’s a world without rules. I do think that her number one rule with conditions is that you eliminate the threat, just eliminate the threat. Leave out the liabilities and eliminate the threat.