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‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Finale Has a ‘Sexy Moment’ That Made 2 Stars Screech

January 21, 2017

Whatever you think about “The Walking Dead” Season 7 up to this point, consider this: Lennie James (Morgan) said he and Melissa McBride (Carol) “screeched” over a “lovely” “sexy moment” in the finale.

Here’s that section of Lennie James’s Q&A with NME:

“I hope people aren’t disappointed by the end, but there’s one point in the finale that myself and Melissa were reading as we sat next to each other on a plane, and both of us kind of screeched when we got to this one point. It’s such a sexy moment, on all levels – it’s huge, it’s just so lovely. And both of us, when we got to the point of reading it, were like: ‘Oh my God!’ Like kids, excited by it. And to still be at that stage seven years into the show is a testament to the writers. It’s about the arrival of a character, and it’s lovely – really lovely.”

Sexy? Did he mean literally sexy? He said on all levels. Arrival of a character? Literally on that point too — like someone new shows up — or something else? Maybe we can pair this with what Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) previously teased of the finale to Entertainment Weekly:

“Wait till [Episode] 16. I promise you, there is one beat in 16, I dropped my script and started punching the air and did a little jig.”

Episode 16 is the finale, so is he talking about the same moment? Apologies for the all-caps, but … DO THEY MEAN CARYL? This isn’t about Carol and Daryl, is it? Sorry if it isn’t, but sexy moment, punching the air … maybe Daryl is finally going to get some, with Carol or otherwise. Or it could have nothing to do with that at all. But now we’re rooting for some Pookie play time. Or maybe Eugene? Does Mullet Man finally get some? Clearly stuck on “sexy” here.

For the record, James also hated the first half of Season 7, but because he was only in two episodes so he was bored and wanted to get to work and see everyone else on set. He promised “more action in the second half” as we’re about to go to war.

Here’s more of his second half tease to NME (warning — minor comic book spoilers ahead):

“On one level, it’s very obvious that we’re getting ready for war, and everyone who knows the comic books knows that we’re about to go into a couple of years of war. I don’t know how long that’s going to pan out in the television series, but it goes on for a while in the comics. So we’re about to go to war, and the second block [of eight episodes] is about meeting the protagonists and certain events that are going to decide what sides people take. And it’s not going to be a clear division of labour, let me say. There are some people who go to the dark side who are going to take you by surprise, and there are some people who are going to come over to the light – and that’s all a matter of perspective. As with this show, nothing’s going to move in a straight line. But one of the things that’s inevitable is that we’re heading to war.”

“The Walking Dead” Season 7 returns Sunday, Feb. 12 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

Melissa McBride Promises More Carol When Season 7 Returns

December 14, 2016

As all of the chess pieces moved into place during Sunday’s midseason finale of The Walking Dead, one character’s trajectory remained hazy: after spending most of the season so far off-screen, Carol finally reappeared in “Hearts Still Beating” to nosh on some pomegranate seeds, reluctantly chat with Morgan, and nervously mull over a confrontation with Negan. Fans have spent all season wondering when Carol might snap out of her distaste for combat, and so far, that question remains unanswered. One bit of good news? When the series returns next year, the latter half of the season will at least give this fan favorite some more screen time. For the inside scoop on what shooting this season has been like so far and what might lie ahead, Vanity Fair spoke with Carol herself: actress Melissa McBride.

Although McBride is, of course, sworn to secrecy, she did confirm that fans will get to see more of Carol than they did in the season’s first half, which relegated her to two episodes. Coming out of the midseason finale, Carol is still very conflicted. After going through so much—losing a child, getting banished from your group, having to kill another little girl—wouldn’t anyone need a moment to find themselves?

“I’m glad she’s taking a little time for herself,” McBride said, adding that she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to endure all of the changes and horrors the group has been forced to weather. Everyone deals with that in their own ways, McBride said, and for Carol this season, that’s meant isolating herself. Still, McBride notes that the key to surviving this apocalypse might be exactly what her character is trying to flee from.

“When you’ve lost everything, there’s still much to be had—there are people. When you find people you care about, that’s an amazing thing. I mean, that’s it.”

For Carol, that has meant committing several atrocities, McBride noted. So now, as we’ve seen, she’s shunning her natural human impulse toward connection in an attempt to save herself the burden of forming relationships. That said, “you can’t run from it,” McBride added.

“I just want to hug her . . . I want her to come around. But I get how it is.”

However long it takes, it seems inevitable that we’ll see Carol back in action one way or another. (The Walking Dead’s TV adaptation has created too much of a badass to stifle her forever, right?) One new player who might break her out of her shell? King Ezekiel, who got to know her “pretty well” very quickly after they first meet. Plus, McBride added, “he’s charming; you can’t deny that.” Maybe he’ll break her out of her shell—but whether Carol and Morgan will try convincing him to attack the Saviors remains up in the air.

Carol’s arrival in The Kingdom was one of this season’s high points—a well-paced episode that delivered some much-needed levity after the gruesome premiere. And one of the best parts of the episode came toward the end, when Carol and Ezekiel sat down on a back patio and had a frank conversation about survival. When asked how she personally might have reacted to a place like The Kingdom and a leader like Ezekiel, McBride sounded like she would have had fun:

“Oh, gosh. I think if that were me going into that auditorium, I’d be like, ‘No way! What are you doing? Who are you? What are you? Seriously? Are you for real? Oh my gosh, can I pet your tiger? I want to be part of your production here, this is fun; what kind of costumes do you have in the back?’ That would be me. ‘Sure, I’ll have a pomegranate!’ “

Cheers to that.

Melissa McBride talks losing a cast mate, Negan, and season 7’s bloody start

October 22, 2016

Oh, Lucille, how you torment us! We caught up with Melissa McBride, aka The Walking Dead’s Carol, and if you think losing a character from the show is hard for us, imagine losing a part of your TV family. We’ll finally learn who Negan took out with his beloved barbed-wire bat, Lucille, when the zombie-fest returns for it’s seventh season on AMC at 9 p.m. ET this Sunday.

“If you care about anybody on The Walking Dead, you should tune in (laughs). If you’ve been watching and you care about any of these characters, you should tune in. If you want to know who got the bat, you should tune in,” said McBride.

When it comes to the new season, “I, for a minute (laughs)… for a minute… thought that there was going to be a break for Carol,” she said.

“I used to think that I didn’t carry any of that home with me, and I carry a little bit, just a little bit. Enough to be cranky somedays. But there was a minute I was enjoying some lighter moments and thinking we’re in the turn. But, of course, once you go around that corner there’s always something horrible (laughs). You can bet on it. This season it’s extremely difficult emotionally for me and losing a cast member is never easy.”

If the comics are any hint, uber-villian Negan will challenge our heroes in every way. “The world keeps changing and getting more and more desperate. And that theme that’s been there all along is what are you willing to do to survive and are you willing to survive,” said McBride.

Yes, it’s been a long, bloody six years. At the end of last season, as others faced the bat, Carol left Alexandria and ended up gravely injured herself.

“I get it. What Carol’s had to do, like everybody else, just thinking about the children and how far she’s pushed herself, and just point blank shooting people… I just can’t even… Getting to such a conflict inside and caring so deeply for those people. The only way she thought she could deal with it was to remove herself” by leaving Alexandia, she said.

After battling some bad guys on the road, she was rescued by Morgan and they headed to The Kingdom, while most of the rest of the cast faced Lucille.

The Kingdom will introduce “amazing new characters, like King Ezekiel and his tiger.. It’s just lush. There’s so much going on… Their world is getting bigger and more spread out and strange.”

There’s No Denying Daryl And Carol’s Chemistry

April 17, 2016

During a recent video interview, The Walking Dead’s Melissa McBride conceded that there is obvious chemistry between her character of Carol and Norman Reedus’s Daryl Dixon — but said that even she has no idea whether there’s any kind of long-term plan to pair them up as a romantic couple.

“There’s no denying that there is chemistry there,” she said. “You know, I love Norman….They are peers, and they have an amazing, wonderful relationship bond — how they identify with one another, the room that they give one another, and the kind of side-by-side journey they’re going through each in their own realm.”

You can check out the full interview at the L.A. Times website.

The Walking Dead returns in October, after a stopover at Comic Con International: San Diego in July to debut the trailer. In the meantime, Fear the Walking Dead airs on Sunday nights on AMC

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

February 15, 2016

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.