The Season 5 premiere of "The Walking Dead" was undoubtedly packed with intense action, but the episode's biggest moment was the emotional reunion between Carol (Melissa McBride) and her former prison group.
In an interview with Access Hollywood, McBride, opened up about what it was like for her to see Carol reunited with her good friend Daryl (Norman Reedus).
"I was very happy to see that happen in the first episode... and loved playing the scene and Norman [Reedus] was just so unpredictable and lovely as Daryl, and cute and sweet and I'm sure that -- just that hug, it felt so good to Carol to have someone embrace her from the group, you know? And still, yet, she doesn't know who knows what," the 49-year-old actress explained.
McBride also recalled shooting the reunion scene between Carol and Rick (Andrew Lincoln), who exiled her character from the group last season after learning that she was the one who killed Karen and David.
"I love working with Andy because he's very generous and he's so present and he just goes places, just lets himself go places and in that presence of whatever is happening in that very split second, that moment, he just lets it go and that was such a poignant, beautiful, profound scene that opened a lot of things and also ties a couple things up," McBride said. "And his face with the baby was just so -- the tears and awww... relief, and then probably like just the responsibility, it all comes crashing in. I can only imagine it feeling a hundred million things at the same time."
In the Season 5 premiere, Carol has proven once again that she is no longer the meek and battered wife that viewers met back in Season 1. She wittily disguised as a walker in order to reach Terminus. She then broke down the gates of the so-called sanctuary by causing a propane tank to explode, giving Rick and company to break out from the facility.
"I get emotional with Carol," McBride told MTV News earlier this year, recalling her first reaction to reading the Season 5 premiere script. "When I read the scripts, I get emotional at what she's evolved to, or what she has to find within herself, the courage within herself to do what she has to do."
"I get emotional for her, because I love this character. I'm proud of her," she added. "At the same time, I know how difficult these things are for her. We were talking about the heart, I know she loves these people and will do anything to protect them."
Carol is one of the remaining five survivors from the original Atlanta group, and showrunner Scott Gimple thinks that the character has evolved the most.
"Who's changed the most over the course of the show? Everyone would say Carol," Gimple told New York Daily News. "It's remarkable that all of this tragedy has unlocked her inner strength."