She's a fan favorite character these days and has proven her usefulness during the apocalypse time and time again, but The Walking Dead may have been a very different show if the original plans for Carol (Melissa McBride) had been carried out back in the show's third season. 

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In a new interview with SFX, Executive Producer/Director Greg Nicotero revealed that the episode where the character T-Dog died at the prison was actually meant to see Carol's death through instead, but a last minute script change saw him sacrificing himself to walkers in order to save Carol and let her escape.  

"Not a lot of people know that when we were shooting season three, in the episode where T-Dog died, there was a moment where Carol was going to die in lieu of T-Dog's character," he said. "At that point there was some concern in the writers' room that they didn't know where to take her character. So the fact that [showrunner] Scott Gimple and the writers have been able to craft this amazing journey for her just goes to show that there is a tremendous amount of story to tell for a lot of these characters."  

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Since then, Carol has gone on to have one of the show's more intriguing arcs. She killed residents at the prison following the battle with Woodbury because they were infected with the disease and posed a risk, which led to Rick (Andrew Lincoln) kicking her out. She resurfaced later on after the prison fell, and joined with Tyrese on the way to Terminus--killing Lizzy after she proved to be a threat as well.  

She also managed to save the group from Terminus, and has since become a core member of the group's survival strategy leading to Alexandria. Her current arc has her arguing with Morgan (Lennie James) over the right way to handle non-walker threats to their survival.  

The Walking Dead returns on Sunday, Feb. 14 at 9 p.m. on AMC.  

Tags: The Walking Dead AMC television