The Carol Peletier of "The Walking Dead" is now so hardcore she's willing to traumatize children in an attempt to save them. So how will she react to the new survivor community called the Kingdom -- which has a self-styled "King" Ezekiel and a tiger named Shiva? Will she go full Cookie Monster ... or making even fit in?

Season 7 will have Carol waking up to this community, like Alice down another crazy rabbit hole. She and Morgan Jones will be the first to see the new place, which is familiar to comic book fans, even if this way of introducing it will be new. And, if they follow the comics on a big-picture scale, this potential alliance should have huge ramifications on the storyline ahead.

In a new Q&A with Entertainment Weekly, Melissa McBride teased some of the conflict ahead for Carol, who was injured in the Season 6 finale, and also spent most of the season in ideological battle with Morgan. He believes all life is precious and doesn't want to kill, but he killed for Carol in the finale, then met the first representative of the Kingdom. Carol had been leading the kill-or-be-killed charge, but left Alexandria because she's now tired of killing and doesn't want to get close to people and keep killing for them and watching them be killed.

What now? Instead of spoiling what happens, McBride listed a bunch of questions to keep in mind about Carol's state of mind when we first see her in Season 7:

"How will she accept the Kingdom? How will the Kingdom accept her? Is she going to stick around? Is she going to leave? Is she capable of leaving? You know, what kind of condition is she in? All of these questions will be answered eventually."

EW asked what Carol makes of Ezekiel, whose whole scene "sounds a little bizarre." McBride answered:

"Well, I imagine it's very bizarre, and particularly with a character like Carol who doesn't stand for a whole lot of bulls—, there's just no time. So it'll be interesting to see how she thinks of Ezekiel and his Kingdom. You know, she's been here before. It's too good to be true. It's very beautiful. I can tell you that. It's a bit unreal."

Every time our peeps visit a place that seems too good to be true, it's because it is. (Belated tip: Those who arrive do not survive Terminus.)

McBride added to EW that Carol's mindset is "very vulnerable" at this point, but at least she's self-aware about her struggle:

"That's something that I really like about Carol is that she knows what's up with her and she's in a vulnerable position with herself, and so here she is in another community and these people are helping her. Is she going to feel obligated? Is she going to feel an obligation? Is she going to form relationships with the people at the Kingdom and then be stuck in that same problem? I can't love these people because I just don't have it in me to kill for them. She's got to have some respite to figure it out."

"The Walking Dead" Season 7 premieres Sunday, October 23 on AMC. Don't panic if you don't see Carol and Morgan right away, though, since there are depressing traumas to get through first.

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