Could The Walking Dead really kill off fan favourite Carol?

THE Walking Dead preview for episode four seems to show the end of fan favourite Carol — but all is probably not as it seems.

THE Walking Dead preview for episode four seems to show the end of fan favourite Carol Peletier — but all is probably not as it seems.

The short preview video doesn’t give us any clues as to whether King Ezekiel survived the machinegun fire that cut down a bunch of his Kingdom soldiers.

Again, that seems highly likely. Having set it up that he wanted to fight without losing anyone, they have to get the emotional payoff now he has lost plenty.

Has Ezekiel survived?

But it does feature plenty of Carol, as well as lots of Daryl and Rick.

Rick and Daryl seem to be going a bit Mad Max as they take on some more Saviours in a road battle, with a bunch of zombies acting as extra hazards.

But it is Carol who looks to be in real trouble.

Rick goes all road warrior in The Walking Dead.

The Saviours who unleashed machinegun fire on the Kingdom soldiers are now on the prowl. Carol, who had gone inside their base last week to check all were dead, runs into this last group.

After some dodging around, she is apparently cornered and raises her hands.

Given the Saviours have just slaughtered a bunch of Kingdom soldiers — and that most of that outpost was massacred without mercy by Ezekiel in the last episode — her chances don’t look good.

But this is Carol and appearances are deceiving.

There was the time the Saviours thought they had her back in season six, when she was freaking out that she had killed too many people. All the time she had a gun up her sleeve.

Then there was the time she got captured by Saviours, pretended to be terrified and then killed the lot.

Not to mention the time she pretended to be a Wolf to slaughter a bunch of that gang in Alexandria.

It looks like Jerry sees something terrible in The Walking Dead.

Then we had last week’s preview, that had Ezekiel pretending to surrender to Saviours (only for Carol to ambush them in the episode).

So are they going with that again? Will we see Carol save the day, just like she did at Terminus (and many times since)?

Or was that a double bluff and she is really in danger?

The way this season has been going, you’d have to pick option A.

But there is another important question not addressed in the preview — what will Aaron do with Gracie, the Saviour baby that Rick found when he killed her dad?

Will she be his road back, after his lover Eric was killed?

Or will he lose his mind and kill her?

There is a fan theory that the dream sequence from the first episode did not feature Judith, but instead featured Gracie.

If so, that would be a huge switch. Why would she be in Rick’s house and part of the family? And, what happened to Judith?

If correct, that would be a massive switch. But don’t expect us to get all the answers this week.

It’ll be enough to find out about Carol at 1.30pm on Monday on Foxtel’s FX Channel, and again at 7.30pm.