Sophia Grimes (née unknown, Sophia Peletier in television series) is a fictional character from the comic series The Walking Dead and was portrayed by Madison Lintz in the television series of the same name. She is the daughter of Carol, who is fiercely protective of her, as is Carl Grimes, with whom she becomes close friends during the zombie outbreak. She becomes a major focal point in both media, despite her limited involvement in many of the central conflicts faced by the other characters.
In the comics, Sophia is a member of the Atlanta refugee camp and becomes close friends with Carl, with whom she spends most of her time – eventually becoming his girlfriend. Later, after her mother's suicide, she begins viewing Maggie and Glenn as her parents while remaining close to Carl. Sophia chooses to break up with Carl because of the overrun world around them and their conflicting personalities, although they remain close friends and Carl is shown to be extremely protective of her. Sophia also becomes a resident of the Alexandria Safe-Zone and later the Hilltop Colony. She is the comic's longest-surviving female character.
In the television series, Sophia is abused by her father Ed, as is Carol. After Ed's death and the departure from the Atlanta camp, Sophia goes missing near the Greene farm and her rescue becomes the driving force of the first half of season 2. She is missing for a while until they open the barn on the farm and find Sophia inside, as a walker. Rick is then forced to shoot her in the head, killing her.
Contents
Appearances
Comic book series
Sophia is introduced in issue #2 at the initial camp established by survivors of the outbreak on the outskirts of the city of Atlanta, now overrun by walkers. She is seen playing with Carl Grimes and a pair of twins named Billy and Ben, and witnesses Carl and his mother Lori reunite with his father, Rick. With the group under Rick's guidance following Shane's death, they arrive at an abandoned, gated community named Wiltshire Estates. The group begins to settle there, and Sophia, her mother Carol, and the rest of the group briefly enjoy living in houses and sleeping in beds (as opposed to Dale's crowded RV in which the group had spent the entire winter). However, the group soon discovers that, upon closer examination, the area is itself overrun; the death of Ben and Billy's mother Donna occurs as a result. They are briefly welcomed onto the farm of Hershel Greene after Carl is shot by his neighbor Otis and taken there to be operated on. Following Carl's recovery, the group leaves Hershel's property and again presses their luck on the road.
After spending a good deal of time traveling, the group comes upon an abandoned prison, which they clear of walkers and subsequently settle into. Sophia moved into a cell with Carol and her lover Tyreese, whom the group had rescued a while before discovering Wiltshire Estates. One day, while Sophia is playing cards with Carl, she asks him a question about his card and then if he would like to be her boyfriend. He rejects her offer, and the two continue on playing. When a newcomer named Michonne arrives at the prison, she begins to develop feelings for Tyreese, which Carol notices with great discomfort. Soon, they engage in sexual intercourse, as Carol sadly discovers from a distance. Because of this, Sophia receives very little attention from her mother and is subsequently traumatized when she attempts suicide directly in front of her.
Carol's downward spiral ultimately reaches a breaking point, which causes her to attempt suicide once again. She approaches and begins talking to a walker another newcomer named Alice had been using for research, and then steps closer and allows it to bite her. She is put down by Andrea, and later buried in the prison yard, where Sophia mourns her mother's loss. Sophia remains in a catatonic state for a long time afterward. As life becomes increasingly dangerous for the group, Andrea and Dale break away from the group, taking Sophia, Ben, Billy, Hershel's daughter Maggie and Glenn along with them. Following this decision, a rival community named Woodbury, which wants to take the prison for itself, storms an attack on the group and successfully kills everyone except Rick, Carl and Michonne. The three of them return to Hershel's farm to discover the rest of the group living there. While reunited, Sophia refers to Maggie as her "mother" to Carl, much to his confusion.
Television series
Sophia, along with her mother Carol (Melissa McBride) and her father Ed (Adam Minarovich), are staying at the camp formed by a relatively large group of survivors outside of Atlanta. As it was revealed in a flashback in the season two episode "Chupacabra", Ed brought Carol and Sophia with him while moving toward a "safe zone" on the outskirts of the city. They meet up with Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies), and her son Carl (Chandler Riggs), whom Sophia quickly becomes close friends with. The six of them decide to make it together, and stumble upon the camp set up by Dale Horvath (Jeffrey DeMunn). She and Carl befriend two children named Louis (Noah Lomax) and Eliza (Maddy Lomax), the son and daughter of a man known as Morales (Juan Gabriel Pareja) and his wife Miranda.
Sophia is first introduced in the episode "Tell It to the Frogs", where it is revealed that Ed abuses Carol, slapping her across the face for not coming with him right away. Disgusted, Shane beats Ed to a pulp and threatens to kill him if he lays his hand on Carol, Sophia, or anyone else in the camp. In the next episode, "Vatos", Ed's injuries are revealed to have confined him to his tent, and so during dinner, he implores Sophia to stay with him and keep him company in an inappropriate, quasi-sexual manner. However, Carol stands up for her daughter and says that Sophia wants to join everyone else. Towards the end of the episode, a herd of walkers kills several people, including Ed and Amy (Emma Bell), before Shane and Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) destroy them.
In the episode "Wildfire", Rick decides to lead the group away from the current site and travel to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) because of its assumed security and to possibly find a cure for Jim (Andrew Rothenberg), a survivor who had been bitten when the camp was attacked. Morales announces that his family will be leaving the group to find family in Alabama. Sophia, who had befriended Eliza, is saddened by her leaving, so Eliza gives her her doll as a goodbye present. Sophia and Carol appear to have become more enthusiastic and open members of the group following Ed's death. They travel with the rest of the group to the CDC.
In the first-season finale "TS-19", the sole remaining CDC worker, Dr. Edwin Jenner (Noah Emmerich), reluctantly agrees to let them all in. While there, Sophia and the others are briefly introduced to the many luxuries the CDC has to offer, such as delicious food, hot showers, and a recreation room full of games and toys she and Carl can play with. However, it is soon revealed that Jenner had locked them inside the CDC, which was going to self-destruct when a timer ran out. Sophia immediately begins to cry, and Carol pleads with Jenner to let them all go, saying that Sophia does not deserve to die in such a manner. Jenner finally lets them go with just minutes to spare.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
While in Maine, Carol has a flashback of a zombified Sophia emerging from Hershel's barn which turns into a hallucination of Sophia approaching her mother and touching her arm. Carol lies to Ash Patel that Sophia was taken to France by her father just before the world ended in order to get Ash to fly her across the ocean so that Carol can search for the missing Daryl Dixon.
Development and reception
Gina McIntyre of the Los Angeles Times referred to the second season premiere "What Lies Ahead" as "thrilling" and "heart-wrenching", citing Sophia's disappearance and the shooting of Carl. Derek Boeckelmann of Daily Nexus commended the suspenseful sequences of the episode, stating that "the show wisely puts both Carl and Sophia, the youngest survivors, on the edge of peril many times" in the episode. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club felt that Sophia's disappearance was contrived. Paste's Josh Jackson felt that the side-plot of the continued search for Sophia takes a backseat to the events with Rick's family at the farmhouse in "Bloodletting". HitFix's Alan Sepinwall commented in his review of "Save the Last One" that with all the time spent waiting in that traffic jam while searching for Sophia, "the show and its characters seem to be heading nowhere fast". Mark Maurer of The Star-Ledger opined that the search for Sophia had gone on long enough, and that the next episode would be the best time for her to come back. Nate Rawlings of Time commented on the situation with the still-lost Sophia that the show "really knows how to drag out a situation, doesn’t it?"
Time journalist Nate Rawlings complained in his review of "Cherokee Rose" that Sophia had been "missing for a month now in what has become an incredibly dragged out subplot". Andrew Conrad of The Baltimore Sun pondered: "And when are they going to wrap up this whole Sophia thing? I'm ready for them either to find her as a little zombie girl and do the thing that must be done, have a joyous reunion, or just let that whole subplot die. But please, stop dragging it out!" Zach Handlen of The A.V. Club commented on Sophia's predicament: "At this point, her being gone has turned into one of those jokes that goes on so long that it stops being funny, then keeps going, and at some point may actually start being funny--or interesting--again." Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly commented that if Sophia turns out to be a zombie, "we're all going to laugh, and laugh, and cry, and laugh". Nick Venable of Cinema Blend found himself "aghast" that the show still considered the plotline regarding the search for Sophia something worth coming back to: "What little sympathy I had for Carol’s character has been replaced with an eternal yawn. If Sophia returns in a way that resembles anything normal without fanfare, I’m seeking out a real little girl named Sophia, and I’m going to punch her in the face."
Despite being initially surprised about her character's being killed off in "Pretty Much Dead Already", actress Madison Lintz concluded that she understood its aftermath for the show. Lintz affirmed that portraying a walker was a welcoming experience for her, and stated that she was "going to look back on and say that was amazing." Lintz learned what would happen to Sophia "about a month before we shot it, which was good, because sometimes they just let you find things out from reading the script, so that was fortunate. [Executive producer] Gale Ann Hurd actually called and told us. I was sad because I wouldn't be able to see everybody every day after that, but it turned out really well. I didn't really know it was going to be that big a deal, though." Robert Kirkman felt that killing Sophia would add more dimension to the show, as well as add more flexibility to its storyline progression. "When a good idea comes up, you have to go with it," he articulated. "Sophia is a character who is still alive in the comic book series and who has contributed quite a bit to the overall narrative and informed a lot of story lines for a lot of different characters. Having Carol [...] survive her daughter as opposed to the other way around as it is in the comics is going to lead to interesting but different stories."