Paula May Have 'Walking Dead' Comic Inspiration

At the very end of the last episode, we heard her voice but didn't technically meet the newest Walking Dead character, Paula, played by Alicia Witt. As we unfortunately saw in "Not Tomorrow Yet," this Savior has captured Carol and Maggie. Though there is a character named Paula in The Walking Dead comics, she is the wife of Alexandria resident Nicholas, not an enemy of the group, so it appears that these two characters share only a name. But if she's anything like the other Saviors in Robert Kirkman's series, this Paula is going to be quite brutal and not at all forgiving. She also might share characteristics with other comic figures of different names, many of whom spell trouble for Rick's group.

The preview for this Sunday's episode, "The Same Boat," seems to show that the trade Rick proposes — a Savior he's captured in exchange for Maggie and Carol — isn't going to end in his favor, and that could be due to Paula, if she's the one running things. Fan site Undead Walking reported on a casting call for a character named Polly, which is how Witt's role was originally credited on IMDb, and described her as follows.

Cool, controlled, formidable. She’s faced tragedy and trauma and come out the other side stronger and harder. But she’s also become colder and less outwardly emotional — she avoids attachments and maintains a toughly pragmatic, nihilistic worldview.

It sounds like if she was on Rick’s side, Polly — who it seems has since been renamed to Paula — would be pretty damn cool. However, she’s a Savior and his crew just killed a bunch of her people, so I assume she’s going to be at odds with our group, to put it lightly. So before she goes head to head with everyone on The Walking Dead, here are a few comic book characters Paula could be inspired by that give some more clues about what's next.

Tara

Tara is the first female Savior to be introduced and named in the comics. She is one of the only women in Negan’s army and is fierce as hell. She attempts to capture Jesus and even threatens to cut off his testicles. She’s not a main character in the comics by any means, in fact, she’s only in two issues, but her hard attitude seems to match the Undead Walking's character description of Polly.

Sherry

In the comics, Negan has multiple wives and one of them is Sherry, who is also the ex-wife of another Savior, Dwight. She thought becoming one of Negan’s wives would make their lives easier, and it has kept her alive so far in The Walking Dead source material.

Carson

The Walking Dead has changed a character's gender from the comics before (for example, in the comics the leader of Alexandria was a man named Douglas Monroe, while the show featured Deanna) and I think that could be the case with Paula. Remember Harlan, the doctor at Hilltop Colony? His brother, Carson, was forced by Negan to leave Hilltop and become his personal assistant. There’s a chance that Paula is being forced to do Negan's bidding in a similar way.

Laura

In the comics, Laura isn’t one of the first Saviors we meet, instead coming around later and actually helping Rick’s team with a different type of problem. No spoilers, but Paula could be Laura.

Hopefully, once we get to know Paula in Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead, we'll have a better idea of any potential comic book origins and where she'll go next.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article listed Witt's character's name as Polly, and has since been updated with the correct name, Paula.

Images: AMC; Giphy (4)