Count me in among the 'I don't like Carl and his stupid hat' club.

I will admit that he is getting slightly less irksome as he gets older, but I am still not a fan. However, I think he will be on the series until the bitter end. I think he will outlive everyone.
I've noticed that when someone says they don't like Carl (I'm not even just talking about on this board, but also on other boards where TWD is discussed as well), people seem to not understand it and think that it has something to do with a specific episode or something specific that the character did or did not do.
For me, that is not the case. My dislike of Carl probably has very little to do with Carl's actions on TWD. So I will try to explain in the best way I know how...You know how some people in real life just bother you, and you can't pinpoint why? It may be their overall look; it may be their facial expressions; it may be the tone of their voice; it may be their hair; it may be something totally unexplainable. For whatever reason, you just do not like that person.
Well, that happens with TV characters too. I was always inexplicably irritated by the character of Kate on
Lost, for example, and I really didn't know why!
Skyler White on
Breaking Bad was another character who was largely disliked by many people, and for me it had nothing to do with what her character did or did not do. In fact, Anna Gunn -- the actress who played her -- does not bother me. I find her quite likable and charming in interviews. But Anna Gunn playing Skyler annoyed me to no end, and therefore I didn't like Skyler. Another actress playing Skyler might not have annoyed me.
So that is one explanation of why I don't like Carl. He just bugs me for no apparent reason. I have another explanation as well -- for some reason, and I don't know why but it will sound terrible, I get very bored watching kids on TV or in movies! I love kids in real life, but when kids are too heavily featured in TV or movies, I zone right out. It doesn't interest me. That was one reason why I did not like the (now cancelled)
X Factor on Fox. There were too many young kids performing on the show and I was bored to tears. I didn't want to see little kids sing. I wanted to see adults sing -- or at least older teenagers.
For the record, I also did not like the movie
The Sixth Sense nearly as much as everyone else did because I couldn't take more than 5 minutes of Haley Joel Osment!
So I suspect that my dislike for Carl and his stupid hat stems from not wanting to watch kids take up too much screen time, and that explains why he is slowly annoying me
less as he ages. I can take watching kids on the screen in small doses, but after that I lose interest.
Back to TWD -- Carol will be back, at least for a second or in flashback, if not permanently. She was seen on set with Tyreese in a recent photo, according to something I read in a Spoilers thread on another site.
I was even wondering if Carol may have swooped onto the prison yard and taken baby Judith out of the carrier/seat while all of the mayhem was ensuing, rushing her off to safety?

I doubt she ever strayed very far from the prison, as there were too many people she cared about there and she would probably want to keep an eye on them.
It won't bother me if Carol and Daryl never get together. At first, when it seemed like there was a flirtation or a suggested flirtation between them and it was dragging on into the first part of this season, I was thinking that I wanted the writers to hurry up and get on with whatever they had planned for Carol and Daryl -- or move on from it and just let them stay friends. As a viewer I was getting tired of seeing Carol make flirty remarks and Daryl look uncomfortable (which has happened more than once). It seemed like the writers were trying to work in some sort of forced tension and faux chemistry to me, just to keep the audience guessing.
I think that even in the zombie apocalypse it is unrealistic for young, strapping men in reasonably good health to not want to partner up with a woman. Tyreese found a girl (although she didn't last long). But I don't know if Carol is that partner for Daryl. It's not even that I don't like Carol. I just don't think she and Daryl would be a good pair. She seems more motherly to me. I would like to see her with someone who was a better match for her, and Daryl with someone who was a better match for him...but I know the choices are minimal in the apocalypse.
As for Rick - I am fairly certain, and I have felt this way since Season 3, that Rick will not last until the bitter end of the series. I don't even know if he will be around for another several seasons. Maybe 1 or possibly 2 more seasons, at most, but I think he'll die or just 'disappear' somehow. I know that people think that Rick can't die because he is the lead character and it's 'his' show, but I don't think he will be on the show forever. I think Carl will end up being the one to lead the group at that point.