Here we are at Episode 4 of The Walking Dead, Season 5, and we finally get to see what fate has befallen on Beth… and it ain’t too pretty. Still, there’s no Maggie asking about Beth, but this can be forgiven this time since Maggie didn’t appear in “Slabtown.” I apologize for harping on the Maggie/Beth thing; it just really, really, really bothers me that the writers seemed to have overlooked this pretty major detail. They’re sisters for Christ’s sake.
So, where has Beth wound up? Well, she’s in an Atlanta hospital that’s governed by an Officer Dawn Lerner, a real hardcase bitch if there ever was one. Like a crazy cult leader believing she’s doing God’s bidding by kidnapping young naive kids and conducting a mass suicide, Dawn has her members go out on patrol to find lost souls in need of help and bring them back to the hospital where they’re forced to remain and live out a life of service until humanity is saved. In Beth’s case, or any other female that gets “rescued,” that service also means keeping the officers under Dawn’s command “happy” so that they work harder. Sounds like a stay in hell.
Are there any good people left in the world of The Walking Dead? It’s pretty bleak to think that one apocalypse and we all become degenerate pieces of shit.
Dawn isn’t the only person Beth has to watch out for. There’s also the rapist Officer Gorman, and the sympathetic Dr. Steven Edwards. Edwards befriends Beth right away and he seems trustworthy enough. However, once a potential new doctor (Dr. Gavin Trevitt) is brought to the hospital for treatment, and fearing his security, Edwards tricks Beth into killing Trevitt by dosing him with the wrong drug.
At least there’s Noah, another inmate… er, resident of the hospital. He confides in Beth that he intends to escape and together they hatch a plan. Unfortunately, as they’re escaping a swarm of Walkers overtakes the parking lot and Noah keeps running, leaving Beth to fight the undead by herself… until officers come to her rescue and re-capture. I kind of felt like Noah betrayed her, but Beth smiles at the sight of her new friend escaping, as if to say, “at least one of us got out.”
Once Beth is back inside the hospital receiving reprimand from Dawn, officers bring in a new patient. And who is this patient? The all mighty and powerful Carol. Last we saw of Carol, she and Daryl had taken off in a car after one of those black cars with a white cross painted on it. And at the end of “Four Walls and a Roof” Daryl had arrived back at the church, stating “C’mon out” to unknown people lurking in the dark.
The obvious presumption here is that Carol and Daryl got themselves caught. Carol was rendered incapacitated, and Daryl was threatened to expose Rick & co. or Carol would be killed. But we know that anyone who messes with Rick & co. is “screwing with the wrong people.”
My guess is that Rick and the tribe will have let their guard down after defeating the cannibals and will be captured by the hospital collectors. Daryl will explain the situation to Rick, Rick will get a sense of righteousness to repay the favor to Carol, there won’t be much of a battle, and our tribe will walk out with maybe one casualty. At the same time, an injured Carol and an under-guard Beth will plot their escape… could the tribe’s casualty end up being Carol?
My fear for this season, however, is that every two episodes or so we’ll be introduced to a new band of baddies. Is this how it will be until the thinned-out tribe regroup with Abraham and Maggie and Glenn on the way to D.C., if they ever get there? If yes, then this is no better than Smallville, which ran on the idea of “villain of the week” for too many seasons.
Let us know where you think next episode will take us?
Rock Hard \m/
