The Walking Dead: Slabtown (5x04)

This week, we get the story of Beth! Finally! I have been worried about her for ages. And turns out, I had a good reason to be. Let's take a look!

Beth wakes up in a hospital, in Atlanta. She learns that the place is called Grady Memorial Hospital, and it is under the authority of Officer Dawn Lerner. Beth quickly learns how things work around here - Dr. Steven Edwards saves people's lives, an in payment for the service, the patients have to work off what they've received. Beth is anxious to leave, especially because a man named Gorman begins making passes at Beth, which makes her very uncomfortable.

Beth seems to like Dr. Edwards alright, although she is uncomfortable with the way Dawn runs things. Dawn seems to barely have a handle on things, while creepy guys like Gorman have their run of the place. When a patient, Gavin Trevitt, is brought in, Dawn seems particularly eager to save him, while Dr. Edwards is hesitant. Another patient, Joan, tried to run away from the hospital but was brought back in after being bit. She seems insistent that they let her die, but Dawn orders Dr. Edwards to amputate her arm and save her from the Walker bite. Beth is forced to help.

Beth also meets a kid named Noah who starts to tell her about more about this place - apparently, they only save the weak people, because they can be put to work and they won't fight back. When Beth talks to Dr. Edwards, she learns a bit more... apparently, Dawn didn't want to waste resources on saving people, but Dr. Edwards couldn't stand by and let people suffer. Dr. Edwards then tells Beth to give Trevitt a dose of medication. When Beth does, he starts seizing, and ends up dead. At first, Dr. Edwards makes Beth believe that she made a mistake and gave him the wrong medicine. Later, Beth realizes the truth - Dr. Edwards told her the wrong medicine on purpose. Trevitt was a doctor, too... Dr. Edwards didn't want another doctor around, because then Dawn wouldn't need him.

Noah covers for Beth, saying that it was his fault that Trevitt died. Dawn orders some of her people to severely beat Noah. She then talks with Beth, telling her that she has to earn her place. Beth and Noah decide that they need to escape.

As Beth goes into Dawn's office to look for a key, she finds Joan, the woman who tried to escape earlier, lying dead. Then, Gorman comes in. He tries to force himself on Beth, but as Joan wakes back up as a Walker, Beth manages to smash Gorman over the head. He falls to the floor, where he is then killed by the Walker. Beth and Noah manage to escape by lowering themselves down an elevator shaft and onto a pile of dead bodies (the patients that Dr. Edwards couldn't save). They get outside, but as they are trying to make their way through a crowd of Walkers, one of the officers tackles Beth. However, Noah gets away.

Back inside the hospital, Beth yells at Dawn for letting Gorman and the others sexually assault the women, pointing out what happened to Joan as an example. Beth gets ready to kill Dr. Edwards, but before she can do that, she sees a stretcher wheeling by, with an unconscious Carol on top of it.

Woah! This episode was fantastic! I remember last season, I was really annoyed with the Governor episodes, because they had all these new characters I didn't care about at all, but this time, it really worked.

Honestly, I don't think I have any complaints whatsoever. Maybe, if I were being picky, I'd say it would have been a stronger story if maybe Joan and Beth could have escape together, instead of Noah and Beth? Or all three of them? Joan was the only one of these new characters who didn't feel like a person in her own right. She seemed like nothing more than a cautionary tale for Beth. A quintessential victim. That made me a bit uncomfortable...

But other than that, I really appreciated all of these new characters. They felt very real. Dr. Edwards, Gorman, Noah, and Dawn all had well developed scenes and felt interesting and memorable to me, right off the bat. In particular, I found Dawn to be an interesting character. She is holding people against their will, and she's turning the other cheek, allowing horrible things to happen right under her nose. And yet, she is still hopeful for a better future, and she really wants to save people if she can. I loved the complexities here.

Dr. Edwards was also interesting - a good person at one point, and maybe a part of him still is. He wants to save people, too, and he was actually nice to Beth when almost nobody else was. And yet, he kills Trevitt. Not only that - he makes Beth feel responsible for it. Gorman might be a bit more one-note, but I did appreciate the handling of sexual assault in this episode. He is a particularly scary guy because he has power within the system, and if Beth were a little bit less stubborn, he could have used her however he wanted.

Then there's Noah. I'm assuming something more must be coming for this character, or he wouldn't have been shown to escape. I found him to be really likable. I could even see him as a potential love interest for Beth, although that's not necessary.

One of the most impressive things about this show, in a weird way, is how they keep managing to find new ways to scare us and gross us out. In this episode, there were two moments that had me watching through my fingertips. First was the amputation scene - great use of slow motion, disturbing sound effects... ugh. This made me squeamish. The other one was the pit of bodies. When Beth and Noah had to climb over all the dead people, I was having a hard time watching. The way it was done, I felt like I could feel the corpses under my own feet. I felt like I could smell them.

Beth was the star of this episode, of course, and she could not have been more amazing. Beth is in some ways still such a young, innocent woman. And yet she is extremely resilient. We see how scared she is of Gorman, but she is able to step up when the time is right, and take him out. Similarly, even though she's had pleasant conversations with Dr. Edwards, and even shared food with him, she was still willing to kill him to escape. There's a lot of darkness within Beth, which makes a lot of sense, given what she's gone through.

Then of course there's that ending. Why would they leave us there?! Next episode better be about Daryl and Carol, and how Carol ended up in that situation. Last week, we were left with the "who's with Daryl?" cliffhanger. This week, we're left with the "what happened to Carol?" cliffhanger. Are they just going to keep nesting cliffhangers within cliffhangers until my brain explodes? I can't wait to see what happens next!

9.5/10