Be Excellent To Each Other

Surprised that storyline came to an end so quickly!

Interested to see what the cliffhanger is about. Obviously not just Carol coming out of that bush.

So to speak.

Well they left to go after Beth, so it might be her. Or we saw Morgan at the end of episode one, so it might be him too, or possibly one of the guys who nabbed Beth.

Dale getting killed, although he was getting a bit whiny.

Shane getting killed, I mean, in a way the Season was working towards something having to happen with Shane because he was going a bit batshit, but even so.

Rick going nasty at the end, and if I'm honest, that didn't ring entirely true for me. About 38 seconds earlier Lori was telling him how Shane represented a dreadful danger to them all, then when Rick tells her Shane was going to murder him and he killed him in self-defence, she gets all pissy about it. This is woman logic I suppose.

The other thing with Rick going nasty is he was taking the most spectacular risks to find Sophia and even avoid killing Randall, and then on a sixpence he turns into NASTY RICK. Bit odd.

What are the zombies eating? We've fast-forwarded about 8 months from the end of Season 2, and skipped winter entirely, which I guess is convenient as I was thinking zombies would have a hard time in a bitterly cold winter. They've still got brain activity and they seem to like to move around a lot, so they need energy, but I can't see any evidence of any ongoing food source for them.

Which leads onto why don't they eat each other? I always thought it was an unwritten zombie rule that they don't each other, but then in Season 2 there was the zombie hanging from a tree, which is the guy who left a note saying he'd been bitten and was hanging himself, so then he reanimates in-situ in the noose, and Daryl explains that other zombies have been feeding on its legs.

So this clearly establishes the precedent that zombies will eat other zombies, but why don't any of the others do it? If they're prepared to eat each other I'd expect some sort of 'survival of the fittest' (given the confines of zombification) to kick in, but there's no sign of that.

Plus I wish they'd decide how good zombies are at detecting humans, one minute they appear to be able to sniff a scent of blood or indeed just a human from twenty feet away, and the next minute the humans can just hide behind a wheelie bin and zombies will walk right past them.

I do like the prison set up but it leads me back to the previous point, there are fucking loads of them in there and they've apparently managed to survive a long harsh winter, yet we have no idea how, and they've had no food source.

Oh yes and the last shot of Season 2 is them looking into the distance and seeing the prison, how come it takes them 8 months to get there.

AND HOW IS THAT HYUNDAI STAYING SO FUCKING CLEAN.

I'm niggling here really, overall I'm very much enjoying it but there are a few inconsistencies in there.

I knew he couldn't do the science!

Now someone tell me what happened to Beth, because I can't remember why she got separated.

Ransacking the ambulance on the bridge in the way they did was pretty stupid though, especially since there were already walkers following them onto the bridge. I mean, duhhh.

I really like the dynamic of the relationship between Carol and Daryl, and the way they explored how each has a past they have left behind. I particularly liked how it didn't go down the simple, 'boy and girl who like each other, they must have sex and romantic slushy times!' route.

Re: the van on the bridge, they knew it was risky. They weren't ransacking it though, they were looking for clues as to where the cars might be headed. As it was, that's where they discovered it was the hospital.

I really like the dynamic of the relationship between Carol and Daryl, and the way they explored how each has a past they have left behind. I particularly liked how it didn't go down the simple, 'boy and girl who like each other, they must have sex and romantic slushy times!' route.

Re: the van on the bridge, they knew it was risky. They weren't ransacking it though, they were looking for clues as to where the cars might be headed. As it was, that's where they discovered it was the hospital.

wandering out onto the bridge in full view of the walkers, when they'd been so careful to skulk around the city, just seemed daft. And they seemed surprisingly unconcerned when they were obviously getting cornered, and were left with an 'escape plan' of pretty much risking death or serious injury.

Daryl burning the mother and child walkers whilst Carol slept was a really great touch.

Noooo not Beth ((((

Disappointed. Mid season finale so you know there's a death. Particularly as there has been nothing majorly traumatic so far in the season. Plus unfortunately I knew the drama was personal for Darryl. So the moment that the fire truck pulls up and they tell Maggie that Beth was alive, I knew that was it, rather than Carol. The only uncertainty was how the drama wold play out, and it was rather weak. Ultimately the most telegraphed finale that I can remember in the series

So remind me again why Beth decided to try and kill Dawn, she had ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING TO GAIN by doing so, and was quite clearly risking the lives of her entire group in the process, and like she'd kill a trained and 'willing to kill' copper with a pair of scissors anyway? Plus she's made it absolutely clear she wants out of there and when it's finally going to happen she risks her life and the lives of her entire group by effectively trying to commit suicide? Did she think she'd get away with it? Didn't she want to see if Maggie was still alive? She's just seen some familiar faces, Maggie could well be alive too, and what about Little Kick Ass, that would be worth finding out about too, it seems silly to commit suicide by cops, no? SHE HAS A PAIR OF SCISSORS IN THE MIDDLE OF A CORRIDOR FULL OF INCREDIBLY POWERFUL WEAPONRY AND TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ONE SECOND AWAY FROM MASS SLAUGHTER.

And then why did Dawn even want Noah back? She's proven herself to be far smarter and more pragmatic than that, and she's clearly ranged against a very capable and dangerous group in Rick & Co, she's going to risk it all to get Noah back by changing the deal at the last moment?

Pretty damn weak, really. Not a great episode overall either, when The Walking Dead missteps, it missteps quite badly.

Plus Beth was never what you'd call an 'essential' character anyway, they certainly killed off the most disposable member of the cast IMO, and did it cheaply too.

First off, "NOOOOOOO!". I am the sad.

I thought that was perhaps telegraphed with the sister thing, but still thought she might be okay.

Cop woman was being smart with Noah. As she's said all along, she only holds it together by being seen as strong and in control, and if she doesn't get a 'good deal' then chances are the other cops would have killed her.

And she was right, in that in the end everyone agreed to it and it was all going to be fine, before Beth went off the deep end.

As for Beth, she had gone back to the group and was going to leave it there before she bargained back for Noah. Beth has been slowly going a bit mental over the past few series, and this clearly took her to the edge, and eventually over it. She just hated cop woman and saw someone she cared about being taken away. She'd seen what world Noah was going back to, and how cop woman had always planned on getting him back. She wasn't acting rationally, but out of anger and rage, having been turned into something she hated while in there (from never having killed to being forced to kill).

So I thought it was pretty good, and believable. People don't always do sensible things, especially if you mentally torture them.

I didn't pick up on too many cues that Beth was in such a mentally precarious state, sure she's been through a lot and the hospital has been traumatic, but she's at the point where it's over and she's back with her group. Yes she hates cop lady and yes she cares for Noah, but to risk EVERYTHING on trying to wound/kill Dawn still makes no sense, not least because it won't change what's happening with Noah.

Remember I've speed-watched through all five seasons in a short space of time so I've seen Beth's character arc develop over a short space of time, and for me her actions at the end of that episode didn't fit, they immediately jarred with me. She knows Daryl's alive who she bonded with, she can see several other key members of the group are alive, she's going to want to know about Maggie and Judith as well - I flat out didn't buy that she'd risk everyone's life over Noah.

Even the 'mental torture' she'd been subjected to wasn't much worse than a lot of other stuff she'd been through since Season 2 IMO.

As one critic summarised it:

So what the hell was [Beth] trying to do? Get Dawn killed indirectly? Free the hospital from her idiotic non-control? Commit suicide by idiot? Whatever she was trying to accomplish — presumably getting rid of Dawn in some manner — weren't there many, many other ways to do it that didn't involve her almost certainly getting shot or potentially turning the hostage trade into a bloodbath? We'll never know, because Beth is dead.

I think it's pretty easy to see why she did it.

She's a teenager that recently tried to kill herself, she saw the effort that Noah went to rescue her, and now he had to give up his freedom because of that "monster" she had to pay for it, so Beth lashed out with what she had.

I didn't see it coming, perhaps I should have, as I thought they wouldn't kill her after building up to the climax of her rescue

She's a kid and kids do irrational things, especially when emotion is involved.

Amazing that she's 29 in real life.

In the case of The Walking Dead we buy into the post-apocalyptic scenario, we'd had Beth's character established over three seasons, we'd spent many hours with her as a person, so if they'd had her die as a result of a freak conga-dancing accident whilst snorting speedballs, that'd be a problem.

My point is that the way the mid-season finale came to a close broke the rules that had been established by the story and the characters, in a conga-dancing sort of style. Dawn's actions were incongruous and borderline suicidal, Beth's reaction jarred with me and just felt plain wrong, I didn't buy it. It was a shock for the sake of a shock, and I felt it was injurious to both the story and the characters.

I knew what was coming but as the running time ticked down I was wondering how they were going to shoe-horn it in, fearing some stupid contrivance just to get the ZOMG DEATH in, and that's exactly what happened.

She's had to grow up a lot, very quickly. Remember that the timespan from us first seeing her on the farm to her death at the hospital is something in the region of two years or so, in that time she's been through a lot and learned how to survive, in fact she'll probably be 18/19 in the series when she dies? That's not a 'kid' any more.

Fundamentally I simply don't buy that she'd risk everything, her life, her group's lives, Noah's life, an absolute fucking bloodbath, just to stab Dawn with a pair of scissors - she's smarter than that. They killed her off on the cheap.

I agree that if we were to suppose that she was simply losing the plot then it wasn't really dealt with very well. It's not like she snapped in the moment either, they took the time to show her deciding what she was going to do (and this was before she knew what would happen with Everybody Hates Chris) but up until that moment she had been dealing quite rationally with all the mental sets of circumstances.

She had them just in case. She was thinking of using them to kill the doctor just when Carol came in, because she wanted to end the whole hospital thing.

And she hadn't planned in advance to definitely use them as she was going to go with Rick et al until Dawn asserted her authority by getting Noah back.