Lamson has escaped from Sasha and is now on the run, tied
up, unarmed, surrounded by zombies and chased by Rick in a car. Rick hits him
with the car. He’s very badly injured and Rick gets out to lecture him on how
he only had to stop; Lamson reasonably points out that he didn’t know Rick, how
could he trust them. He begs Rick to take him to the hospital; he says that
Rick has been “out here too long” and Rick shoots him in the head.
Rick returns to the gang and tells Daryl that the whole
hostage exchange may be a disaster – but Daryl thinks there’s a chance since
Dawn isn’t a big fan of Lamson and maybe she’ll be happy he’s dead. This seems
to be backed up by one of the cops, Shepherd, happily saying Lamson was eaten
by zombies and she totally saw it. The other cop will go through with it
because if Dawn thinks they killed Lamson she won’t agree with the trade since
it will make her look weak.
Sasha and Tyrese have a moment remembering childhood and
Tyrese trying to comfort Sasha over Lamson’s death. Tyrese tells her about
Martin, the guy he let go who he shouldn’t have – saying basically he and Sasha
are the same and did the same thing; showed mercy which isn’t a bad thing.
Sasha thinks she’s changed
At the hospital, Dawn is a little stressed about her cops
not checking in but apparently it isn’t unusual. She talks about the old leader
of the group and how she replaced him and ends with the message “you don’t need
their love, but you do need their respect” which is a fair point – but I don’t
think Dawn has that either. To remind us of that we see a policeman abusing an
old man for not sewing his uniform.
Beth challenges Dawn on her believe that they just have
to hang on and do what they must until it’s over – but it isn’t over and isn’t
going to be over. Dawn doesn’t listen – just tells Beth she owes her for
protecting her, saving her and hiding what she did in her attempted escape. To reinforce
all this, Donald, one of Dawn’s deputies arrives with lots of threats and
saying it’s “time to make a change”. She tells him to back up and points a gun
at him – reminding him that she killed the last guy in charge and reminding him
of how far he has fallen from the cop he once was. There’s some nice lines “holding
on to what we have” “and what do we have?!” back and forth before they fight
because she let him get too close. During the fight Beth pushes him down an
open elevator shaft (there’s a pack of zombies at the bottom, it’s where they
dispose of bodies). Bye Donald you will not be missed. Dawn thanks Beth.
Afterwards they have a little moment in Carol’s room with
Beth saying “I don’t cry any more” and also seeing through Dawn’s “protection”
because all the police who have died are people who were dangerous to Dawn.
Beth sums up how the hospital works – everyone uses everyone else to get what
they want. Dawn is sure Beth is just naïve and she will come round and
continues to try and aim for friendship.
Back at the church Gabriel limps along on his own until
he finds the cannibal’s camp – complete with bbq leg rotting on the grill. He’s
extremely troubled but has to hobble away from zombies. He makes it back to the
church where he yells for someone to let him in (a nice reversal on what he did
to the people he locked outside). He cowers behind the defences surrounded by a
horde shouting to Karl and Michonne to let him in – that he “knows now”. They
de-barricade the door in time to let him in, of course letting zombies in with
him. There’s so many they lose the front of the church and have to barricade a
back room. They end up crawling out of the same hole Gabriel made.
Outside Gabriel gasps to Michonne that he can’t run any
more. This shows how little he knows Michonne who calmly tells him they’re not
running. They barricade the zombies in the church. While they’re wondering what
to do next, Glenn, Maggie & co arrive in the fire engine and use it to barricade
the entrance. (How did he even know that was necessary? As far as Abraham knew,
he was trapping Rick & co inside!)
They get out and Glenn tells Michonne about Eugene’s lie
and Michonne tells Maggie that Beth (her sister remember) is alive
Near the hospital, Rick meets up with two police from the
hospital with the rest of the group keeping watch with rifles. He introduces
himself as a cop and makes the prisoner exchange proposal.
We see Beth hide a pair of scissors in her cast before
everyone gets ready to make the prisoner exchange. Time for the tense music.
And Carol is awake (oh you’re all screwed now!). Rick tells Dawn Lamson got zombie
and the hostages back him up. They exchange the prisoners no problem – but Dawn
also demands Noah. She talks about him as Beth as property and even her own
hostages are trying to stop her doing this (probably because they’ve seen what
Rick & co can do). Noah tries to offer himself in sacrifice to Rick’s
objection
Beth isn’t having it – she hugs Noah and when Dawn makes
a remark about knowing Noah would be back you can see Beth snapping in her
eyes. She stabs Dawn with the scissors – and Dawn shoots her in the head. Daryl
responds by shooting Dawn in the head.
Office Shepherd, the former hostage, yells for everyone
to hold their fire before it turns into bloody firefight. She makes her people
stand down, saying it was just Dawn. While Rick’s gangs fight tears (Daryl
collapsing with them), Shepherd offers to let them stay. Yeah that’s not
happening – Rick counters by saying anyone who wants to leave can leave with
them.
Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Abraham et al arrive in the fire
engine. Maggie’s look of hope fades as she sees them come out and she cries
when she sees Daryl carrying Beth’s body.
Well that was a dramatic midseason finale for the Walking Dead, certainly maintaining the themes
they’ve upheld so far. So let’s chew on a few of these.
On the overall storyline: so the theme has been “what
lines will you cross” and I think it has held up because of the different ways
it has been done. We have Eugene and his lies – but what would you do to
survive? We have the cannibals at Terminus, of course – and them resorting to
eating human flesh not just out of hunger but because of the need to be
predators or they’ll be victims. Then there’s Dawn with a whole different set
of terrible choices – how much does she tolerate, even enable, within her group
in order to placate the abusers and keep the group together and her in control.
How many lines does she let OTHERS cross for the sake of unity? On the flip
side we have Gabriel receiving a brutal wake up call as to what is necessary as
his church becomes a fortress and he’s no longer able to close his eyes to the
world. Underlying all this is not only people questioning the morality
repeatedly and well, but also Carol who is the very epitome of this question as
we see with her time and again coupled with the more than a little annoying
belated approval/apology from
Rick. In general this storyline really worked with both
the characters they met and Carol, Daryl, Beth and occasional others really
selling the conflict.
On Eugene: I’ve read the comics so this whole storyline was
a pretty dull surprise to me. I think that the writers awareness of the spoilers
out there also made them rush it to an early conclusion before it became an
open secret
On Abraham and Rick: Both these characters don’t interest
me a whole lot. Both
tend to assume leadership when there’s no damn reason for it, neither are
particularly qualified and both are trying to rehash moral conflicts that they’ve
either a) already gone through or b) other characters have done better. They’re
also both prone to big emotional moments while everyone else gets on with
things. I think that’s a pointed comment on which characters can be
enraged/break down/whatever and still be viewed sympathetically by the
audience. While everyone else has to work through things, they get their
Manpain.
On Tyrese, Michonne, Glenn and Maggie: I’ve put these
together as criminally under-used this season. Every now and then we get
glimmers – like Glenn talking sense into Abraham or Tyrese’s moral conflict or
Michonne’s conflict over her sword and being a weapon but none of them have
done much more than be backing characters – Michonne and Tyrese frequently
taking the role of child minders. It’s a terrible waste to have these
characters lurk in the background and be so utterly underused.
On Beth: I quite liked the whole character growth this
season. Honestly it has been no secret that we haven’t been a fan of
she-who-has-taken-to-her-bed and we certainly didn’t miss her. But she came
into her own this season, she showed strength and growth, she learned when she
was no longer able to shelter in the group and became a pretty decent
character. Then died – I do sometimes think we get this kind of growth on
previously forgotten characters to ensure that their deaths have more meaning;
after all, if she had died at the beginning of this season we’d probably have
cheered.
On the death of Bob: The
Walking Dead has done a classic thing when
it comes to dying minorities – it has painted itself into a corner. This is
a show where people WILL die. It’s a given. Most of the current cast are going
to die, and we will have regular deaths to remind us of this. But the way those
deaths are treated are very different. When a major cast member dies it’s
suitably dramatic to have a big sad-music scene and be a season finale point –
see the death of Beth. When minor cast members die, it’s sad – but it’s another
episode (T-Dog, Bob, Oscar… oooh is there a pattern there?). this is understandable,
you need constant death to maintain the horror of the setting, but you couldn’t
kill off, say, Daryl or Carol without a BIG DRAMATIC scene about it. There
probably does need to be two categories of death for story telling purposes. The
problem is that the integral, most developed characters on this show are
largely White while the less developed, side “expendable” characters on this
show are largely POC. Even now, looking at the survivors in the “expendable”
category who haven’t been that developed and haven’t been around that long and we
have Noah, Rosita, Sasha, Tara, Gabriel and maybe, maybe, Eugene and Abraham
now the Washington storyline is done. I wouldn’t say even Tyrese is safe. The
only POC in the “this death must be MAJOR” category are Michonne and Glenn –
the other MAJOR DRAMATIC DEATHS, Rick, Karl, Carol, Maggie, Daryl are white. Again,
The Walking Dead is writing
themselves into a corner where the next expendable death will probably be another
POC because of the disproportionate way characters are written.
Before this season began, social media was all aflutter
because various members of the show hinted at
Daryl being gay, even Norman Reedus claimed he was playing Daryl gay. Well,
the show creators have now confirmed – after the midseason finale – that Daryl
is straight. This kind of attempted media buzz is not ok and pretty homophobic –
especially when we consider how utterly unused Tara is.
