The Walking Dead’ recap: Grady baby
What about Beth?
- Courtesy AMC
- MALPRACTICE: Beth comes face-to-face with Dawn and her gang of renegade cops taking shelter in Grady Hospital.
To be honest, I was never really a fan of the Beth character. This is no knock to Emily Kinney, but when the previews for this week’s episode hit us with the question, “Where is Beth?” I didn’t find myself caring too much. I figured—like in season’s past where we spent entire episodes with one group of characters—this week’s storyline would focus solely on Beth’s disappearance, and I prayed to “The Walking Dead” gods that they’d keep her penchant for breaking into song right before something bad happens to a minimum.
? ? ?
Last night’s “Slabtown” spared us Beth’s songbird antics, but introduced us to the next Woodbury/Terminus, as it turns out Emily Kinney’s character was taken to none other than Grady Memorial Hospital (Hello, Downtown! So great to see you on screen again!), where a band of rogue cops led by an officer with a bad mix of insecurity and abuse problems named, Dawn (Christine Woods), is running the show. Think Regina George from Mean Girls with parts of Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Like the aforementioned communities run by the late Governor and Gareth respectively, Grady’s a shelter that’s all sorts of fucked up on the inside. I mean don’t we know that any building structure where folks say things like “everyone has a job,” is a place that’s totally set to be burned to the ground with pretty much every single inhabitant dying in the process or sometime thereafter? Grady, where they’re throwing bodies down a chute (kinda how folks did their dead pets at my old apartment building in downtown Atlanta), and keeping the resident cops happy by letting them sexually harass patients isn’t as creepy as say the cannibalistic confines of Terminus, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t foul shit happening.
Beth kinda sorta befriends Dr. Edwards, who likes lost artwork from the High Museum (another ATL shout out!) and listens to good music. We get the feeling he’s just another “nice guy” till he tricks Beth into poisoning another doctor, thus making him the only one in their community, and increasing his chances of survival. See, apparently, Dawn only keeps you around if you can hold your own weight with the promise that doing your chores will ultimately lead to your freedom. Clearly, we know this to be a lie as Dawn’s janitor/do-boy Noah (Tyler James Williams), has spent the last year working for her. Oh, and there’s also Dawn’s thinking that someone is coming to rescue the Grady crew and so a system needs to be in place since the world as we used to know it is making a return sooner than later. Yeah, OK, Dawn.
It’s hard to take Dawn’s “we’re here to help you” shtick seriously when she’s letting her henchmen, specifically a creeper named Gorman (Cullen Moss), put on their best rapist face and terrorize the very folks the Grady crew prides themselves in having saved. Getting saved is all good, just remember that now you “owe” Dawn and Co. Anyway, Beth and Noah aren’t trying to hear all that ‘ish Dawn’s talking so they make a break for it, that includes Gorman getting devoured by one of his past victims (a lil’ walker poetic justice). Beth’s later captured by Dawn, but Noah (we think) escapes with his life. Side note: I stalk Lauren Cohan’s (Maggie) Instagram and Tyler James Williams is all over it, so I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of ‘ol Noah.
At this point I figured Daryl might come in and save Beth, but yeah not so much. The ep ends with Beth watching as Carol’s wheeled into Grady wounded, and making us even more confused by the ending of last week’s episode in which Daryl reemerges from his disappearance with a mystery person(s) in tow. Not sure what it all means, but having Carol, “I shoot children and shank lovers” Peletier in the mix is good news for Beth, and all sorts of bad for Dawn.
BEST QUOTE
“Everyone has a job.” - Dr. Edwards to Beth
WTF MOMENT
Watching Dr. Edwards dispose of a dead patient by dumping his body down a chute to a basement full of hungry zombies.
RANDOM ASIDES
- No way Daryl loses Carol again. Could this be an elaborate plan from Daryl and Carol to save Beth?
- Looks like next week we’re spending the hour with the D.C.-bound crew. With that said, I’m worried about Glenn and Maggie.