Of course.
Of course in a week where I wrote an extremely positive review of the latest episode and a glowing piece about the direction of the show, “The Walking Dead” airs a Beth centric episode. It’s like they wanted to test my faith in where it’s headed.
Bring it Beth. BRING IT.
As per usual, these reviews are filled with spoilers for last night’s episode. Don’t read if you haven’t watched!
1. A
2. God
3. Damn
4. Two
5. Parter
I was trying to think of five things to say about this episode, but really, I don’t have five things that are separate thoughts to say about it. And it’s not because this was a bad episode. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Much of it was really quite good, as it’s a taut episode with tense atmosphere, good performances and stellar work by composer Bear McCreary in ratcheting up the whole thing with his creepy, moody music. Even better? Beth didn’t sing (although she did talk about it)!
Here’s where my problem lies: that it’s a two-parter, and a fairly pointless one at that. Here’s my reasoning for that. Beth had to have been taken…let’s say a week before the events of Terminus. Couldn’t have been more than that, I feel. Since Terminus, about two nights have passed. In a show that has very short seasons (and even shorter half seasons), “The Walking Dead” dedicated two episodes (at least…god only knows this could be a three parter) to telling the story of its worst character after she was captured, and introducing us to all of the ins and outs of what is happening at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. In short, it’s all pretty unnecessary, and it makes Beth feel more like a chess piece than a character. It feels like filler, and heavily premeditated filler at that.
The only reason I can imagine they did this was because they just didn’t have enough to do before sending the cast to Washington DC and that either someone isn’t making it back (Carol) or someone new is going to come with (perhaps the sometimes kindly doctor from this episode). There has to be something to take away from this besides just a story about Beth, otherwise, it just feels pretty fruitless.
Back to the episode proper, though. For something that frustrated me by design, it had a lot of things I did like, in fact. The creeping tension throughout. The utter despicableness of Gorman. The Lollipop Guild. The awesome look at the scorched Earth nature of Atlanta. It was a really interesting direction in some ways, as it gave us a different perspective on the world at large and at the other kinds of people who live there. All of the characters intrigued, and I really liked how little they gave us to work with as to what was really going on. It made the whole thing feel really, truly stressful, as we didn’t know who to trust just like Beth didn’t.
And I loved some of the small character moments, like when the doctor lamented his growing boredom of researching all the time (he has nothing else to do besides that and admire his Caravaggio painting), and Beth responded with, “if you feel safe enough to be bored, you’re lucky.” It’s true. This season has given us a lot of perspective on other groups and how they deal with the horrors of the new reality, and this group takes what is actually a pretty great situation and either doesn’t respect it or uses it as a way to gain power over people. It’s yet another look at the theme of maintaining who you are even amidst living in a nightmare. It was great stuff.
But I still couldn’t help but feel like it was filler, and filler that’s wasting time away from the story that really matters. Sure, maybe Beth comes back as a much more interesting and complex character. Maybe we have some new friends. The ending of this episode promises a potentially explosive follow-up next week, as Carol (Resident Badass) getting in the midst of those people likely ensures their demise. But why did she even need to go there, save for setting up a narrative that might never have been necessary.
I really hope something of value comes out of this return trip to Atlanta. They’re taking a healthy portion out of this season to do something that isn’t obviously valuable from a viewer standpoint, and if they can stick the landing next week, maybe it makes this worth it. We’ll see. But it’s dalliances like this that make me realize that for all the progress the show has made, it still sometimes loses sight of what makes it as a show work.
Still, at least Beth didn’t sign. We have that going for us.
