Walking Dead Episode Review 5.8 Coda

In musical terms, a Coda is a passage that ends a particular piece of music.  It is fitting that tonite’s midseason finale is given this name.

It begins on a brutal note with Rick running “Bob” over with a car and then shooting him in the head. While I love this scene because I am all for Cold-blooded Rick, it just adds to how pointless last week’s ending was since he didn’t even survive past the opening credits.

The good Father Gabriel gets a taste of his own medicine being trapped outside the church facing a swarm of Zombies.  Unlike those he actually left outside to die, he is rescued by Carl and Michone,.  He appears to be finally able to accept his role in the new undead world and to continue the circle, the Washington Gang came back in style actually saving the day.

Dawn stood up to a psycho cop who was berating one of the hospital survivors.  The two have a quick fight in a horribly shot sequence where you can’t really see what’s going on because it’s shot too close, much like the fight scenes in Batman Begins were.  I had to watch it a couple of times to see what happened!  Beth delivers the finishing blow, knocking the cop down the elevator shaft.

We’re about ¾ of the way through the episode before the trade begins. We get some tilted camera shots for some reason, I didn't realize I was watching Battlefield Earth.  The hostages get traded. Everything is good until Dawn tries to muck it up by wanting “Everybody Hates Chris” back. Noah agrees and then Beth goes up to Dawn.  Beth stabs Dawn with a pair of Scissors and gets shot in the head. 

Daryl kills Dawn and the standoff ends peacefully when the former hostage is able to say that is it over.  The Washington gang arrives at the hospital just in time to watch Daryl carry Beth out. Maggie flips out end of the episode.

Well not quite, we also get a coda featuring Morgan who arrived at the church and sees Abraham’s apology note where they’re going to Washington.

Remember when I had mentioned episode title, “Coda“at the top?  That was a serious tell for the outcome of this episode.  Beth sang on a few occasions primarily on her trek with Daryl in season four.  For those without a background in music, there was another more noticeable tell as the “whole let’s bring Maggie to go get her sister bit” was another tell.  Why make the effort to bring her back unless you’re going to do something with it.  There is only so much time the writers have to tell a story and every moment needs to have purpose.  It was rather obvious Beth was going to get it.

I had read an article where Norman Reedus (Daryl) had mentioned that the ending was going to be a tearjerker.  Well, I gotta say there were no tears here because I‘m as giddy a school girl because Beth is finally dead! 

I have been actively rooting for her demise for a season and a half now (You’re next Glenn!).  My venom got to the point where I was excited to see Emily Kinney’s character killed when she made a guest spot on “The Following.” Beth as a character, was a whiney-little-ice-princess who showed no remorse when her boyfriend was killed on a run, nearly got Daryl killed because she wanted to have a drink and had “dear diary” voice-over sequences that made fingernails scratching a chalk board sound more appealing.  She was by far the most irritating and useless character on the series.  Judith is more useful and she’s just a baby!

As James Bond once said: “The Bitch is dead.”

I realize I’m probably in the minority about this but boo hoo. If you want a real tearjerker watch How I Met Your Mother, where they spent nine seasons building up The Mother as an awesome character, then actually delivering when we finally do meet her, only to have her get incurable chick cancer in the series finale, just so that the writers can put Ted and Robin back together again.  The Mother’s was a senseless death, Beth’s was well deserved and I commend the writers of TWD for finally pulling the trigger. About bloody time!

See you in February!

Agree? Disagree? Post a comment below!

C.J. Foxx 

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