I’m not one to have every scene memorized, but if memory serves, the last time Beth and Maggie were together was at the prison. Maggie had possibly, even probably, already given up Beth for dead and was internalizing the loss. If I’ve gotten it correct, of course Maggie would be elated by having family still alive, and devastated by missing the opportunity to reunite.
Their FB page posted a big ol’ RIP right after it aired, which is just LOVELY for those of us with Google Fiber who have to watch it the next day because AMC won’t play nice with Google.
I would totally support a grass roots initiative for Skald to be on The Talking Dead. His commentary is usually 4x better than any celebrity not associated with the show.
Rather than the premeditated Beth stabs Dawn in the shoulder bit, risking an all out firefight, a more plausible scenario would have been to have Beth intercede on Noah’s behalf by starting to tell the rest of the cops all of the secrets she knows about Dawn’s behavior. Dawn’s precarious position is in jeopardy, so she impulsively pops a cap to stop Beth. The rest of the cops make clear that they are washing their hands of Dawn, and Daryl takes her out.
Just to be clear, when I posted earlier that “they” should kill off Judith, I was referring to the show’s writers, not the group of characters that is taking care of her. As in, the Walking Dead writers should write an episode where she becomes zombie chow off-screen or something. I would never expect them to write a scene where one of their main protagonists deliberately kills an infant.
I think Rick was in a coma for three months prior to the ZA - I’m not sure how quickly he reunited with Lori and Carl. Maybe she was pregnant previous to the ZA.
If this show was more clever, I might think we’re onto something here, with the complete lack of other babies showing up two years into the ZA, but it could just be that the Walking Dead writers just haven’t thought to include any.
After much thought I think Beth just wanted to die. She had expressed that the whole apocalypse situation was not going to get better. It was just going to stay the same. Her previous suicide attempt was also pointed out recently, to remind us that she was suicidal at one time. That’s not something one usually just gets over, especially with all the crap going on in the world.
If she had wanted to survive she could have a better chance of survival by a number of other scenarios;
- Give up on Noah or at least leave and try to convince the group to go back for him later.
- Stab Dawn in the carotid and she may have been in too much shock to fire her gun. Alternatively, grab Dawn’s gun at the same time she stabs her to make sure she can’t aim for any vital spots.
- Swing around to her back and stab her in the neck, one of the other officers may have shot her but then again they may not and she would be out of range of Dawn’s gun.
Basically, what she did would not have killed Dawn. She said she couldn’t kill anyone directly, we know she did kill a couple people indirectly. So she injured Dawn and let the chips fall where they may. Suicidal people don’t always think of the impact of their suicide on other people. So Beth wasn’t thinking logically and she wasn’t planning on surviving. Although had Dawn not shown her true colors by insisting Noah stay she probably would have walked out of there and continued to survive until the next major crisis.
Beth directly killed the guard when she pushed him down the elevator shaft.
That’s quite possible. But even if true, it wouldn’t preclude the use of the “only birth in the ZA” as a new plot element. (This is pure speculation; I know nothing of the comics.)
They’ve lost the hope that Eugene represented. What if they now start to think about Judith’s unique status, and find evidence that she may have special qualities (antibodies? or such) that could lead to a cure for turning-zombie-at-death?
How the hell would they find out something like that? There’s not a scientist in the group, and even if there were, they haven’t access to any sort of laboratory or research facilities.
Despite the sci-fi premise, TWD is not a science fiction show. It’s half grim actioner, half character study. It’s simply absurd to think Team Grimes is going to do anything to cure the plague. They might be there when the plague gets cured, but such an accomplishment will not and SHOULD not be their doing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the baby issue is something the writers just haven’t made up their minds about yet, so it’s best to avoid it and keep their options open.
A possible means: Judith could bite some human who was attacking the group. Then the attacker dies–but does not go walker.
There are other possible ways that evidence could arise–nothing as definitive as lab work, but just something that would lead the group to start wondering why they’ve never seen or heard of another child as young as Judith. For example, it’s been established that both the Governor’s group and the Terminus group were settled in their respective living quarters for many months, and that there were women of childbearing age in both places. Why no offspring?–our group could ask.
They wouldn’t have to have definite laboratory-grade evidence in order to decide that they should prioritize trying to get somewhere that might be the home of survivors who do have research facilities of some kind. (There’s no reason, for instance, that they can’t still head for D.C.)
Obviously I’m not arguing that this is the direction the plot will go. I’m just saying that by never showing another baby, the writers have left this direction open as an option.
That’s a reasonable opinion, but it’s probably not everyone’s opinion. Z.A. stories can and do go in a lot of directions. None of us writing here know what TWD’s ultimate course will be.
I don’t know if there’s any canonical answer, and if it varies between TV and comics, but many things give me the impression it was no more than a couple of weeks. Maybe it’s sloppy filmmaking, but he hadn’t lost any weight or coordination, which starts being significant in about a month, and his wound was still fresh enough to have stitches and dressings.
Is there an official answer on this?
Gareth implied very strongly, and may have said outright, that the Termites killed and ate their kids. And it’s ludicrous to think that a bite from Judith will be known to kill but not walkerize a person, because they always administer prophylactic brain damage to anyone who dies of a different cause, and also because a baby’s bite is so impuissant that any person Judith bit who dies will be presumed to have perished from another cause…
Two women shot in the head back to back, no cut away for discretion. Don’t see that very often.
“STAY IN YOUR LANE, BITCH!” This show isn’t particularly quotable, but this had me rolling. I’ll have to find excuses to use that one.
I felt worse for Dawn dying than Beth. She’s the most interesting new character on this show in a long time. Might be biased, I seem to enjoy vaguely authoritarian women leaders trying to hold it together in a messed up political situation. But she isn’t much worse than Rick nowadays, is she? I was hoping she might have a redemption arc and join the main group at some point, maybe get together with Rick to form a power duo. Or Beth would go in Noah’s place and their relationship could be explored more in the future. But Beth’s actor wanted to leave the show, so we can’t have nice things.
There was some dubious editing, especially in the exchange sequence. One second Dawn’s pistol is holstered, then Beth stabs her, suddenly Dawn shot her in the head. “I didn’t mean to…” Yeah, whatever you say show.
There were some cool things, but overall this half season felt disjointed and oddly paced. I don’t know if the payoffs were really worth it.
I don’t think it was the actor’s choice at all. On Talking Dead, she talked about finding out from the showrunner shortly before they were given the script for the episode. She was very upset about leaving the show.
Yep. A couple differences:
- Rick won’t let his men rape his women. (He probably wouldn’t let his men rape YOUR women, even.)
- Rick won’t hold you hostage as payment for helping you.
They’ll both kill anyone who isn’t “us” as needed, of course. I think the key difference is that Dawn was desperately clinging to power by any means necessary, where Rick just simply HAS power. Hell, we’ve seen Rick deliberately give up power to a friggin’ committee.
That line was so bad it was good. You just know the writer who got that line in the script just face-palmed as soon as they heard it. Good on the page–TERRIBLE spoken out loud.
I felt the same way about Dawn. She was a far more plausible and interesting multi-episode villain. She seemed more real than someone like the Governor or Gareth who got cartoony.
It being a headshot didn’t make any sense to me either. I get the close in–stab in the chest by Beth but the gunshot came on so immediately that it read as Dawn acting first. Dawn reflexively drawing and shooting Beth in the torso would have made more sense and achieved the same outcome-- although I think they wanted it to be clear that Beth was dead immediately so there wasn’t a cry of “But they’re in a hospital!”
Being the simplest answer, it’s probably the correct one. It could get very interesting if they do decide to go that way - all of a sudden, LPITA becomes a lot more valuable to everyone.
Good points. I think I’ll do some research on this.
Rick has the respect of the members of Rick’s group. And the women in Rick’s group are, except for Judith, all capable of killing rapists quickly or very, very, very slowly. “No” doesn’t just mean “No”. It means having your arms and lower jaw removed and paraded around for dozens of miles. Or worse. :eek:
Dawn doesn’t seem to have anyone’s respect. Dawn leads by subterfuge, lies, and fear.