The Walking Dead Breakdown Part I: In Memoriam

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

It may not have been a wholesale bloodbath on the season five midseason finale of The Walking Dead, but each death was truly significant in some special way.  Rick's handling of the treacherous Officer Bob was a loaded statement that we will cover later on, and Dawn got exactly what she deserved at last when Daryl put her down for the atrocious act...of killing Beth Greene. 

Yes, dear, sweet Beth, the show's little songbird, is gone and her death was handled in stunning fashion and was perhaps one of the most tragic endings for a character we have ever seen on the show.  While her father's death was shocking in its own right, let's be honest, there were hints that it was coming.  When you have the Governor in the mix, standing over you, things can never end well.

But for Beth, what makes her death so downright devastating are two key things. For one, it was so sudden and so cold. In the blink of an eye, that bullet tore through her skull and we the audience were left to look on in shock. While Dawn claimed it was an accident, we all know that's a load of crap, I mean she had to pull the thing from its holster.  Either way, the deed was done and we were all left as shocked as the characters and the hardest moments to watch were those final seconds when Daryl carries her out of Grady Memorial.

As for the big reason this death will resonate with us for some time, Beth was a character who had come so far in her journey. When we first met her, she was a defiant and somewhat arrogant young woman, who refused to be told what to do or listen to anyone who didn't tell her what she wanted to hear.  This was evident in season two when Andrea's awful advice led to Beth's attempt to take her own life.  But, that moment was also the beginning of an incredible journey for Beth.  She gained strength from it, dropped the arrogance and defiance and slowly became an integral part of the show and the group with her no nonsense way at looking at things.

She was a breath of fresh air once the kid in her grew up, and she was at her strongest this season as she finally learned like so many have recently, to do what it takes to survive.  It's a shame we will never get to see where the character could have gone from here, but her death will certainly have a lasting impact on the show and the friends she left behind.  

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