The Walking Dead Review: Episode 5×08 “Coda”

The Walking Dead Fall Finale picked up the pace slightly and served up exactly what we expected—the death of a major character. But shouldn’t we be surprised when that happens?

The Walking Dead — The tone everyone hoped for out of the mid-season finale was set immediately when a fleeing Bob (Maximiliano Hernández) fails to heed Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) warning to stop. When Rick runs Bob down by patrol car and then executes him we know Rick means business. When the other two officers agree to cover up Bob’s unfortunate death to facilitate the exchange for Beth (Emily Kinney) and Carol (Melissa McBride) the stage is set for a tense face-to-face meeting between both groups—especially Dawn (Christine Woods) and Rick. At the church, things get tense for Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) when his escape to learn the truth about Gareth (Andrew J. West) results in a horde of walkers following him back to the church steps. In a twist of irony he is the one trapped outside, but Michonne (Danai Gurira) does what he couldn’t—and saves him.

Meanwhile, things are crumbling for Dawn at Grady Memorial. When Officer O’Donnell (Ricky Wayne) overhears the truth of Gorman’s (Cullen Moss) death, a gunpoint standoff turns into a brutal fight. Beth saves her by pushing him down the elevator shaft but realizes she’s been used to do Dawn’s dirty work. When the exchange is set, tensions reach a peak in a narrow hallway face-off where both groups, guns drawn, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. When a show of power from Dawn to alter the deal goes awry, the aftermath will be felt on the Walking Dead for some time to come. Who lives? Who dies? Did the rest of the episode live up to the first and last two minutes? All the more reason to dive right in and start to dissect the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead!

Anyone that meets Rick’s group right now would certainly be justified in wondering if they were good, bad or could be trusted.

In an episode bookended by two defining moments, we finally got some traction and momentum in what had started to become a stagnant and plodding story. Rick’s rundown of Bob set hopes high early this the Fall Finale would be as explosive as the season opener. Since the ambush and killing of Gareth, things had slowed to a crawl, but with one bumper shot in Bob’s backside, everything had the potential to change. Rick’s decision to kill Bob was a curious one though. On one hand, it was somewhat satisfying to see a badass Rick with no more interest in tolerating those that cross him. On the other, it seemed excessive. Surely there was a better way to stop Bob than ramming him in the back with a car. But that’s exactly what Rick did. As a bleeding and broken Bob explained that he couldn’t stop because he didn’t know Rick, we started to wonder if we did either. Bob’s words may have contained some foreshadowing as well.

“You’ve been out here too long.” ~ Bob

When this group finally does find a place to settle, will they ever be able to coexist with others? That’s a question that is sure to come up eventually. Have they been on the run and pushed too close to the brink by others along the way to ever fit in to any semblance of society again? We don’t know, but we suspect we’ll get the chance to find out at some point. This group has faced some horrific situations and losses. Everyone has sins in this new world, but this group’s story is certainly extreme. In the mean time, they are who they are and it’s hard to go back once you’ve had to scrap for every ounce of survival.

Father Gabriel must have felt the same apprehension. While he had a different first encounter with Rick’s group than Officer Bob, the brutal slaying of Gareth must have raised serious questions in his mind. As he escaped to the school to find that Bob’s (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) leg really had been eaten, the horror of the world obviously hit him hard. His reaction of slinging the fire pit and leg away in disgust had to be a moment of revelation that good people can do bad things when they encounter evil that can’t be reconciled in any other way.

When walkers escape the school and follow him hobbling back to the church, Michonne ironically shows him the mercy he couldn’t when his own congregation was in the same predicament. Instead of letting him die, she and Carl (Chandler Riggs) save him. In a way she must have known that would be a turning point for him once she heard that he had to see firsthand the horrors Gareth was capable of in order to come to terms with the brutal events in the church.

The question will be if Rick and everyone else will be able to reconcile things themselves if they are ever to settle into a life again. We hope they can, but that’s a wide open question at this half-way point of the fifth season. Gareth and Rick were both right. You can’t go back Bob. Since we’re now minus two Bobs for the season, we’re hoping that at some point these characters can return to their humanity just a little or the world will never be more than what it is now.

Dawn had the resemblance of an interesting character, but we never got the complete picture we needed from her.

It was good to see Beth grow a bit further in this episode. When confronted by Dawn at the elevator shaft, Beth snaps out of her stupor and tells Dawn in no uncertain terms that the reasoning of holding on until all of this is over is flawed. Who you are now is who you really are. There will be no rescue and things will never be over as Dawn expects.

“It isn’t over. This is it. This is who you are and what this place is until the end.” ~ Beth

That logic seemed to not faze Dawn at all, who still held firm that she saved Beth not once, but twice. Once when they brought her in and again when Dawn covered up Beth’s role in Gorman’s death. When O’Donnell overhears the conversation and threatens to tell the rest the truth about Gorman, Dawn draws her gun and with a wild look reminiscent of Shane (Jon Bernthal) she reminds O’Donnell that she was the one with the will to kill Hanson.

When O’Donnell appeals to their history and who they used to be, it almost seemed that Beth’s words had hit home. The people they used to be were gone and Dawn couldn’t stand by and let the atrocities of rape and beatings go on anymore. A brutal fight ensues and Dawn shows she isn’t all talk by holding her own. When O’Donnell does finally get the upper hand, Beth distracts him. Two blows later by Dawn and a push by Beth send him down the elevator shaft.

When Beth accuses Dawn of using her to kill O’Donnell, Dawn lets her know that no one will miss him or Gorman. They hurt people and the world is better without them. In the reflective moments that follow, Dawn seems to have elements of a confused and weary person. The difficulty is we’re just not certain because we’ve been given very little to go on by the writing team to tell us more about what motivates Dawn and all of those at Grady. Dawn seems to have committed murder for what she thought was the right reasons and turned a blind eye to the horrors of Grady Memorial in order to keep a perceived peace. But that’s a pretty complex set of behaviors that we just never get to see fully fleshed out in order to understand them.

What was bothersome about this moment was not knowing if Dawn had turned a corner and if she’s reclaimed a bit of her soul or if she’s simply always been a confused character. As she argues with Beth that Noah will be back and Beth insists he’s going home, we are left to wonder what part of Dawn’s humanity still is intact and what part was simply never there when all this began. Would things at Grady be as bad as ever because Dawn is unchanged or were better days ahead with O’Donnell and Gorman gone? Given the way things ultimately play out, we will likely never know..

Beth or Carol? As the episode wound down, we were all asking ourselves which would die. But shouldn’t we have no idea at all?

As the exchange is arranged and the two groups face off with guns drawn at either end of a Grady hallway, we couldn’t help but wonder how this episode might end with only ten minutes left in 2014. When both sides lowered their weapons and the both have their people returned, the part of Dawn that was still too far gone reared it’s ugly head. We’ll never know if it was a display of authority to maintain her position of respect amongst her officers or if it was simple vanity that drove her to make the demand, but her small glance behind to her officers seemed to suggest that respect and power were her motives. Regardless, Dawn attempted a Darth Vader and altered the deal by insisting that Noah stay to replace her lost ward in Beth.

When Rick and Daryl (Norman Reedus) both protest and Dawn lays out her reasoning that they have no claim on him, Rick speaks for all of us and insists that she has no claim on him either. He’s a human being and if he wants to go home, he can. Dawn insists that without Noah, there is no deal and despite the protests, Noah reluctantly agrees to stay. Beth insists it’s not okay and as she hugs Noah goodbye, Dawn tips her hand in a snide remark to Noah.

“I knew you’d be back.” ~ Dawn

In that moment, Beth seems to understand that in front of everyone, Dawn always makes the play for respect and control. An emotional Beth faces Dawn and tells her she gets it now. And in a rash move stabs Dawn in the shoulder with a pair of scissors only to get instantly shot in the head. A shocked Dawn seems as surprised as the rest as Beth slumps to the floor. As she shakes her head to insist she didn’t mean to shoot Beth over the ringing sound of the gunshot, an enraged Daryl steps forward and shoots Dawn in the head as well. Both sides all draw their weapons and eventually step away without further bloodshed, but the emotional damage is clearly done.

We’ll likely never know the real understanding between Beth and Dawn. The motivations for Dawn were never totally clear and Beth’s last line left us wondering exactly what she did get. Between the two, so much potential for great story telling was lost. That’s not a knock against either actor. Both played their parts well, there just wasn’t enough substance to truly understand what was at play. One can say that by stabbing Dawn, Beth was acting rashly, but she was unwilling to watch Noah go back to a purgatory he hated and felt the need to at least do something.

The Walking Dead has repeatedly proven they know how to create an emotional moment, but for the first time in a while they created one with mixed success. With tears from Rick and Daryl, it’s possible that all of the audience cried with them whether they liked Beth or not. Both actors made us feel this moment. Regardless of anyone’s feelings for Beth, they must have empathized with these two powerful men that cared for her. As the somber background piano marked the entrance of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and the rest of the group at Grady, we all knew that the reunion would be a painful one. As they approach the hospital to see Rick step aside to reveal Daryl carrying Beth, Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) scream is the only sound heard over the music.

The loss of Beth was a conflicting event. On one hand, we were sad to see a main character go and while Daryl’s emotions were genuinely felt after the two characters became close in the latter half of season 4, Maggie’s reaction didn’t carry the weight it should have. Lauren Cohan delivered an emotional performance that was far better than the writing in season 5 deserved. For eight episodes Maggie had shown little interest in Beth, despite knowing that she was out there somewhere since the first few moments of the season. One would think she’d have worked as tirelessly to find her sister as she did for Glenn (Steven Yeun). Lauren’s performance in this emotional loss was fantastic, but Maggie’s reaction felt out-of-place after abandoning her sister in more ways than one though the progression of the season.

FINAL VERDICT: Will a major character die in each mid-season finale? The Walking Dead may need to change things up and use our comic knowledge against us to keep us guessing.

With such a slow build throughout the last few episodes, there was a certain expectation that all hell would break loose in this Fall Finale. While Beth’s death was certainly tragic and hit home emotionally for the audience, the arc of Grady Memorial was ended in somewhat anti-climatic fashion. Certainly the tension and performances were there. But the loss of a major character at the finale was almost predictable. After this season started with such a hellacious bang, it seemed to end in a bit of a whimper, albeit an emotional one. It’s almost as if the writing team painted themselves into a corner with an enemy that wasn’t entirely bad, and thus didn’t deserve a brutal and action packed ending. Even bloodshed in a complete misunderstanding between two groups that were each doing their best to survive could have led to more drama than the ending we did get.

Beth was a surprisingly polarizing character. Some loved her sense of purity and innocence. She was a connection to the world lost, but still present in the new world where everyone must survive. Others found her trite, immature and uninteresting. Either way, we felt Emily Kinney did bring levity and strength to her character in her final season. Her final few episodes were solid performances and she will be missed. In a show where death is front and center every week, it’s easy to dismiss a character when we lose one we don’t identify with, but with so few people left in the world every one of them has value and this show needs to find a way to remind us that good people are too valuable to lose.

If we ever get a chance, we’re eager to ask veteran Writer Angela Kang a number of questions. We’d love to know if Rick’s decision to kill Bob and his apparent focus on the destruction of Grady Memorial were the result of hardening since the events of Terminus and Gareth’s death. We never got more than a few detached stares in those moments so we’re simply unsure. In the mean time, we’re left to wonder where Rick’s mind is these days. He certainly seems locked in a kill first, ask questions later approach. Even Daryl had to talk him down from killing the cop in previous episode. The blank look in Rick’s eyes with the gun barrel in the cop’s face felt eerily detached.

We’ll be curious to see if the tragic events of this episode shake Rick loose. Beth’s death hit him hard by his reaction on screen. Will that bring him back to center? That remains to be seen, but thus far Rick has been a man of extremes. When he’s passive, he’s been too reserved. When he’s aggressive, he’s been over-zealous. Living and not losing your soul in this new world is some place in the middle. The question will be if Rick can find that again. Perhaps Morgan (Lennie James), who we were teased with again at the end of the episode, and who seems to have been through the same emotional swings. might be the one that brings him back around in the end. Either way, this story has always been about Rick and his family and not knowing or understanding his state of mind makes us feel like something is missing.

We’d also like to ask all the writers how this half-season finale could have played out differently. While sprinkled with fantastic moments and great performances, there were a number of forgettable moments we’ll be hard pressed to remember. Despite Lauren’s wonderful performance, Maggie’s indifference to her sister until this episode seems out of character for both her and Glenn. Rick’s singular focus since Terminus seems to be to shoot first and ask questions later. That approach will wreak havoc on the group’s ability to trust anyone and at some point they’ll need to do so. We do hope Rick’s behavior and Maggie’s indifference get addressed since so much was left unexplained.

Overall, Coda ended up an average episode bookended by two bold sequences for Bob and then Beth. Director Ernest Dickerson helped glean good performances from those two moments and the fight sequence and conversation between Dawn and O’Donnell deserves praise as well. Much of the rest of the episode felt like filler between those events and simply didn’t live up to the first and last two minutes. We did get some answers and resolution, but never fully understood Grady the way we did other places that have opposed our group. The scenery and locations were also largely unremarkable which is a rarity for The Walking Dead. They’ve found such rich places to tell their stories that almost every location in this episode felt bland and will likely be forgotten. On the flip side, we’re certainly glad the group is together again and Beth’s passing was an emotional one, even if it was expected. We’re hoping that the group won’t be splitting up again any time soon. Have they learned their lesson? We’ll see.

The writing team has hinted that they’d follow the comics more closely this season, but between that and the predictable mid-season finale where we say goodbye again to a character that’s had the increased screen time to finish their arc, the show overall feels like it needs a jolt of something new. The writers, cast and crew have all demonstrated time and again that they can deliver remarkable television with The Walking Dead and we’re itching to see that again. Despite some reservations about this finale, we enjoyed its good moments too and we have a suspicion that everything about this show may change in the near future as the next chapter begins. We’re eager to know what’s next and where this group goes from here. We were also intrigued by a second tease of Morgan to end the episode. We have no idea how he’ll fit into the remainder of the season, but the prospect of him being more involved in the show has us hopeful for a bright future for this show ahead.

Questions, Comments, Concerns and My reaction on Twitter…

• See Bob run. See Bob fly!! Oh Sh*t!
• “Can’t go back Bob. Shut up.” ~ Rick. Damn. Do NOT F*ck with Rick Grimes anymore. He’s done with all the bullsh*t.
• From #SilentBob to #ShishkaBob.
• You’ll burn for this Father G. Quite the irony.
• You better start playin those pipes Father G.
• That’s how the machete works G.
• Well, no one will be finding religion in that church now I think.
• “You’re a damn good liar.” ~ Rick. Looks like their both damn good liars to me. Good? Bad? I dunno.
• Our group gets their exercise running for their lives. Dawn cycles in comfort. Something wrong with that.
• Uh oh. Congregation is restless. Pot luck dinner is over.
• Now you care Maggie? Where was that emotion for Beth weeks ago??
• Oh boy. If anyone dies getting Beth back, I think this fan base may revolt.
• Holy sh*t. Dawn is Shane with a bun in her hair.
• Beth. You better well tell Dawn later. “I saved you. You owe me .. bitch.”
• Well, it’s official now. Beth 2, cops trying to kill her 0.
• 12 minutes left and I have no idea how this will end. Cliffhanger?
• Well, Beth’s luck ran out. Beth 2. Cops trying to kill her 1.
• That’s our second Morgan tease of the season. Will we ever get more than a few minutes of him on screen again?