Walking Dead S05E08 Recap: Coda

It's already mid season time, and our group is now split into four, as one part is headed to the hospital to get back Beth and Carol. Expecting a big shock tonight, Norman Reedus cried, so someone obviously is going to die and my money is on Beth. With Carol semi-back in the fold, Beth's days as Daryl's wingman are numbered. This isn't our first rodeo where the Walking Dead is concerned, and Rick is ready to flip the Rickanator switch at any moment.

Bob's getaway is nearly complete, but in addition to the walkers coming to feast on him, someone is running. Bob tries to cut himself free and it's Rick running by spilling walker guts everywhere. Rick jumps into the closest squad car and tells Bob to stop on his loud speaker, but Bob doesn't stop so Rick hits him. Bob thinks his neck is broken. Rick tells him that it didn't have to be this way, he only had to stop. Bob asks to go back to the hospital, but that's not going to happen. You can't go back. Bob continues to plea, and Rick finally silences him with a bullet, which is pretty nice, considering I'd probably have left him for the walkers.

Gabriel stumbles past a walker filled building, looking over the remains in the yard. He grabs the backpack and finds a bible belonging to Mary B. And Bob's leg from Cannibal camp. He angrily tosses the leg as the walkers break free and Gabriel is forced to head back into the woods. Gabriel goes back to the church, but the walkers are too close for him to get back in by his secret escape hatch. He cries for help, to be let back in. Carl and Michonne start working to undo everything they did to seal themselves inside to keep them all safe. Michonne busts down the door, and Gabriel slips in just in time. Carl fires a few shots to keep the walkers back as Michoone takes up her katanna. Gabriel leads them to the rectory while he holds the door closed and tells them to get out to safety. Dummy, if he was so concerned for their safety he should have just ran away. Michonne, Carl and Judith make it out. Gabriel takes up the rear, surprised that the trio didn't make a run for it when they got out. Michonne has no plans of running. They take out a few walkers at the entrance trapped in the organ pipes, and they seal the ones in the rectory in while resealing the front doors.

The group sits and waits for Rick's return. He comes back, Bob-less. Rick tells Daryl that Bob wouldn't stop. This changes things, it has to. Bob said that Dawn wouldn't negotiate for them, but Dawn also didn't have any love for them. The girl begins talking again. Bob was a good man she claims, but she understands why everything happened. She wants them to try the trade, knowing that its either that or they go in guns blazing. She claims that they don't want that. She knows the good eggs from the bad, and asks to help them. Rick turns his attention to the other man. He asks how much. Dawn will see the trade as a rip off when she learns that Rick killed one of her guys, so its a good thing they're willing to change sides.

In the hospital, Dawn calls to Lamsen, McCarry and Sheppard as she exercises on a stationary bike. No one is answering about the gunfire. Beth asks if something is wrong. Her officers don't always radio back, and she doesn't like it. Beth continues to straighten up her office, and she asks about the picture. It's of Dawn and Hansen. She knows that people talk, but she tells Beth that he was her mentor and friend. People risk their lives every time they go out, and Hansen lost sight of that and he lost the officers. You can't ever lose sight of that, otherwise when you need backup it won't be there, and everyone pays. She reiterates that Hansen lost his way.

Outside things are relatively quiet. Carl asks where Gabriel went. He went to the school he tells them. The doors begin to buckle. They won't hold the walkers in for much longer, and luckily they won't need to. Abraham comes hailing in with his firetruck. Michonne is happy to see the group but a little shocked. Washington isn't happening. She tells Maggie that Beth is alive, and the others went to get her back from the Atlanta hospital. Maggie is overwhelmed with the news, and the group plans to meet up with Rick's group and retrieve their Beth.

In the hospital Beth spies one of the officers getting pushy with an older ward about his lack of mending. He spies Beth and wonders about her sewing skills, but Dawn swoops in to her rescue, claiming that she needs her. Beth sits above the empty elevator shaft looking into it. Dawn tells her that Percy is going to be okay, but nothing is going to be okay. Beth wanted to be alone, and Dawn left her elevator key in the open. Dawn keeps saying that she's doing what it takes just until its all over, but Beth reminds her that it isn't over. This place is what it is, until the end. Dawn points out that she saved Beth twice. Everyone thinks that Joan killed the cop, but Dawn thinks that Beth is the one who killed him. Dawn also helped Carol, and she didn't have to, but wanted to. There's a way that things have to be done around there though. One of the officers overhears it all. He asks what she's going to do, Dawn tells him that its her ward, her call. Fine, but he plans to tell the people the type of person that they're working for. I believe those are fighting words. Dawn reminds him that he doesn't get to threaten her as they both inch closer. People think that Dawn is cracking, and O'Donnell wants to make a change. He turns his back on Dawn and she draws her gun on him. She's nothing like Hansen. She killed him, she was the only one willing. O'Donnell remembers. All he has to do is shout, and all she has to do is claim that he came after her. O'Donnell tries to play the history card. They were rookies together, she knew his wife, she celebrated with cigars at the birth of his children. That's all in the past. Now he's the man beating the elderly over sewing, celebrating with laughs and drinks over the rape of a girl. He tells her that its about holding onto what you have. O'Donnell takes a swing at Dawn, and the two tussle until O'Donnell has Dawn pinned in a choke hold. Beth finally steps up in assistance, but gets knocked back on her tush. Her interference buys Dawn a moment, and she's able to knock O'Donnell back towards the elevator shaft. Beth pushes him down it. Goodbye O'Donnell, you're not likely to be missed.

Beth sleeps by Carol's bedside. Dawn comes it to see her, she tells Beth it's okay to cry. Beth claims that she doesn't cry. Dawn cries too, but she doesn't let the others see it she tells her as she takes a heavy drink from her flask. Beth understands why Dawn covered for her. She wasn't protecting her, but herself. The officers that died were all problems for her, but she didn't have to do the dirty work. That's what happens around here. Dawn realizes that Dr. Edwards used Beth too. Noah is better off on the outside, headed home. Dawn doesn't think that anyone gets to really go home, that he'll be back eventually. People don't get far because they can't and they don't want to. Beth believes that he's going home. Dawn was like Beth when she was younger, no one could tell her anything. She knows that Beth knows Carol, she's not stupid. She knows why Beth is pushing so hard for her, but Dawn is still grateful for what she did. She will remember. Carol starts to stir.

Tyrese sees that Sasha is beating herself up over what happened with Bob #2. She just has no luck with Bobs. She was stupid. Tyrese tells her the name of the man that she killed at the church, and she's surprised. Tyrese and Carol had run into him before, and he told her that he had killed him, but he didn't. He could have done it, and maybe he should have, but he didn't. He reminds her that when they were kids she use to follow him around all the time. Since this happened to both of them, maybe they're still the same. Sasha doesn't think she can be though, no anymore. She looks through her rifle scope. Daryl keeps watch with her, seeing that a cop car is heading towards Rick. Rick introduces himself to the two arriving officers, and he wants to make a proposal. The pair have him lay his weapons down, never once seeing that they're in the rifle sights. He tells them that he has two of their people, and they have two of his. He tells them that he has Sheppard and McCarry, and he wants Beth and Carol the woman they hit with a car recently. They ask if Noah is with them, and Rick tells them that he is. They ask about Lamsen. Rick lies saying that he was attacked by the dead before they could get to him. A walker approaches from behind. They asks where are his people as one of them shoots the walker behind them. Rick tells them that they're close, to radio their people, he'll wait.

Rick and Tyrese bring McCarry and Sheppard into the hospital to make the trade. Beth dresses in her regular clothes, and hides a pair of scissors in her cast. Beth wheels Carol in via wheelchair as they get ready. As Rick arrives, Dawn orders her officers to holster their weapons. Rick order his group to do the same. Its a standoff. Rick tells Dawn that he hasn't harmed her officers. She asks about Lamsen, and he gives her the same story, which the officers back him up on. Dawn agrees to the trade. She turns them over one at a time. Beth and Carol are back safe in the fold. Rick and Dawn are both glad that things worked but she tells him that she just needs Noah back, and then they can leave. Rick isn't happy about that at all. Noah wasn't part of the deal, but Dawn claims that he was he ward, and Beth took his place, since she's losing Beth, she wants Noah back. She says that her officers put their lives on the line looking for him. Noah goes to return to his hell, but Daryl says no. Noah wants to go home, and they plan to help him get there, but Noah sees things going south, and tells them that its okay. He gives Rick back the gun, and prepares to go back. Beth tells him to wait, throwing herself into his arms. He tells her that its okay, and Dawn tells him that she knew he'd be back. Beth finally gets it. She stabs Dawn, and Dawn shoots Beth in the head to everyone's shock, including her own. Daryl retaliates with a quick bullet to Dawn's head. Sheppard calls everyone off. It's over, it was just about Dawn and now it's over. Daryl cries, and now everyone is crying. Rick's group is more than shell shocked. They were so close to getting Beth back. Sheppard tells them that they can stay, they're surviving in the hospital. Rick refuses, he offers anyone who wants to leave the chance to go with them. Abraham, Michonne and the others arrive in Atlanta. They kill the few walkers leading up to the hospital, and they're overjoyed to see Rick and the others until the horror sets in. Daryl is carrying Beth's limp body out of the hospital. Maggie falls to her knees in grief, she thought she was getting her sister back, and then she was taken away all over again.

After the preview for the second half of the season, is another shot of Morgan. He's found Rick's mark. He's found the school and the cannibal camp. The walkers are mostly gone from the area, just one lone one remains instead of the building teaming over with them. Morgan makes his way to the church, now open and abandoned. He goes to the alter, placing a few items there (a bullet, a rabbit's foot and a goo-goo cluster), and lighting a candle as he laughs to himself. The walkers there too are all dead. Lastly he finds the map that Abraham left for Rick, and his message “Sorry I was an asshole. Come to Washington. The new world’s gonna need Rick Grimes.” Morgan's face lights up at his friend's name. If he wasn't looking for Rick before, he definitely is now. The only real question is just how far in the future is Morgan, because a reunion is definitely coming.  

While we suspected that Beth was going to die, it was still quite the blow. And the meme remains true. When Daryl Dixon cries we all cry. It's going to be a long wait until Walking Dead comes back.