The Walking Dead – “Coda”

Season Five, Episode Eight

Grade: B+

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It’s strange how shows have mid-season finales. It’s treated just as if the season is coming to an end until next year, except in this case The Walking Dead will be back in a few months. But still, there’s a hiatus about to take place and the show-runners want to give us a satisfying enough episode so us viewers will come back for some more. In “Coda” we get a shocking conclusion with Beth getting killed, and to be honest I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. At the very least, the prisoner exchange scene was well-done and I don’t think anyone saw Beth’s death coming (unless you didn’t watch the show live or unless you live on the west coast and read the show’s Facebook post).

Was Beth’s death really surprising? It was, to an extent. It seems like the writers wanted us to be a lot more invested in the hospital story than we were, and that’s where the problem starts. Also, Beth with her own story-arc really didn’t seem to appeal to anyone, unless you were a fifteen year old boy with a crush on her. So after all that we watched developing at the hospital, was it worth it? To me, I wasn’t satisfied with the story-arc. I thought Dawn was a weak antagonist despite the fact that I like Christine Woods. The cops were too predictable, playing the bad cap/creepy guys all the time didn’t give much room to the lack of diversity in the hospital. I did like the relationship between Noah and Beth, but even that didn’t seen strong enough to have Beth stab Dawn.

Meanwhile, Gabriel returns to the church while bringing a herd of walkers with him. Michonne and Carl are able to escape with the baby and Gabriel, and just as the walkers were about to break down the front door of the church, Abraham pulls up in his red firetruck to save the day. Cheesy. Also, was anyone surprised about how Maggie reacted when Michonne told her that Beth was alive? It’s been a while since Beth was snatched from Daryl’s side, and have we seen Maggie wonder where she was? She would walk the entire Earth for Glen, but when Beth went missing she never once suggested to lead a search party to rescue her.

So at the end, the whole gang is back together. Carol’s still recovering from being hit by a car but aside from that, the group is intact and they’re ready to move on. I have to mention that as sad as it was to see Bob die with Sasha by his side, seeing how upset Daryl and Rick were when Beth died takes the cake. There’s not much that will hit you harder than two grown, bad-ass guys crying because of the death of one of their friends. It was a very well-done death even though if there wasn’t a lot of weight to it.

That’s the end of the first half of the season. Despite a few hiccups, it was certainly a refreshing and impressive half-season, especially for The Walking Dead that had plenty of problems the last few years. Now let’s just hope we get the Morgan/Rick reunion during the second half that they’ve been teasing us with.