Keep in mind the show's overall timeline. From the night that Darryl loses her, he meets Joe and the Marauders the next morning. Within 2-3 days, he's fighting Joe and reuniting with Rick, Michonne, and Carl. One day later, they reach Terminus. 1-3 days later, Terminus falls. One day after, Darryl spots the car with the cross on the back and gets right back on the trail with Carol. Approximately one night later, Team Rick kills Gareth and the rest of his Hunters. One night after that, Darryl returns, with an unknown companion who is very unlikely to be Carol.
We're talking maybe ten days, maybe two weeks at most. From the time Beth is taken until the end of this episode, when Carol is wheeled in. We know that it's not between the time Rick exiled her and the fall of the prison. Carol's only other unaccounted for time is after she and Darryl left the group from the church. Which means that Dawn has "saveknapped" another person she's underestimating. Because Commando Carol doesn't believe in debts.
Let's start at the beginning, when Beth wakes up in what she doesn't realize is a mirror opposite of Rick's awakening in the first episode ever. Instead of a motionless clock, and an empty saline infusion bag, she sees the power is on and somebody's been taking care of her. In a real hospital. The only reminder of the zombiepocalypse is out the window, where Beth gazes out onto a napalmed Atlanta.
Little weedy, but doable.
And now, we see echoes of Andrea and Michonne in the doctor's office at Woodbury, when Beth's furious knocking brings a uniformed police officer, named Dawn, and a Doctor Stephen. Dawn is all business from the beginning, disarming Beth of the small needle she yanked out of her arm as a makeshift weapon. Stephen seems like a typical doctor, running through Beth's prior injuries as Dawn informs her that she was surrounded by zombies when her people found her (note a new word for zombies: Rotters). Beth doesn't seem to remember much, including how she got into the trunk of a car, but she's still suspicious of the place and Dawn right away. Especially Dawn insists that Beth owes them for saving her. And they're out of Beth's insurance network.
Getting stuck with a HUGE deductible
Beth's job, as indentured servitude goes, is pretty nice. She's instantly promoted to Nurse Beth, assisting Dr. Stephen on his rounds. Grady Hospital, where maybe a dozen people are holed up, is a mix of uniformed police officers and "wards", who could be wearing patient pajamas or scrubs. Wards take care of the uniformed officers, and the uniformed officers both protect the hospital and collect new wards. It's a system where Dawn keeps a few elite happy, even if they're untrustworthy, in order to boost the number of people to maintain the hospital.
But that's not Dawn's only plan. She's not keeping things together so they can forge a new life for themselves. That would require giving everyone some autonomy. No, they're just holding out for a cavalry that Beth knows ain't coming. Maybe everyone else in that hospital knows it ain't coming, and Dawn is the only deluded soul there. But since the situation is temporary in Dawn's mind, it gives her an out on keeping serfs.
This is all revealed gradually. None of the other wards want to meet her. The officers can be, and often are, rude to the wards. Officer Gorman outright sexually harasses the pretty women, ruining lollipops forever for me. Beth learns real fast at the cafeteria, that every bite of food is recorded, to increase her "debt" to Dawn. And that Gorman accepts payment in tits and ass.
When Beth finds Dr. Stephen in his office, he's playing an old country music record, and complaining how he's bored in his off hours. Beth points out that boredom is a luxury these days. He shows Beth a painting he managed to salvage from Atlanta's streets. The Denial of St. Peter, by Caravaggio. In reality, he would have had to scarf it from New York, But I digress. In it, St. Peter is confronted by a woman identifying him as one of a recently arrested Jesus' disciples. Peter, afraid for his own life, lies to save his ass. It's a reminder of how Dr. Stephen lives. He goes along to get along. And, as the only doctor, he's happy to offer non-sexually-earned protection to Beth. After all, he needs a nurse.
One of her first jobs is to assist Dr. Stephen with a patient who both he and Dawn have agreed isn't going to wake up and be useful. Dr. Stephen's job is to pull the plug, stab the brainstem, and get rid of the body. To do it, he's been using the elevator shaft to the first floor (in reality, an elevator shaft would really extend below the basement, but who needs unhelpful reality? not this show). In the early zombiepocalypse days, zombies overran the first floor, and Team Dawn secured the stairwell and upper floors for Grady's residents. Dr. Stephen disposes of bodies while they're still warm by simply sliding them off the gurney, where they fall down the shaft as food for the zombies on the first floor.
As Nurse Beth, she's called in whenever Dr. Stephen has a new patient. The first is an unconscious man brought in after falling from a roof; Stephen insists the man can't be saved, and lists all the reasons why to Dawn, who brought him in. Dawn wants every warm body to get treated for a week, no matter what. After all, they always need new wards. When Stephen all but refuses, Dawn lashes out at Beth to punish Stephen, re-opening the cut on Beth's face, and telling Stephen that Beth is his whipping girl.
The next is a repeat customer named Joan, who Dawn brusquely notes is getting her bitten arm amputated. Joan is a violently hostile patient, fighting the amputation all the way. Joan's fine with dying; it's living she doesn't want to face.
As Beth is called in to help hold Joan down, and Stephen is sawing away, blood flows all over the floor, and Beth is left to concentrate on Joan's kicking black sneakers, barely held down by Dawn. Why was Joan dragged back in? Why was she outside to get bitten in the first place? She angrily growls at Dawn that Dawn isn't controlling her officers, and can't. Dawn bites back that she will, but it's an empty promise.
Meanwhile, Beth's gotten filthy with other people's blood, and Dr. Stephen sends her away to get clean clothes, a must by Dawn's edict. Dawn sucks at reining in her officers, but she keeps the laundry machines working. Well, Noah does. And he leaves Beth a treat with her clean clothes: a green lollipop. Beth stashes it for later. When Beth tries to befriend Joan, stable now that her arm is amputated and the zombie virus foiled, Joan is bitterly suicidal, which maybe Dr. Stephen should have noticed. Joan tries to warn Beth: Dawn buys the protection of her male officers by letting them sexually assault the women. And Beth realizes why she's here.
After Joan's disastrous attempt at escaping, it seems idiotic that anyone else would try. In fact, Dr. Stephen shows her how the hospital is surrounded by the dead as a caution. But when Beth privately thanks the janitor/laundry guy Noah for the lollipop, he confides that he's blowing this popsicle stand. He's got Dawn and her officers figured out; no one ever manages to pay off their debt. And no one gets "saveknapped" if they look like they could beat or fight the system; Dawn's officers look for those who they think need protecting, which Dawn will outright admit soon enough. But Noah's putting a plan together to get out, and Beth instantly offers her help.
Despite being a community that grows food on the roof, and somehow has electrical power, the place's people are dysfunctional. The continued exploitation of wards keeps them from wanting to make any bonds with each other. Beth can't believe that people want to stay, but after showing her how surrounded the hospital is by zombies, Dr. Stephen brings her to the roof, where he explains to her that Dawn is Grady Hospital's second commander. The first, Hanson, had to be removed when his decisions turned out to get people killed. Removed by Dawn, who's decided to keep the place running by keeping her men happy. With servants and women. Dr. Stephen, unlike Dawn, has no illusions that anyone's coming; he can still remember the napalm attack while they were trying to evacuate. He knows the cities have been given up on.
He also knows he'd last two minutes out there. And he doesn't have to worry about Gorman harassing him for sex. As the only doctor, he gets to occasionally flout rules and a pretty nurse. Stephen makes a life out of picking his battles, occasionally yelling at Dawn, and listening to country music records when he's bored. As a sign of how much he trusts her, he instructs her to inject their newest patient, the man who was brought in earlier that Stephen has little hope for, some long-worded medicine that we don't really catch, but Beth is supposed to.
Noah is cleaning up in the patient's room as Beth is administering the drug, and almost immediately after, the patient goes into seizures and heart failure. Dawn is livid over losing him; Beth is trying to tell them what happened, when Noah up and takes the fall for her. While Dawn and an officer drag Noah away to be punished violently, Dr. Stephen shows up and recoils in horror when Beth explains what happened. He mentions the drug he wanted Beth to administer; Beth is sure it was something else. Dr. Stephen is sure it wasn't. He creeps away.
Beth has retreated to her room, after barely eating for the day, so Dawn shows up after Noah's beating is complete with a tray for Beth. Beth is furious at her treatment of Noah; Dawn says whipping substitutes keeps the wards accountable for each other. And, I might add, keeps them from forming any attachments that can be used against each other. Dawn tries to reassure Beth that Noah was wrong, that Beth could work off her debt and be free. There's some stuff about how it's all temporary until the Army comes, and the greater good and the return to the lives they had before when the Army comes. Beth eats, but it's clear she doesn't believe it.
She's right to distrust Dawn. The next morning, she's bustling around, but when she heads to her room to finally enjoy her stashed lollipop, turns out that Gorman, whose name should forever be linked to rapey creeps everywhere, found it first. Did he see her stash it there? Does he like examining women's beds? Who knows? All I know is that I'm never having a sour apple lollipop again. Gorman isn't even trying to be attractive, he's just dominating Beth with her clothes on as foreplay. Dr. Stephen has a rare moment of courage, showing up at the door and demanding that Gorman leave her alone. He and Gorman snarl at each other over whether Gorman gets to just claim female wards as property, but Gorman can't touch Stephen, as Dawn needs him. And Dawn shows up anyway, ready to get Gorman out. Why Dawn hasn't just shot Gorman in the head a long time ago, I'll never understand.
Someone please kill him right now
Whyever Gorman is still alive, doesn't matter to Beth, who is ready to escape once Noah gives her the plan; they steal a spare key to open the elevator shaft doors from Dawn's office in the hospital, they get down the shaft with tied-together sheets, they escape through the zombies on the first floor, and they haul ass away from Grady Hospital.
Beth's big job is to get the elevator key, and Noah supplies a diversion for Dawn to keep her out of her office. Beth roots around the darkened room, pausing over an old photo of Dawn with her predecessor, Hanson. Also lounging around Dawn's office is the recent suicide Joan, this time winning her freedom by opening her amputated stump and bleeding out under Dawn's desk, the perfect location to reanimate and wait to feed on Dawn.
The shots in the office as Beth finds the key emphasize the door Beth has her back to, so of course, we see Beth eventually gets caught. But not by Dawn. By Gorman the Rapey Creep, who is now done with dominating foreplay and wants Beth to finally give in since he's caught her snooping. Beth's willing to play along, and when she sees that Joan is finally reawakening, it's time to to bash Gorman in the head with a lollipop jar and leave him on the floor for Joan to immediately bite into his neck. But not before grabbing his gun. We last see Gorman as he deserves.
Totally better than filing a lawsuit
Just as icing on the cake, Beth gets one last chance to be extra helpful to Dawn, sending her to her own office, telling her Gorman wants to see her there. The look on her face as she takes what she hopes is her last look at Dawn is priceless.
Payback is a bitch named Beth
The next hurdle for Noah and Beth is getting down the elevator shaft while hearing the chaos that Joan as a zombie is making on the floor. Beth makes it as planned, holding on to the edge above the first floor, still safe from any walkers below. But Noah's descent goes badly, and he falls into the pit. He's smart enough not to scream, giving Beth time to drop down, help him up and through the pit, and ask if he can still walk. He can, but badly. He's probably sprained something. Beth puts the stolen handgun to good use, shooting zombies to get out.
The emerge into the sunlight, and freedom, with the only thing between them and getting away is a group of about fifteen zombies. Noah isn't used to dodging them. He's unarmed, and limping, and it looks like Beth will be escaping alone. Especially when she mounts a car and uses it to as a perch to bring down a few zombies with clean head shots. She jumps down from the car, to get to the gate, and Noah has figured out how to run with the pain in his leg, as he limps toward the gate held together with chains that leave just enough space for him to slip through.
My middle name is Fight My Way Out
Beth isn't so lucky. She's quickly surrounded and out of bullets. This time, she definitely needs Dawn and her officers to show up, which they do. We see Noah get through the gate and limp speedily away as Beth is handcuffed. It's right out of the twist ending of Sucker Punch, and Beth loves the irony, smiling at the thought that Noah has his long-deserved freedom.
Why Dawn doesn't kill Beth is beyond me. She's shown she's a fighter, but Dawn still has it in her head that Beth can be beaten down. She even tries to physically beat Beth down. But it's wildly unsuccessful. Dawn should have killed Gorman months ago, and should really promote Beth for removing a problem from Grady Hospital. But Dawn still thinks, despite Beth calling it bullshit, that they cavalry's coming to save them, and that the greater good must go on being more important that Beth.
Look, there will be less rape here. So stop complaining.
Beth's not done calling out her captors. She arrives in Dr. Stephen's office, bruised but defiant. St. Peter's Denial still sits beside them as Beth accuses Dr. Stephen of screwing up his instructions to her on purpose. He wanted that anonymous man to die, quickly. Stephen admits that he knew the patient, who was another doctor. Two doctors at Grady might put him in danger. No more getting away with messiness. No more grudging respect from Dawn. No more standing up to the officers. So, the extra potential doctor had to go. Stephen points out that he learned from St. Peter's Denial- do what you gotta' do. Always protect yourself.
Dr. Stephen makes another mistake by leaving a scissors where Beth can easily snatch it unseen. As she's proceeding down a corridor, ready to strike at the good doctor, she's interrupted by a new patient. Unconscious, but apparently not badly harmed, Carol is wheeled in. And Beth realizes, she's not going anywhere soon.
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