The Walking Dead, Season 5, Episode 4 Review: Who Died in ‘Slabtown’?

The Walking Dead routinely throws twists the way of the audience but this week focused more on character development as Beth finally came into her own. 

When we saw Beth last season, she was growing but she wasn’t really coming into her own. That all changed on this most recent episode of The Walking Dead as she came into her own and has finally arrived as a character of force in the series.

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After the events in ‘Slabtown’, there is no more doubting that Beth’s strength as a character as she grew exponentially since we last saw her and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Beth has officially gone from a girl who maybe could have held people back to a Carol in the making as she matured tenfold in this latest episode.

The episode focused on a hospital in Atlanta that was more hostile than it was anything else, as it didn’t seem like a place where there was a whole lot of democracy going on.

The first indication of that was when Beth was slapped for no apparent reason, and then watched as a new character named Amber arrived after trying to escape and then had her arm cut off.

That was a brutal wake up call that where this place is, no one is safe. Beth befriends a fellow kid named Noah who similarly wants to escape from this hospital. They band together to try and escape, with Noah getting away but Beth getting captured. This all happened after Beth befriended a doctor named Dr. Edwards who seemed to be level headed but was just as brutal as everyone else — he just hid it better. He tricks Beth into killing a patient who is brought in for reasons he later reveals to be sinister and selfish.

The most intense scene of the episode came when Beth had to defend herself against Officer Gorman who attempted to go Deliverance on her like he apparently has on so many other — including Amber. He ends up getting eaten before he can abuse Beth, which is something Beth pays for when she is captured and returned.

Dr. Edwards reveals that he tricked Beth into killing the patient earlier in the episode because he was a doctor who would render him useless at the hospital. Just before Beth can kill him and make him pay for his sins, she sees an unconscious Carol get rolled in, which changes everything.

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