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The Walking Dead: What Did Beth Mean By ‘I Get It Now’?

By Adam Carlson

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The Walking Dead’s fifth season has delivered a lot of action, drama, and intrigue.  One of the most talked about moments in the season came at Grady Memorial Hospital, when Beth Greene confronted Officer Dawn Lerner in a tense standoff in the hospital hallway.

Emily Kinney’s character told Dawn “I get it now” and then stabbed her in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.  But just what is it that she “got”?  And why did she do what she did?

In a recent interview with IGN TV, Emily Kinney discussed what that line meant.

"Well, early in the episode, she pushes the cop down the elevator, and I think that was something she didn’t realize she was necessarily capable of doing. I think she meant, you don’t even know how terrible you can be until you’re pushed in that way. And the whole time in the hospital, Dawn is talking a lot about how we’re doing this for the greater good. We’re doing all these terrible things, and I’m letting these terrible things happen, but it’s because we’re going to be saved eventually. It’s to survive. So I think that moment is saying, “Oh, I get it now. I have to protect myself, and sometimes I have to go that extra bit, that’s maybe not morally right.” It’s kind of like telling her, “I get it now. I’m going to take you down.”"

I’ll be honest.  I didn’t really understand that line when Beth said it.  And even after reading Emily Kinney’s explanation of it, I still don’t really get it.

Attacking Officer Dawn Lerner with a pair of scissors in a non-fatal way seemed like Beth wanted to die.  She had to know that her attack would meet a strong resistance, one that would probably end up with Beth being killed or hurt in a very severe way.  Even now that I’ve watched this episode of The Walking Dead multiple times and read about it, I’m still not sure Beth really ‘got it’ at all.

My only real theory is that she bought into Dawn’s theory of “the greater good” and thought that the hospital and the world would be better without Dawn in it.  And she knew that if she attacked Dawn, that the group would take her out.  Even then, it’s a pretty weak move, in my opinion and a line that needed more context.

What did you think of the line?  What do you interpret it to mean?  And do you think Beth really ‘got it’?  Discuss it in the comments below.

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