The Walking Dead, S 5, Ep. 4: Slabtown

SPOILERS GALORE! BE FOREWARNED! ABANDON HOPE OF NON-SPOILAGE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE!

Have I made my point? Turn away, if you don’t want to know stuff.And I've just completed two large projects and am currently away from my TV, so I can't do my totally ratchet yet fun TV still photos. All images are stills culled from the vast resources of the interwebs.Finally! Beth. Is alive. And in a hospital in Atlanta, far, farrrr away from the friends and family and life she'd gotten to know. And, boy, is she ever not having a good time.The hospital is run by this woman, Dawn, a former police officer who assumed control after Hansen, her commanding officer, kind of lost it (so she claims) and had to be taken care of. Riiiiiiiiight. Convenient, that he "lost it" and created a power vacuum, one that Dawn (I am sure begrudgingly, with downcast eyes and somber appearance) was able to fill. Because......OK, look. Imma cut to the chase here. Dawn? Is the postapocalyptic, small-scale, ruling-only-one-building-instead-of-an-entire-country-sized version of a military dictator, like Josef Stalin, only without the resources of an entire country behind her.(Hey, I was a Russian major. Stalin was the first dictator that came to mind.)Here's the deal:Dawn is not afraid to use violence to manipulate others. Example: When she slaps Beth across the face the first time, they're in a hospital room examining a patient on a gurney. Dawn tells the doctor to save said patient at all costs. Doctor says that he's not sure if he can, the man's injuries are severe. Dawn slaps Beth across the face, then turns to the doctor and says, "Try to grasp the stakes here." She's on a smaller scale so she's not quite "I will shoot Beth and charge Maggie for the cost of the bullet", but she's totally willing to make Beth the doctor's whipping girl. Emotionally, sending a bullet bill isn't that much more of a leap.Dawn gives her officers carte blanche to do practically whatever they want, particularly with young women, in order to keep them "happy". No, I'm not reading too much into anything. Dawn says to Beth, "The wards are nothing, they're here to keep my officers happy." Which begs the question: when Beth was "saved" on the side of the road (her take: I was fighting a walker, and then everything went black), was she "saved" with the intention of saving her, or was she "saved" with the intention of turning her into a sex slave? Ew.And, Dawn has some glossy-eyed ideal of what makes up the concept of "the greater good". Even worse, she is a self-appointed protector of said good, which creates zealotry and all sorts of justifications, as that thinking lends itself to the ends justifying the means. And the means can be anything from sex abuse to murder. So be it, right? Ick.At the end of the show, Carol got wheeled in, seemingly unconscious, on a gurney. Her surprise appearance prevented Beth from stabbing the doctor (who, really, has it coming...some day...soooommmme...daaaaaay....) and surely getting herself killed in turn, which is a good thing. BUT. It also makes her vulnerable, because suddenly there's someone on the inside that Beth cares about. Noah, the orderly she'd befriended, was on the successful end of their escape attempt, and Beth smiles as he runs through the fence despite her own position on the ground, handcuffed, about to be returned to the hateful Dawn and douchey doctor.Why does Beth smile? Sure, Noah gets out and that's nice and all. But mainly, she smiles because she is free. Noah can't be used against her, Joan (another ward, who dies in the course of the show) can't be used against her. Any actions Beth chooses to engage in (like getting stabby on a doctor) can't be taken out on anyone else, and in a dictatorial system that's strangely liberating. When Carol gets rolled in? That upsets Beth's emotional freedom. It would be nice to think they're going to take on Dawn & Co a la "Sisters are doing it for themselves" and bust a move all Thelma and Louise style. Instead. They are now each other's emotional hostages.So, who does Daryl have with him, that he tells to come out of the woods? My bet is, it's Beth's friend Noah. And what's going to happen? Rick Nation is going to invade Atlanta and take back their ladies, and it's going to be an unholy bloodbath. And that's all the time I have this week because I have to get to a hockey game. Yay!See you all next week, when I have more time...! :) Here's a little Eurythmics featuring Aretha Franklin to play you out.[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4]