Episode 504: Slabtown – Recap and Discussion

WHERE IS BETH?! We find out tonight on TWD! Keep reading for the full details! If you were hoping for an answer as to who’s in the woods with Daryl, well…

The show opens immediately on Beth, so that answers that question. Episode 4. Episode 4 is when we find out what happened to Beth. She is waking up in a hospital bend. Arm in a cast, sutures on her cheek. Clock ticking (seriously I have no idea how people sleep in rooms with clocks).

After banging on the locked door, a doctor and a cop enter the room. Meet Dr. Stephen Edwards and Officer Dawn Lerner. They tell Beth that she is in Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and she was found on the road, wrist broken surrounded by walkers (“Rotters” as they call them). She was alone. In a very ominous tone Dawn tells Beth, “you owe us.” Intro music plays and we’re off to the credits.

Beth accompanies Stephen as he makes his rounds. His first stop is a man they found under a bridge. The doc unceremoniously pulls the plug and stabs his brain. Resources are scarce, if a patient doesn’t improve almost immediately they have to cut them off. They take the body for disposal. “Come on, the body’s getting cold,” Dawn says. They take the bodies and drop them down an elevator shaft to the basement. If the body is still warm the walkers take care of most of it.

When Beth gets food she runs into one of the men who “saved” her (Gorman). She doesn’t remember him but he’s kind of a creep. He reminds her that “everything” costs something as she gets her food and suggests that she be a bit friendlier.

On her way to the Dr. Edwards’ office, Beth passes Dawn’s office and hears Dawn lecture Noah (played by Tyler James Williams) about how to do her laundry.

When Dr. Edwards complains about being bored, Beth reminds him: “If you’re safe enough to be bored, you’re lucky.” Then they share some guinea pig.

Beth admires the painting in his office. It’s a Caravaggio that he found on the street. Specifically it’s “The Denial of Saint Peter,” painted around 1610. Currently it’s at The Met in NYC, but maybe it was on loan in Atlanta when all this went down.

A new patient is whisked in, Gavin Trevitt, who fell from a second floor window. The officer who brings him in whispers something to Dawn, who suddenly becomes much more involved. Dr. Edwards says that it’s a losing battle but Dawn insists that he try anyway. Things aren’t looking good. The doc shows Dawn his bruised stomach: too much internal bleeding. When the doc delivers the bad news Dawn turns and slaps Beth, re-opening her sutured cheek. “Try and grasp the stakes here.” Sooo, she’s a little crazy.

Dr. Edwards re-stitches Beth’s cheek and leaves so she can put on a fresh shirt that Noah left for her. She finds a lollipop in the pocket and smiles.

Beth walks down the hall and happens on another emergency victim: Joan, one of the “wards,” who’s been bitten. They need to amputate her arm but she’s refusing treatment. She was trying to leave the hospital. They make Beth help hold her down while they saw her arm off. It’s horrifying.

Beth goes to the laundry room with her bloody clothes and meets Noah, who left her the lollipop. Beth wonders why Joan would try to escape. Couldn’t she just work off her debt and leave? Noah informs her that they tend to save people that are weak and can’t fight (maybe they DID see Daryl and just left him behind). They save them and force them to stay until they’ve worked off their debt. Noah’s from a walled community in Richmond, Virginia. He and his father were rescued but they let his dad died and saved Noah, because his father would have been a threat. Noah says he’s sneaking out and heading back when he gets the chance.

Dawn brings Beth some food and Beth tells her she’s not staying any longer than they make her. Dawn tries to sell her on staying at the hospital. She thinks that the world will return to normal and it’s important to keep safety and order. Beth maintains that she wants to leave. She does eat though.

As she mops up blood in newly-amputated Joan’s room, Joan wakes up. She tells Beth that Dawn could control her men but she doesn’t because it’s easier. She won’t tell Beth what they did to her though. “It doesn’t matter. I guess it’s easier to make a deal with the devil when you’re not the one paying the price.”

Back in her room, Beth looks for her lollipop under the mattress. Officer Creepy, I mean Gorman, walks in sucking on it. “Lose something?” He offers Beth a taste and pushes it in her mouth. As he creeps out, Dr. Edwards comes in and breaks it up. “Girl should’ve been mine,” Gorman says. Dr. Edwards challenges him over his “ownership” of Joan, telling him that no one is anyone’s property. Dawn comes by and Gorman threatens the doctor saying Dawn won’t always be in charge. When they all leave, Beth asks the doctor why he stays. In response he takes her to the ground floor.

He bangs on the metal shutters with a pipe. Walkers immediately attack. Atlanta is a bad place to be.

Then they head up to the roof. Edwards tells her how it all started, with Atlanta destroyed, they started to trade care for service. The man in charge, Hanson, started to crack and got people killed. Dawn “took care of him” and kept them safe. “As bad as it gets, it’s still better than down there.” Recurring theme: power corrupts.

Dr. Edwards tells Beth to check on Mr. Trevitt and instructs her to give him 75mg of Clozapine. Beth goes down and injects it. Noah stops by just as Trevitt starts to seize and flatlines. When Dawn demands to know what happened, Noah takes the blame, saying he accidentally unplugged the ventilator. Dawn tells an officer to take Noah to her office. When Beth tries to explain what happened to Dr. Edwards he says, “You gave him Clonazepam, right?” He most definitely did not, but Beth is confused. Just then you hear Noah being beaten in the other room.

Later, Dawn comes to Beth’s room. She knows that Noah didn’t unplug the ventilator. She says she had to beat Noah to keep up appearances. She proceeds to tell Beth that Beth isn’t the greater good and hence isn’t keeping her worth. “The wards keep my officers happy. The happier my officers are are the harder they work to keep us going.” It’s basically a warning to fall in line or she’s done there.

Beth goes to see Noah, who says he’s fine (black eye, cut on his eye brow). He tells her that he knows that Trevitt was important to Dawn for some reason. Beth says she’ll leave with him. He tells Beth that he’ll distract Dawn while she makes a play for her spare elevator key.

When they get their chance, Beth goes through Dawn’s drawers. She finds a wallet and we see her looking at an ID with St. Ignatius Hospital on the back (we learn later that this belonged to Trevitt). Then she looks over and finds the body of Joan on the floor. It looks like she killed herself by opening up the sutures on her amputation and bleeding out.

Ignoring the body, she finds the spare key in a drawer just as Gorman walks in. He offers to keep quiet if Beth will “be friendly.” Beth looks over and sees Joan reanimating. She agrees to go along with Gorman to buy some time, then smashes a jar on his head, knocking him to the ground where he’s bitten in the jugular by Joan. Beth grabs his gun and runs

When she sees Dawn in the hallway, she says tells her that Joan was looking for her and that she saw her and Gorman heading toward her office. Noah and Beth make a break for the elevator shaft while screams echo from Dawn’s office.

Noah lowers Beth down the shaft on a makeshift rope. As he climbs down the rope after her, a walker reaches through some partially open elevator doors. He falls into the pile of bodies at the bottom of the shaft. Beth jumps down after him.

Noah’s leg is messed up, but he can limp. They fight their way out of the basement into the parking lot. Tons more walkers on the other side of the fence in a temporary medical area. They climb through and Beth fights walkers while Noah somehow outpaces her and squeezes through a gate on the other side. Beth, having been slowed down by walkers, is tackled by an officer. As she’s wrestled to the ground she sees Noah escaping and smiles.

Dawn dresses down Beth in her office, where, it’s worth noting, there’s a third body on the floor next to Gorman (who’s had his stomach partially eaten out). Beth pleads self defense. She accuses Dawn of letting these things happen. Dawn says she has to. “NO ONE’S COMIN’ DAWN. We’re all gonna die and you let this happen for NOTHIN’.” Dawn looks like she’s thinking about, then looks at the floor and sees a shattered picture of her and I’m assuming Hanson. Then she knocks Beth out.

Cut to Dr. Edwards examining Beth’s new forehead sutures. As he leaves the room Beth confronts him: “How’d you know Trevitt was a doctor? That’s why you had me give him the wrong meds, right? Why you had me kill him? ‘Cuz if he had lived there’d be another doctor and Dawn wouldn’t need you.” Edwards doesn’t fight the charge. He says they would have kicked him out or had him killed. He looks at the Caravaggio. “When they arrested Christ, Peter denied being one of his disciples. He didn’t have a choice, they would have crucified him too.”

He leaves the room. Beth picks up a pair of scissors and follows him. She stalks him down the hallway aaaaaand…

Carol is brought in on a stretcher. EPISODE ENDS!

UUUUUGH the cliffhangers! Where’s Daryl?! Is Noah going to come back and save them?! What the hell is wrong with Carol?! Is Dawn nuts or sane enough for a change of heart?!

And we need a name for these loony cops at the hospital. I’m thinking… The Grady Bunch. Who’s with me?!

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