Then, Dr. Edwards takes Beth on a tour of the hospital and explains to her that they pull the plug on a patient if they do not show signs of improvement after a few days, to save valuable resources. She starts repaying her ‘debt’ to the group that saved her by working as a nurse, pretty much like a prison but without guarantee of a parole. Later on she helps take care of the dead and learns that the dead are pushed down an elevator shaft because they never go out, only when they need to. Beth even hears the sound of some of the walkers in the basement (they call them rotters, by the way) At the hospital canteen, where Beth went down to get food for the doctor, she meets the cop (Gorman) who apparently saved her. Beth just remembered that she was fighting a walker at the time then everything went black. (I think, maybe the creepy cop hit her on the head as he seemed a bit slimy to me) Before she left, Gorman said that it’s courtesy to show some appreciation (for saving her, I guess) since everything cost something, right? (I just wonder why all these people think that Beth owes them anything for saving her at all!)
Beth sees another orderly who she learns is Noah, the janitor-slash-errand boy of Officer Dawn. Beth brings the doc his food and while listening to a record he tells her that he feels bored. Beth countered that if he feels safe enough to be bored then he is lucky. He is also lucky enough to get to eat guinea pigs for lunch. When asked if Beth had eaten, she says that she would rather not eat as the more she gets the more she owes (and she doesn’t want that if she intends to leave). He lets Beth taste the guinea pig and she takes just one bite. Then, a new guy is wheeled in, someone who fell from a building and Dawn wants the doc to save him. But the doc says they are just wasting resources and when the patient seemed impossible to save due to his internal bleeding, she slaps Beth (but why?) Beth later on finds out that she had always been hot-tempered and takes it out on others (herself now included). The doc also advised her to change her clothes/scrubs as Dawn wants things to be always clean and neat. As she was dressing, she finds a green lollipop tucked in her blouse, apparently from the friendly orderly Noah.
Then, she sees another ‘nurse/orderly’ (named Joan) wheeled in and her arm amputated because she was bitten while trying to escape. Joan admits to Beth in not so many words that she was being sexually abused by Dawn’s police officers (in particular Gorman, the sleazeball eyeing Beth). Afterwards, Beth talked to Noah and she asked him why Joan tried to escape when she could work off her debt and just leave afterwards. But Noah says, it doesn’t really work that way. He realizes that Dawn could have saved his Father but since he was bigger and could fight back, she did not and instead opted to save skinny weak Noah...or so she thought since Noah is confident that he could escape this place and go back to his mother in Richmond, Virginia. Dawn later talks to Beth and explains that she does what she does (turn a blind eye to everything else) to keep her officers happy, since if they are happy, they work harder to keep everyone safe. She gives them food, clothes, security, shelter...but nothing is for free. Everyone has to make sacrifices for it will all be worth it when they are rescued. But Beth believes otherwise, that no one is ever coming to rescue them.
Next scene shows Beth searching for her lollipop and she soon finds it out it had been stolen by Gorman who starts eating it then forces it into her mouth (ewwww!) Then the doc comes in and tells Gorman to leave Beth alone. Gorman insists that Beth should have been his...and the doc countered that nobody is Gorman’s, not even Joan. The doc even threatened him in case he gets sick and Gorman said he’ll get treated by somebody else – not just you. Dawn called him just then and he left but without leaving a sleazy wink for Beth...creepy guy really. Beth asked the Doc why he stays and the doc explains his stand by showing him the walkers/rotters in the basement and tells her a story about how they started in the hospital, how a guy named Hanson used to run things then he made bad calls and Dawn was in charge. They learned to make compromises and he reasons that even though things are bad with Dawn, it is much better than being outside (at the mercy of the walkers/rotters) but Beth refused to believe so and asks if he calls this living...
Then, the doc asked Beth to administer some meds to another guy (clozapine) before she calls it a day but inside the room with Noah, the guy suddenly had seizures and dies. Noah takes the blame for it saying he must have unplugged the ventilator and subsequently got beaten up by Dawn. Beth explains to the Doc that she did as he asked and learned that the doc said clozepam not clozapine. Later on as Beth was cleaning Trevitt’s room, Dawn came in and told her she knew Noah was lying to cover up for her. But Dawn still had to beat Noah because he choose to sacrifice himself for her...and Dawn thinks such sacrifice is not a worthy cause at all. She thinks Beth is nothing but part of the system inside the hospital and outside she would either be dead or somebody’s burden.
After the beating, Beth and Noah decide to escape thru the elevator shaft but first Beth has to find the key to the elevators inside Dawn’s office. While Noah kept an eye for Dawn, Beth snuck into her office to find the key but in the process she also found Joan who apparently committed suicide (by opening up her amputated wound and bleeding to death). Then, she also found Trevitt’s ID and learned why the Doc deliberately gave her the wrong meds. But before she can hastily escape from Dawn’s room, Gorman steps in and catches her. He proceeds to sexually assault her and Beth bides just enough time to make Joan turn then bashes Gorman in the head and when he fell Joan did her thing and rip up his throat. Beth then casually walks outside and tells Dawn that Joan was looking for her and she saw Gorman and Joan head to her office. Noah and Beth then make their escape and go down the elevator shaft using blankets as a rope. As Noah was coming down, he almost got close to a walker and ended up falling down the elevator shaft and into the dead bodies, injuring his foot in the process.
The walkers get riled by the noise they were making and so Beth pulls out the gun she got from Gorman and started shooting. They make it out to the parking lot and start to run, in the background we see many black cars with crosses as more walkers come out and Beth starts shooting them all in the head (I guess her shooting skills improved due to Daryl’s tutelage). Noah limps behind her but Beth gets swarmed not just by walkers but by Dawn’s cops and as she is cuffed, Noah gets through the fence and she smiles meaning she is in a way glad that he escaped. Beth gets dragged back into the hospital and gets chastised by Dawn. Beth says Gorman got what he deserved since he attacks the girls they take in and she just lets him. She shouts to her that no one is coming to save them and that everything they do is for nothing! Dawn slaps Beth again and as the Doc was stitching her up Beth confronted the doc with the knowledge that he deliberately let her use the wrong meds to ‘accidentally’ kill Trevitt since he is a doctor too and he wants to continue being indispensable to Dawn...he had no choice, or so he says (so much for being a kind doc huh...I guess he too has his own agendas to protect). Beth takes a pair of scissors and was about to kill the doctor when a new patient was wheeled in and she sees that it is Carol.
The episode ends here and it just brought in more questions than it answered. For one thing, the hanging question in last week’s episode remains – who was with Daryl in the woods. At least we know for sure that it may not have been Beth or Carol since they are still both in the hospital...maybe Daryl and Carol made it to Grady hospital and Carol was ‘rescued’ (like the way they rescued Beth) then Daryl somehow met up with Noah who was limping out so I guess it must be Noah that he took back to the church to be treated. Or maybe Morgan? Arrrgh! I don’t think these questions may be answered soon since the next episode’s preview showed the story of Sgt. Abraham Ford and Glenn as they move towards Washington...I think they are getting back to the storyline of Season 4 where each episode shows the story of the different characters. I just hope the gang gets reunited soon as the story is just much more exciting when they are all on the road battling walkers together. In fact, this episode is not at all as exciting as the last three ones that started Season 5...oh well, at least we got to know what happened to Beth. And at least now we know she has Carol with her so she would have a better chance at breaking out of this hospital/prison with her help...go crush them CAROL!
P.S. I just wonder though what the term ‘Slabtown’ in the title refers to...also, I don’t think this episode is taken at all from the comic book as I don’t recall any character getting trapped/imprisoned inside a hospital filled with freaks...
(photo grabbed from the AMC)
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