The Walking Dead: Wheres Beth And Whats The Deal With Her And Daryl?
This article is more than 2 years old
When season 4 of AMC’s hit zombie drama The Walking Dead wrapped up, the core group was still split up, but you at least know where they are and what they’re up to, in a general sense anyway. There’s one glaring exception, however, Beth (Emily Kinney). You have no idea where she is, who she’s with, or if she’s even alive to be honest, but now we’re getting a better idea.
There may be some SPOILERS for season 4 of The Walking Dead past this point, so, unless you don’t care about such things, you might want to sit this one out. But if not, or if you’re caught up, by all means, read on.
We got our first indication that Beth is in fact alive in this season 5 trailer that The Walking Dead dropped at San-Diego Comic-Con back in July, and wherever it is, it does not look like a terribly pleasant place to be. Showrunner Scott Gimple recently talked to EW about many things, and Beth was one of them. He confirmed that she is still among the living, and says:
I’m just gonna shift into viewer mode. If she’s there voluntarily, it does not look like it’s fun. It doesn’t look like she’s having a good time. But in this world, we’re doing alright. People in that world don’t have a lot of choice. So it could be voluntary, but really, what is voluntary when the choice you have could be just going out in the world by yourself?
So he hints that, wherever Beth is, she could be there voluntarily. If you ask us, however, that’s probably not the case. At the end of the episode “Alone,” she gets separated from Daryl (Norman Reedus), her travelling companion at the time, and when he finally gets back to her, she is in the back of a sinister looking limousine with a cross on the back driving away. Maybe she thought he was dead and that she had no other choice, but given what we know about Beth, as a character and the connection she had formed with Daryl over the previous episodes, if she had a choice in the matter, she would have waited and tried to save him too.
Then again, there are all sorts of things that could have happened. She could easily have fallen and knocked herself unconscious running from walkers, and then these people found her. We won’t really know until season 5 kicks off in a couple of weeks, but there are a ton of possibilities on that front.
Over the offseason, much has been made about Daryl’s sexuality on the show, especially regarding the nature of his relationships with Beth and Carol (Melissa McBride). EW also caught up with Kinney and asked about the precise nature of Beth and Daryl’s situation. She says:
I would say last season what you saw, there’s definitely a connection, and a connection that’s growing. And they care about each other a lot, and so there’s definitely something really special there.
For his part, Reedus has said:
Beth was kind of like this long dark tunnel. She was kind of like this little flame at the end of it. He got closer and closer to that flame and thought maybe he could see something and maybe there would be light and it’s getting warmer and warmer… and then someone blew it out.
It basically sounds like, though the two are close and have a definite connection, their feelings are more platonic than anything else. Daryl may look like a creepy dude on the surface, but as we know, he’s the most solid one in the group of survivors, and though most social conventions and mores have gone out the window in the wake of the zombie apocalypse, Beth may still be a wee bit way too young for the younger Dixon brother.
We’ll presumably find out more about Beth’s fate when The Walking Dead returns on Sunday, October 12.
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