'The Walking Dead' recap ('Coda'): season 5, episode 8

And sadly, so did Beth.

After two set-up episodes, this taut mid-season finale featured a truly shocking moment I didn't see coming. And Daryl's tears caused millions to tear up as well.

Clearly, the hostage exchange was going way too smoothly in the final moments of the show. And then it didn't.

It didn't have to happen this way but this is "The Walking Dead" and there are morality plays going on all the time.

As a leader in the post-apocalyptic world, Dawn created a working group the best way she knew how, with good cops, bad cops and everything in between. She felt she had to do what she had to do to keep control of her group - even if it meant killing the former leader when he "lost his way," whatever that means. She wasn't nearly as evil as, say, the Governor or Gareth, but she made some tough choices to survive that not everybody would necessarily agree with.

Why so sad for Beth?

She earned our trust as viewers because she matured into someone who thought for herself and made the tough decisions to survive - until she didn't.

For much of the series, the writers didn't prioritize Beth.

When we meet her at the Greene family compound, we see her as Maggie's frightened, low-key little sister who almost kills herself after she sees her mom as a walker.

In the prison season three, she becomes more pragmatic and says death no longer causes her to cry, even after losing a boyfriend Zach to the supermarket walkers. She did tend to take a back seat to more of the action-oriented characters and would occasionally sing to prove that they are still human. She babysat Judith a lot. But ultimately, for much of seasons three and four, she was not a major player on the show.

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

Then last season, when the group splintered after the Governor destroyed the prison, the writers wisely (and riskily) gave us episodes where secondary characters were fleshed out - including Beth. She spent an episode ("Alone") hanging with Daryl at a funeral home where they ate pig's feet, diet soda and peanut butter and processing the death of her father Herschel much better than that of her mom season two. This is a key episode where we finally get to really know her strength of character and like her in a more tangible way. (Although she is way too young for Daryl, there was even some fan demand for the two to hook up but Daryl seemed to see her in a more sibling-like fashion.)

Then she gets kidnapped, leading to much of the plot line season five so far.

We don't see Beth again until episode 5, when we discover she is alive and well in Grady Hospital. She tries to escape and fails but proves to be a quick study and even kills a rapist cop, earning the respect of leader Dawn.

Despite it all, the actress Emily Kinney gave Beth a particular sweetness and deceptive innocence, even as she was killing walkers and a cop or two. (Wiki has a thorough history of Beth's journey here.)

Let's go back to earlier in the episode and run up to the point where Maggie in on the ground sobbing.

We see Lamson running away after knocking Sasha into the window last episode, a terrible plan (if you even call it that) because Rick is soon on his tail in a police car. Rick tells him to stop running. He doesn't. Rick slams into him with said vehicle.

Rick then proves how rough with anyone who betrays him.

Rick: "It didn't have to be like this. You just had to stop."

Bob: "I couldn't. I don't know you. But I think I'm getting the idea."

Rick: "You just had to stop."

Bob: "Take me back to the hospital. I did it for your friend."

Rick: "You can't go back, Bob."

Bob: "I was going to iron it over. She's under it. And you been out here too long."

With walkers coming up, Rick decides to just shoot him. His final words to Bob:  "Shut up!"

Meanwhile, Gabriel goes to the school near his church to see for himself that Gareth and Co. had been truly cannibals. After glancing at a bible, he sees Bob's leg on a grill. He screams in agony and gets a bunch of walkers in the school so excited, they break the glass and go after him.

With his injured foot, he limps back to the church, which Michonne and Carl had been boarded up for security purposes and he had escaped through the floor board last week. With walkers galore about to attack him, Michonne opens the front door and after killing a few, realizes there are too many even for her. So they retreat into the rectory, where they escape via the same hole Gabriel had created to escape in the first place.

They close the church front door best as they can, just as Abraham arrives in a fire truck with Rosita, Tara, Glenn, Maggie and Eugene. They then venture to Grady now that Maggie knows her sister is alive and Carol is okay.

The two surviving cops in the meantime agree to create a cover story about Lamson's death, saying he was simply overcome by walkers.

Back at the hospital, we see cop O'Donnell abusing an elderly ward. Dawn also informs Beth that she knows Beth killed creepy lollipop rapist cop Gorman episode 5 and gives her credit for doing so. She wants to keep that secret from the "bad' cops because she likes Beth and realizes she is not a weakling. "I protected you," she said. O'Donnell overhears this and believes Dawn is losing control, like her predecessor leader Hanson. (Dawn had to kill him because he was "losing his way," whatever that meant.)

She says she could kill O'Donnell, too. She sees how badly he treats the wards and laughs about rape. He says she is hardly a saint either. They start fighting and it gets pretty nasty. Beth tries to get involved and O'Donnell says, "Stay in your lane bitch!" This enraged Dawn, who gets him in the throat. He is right by the elevator shaft and Beth pushes him down to his certain death.

"Thank you," Dawn says.

Later, she tries to comfort Beth. "It's okay to cry."

"I don't cry anymore," Beth saiys.

Dawn: "I just don't let them see it."

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

Beth still wants to leave. She says Dawn is just using her to do her dirty work. "Everyone uses people to get what they want," Beth says bitterly.

She wants out - like Noah. Dawn says he'll be back, that she and Carol could join them. "I didn't use you and I will remember," Dawn says kindly.

Rick then sets up the hostage exchange. It seems all is well as each side exchanges two people. Then Dawn changes the terms after the fact when she asks for Noah, too. Her on-the-fly justification: she is losing Beth. She needs a good ward like Noah - although Noah wanted out so bad he had already escaped. Dawn changed the negotiations.

Noah volunteers to go just to make things easier for everyone. Beth hugs him. "I knew you'd be back," Dawn says, delusionally thinking he wanted to be back.

Beth hugs Noah goodbye then stares down Dawn. "I get it now," she says, before grabbing scissors she had hidden in her wrist cast and stabbing Dawn harmlessly in the shoulder blade causing Dawn to pull the trigger and kill Beth. "I didn't mean it," she says to Daryl, who quickly goes up and shoots her dead.

It looks like it could be a gunfight at the OK Corral but Shepherd, one of Dawn's cops, tells everyone to stand down. They do. Rick asks if anyone in the ward wants to join them.

After the way Daryl shot Dawn, he has no apparent takers - except Noah, of course.

Daryl, heartbroken, carries the now dead Beth outside just in time to greet the fire truck filled with everyone. The entire group is back together in time to say goodbye to Beth.

And now we have to wait about 10 weeks for the next half of the season.

Quote of the day:  "In this job, you don't need their love but you have to have their respect. Otherwise a day's gonna come when you need backup, and you don't have it. And what comes next? Everybody goes down."" - Dawn

From "Talking Dead": "This is a show where characters have to die to keep this world real," creator Robert Kirkman said.

In memorium: The many church walkers, the insider outside walker, the sniper bait walker, Gabriel's miracle walker, Bob's leg, Officer Lamson, Officer O'Donnell, Dawn, Beth. Sniff.