I get the feeling that reception of this episode is going to have a lot to do with one’s level of investment.  There was little chance that everyone on Team Grimes was going to come out of this episode unscathed; the question was which of the characters that seemed to be getting the requisite foreshadowing of doom would get the fatal blow.  Those who didn’t see the end coming were blown away (no pun intended); those who saw it coming just wanted the writers to get on with it and move to something more interesting.

                

The writers seemed intent on driving home the message to Rick, and the whole team, that outsiders cannot be trusted and they can only rely on each other.  Meanwhile, the loss of the church takes away a potential “home”, thus leaving them without direction and without a safe haven.  It all points to The Community, the much-anticipated next phase of the story in the source material.  But even without knowing that, there is a feeling that the season has been dragging its feet, trying to insert a character arc for a departing friend during a period when stretching things out is more obvious than ever.

 

Everyone is back together (sans Beth, of course), but the larger question remains: now what?  And therein lies the problem.  The writers never invested us in the characters at the hospital, so Beth’s endless struggle with them wasn’t nearly as interesting as one might have hoped.  In the end, it was all designed, and a bit too obviously, to set up her death.  The only real question was whether or not the writers would double down on the hopelessness by having Carol also die while trying to save Beth.  That didn’t happen, and so this is just gut-punching Team Grimes to pound home the message that they are at the end of their collective rope.

 

Rick represents one side of the argument: in his mind, isolation from others is the way to protect each other.  Outsiders cannot be trusted.  Ironically, and as intended, Rick is becoming more and more despotic, recalling the third season narrative that compared his leadership style to The Governor’s.  Meanwhile, there will be others (Michonne, Maggie, perhaps Daryl) that might welcome the notion of settling down somewhere.  The prison gave them a taste of normalcy, and while it was never going to last thanks to Woodbury, it did teach them some lessons about how to make it work.  The question is: could Rick let go of the need to control?  Could he conform to a society’s expectations?

 

This is the one facet of the future that Beth’s side-story actually begins to address.  Ostensibly, Beth was the one member of Team Grimes most likely to assimilate into another group and find a way to make it work.  Her constant struggle against Dawn’s poor choices and the inequities of the hospital’s culture suggests that the rest of the team would have as much trouble, if not more.  So in essence, it makes the case that Team Grimes would need to find a society where they have a measure of influence and control.  Taking choice out of Beth’s hands was the root of the disaster, and arguably, insisting on taking choice out of Noah’s hands led to the bloody end of the standoff.

 

What’s working against them is that any society that is viable this long after the zombie apocalypse is likely to already have a pecking order and a form of leadership and government.  Unless they find a ready-made but empty enclave to take over, giving Rick instant control, it’s going to be a major struggle, for all the reasons given.  In that respect, as unusually drawn out as it was, this half-season makes it very clear what the stakes are going to be in the second half of the season.