6. They're Finding Stuff For Beth And Carol To Do
As we trundle through the seasons, something strange happens to the Walking Dead. Namely, the show appears to be getting more efficient. In the heady days of season one we had an absolute cavalcade of characters that we really couldn't pretend to care much about, but the show knew this so threw as many to gruesome death as humanly possible. Season two now acknowledged as the low-point of the series got the balance of drama to slaughter slightly wrong. It presented us with another bevy of vaguely anonymous characters (who remembers Randall, or Hershel's other daughter?) but when they killed them off, expected us to care. Yet come season three, they appeared to get the balance of scope and intimacy exactly right we now know the characters and their foibles, so any death now will be affecting regardless of who it is. And really, this sharpening of the dramatic gaze is a good thing. In the culls of season one or two, whether on purpose or not we didn't really care about the vast majority of the characters. Really, only the Grimes clan, Shane, Dale, Daryl, Andrea, Glenn, Maggie and Hershel were the people who seemed to do stuff, and thus seemed to matter. Everyone else just seemed like a dramatic device when the slaughter came round, including the altogether helpless Beth and Carol. Yet come season three, these dramatic appendixes were finally given a use. Oh sure, they're still not as important as the other characters and 'looking after the baby' isn't the most exciting duty in the world (although Carol equipping a room of children with machetes is disturbingly cool) but it's more than T-Dog ever got, so could yet provide us with good dramatic mileage. But more importantly, this means they're out on the dramatic forefront especially Carol, who appears to be something of a foreman in the community, judging by the trailer. It would be weird to expect them to fall back in season four, so I'm hopeful that Beth and Carol will become more well-rounded as the series continues. This will also serve a good dramatic point when they find themselves in danger this time (which doubtlessly, they will), we'll actually care for them beyond the plot macguffins they once were, and more audience investment is always a good thing, in my book.