1. Goodbye, Beth
Just when it looked like all was going to end well and everyone was getting their people back unharmed, Dawn had to go and puff her chest out and try to win back some respect from her officers by demanding Rick turn Noah back over to her. Rick wasn't having any of that sh*t and told her as much, and it was only Noah's willingness to return that kept that hospital from turning into a shooting gallery awash in a river of blood. Beth had been emboldened by her recent experiences and she wanted Dawn to pay for her acts, so she went for the scissors she had stashed away in her sleeve. When she goes to plunge them in Dawn, the cop fires and blows a hole in Beth's skull. It was a horrifically violent end for someone so innocent and fragile, and a vicious reminder of the world they inhabit. Daryl, fueled by rage and grief, immediately puts a round in Dawn's forehead and it looks like war is about to erupt. Thankfully cooler heads prevail and no one else is killed, although the preferable end would have been for Rick's group to lay waste to every non-patient in that hospital of horrors. The rest of the gang arrive just in time to see Daryl carrying Beth out of Grady, her sister Maggie collapsing in palpable despair, providing an extremely emotional ending to what's been a good-to-great first half of Season 5.
What did you think of the first half of Season 5? And where do you rank it with other seasons? Let us know in the comments below.