This love letter is addressed to the character of Beth in The Walking Dead. A profound character, with an arc defined by pain and suffering that are difficult to overcome, ending in a way that is unclear, confusing, and illogical—a conclusion that could perhaps be better defined as a beginning.
To start, we go back to the beginning, when Beth was still innocent and tender, believing in her father’s theory that they could find a cure and save her mother. Nothing is real; everything stems from "What if?" Beth only survives by thinking of a future that cannot be. That is why the death of the walker that was once her mother is a key moment for the start of her development. Her illusions and hope abandon her, and she believes it is best to leave a world that has no future. This is why she asks Lori if she knew what she was doing by moving forward with her pregnancy.
For Beth, everything was over; she wanted to take her own life so she could be the one to choose how, where, and why she died. However, standing at death’s very door, she regrets it and realizes her life could not end there, nor like that. Childhood had left her, and she now had to be a woman to move forward. Leaving her home and the death of those she loved were signs that she was abandoning the "old Beth"—the only version of herself she had known until then.
The prison represents a new hope where everyone survives for a time and where she even finds love again. However, her mentality has changed; for her, the destination is no longer what matters, but having been present in the life of the other. That is why she doesn't shed a tear for Zach, but finds solace in an embrace with Daryl. That place begins to feel like a home. Due to Lori’s death, she must close herself off again because of the suffering, but the new life—Judith—needs her in the face of an absent father. It is here she remembers aloud that she once thought about having children, in the past tense. Now, however, she has a child in her care, but everything is ruined when she loses her father and the prison falls, leaving her once again without a safe haven.
Instead, she flees with Daryl, beginning an entirely new story. In the absence of Rick and the death of Lori, the two of them had been the closest thing to parents for little Judith. Because of this, Beth comes to know the kindest, sweetest, and most tender side of Daryl—a side he only hides when people get too close. But being alone, surviving, does not help him hide his feelings. When Beth insists on having a drink of alcohol, it represents that she is no longer a child, that her father will no longer look after her, and that only she can choose for herself and protect herself. Daryl helps her, though he isn't convinced, and through the alcohol, both characters get to know each other by saying the deepest and most hurtful things they thought about one another, or themselves.
Their prejudices and different upbringings do not separate them; they bring them closer. Together, they burn down the cabin, saying goodbye to the suffering and the problems they had before the virus began. They are two people who have suffered the loss of loved ones, who have lived together, and who must now survive by acknowledging what they both hid behind their pain, helping each other overcome the past. A Daryl who felt responsible for not killing the Governor, and a Beth who felt consumed by the inexperience of her youth. They help each other overcome the demons that were eating them away. Together, they begin to see a future, even if it means facing it alone in a new place.
With this comes the beginning of the end. Daryl hears a noise outside their home and, worried, goes to check, only to find an innocent dog. Later, he hears the noise again and is unable to recognize that it wasn't the dog, but walkers. This represents that without sight—relying only on sound—he is unable to distinguish a simple dog from the walkers; a parallel between the "good" or "bad" people he would later have to differentiate. For the moment, Beth is the one who makes him understand that not everyone is bad; that sometimes he will find a "tender dog" on his path and he must protect it.
Beth’s time at the hospital is a great example of this. Although she is surrounded by people who only care about others if they get something in return, other people show her that not everything is as it appears on the outside. Those she thought were good ended up proving they weren't, and those she thought were bad showed her the path they were forced to take because of other "bad" people. Noah is just another person who had bad luck and was being taken advantage of; that is why, when she had the chance to leave, she turned around if it meant saving him. Dawn is a corrupt cop who believed the end justified the means, her hand never trembling when she had to use others to achieve a "good" end, convincing Beth that this was the best place she could be and that no one truly leaves because everyone eventually comes back.
This is why Beth turned around to stab her with those scissors, triggering the shot against her and, subsequently, the death of Dawn. Her story continues with Father Gabriel speaking of eternity—of how what is unseen is eternal and how "home" is everyone's destination. Despite having had an episode in a funeral home and emphasizing that people deserved respect even after being infected or dying—that they deserved a proper goodbye—she is not buried, nor do we know where her body ended up after that shot. 17 unknown days hide the true story of the person.
Beth receives no goodbye among her loved ones, nor even within the series itself, which closes the chapter as if no one had died—using the same standard TWD music, with a gunshot wound we can't even place, as it appears one way in the scene and another in Tyreese’s hallucination. Anyone can say Beth is dead and move on to the next arc, but a protagonist was never so undervalued or so poorly treated in their ending. If it even is her end—because it makes much more sense to think the story wasn't over than to believe she wasn't important enough to deserve a farewell after an entire arc of development.
If this was her end, the character's message is bleak: that she should have taken her life back then, since "Beth in the bed" thought she was going to die anyway, whether she fought or not. In the end, she dies fighting, but with a negative message regarding the illuminating choice that choosing life should have been. If this is her end, the message that there are no "good people" sinks much deeper, because we conclude that Beth died for someone else. However, I think this was not her end; her character arc cannot end there, nor like that. Her arc did not show itself to be so limited; it demanded a renewal, a change in attitude that we were seeing bit by bit but which never fully culminated. Her arc demanded a change because she was proud of the person Daryl was, convincing him that what mattered was who he was "now," not "yesterday." She showed us that she desired the same: to feel good about who she was. It was clear she still had a long way to go to reach that.
