Beth (Emily Kinney) is definitely not the same suicidal girl that fans first met on the second season of "The Walking Dead." On the show's recent episode titled "Slabtown," the mild-mannered character has stepped up her game and found an unfiltered fearlessness within her after learning the twisted system at Grady Memorial Hospital being run by Dawn (Christine Woods).
"I think Beth is really strong. I think she's really smart and very aware, and when she needs to step up, she does," Kinney recently told Entertainment Weekly. "This episode just pushes her."
"There's a moment too where Dawn grabs her wrists and is like, 'I see that you're not strong,' and basically is pointing out her suicide attempt from season 2. But I think that in that moment Beth is so far past that," the 29-year-old singer-actress explained. "And in a way Dawn thinks that she has something over Beth, but Beth knows, 'Oh, no, I'm way past that now. Now I'm in this world and I've chosen to stick with it.' And even Dawn doesn't realize how much Beth is past that moment and ready to fight for herself."
In fact, Beth teamed up with fellow patient Noah (Tyler James Williams) to escape from the hospital. They rappelled down an elevator shaft and succeeded in making it out of the facility's walker-infested basement. And though it was only Noah who managed to completely break away from the hospital, Kinney said that Beth's failed attempt to flee only fueled her fearlessness.
"By the end of the episode, Beth has a fearlessness," Kinney told The Hollywood Reporter. "Even though she's being physically abused by Dawn and attacked, there's a strength to her. She knows she can keep running away and that they don't have power over her because she doesn't want to stay in this place."
"A lot of the way that they are able to get people to do what they want at this hospital is this idea that being outside would be worse than being in here," she explained. "By being, 'Well, f- it, I'll run away and keep running away,' and the fact that Noah is able to get away is a step forward. Even though she's captured at the end and in the same place, she's definitely not in the same place emotionally."
But at the end of the episode, Dawn still bashed Beth in the head, and this scene could be interpreted by some viewers that the female officer still has some power over Beth. But Kinney sees it differently.
"The way that Beth is standing up to Edwards (Erik Jensen) and Dawn in those last few scenes shows that she's more of an equal with them," she told TV Guide. "I think by the end of the episode there's definitely a change. There's a balance in power, and I think the reason that Dawn beats her up so badly is because she feels so out of control. She feels like Beth has something on her and she needs to assert her power by beating her up."