first of all, this was an amazing episode — huge props to everyone who brought it to life. i couldn’t find any post about it (at least not one connecting everything to birdie and pookie), and i decided to write one myself. that means this post is going to contain spoilers, beware.

elizabeth means “god is an oath”, so i knew there was something about beth in this episode. this episode’s timeline coincides with rick’s comatose state in season one, everything happens in the same hospital. there are three characters: paul, karina and gale. as far as i’m concerned, paul is beth and karina is daryl. karina drives around with an injured paul, hoping to find a safe hospital or anywhere they can get help for him. when they find this hospital, gale introduces herself as a doctor, tries to treat paul but thinks that there isn’t any hope for him. then, gale somehow convinces karina and literally shoves paul’s body inside a room full of walkers and leaves him there.

this is the room by the way:

karina breaks down after this, thinking she was the last one. she talks about how much of a bullshit life she has, living with the ghost of every person she has loved and cherished. gale is kind of a grim reaper, she gives karina a choice: a lethal injection. karina gives up and chooses to die.

joke's on gale, paul is actually alive. he gets out of the walker-infested room, finds karina but it’s too late. paul blames gale, but she says she’s not a murderer because it was karina herself who wanted to die. a few quotes from her speech:

“she didn't want to be alone. she thought you were dead. we thought you were dead.”

“the only real hope we have is maybe we get to choose how it ends.”

the episode ends with paul’s monologue:

“we have to fight to live, and you gave up. you thought everything was taken away from you, but here i am. she was right, it is a choice, but you were wrong about one thing: you were never alone. you gave up on me, on all of us, but it still means something to our oath. one live, all live; so you're coming with me.”