The Walking Dead: World Beyond is full of wasted potential
As a fan of the widely-popular show The Walking Dead on AMC, the original comic books and the impressive video games, I was genuinely hopeful for the franchise’s new concept of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
The premise of the show is based on the idea that the dead have risen, and it has been 10 years since the world “ended,” but for a group of teenagers who grew up almost entirely in the apocalypse, it is their beginning. A cool concept on paper, considering both the main show and a second spinoff both explored the apocalypse through the eyes of adults.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Starring Aliyah Royale as Iris and Alexa Mansour as Hope, World Beyond follows two girls that are living on a college campus, 10 years after the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. It’s revealed that their father has been taken to another compound in New York. The campus and the compound are a part of the “CRM” (Civic Republic Military), a group determined to save the world. The girls, along with Nicholas Cantu as Elton and Hal Cumpston as Sylas, decide to go to New York and save their father after receiving messages from him that he was in danger.
Shortly after the teens leave the campus, it is discovered the CRM has murdered all of the people living within the campus, nearly a thousand people. The teens are also being followed by Felix (Nico Tortorella) and Huck (Annet Mahendru).
Coming into the two-hour season finale, expectations were set low. Viewers believed that everyone in the group had the same goal of attempting to reach New York, but as revealed in episode seven “The Sky is a Graveyard,” Huck has been working with the CRM to deliver an “asset” this whole time. To do this, she would have to split up the group, which she did by framing Sylas for the murder of Percy, portrayed by Ted Sutherland.
Iris, who has been considered the leader and overall intelligent girl who follows her father’s footsteps of being a scientist, was thought to be the “asset” Huck and the CRM were talking about. It turns out that the asset is actually Hope, who seemingly out of nowhere is extremely intelligent, as we are shown that she cracked the CRM’s secret code.
The season ends in a random farmhouse, Huck and Felix have a brawl that ends with Hope threatening to shoot herself if they don’t stop fighting, promising to go with Huck to the CRM. The season closes with Hope and Huck getting into a helicopter and being taken to New York.
This twist does not work. Why kill a whole colony? What many people expected to be the reason for Hope being the asset was maybe her blood contained the cure, but no, it’s because she’s smart.
Ultimately, this show has fallen short of expectations, especially with the brilliance of the recent Walking Dead season, and the impressive ongoing season of Fear: The Walking Dead. With its second season confirmed, it may be too late to retain most of its audience, as it received a measly 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.1/10 on IMDB. Unfortunately for fans of the flagship show, World Beyond does not deliver the same action or intelligence promised.
