The Walking Dead: World Beyond is gaining momentum but running out of time

The Walking Dead: World Beyond has finally started moving things forward, but is it too little, too late for the AMC spin-off?

The Walking Dead: World Beyond  is approaching the end of its first season and it’s finally starting to feel like it’s gathering some momentum. It’s not by any means moving quickly, but the past few episodes have progressed the story rather significantly when you compare it to the first couple – which were very much concerned with telling each character’s past stories instead of their present ones. It’s an approach that ultimately worked but it’s use in a TV season that is only 10 episodes long was pretty questionable and left much of the show feeling like it was stuck in the same place.

“Truth Or Dare” adopts a similar format to those earlier episodes, using present events to kick off flashbacks for the one character that hasn’t had any yet but it also follows in the footsteps of its more recent offerings in adopting a very Walking Dead mission-of-the-week approach in the present. It’s successful, yes, and it follows the formula well, but it still feels like the show is having trouble catapulting the plot beyond that of each episode.

It’s getting there, but with only three episodes to go, it does feel like “Truth or Dare” could have given us a little more.

Scars

With this one being a Huck-heavy episode, there is a strong emphasis on being haunted by your past. Sure, this theme would have worked for pretty much every character on the show at this point (given that all of them have dark backstories), but as Huck is the one we knew the least about, it works.

It is admittedly nice to finally see how her story began and the writers do a solid job of conveying that. This writer has no problem admitting that her flashbacks are among the best the show has done so far because they not only add a great deal to her character and lend themselves nicely to the episode’s overarching theme, the device gives us a chance to see how the beginning of the end forced even more characters to do things they never thought they would. It’s haunting to see what she had to experience and what she ultimately had to do to remain human in an increasingly inhuman world.

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That also lends itself nicely to Hope’s arc, as she continues to struggle with the weight of her deadly secret. She confides in Huck about what she did to Elton’s mom when she was a child and learns that it’s time to stop letting that guilt control her – something that Huck’s backstory does a great job highlighting.

Poignant as this was, it’s hard to get fully invested in the decision that Hope has made because it’s pretty clear that Elton will end up figuring out what she did when he discovers the necklace. He’s going to find out at some point and with Hope deciding not to tell him, that seems like an obvious loophole for conflict to form. Surely she’d throw it away in case he ever found it? Sometimes logic doesn’t figure into World Beyond.

World Beyond

The pieces of the World Beyond puzzle are starting to fall into place and “Truth or Dare” helps to ensure that. A solid mission-of-the-week episode that takes its cues from The Walking Dead it allows the Endlings to gather enough fuel from the CRM’s secret stash so that they can make it to New York. In spite of coming across a number of obstacles they made it happen and, for a moment, it seemed like they were set to move forward.

A last-minute twist, however, threatens to slow that momentum once more and, with only three episodes left, we have to wonder if The Walking Dead: World Beyond‘s third-quarter flurry could be coming much too late to bring the first season to a satisfactory conclusion.

There’s still time, but for World Beyond, it seems to be in short supply.

Beyond World Beyond

• It was nice to see the kids getting to act like kids once in a while. Stripped-back moments like this can really ground an ambitious production with some much-needed realism and poignancy.
• Percy continues to surprise. It’s genuinely engaging to see him begin to care about the Endlings – Iris, in particular of course – but one does wonder if going down a potential love triangle route with Silas is what the show needs right now.
• It’s hard to really connect with Silas when the show has him go on the same slightly-smiley-but-mostly-broody-without-saying-much journey on a weekly basis. And with him being directly involved in the twist, we really should care about him more by now.
• It’s nice to see Elton continuing to bond with Hope. He’s really come into his own since his flashback episode and his connection with her is very endearing. This is great groundwork for his eventual discovery of what she did.
• Still no sign of Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublek. Have they forgotten that Julia Ormond is a series regular?

What did you think of The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1, episode 7? Let us know in the comments below!