"Once upon a time, there was the world as we knew it. A world with pets and homes, grocery stores and hospitals, jobs and weekends. And then everything changed. The people died and then returned, neither living nor dead, the love they felt for anyone or anything erased from memory, replaced by a hunger that could never be satisfied. Everything we had counted on... our advances in technology, our feats of engineering... could not save us. Roads crumbled and cities fell into heaps of rubble. And for those of us born right before? The end of the world was our beginning."
— Iris Bennett
The Walking Dead: World Beyond is a horror sci-fi series, the second spin-off to the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010), and the third overall installment in The Walking Dead Television Universe.
Ten years following the onset of the Zombie Apocalypse, four teenagers in Nebraska, who are part of the first generation of humans to come of age in the new world, try to navigate the continued dangers of the world while dealing with their own friendships and the brewing conflict between their rival colonies of survivors.
Unique for the franchise, The Walking Dead: World Beyond is a limited series consisting of two seasons. The series premiered on October 4th, 2020note , and concluded a year later with its second and final season on December 5th, 2021.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond contains examples of:
- After the End: The show picks up ten years after the collapse of society.
- The Alliance: The Alliance of the Three, the three in question being the Civic Republic, Omaha (and its colony at the university) and Portland. Season 2 reveals that the Civic Republic Military, however, has been systematically wiping out its fellow colonies due to deeming them a strain on their resources and wanting to solidify their power superseding that of the Civic Republic itself.
- And the Adventure Continues: The series ends with half the cast heading to Portland on foot to prepare for a rebellion against the CRM, while the other half continues their work developing a scientific solution to use against the walkers.
- Armies Are Evil: The Civic Republic Military are established as a genocidal and power-hungry regime who do not want to give up their power back to the Civic Republic itself. Believing only they can lead humanity into the future, they’ve been covertly wiping out their other communities.
- Becoming the Mask: Huck is inserted into the campus colony to spy for the CRM, but comes to genuinely care for the people there. In Season 2, this leads to a Heel–Face Turn, as she helps the other protagonists destroy the CRM's attempt to wipe out Portland.
- Big Bad: Lieutenant-Colonel Elizabeth Kublek is the primary representative of the CRM seen in the show, acting of the instigator for everything the protagonists have to deal with. Though midway through Season 2, she returns to the Civic Republic's city and leaves the role of main antagonist to fall to Jadis, who is sent in to secure the research facility, and thus comes into conflict with the heroes when they infiltrate it. And at the end of the season, she usurps Kublek by scapegoating and arresting her.
- Bittersweet Ending: The series ends on this note. They manage to prevent the CRM from gassing Portland, but Huck is killed in the process. Silas joins the CRM, but only so he can out their plans to the Civic Republic's civilian leadership. Iris and Elton journey to Portland to warn them of the CRM's plans, with their fates uncertain, while Hope, Leo, and Felix set up a new laboratory safe zone so the scientists can continue their research into ending the zombie plague.
- Black Helicopter: The CRM makes use of these.
- The Bus Came Back: Season 2 sees the return of Jadis, last seen in Season 9 of the main show, now a member of the CRM's State Sec.
- Continuity Nod:
- Eugene said in Season 5 of the main series that his plan was to join with scientists in Washington, D.C. to engineer a counter-virus that could wipe out walkers in the world and cure the virus in the survivors. While it turned out to be a massive lie, Season 2 reveals that Eugene's math was pretty close to what's actually happening: it's revealed that the CRM's scientists are legitimately researching fungi to develop a weaponized strain that can destroy walkers by rapidly increasing the rate of decomposition. The third episode of the season also introduces Dr. Ellis as a professor at a CRM school — Eugene claimed to be a good friend and colleague of him.
- In Season 2, episode 3, an ad for country legend Half-Moon is seen — the true identity of Beta from the mothership series.
- In The Stinger of the Grand Finale, we see a French survivor finding old video transmissions from Dr. Edwin Jenner, the last survivor of the Atlanta CDC facility back in the mothership series' first season finale. Jenner had offhandedly mentioned that he had last been in contact with France's CDC counterparts before he lost radio contact. Jenner also insists that "the day will come when we beat" the walker plague, a Call-Back to his iconic line "the day will come when you won’t be", which served to foreshadow the day Rick would be subjugated by Negan and lose two of his friends in front of him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Major-General Biel, the head of the CRM, who signs off on all their actions. In the Grand Finale, he signs the arrest warrant to have Elizabeth deposed and thrown in jail, removing her from the playing field.
- Happily Adopted: Hope and Iris aren't Leo's biological daughters, nor are they biologically related, but they've never considered themselves anything less than family.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Midway through Season 1, Lieutenant-Colonel Kublek has an underling sent to the "Health and Wellness Ministry" for doubting the CRM's actions. In the series finale, she's sent there herself by Jadis when she's scapegoated for Huck betraying the CRM and helping the scientists escape.
- Lighter and Softer: While still a zombie apocalypse drama, it’s considerably lighter in tone than the mothership series or the first spin-off series, partially due to focusing on a younger cast and partially due to establishing more law and order in its setting courtesy of the CRM.
- The Mole:
- Huck turns out to be a CRM operative.
- In the series finale, Silas becomes one for the heroes within the CRM.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Civic Republic is an authoritarian state that appears to be a military dictatorship. Mention is made of a civilian leadership council, but the military acts very much on its own initiative, keeping the council in the dark.
- The Purge: For unknown reasons, the Civic Republic wipes out the campus colony, with Season 2 expanding on this to reveal that they also destroyed Omaha. It's later explained that the CRM had concluded that Omaha and the colony were an unnecessary drain on resources that would threaten the Republic's continuing existence. They also plan to wipe out Portland as well for the same reasons.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Iris and Hope, respectively.
- Safely Secluded Science Center: The CRM research facility somewhere in New York, where Hope and Iris' father was taken to help in the efforts to find a way to end the Zombie Apocalypse. After all the scientists are liberated from the CRM's control, they relocate to an abandoned mall and set up a new facility to continue their work independently.
- Wham Episode: World Beyond serves to clarify a lot of things about the wider television universe of the franchise, but they may just pale in comparison to what we learn in The Stinger of the Grand Finale: in France, a variant of the walker virus has sprung up that causes the dead to reanimate in mere moments as more aggressive, faster, and far more dangerous threats than every walker we've seen so far. And there's no telling if or where this variant has spread.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Civic Republic Military see themselves as the last bastion of civilization, and will crush anything that opposes them. Even allied settlements they've decided are a drain on resources.
"So, let's see who we really are, shall we?"
