The third The Walking Dead series premiered this weekend, and as a first time consumer of TWD content I found this to be a fun adventure into the unknown with a refreshing take on the world full of undead. This series seems like it skews a little younger than I would expect from the original series as it tackles coming of age issues in a world much different from our own, but with the same unifying struggles that we can all relate to in a 2020 kind of year. Here are some thoughts on the premiere of Walking Dead: World Beyond, “Brave.”
1. We are the walking dead!
One thing that always catches my attention is when a story has a theme and is able to carry it through to the end. World Beyond does a great job of this by sticking to the idea of truth and what that means in this world. Whether it is about hiding the truth, finding the truth, or shedding light on the truth, this episode did a great job of passing this theme from scene to scene and setting to set up the socio-political aspects of this world.
There are also a lot of personal questions being explored by the characters that reflect a lot of what we see youth facing in our modern world as well as some of the timeless growing pains that we all experience. While half of the team leaves in search of answers and truth, the other half joins them simply out of wanderlust. Having grown up in a small town, I can relate immensely to that feeling of just wanting to see what is beyond your own borders.
2. The titular world beyond
World Beyond is set 10 years after the fall of humanity in a ‘reconstruction’ style era. Society has adapted and continues to thrive in walled cities, but it also leaves a generation of youth curious about the world beyond the walls. Not everything is perfect, but systems and structures have been implemented to provide safety and security as best as possible. There are three developing governments; Portland, Omaha, and the mysterious Civic Republic. They have recently started making contact and trading research in an attempt to find a solution and take the world back from the dead.
There is a lot to this that feels very reflective of the trust and conspiracy paranoia we see in our own government in 2020, and that seems appropriate as a commentary not only about the pressures of growing up in a pandemic world, but how we intend to go about rebuilding our governments and institutions once we have a path to our own post pandemic world. We probably have a long way to go before we get where they are in this series, but that doesn’t make it resonate any less.
3. Enter: The Team
The main group in this series is more or less hand picked by the two main characters and come together in a relatively organic way. It takes a majority of the episode to really bring the team together and round out exactly what World Beyond is about, and that does a lot to round out the characters. This establishes their current status quo, and gives us an idea of what they want, as well as what potential problems and conflicts they may face down the road.
The team is a well rounded group of outsiders, and the way the four characters are introduced helps establish them as individuals. Stating their motivations up front helps define how and why they work as a team, and their youth and naivete should prove interesting as they adventure across the country. The contrast between the sisters should create for interesting group disagreements, and I can’t wait to see some of the breadcrumbs come into play that were dropped throughout this episode.
4. Hope & Iris
From the outset of the episode it is established that this is Hope and Iris’ story, and they clearly love and respect each other. But they couldn’t further apart in outlook. The daughters of a very brilliant scientist, they both have a strong sense of independence and intelligence. Their perspective is completely opposite, and they tend to view things through contrasting lenses. The one thing that always brings them back together though, is a good sense of moral character.
Continued belowIris is optimistic and chomping at the bit to change the world. She is a natural leader, but there is something in her past that put her on that path. She struggles with nightmares from the night the sky fell, and blames herself for not being able to do more the night her mom was taken away by walkers. Because of this, she has developed a kind hearted nature and wants to help everyone, which can be endearing but also dangerous.
Hope, ironically, is borderline nihilistic, doesn’t seem to like authority, and is distrustful of most of the people around her. From her perspective, this is going to happen again and the world is on a path of inevitable destruction. Nothing really matters in her purview, but she wants to see the world before it is all destroyed. She also likes to use her knack for chemistry to make her own alcohol.
As cliché as the sibling dynamic can be, this actually feels really refreshing because the two are so perfectly contrasted but share a similar set of beliefs and that always brings them back together. While Hope had to learn that Elizabeth is shady but potentially trustworthy, Iris had to learn to not buy in so easily and that caution can be a good thing. While they were on opposite ends of that spectrum, they were on the same spectrum and that allowed everything to come full circle.
5. The Civic Republic
The Civic Republic is an emerging government entity that is trying to put the world back together, but no one seems to know where they came from, why they have so many resources, and why they keep so many secrets. I really like this as the antagonist of the series because it is so reflective of the society lost but completely antithetical to the world that the youth are looking to build from the ashes.
The Lieutenant Colonel of the Civic Republic Military, Elizabeth Kublek, is a shady character that spends this first episode trying to win the favor of Hope and Iris. She is responsible for their father’s disappearance, and the only answer she really seems to be willing to give is that he is working somewhere in New York state. There is also a sub plot with her about her daughter, but it is more implied than anything in this episode and will probably become more relevant down the line to help humanize her.
The Civic Republic dresses in all black, has state of the art weaponry, helicopters, and organization. They move like the military and are even seen with extra helicopters transporting large containers. If there is anyone thriving in this new world, it is the Civic Republic, and it appears they are more interested in dominating survivors rather than helping rebuild the world that was lost.
To be completely honest here, I wasn’t sure how much I cared for this series immediately after the episode. But as you can see in the ramblings above, reflection brought clarity and I actually really like what is being set up here because it seems like this show could provide a lot of valuable commentary as we move through the pandemic and into a post covid world. I don’t think it would be fair to call this a one-to-one comparison, but there are a lot of ideas that can be explored through these characters.
Overall, this was fun and I am intrigued by the mystery set forth in this episode. What is Hope & Iris’ dad really doing? How is this group going to fare in the long journey across the eastern half of the United States? And when things come up that could potentially split the group, how are they going to handle the disagreements? I went in a little hesitant but I have come out the other side excited for episode 2. I might be 10 years late to the party, but TWD has proven that it still has some magic and charm left in the tank.
