Warning: Review may contain spoilers!
The Walking Dead: World Beyond 110 – In This Life
The Walking Dead: World Beyond’s first season comes to a close with In This Life. After a lot of set up things are finally coming together as the season finale aims to maintain the momentum generated by the previous episode. Loyalty and a sense of belonging are hallmarks of any coming of age story and recent events have brought on a tsunami of upheaval for Hope, Iris, Elton and Silas.
Silas has been missing in action since the conclusion of The Sky is a Graveyard. Judging by the opening moments of the episode he’s been pretty self-sufficient since going off on his own. A fortuitous cooking mishap cuts short his self-imposed exile and reunites him with Elton. The biggest surprise for Silas isn’t that his good buddy tracked him down it’s that Percy is alive.
Meanwhile Iris and Felix try to reconcile being abandoned by Hope and Huck. Felix, still clouded by his loyalty to Huck and his injured leg, doesn’t immediately buy into Iris’ doubts about their former friend. Iris lays out her case and then piques Felix’s interest when she mentions the room full of dead bodies that Huck kept her from entering.
Speaking of Huck she’s held at gunpoint by Hope. With fragments of the CRM’s motives and Huck’s betrayal flowing through her mind Hope’s disappointment slowly turns to anger. An errant gunshot attracts the attention of a hoard of empties forcing the newly minted adversaries to become allies once again.
Some hard lessons are delivered in In This Life. Huck’s revelations, the CRM’s plans for rebuilding the world and Hope’s true place in all of it create a decidedly more complex environment. While Hope struggles coming to grips with the expectations others have for her she is also faced with one of life’s harshest lessons: that mentors and authority figures are fallible and often fail to live up to expectations.
Those disappointments continue into adulthood. The world the CRM is trying to craft has everyone living a lie. From Dr. Bennett to Huck several of the players have existed in false realities. The person who has the most upheaval is Felix. From his flashbacks to the present his world is created, shattered and then recreated a few times. Holding onto what is real, or perceived to be real takes a toll on all involved no matter which side they are on.
In This Life is the highpoint of World Beyond’s inaugural season. High drama, twists, turns and some rousing action raised the stakes and provided viewers with some real pathos. It’s just unfortunate that it took so long to get here. With several intriguing plot threads to develop the pathway to a satisfying second season exists when World Beyond returns.
