The Walking Dead: World Beyond “Who Are You?” was written by Rohit Kumar and was directed by Heather Cappiello. This episode reveals more about Lyla (Natalie Gold), and Iris (Aliyah Royale) continues to be a wildcard, which ends up costing Dev’s (Abubakr Ali) life. What the CRM is actually up to becomes a lot less clear in this episode. We find out how Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) fits in – and that 6 years ago, she joined the CRM after giving them something very valuable… Rick?!?! The episode leaves us completely hanging about what happened to Silas (Hal Cumpston).
The episode opens with a flashback to shortly after Leo (Joe Holt) arrived at the research facility. He’s out with the other scientists trapping one of their tracker walkers. There’s some serious flirting between him and Lyla – and she drops some papers, which he remembers later in the episode…
In the present, Huck (Annet Mahendru) reveals that a chemical was used to kill everyone in Omaha, and the walkers were likely just sent in to cover it up. The chemical code on the papers Huck has are what Leo later remembers seeing on Lyla’s papers. Huck’s revelation sends the plan into a tailspin, and they decide that they have to stay to find out what’s going on. Iris also agrees to stay in order to get answers and not let the CRM get away with it – she’s totally focused on vengeance. Meanwhile, the only pretty lame excuse that Huck can come up with for the CRM is that the Hidden City wants to maintain the balance of people and resources and maybe Omaha was a threat to that… Huck insists that she isn’t privy to high level intelligence, and her two year stint in Omaha was only supposed to be an observe and report mission.
We find out that Warrant Officer Stoke – Jadis – is a military cop, and she’s there to ferret out any irregularities. We also find out that Huck trained her! She ominously tells Huck that she knows all about the group from Omaha – the big picture is her business. McIntosh is always a joy to watch – and she really does commit to the parts as she’s sporting yet another pretty extreme hairdo!
Percy (Ted Sutherland) helps Iris get the note out to the artist colony. She writes the note in code, and then they hide it in a bolt. Percy tells Iris that he’ll honor his promise to her. He also doesn’t press Iris to tell him what she wrote even though he knows she wrote more than she was supposed to. Percy breaks into the truck pool and plants the bolt in the jeep taking supplies to the artist’s colony.
Dev picks the bolt out of the jeep bumper while the guards are busy. Elton deciphers it, and Indira (Anna Khaja) is not happy. Iris has said that they are safe and not leaving until they find out what’s going on, and then they are going to burn the place to the ground! Indira is afraid that they are going to start a war. Brody (Lee Spencer) wants to turn in Will (Jelani Alladin) and Elton (Nicolas Cantu) and calls for a vote of non-confidence in Indira’s leadership. Elton tells Will about Indira being sick. Luckily,Brody loses, and Will and Elton can stay… but Will wants to leave to stop Iris.
Leo decides that they all need to know what Lyla knows and sends Felix to enlist Huck’s help. Huck discovers through tracking her ID card that she goes to a subbasement room every day. As the two make their way there, Huck tells Felix how she came to have her assignment – that she was protecting her husband. Felix looks suitably surprised when she reveals that she’s still married. When they get to the basement lab, Huck has to go to cut the power so that Felix can get in. Felix is angry because he assumes he’s the only one in danger of getting caught that way, but Huck is the only one who knows how and where to cut the power.
Meanwhile, the dinner party from Hell has Lyla joining Leo, Hope, and Iris. We learn that she worked for Big Pharma ‘before,’ and Iris goes after her for animal testing. Lyla tries to defend the practice as industry standard and saving lives. Tellingly, she finally says, it comes down to how much of your soul you are willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Clearly, something both she AND Iris are wrestling with. Iris insists that it’s still a choice. Iris gets up and leaves after ruining the get to know you dinner. Lyla wants to leave, but Leo persuades her to stay. Hope goes after Iris.
Hope points out that Iris is supposed to stop her from doing stupid things – and Iris has just endangered Felix. Iris’s excuse is totally lame – she just “can’t” with Lyla and this place. Can’t control herself for the greater good? Hope insists that there are plenty of good people here, and she’s trying to help them. Iris tells Hope about killing the soldier – and sure that was part of her soul. She also reveals to Hope what she put in the note and that they have to be ready – to burn the place down.
Huck blows the power, and Felix goes into the lab with 2 minutes to search it. He finds a freezer with a bunch of walkers missing skin that clearly looks like patches for testing. He then finds a room with test tubes – and we see later that he took one. He then finds a room full of cannisters containing the V poison compound. He keeps trying to contact Huck and ends up getting locked in at the 1 minute, 30 second mark when the back up generators kick in early.
Will has a plan to get in to the research facility and Dev is going to help him. Asha wants to come with Elton, but Will tells them no. Elton apologizes to Asha for breaking his promise and then asks to come with her when she goes to pray. This was an interesting scene as we see them kill the walkers and pray with no sound other than music, making it actually seem pretty spiritual.
Lyla wants to go and check on her lab, and Leo asks if she’s upset because of Iris. She insists that’s not it, but it’s brought up some memories. She tells Leo that she hasn’t been honest with him and wants to come clean. I thought she might be going to tell him what’s going on, but we get her backstory instead. When her daughter and husband turned, she experimented on them to try to cure them – and is clearly haunted by what she did to them. It does help explain her willingness to torture others now…
Felix continues to try to get hold of Huck on his radio – and Jadis was calling for her to report when the power grid blew up. Felix is freezing when Huck finally shows up, explaining that she had to reprogram the key cards to get in. She also has to get back and change the logs or she’ll get caught – like she did before she was sent to Omaha. Huck tells Felix that she doesn’t know how things are going to end, but however they end, she’s with him. She’s picked her side.
Huck finally reports to Jadis – who insists she just wants to have a drink and catch up with Huck. Jadis talks about joining the CRM 6 years ago. She tells her that before she came she’d formed her own community by creating their own language and using a little theatre to bond them. She tells Huck that she loved her people and lost them because she made bad alliances. She then reveals she got into the CRM by bringing them something very valuable – presumably Rick. Which begs the question of why he was so valuable.
Jadis then tells Huck that the CRM is her – and the world’s last hope. She sees her purpose as creating a new era. Yeah. Jadis is as power hungry and scary as ever. She tells Huck that Kublek is worried about her. Jadis understands that Huck has formed new alliances, used theatre, and that can be hard to let go. Kublek is worried that Huck is confused, and Jadis offers to help Huck convince her otherwise. She suggests a quid pro quo where she helps convince Kublek that Huck is ok, and Huck sings Jadis’s praises to her mother. Huck insists that she already bled and broke bones to prove her loyalty, but Jadis ominously says there always more you can do…
The episode ends with Will’s failed attempt to break into facility. You just knew it was going to go badly when Dev handed over his father’s gun to Will – and then Dev is shot be the CRM patrol. Will grabs the gun and flees – but the patrol will be lead right back to the artists’ colony… and what will Indira say when she sees her husband’s gun that she thought was gone? I’m confident that Will’s attempt to help her which resulted in the death of her son is not going to go over well…
Once again this show simply throws more questions out without answering much. Things are definitely working toward the conclusion, however. I can’t say that I’m enjoying the “development” of Iris’s character which seems much more like out of character. If the teases for future episodes are any indication, it looks like we’ll be losing a lot more characters than just Dev. Any guesses on who’s next? Who will make it to the end of the last episode? I’m betting that at least Asha, Lyla, Morgan, and Huck won’t… Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
