In all my years watching The Walking Dead franchise, this episode has to rank up there as one of the worst in between the three shows. I know that I was extremely critical on “Swear” and the Season 2’s mid-season premiere, but this episode is worse than the both of them.
If you were to tell me that I would see high school dancing in the universe of The Walking Dead, I would have said “no way that would happen.” But surprise, it happened here. I get what they were going with for the characters to reimagine what high school would have been like, but this is not what fans tune in to see for a horror genre show. It worked on Stranger Things with that school dance. But this is not Stranger Things. That moment with Iris and Silas is a top tier level of cringe that I will not erase from my memory. All of this happened after they both had a drink of 10 year old soda.
When you see viewers online say that World Beyond is like a CW show, they will look at moments like that school dance scene to back up their claim. The scene did nothing but insulted my intellegence.
What was the point of having that wolf heavily featured? For the majority of this episode, that wolf was either hiding, eating empties, or just looking around. So how did Hope and Huck deal with that wolf? by casually walking around it. And you will not hear it again until it scares Iris and Silas. Again, what was the point?
There are minor things that I did like however. Felix and Elton getting to know more about eachother, and the flashbacks with Hope and her dad. Hope really tried to reason with her father to not go with CRM and he insisted on going. It also gives Hope more of a motivation to search for him too. And Silas is still traumatized from his arrest. Now that it is known what he possibly did, Silas and Iris talk about it. He even questioned Iris if she believed those rumors. Iris assured Silas that it does not matter what they think. I seriously hope that these two do not become a couple.
My biggest problem with this episode, is that there was potential with some of the things that are in that school. But it turned into a glorified bottle episode that had me yawning more than it had me excited. Everything that you seen before the credits rolled, will not matter outside of the plot of Hope and Silas. Sure, there is character development. But it was no substance to blend in with the ridicilous plot and pacing. A complete waste of time.
I like Wolrd Beyond so far. I really do. But the most interesting parts about CRM should NOT be saved until the end of the episode. Why? because it is a bait and switch tactic towards the viewers. Three of the four episodes so far ended with something CRM related. And when the next episode began, it does not follow up on the previous ending. At least we now know what “A” and “B” means when Jadis saved Rick.
This is one episode that I will not look back on at all. That is, unless it somehow connects to the future episodes. It is almost halfway through the season and I think that things really need to pick up. I do not do star ratings for episodes. But if I did, it will get a whopping minus 4 stars.
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