10 reasons why you need to watch World Beyond to understand The Ones Who Live.
10 reasons why you need to watch World Beyond to understand The Ones Who Live.
#10 IT’S NOT A SHOW ABOUT TEENAGERS.
Despite the fear that World Beyond is a light CW show about a bunch of teenagers wandering the apocalypse, it’s not.
What the story is: A mother, Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) and her daughter Jennifer “Huck” Mallick (Annet Mahendru) fight to save the world and bring sisters Hope Bennett (Alexa Mansour) & Iris Bennett (Aliyah Royale) to the CRM to craft a cure with their father, intelligence and scientific talents.
Though, it does involve the teenagers on a journey, it is not solely the main focus of the show.
#9 The CRM.
The CRM stands for Civic Republic Military.
As seen in both World Beyond & The Ones Who Live, the leader is General Major Beale (Terry O’Quinn) who is talked about behind the scenes in World Beyond, but does not appear until The Ones Who Live.
Who does appear, is his son, Mason Beale (Will Meyers) who is just as clueless to his father’s nefarious plans as any of the others not privy to confidential information.
The CRM works by rank, and the Hidden City (for civilians and politicians/government) is shut out of anything to do with its military.
The CRM is also mentioned in Fear: The Walking Dead in season 5 when Althea (Maggie Grace) stumbles upon a helicopter and a soldier wearing strange armor.
As Al is a journalist, she is found by her future pilot wife Isabelle Russo (Sydney Lemmon) and her tape is the only reason she is still alive. The CRM is also globally known (including Texas and France) and was even in contact with Dr. Jenner (Noah Emmerich) for research.
#8 A’S AND F#@KING B’S.
Right from Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) mouth when he confronts Donald Okafor (Craig Tate).
Both Rick and Pearl Thorne (Lesley Ann Brandt) are briefed on the experiments of A’s and B’s in the debris of one of the bombed locations, known as the ruins. This is against the CRM’s protocol and could have massive consequences for all three characters if one talks. Donald is trusting them with this sensitive information.
But it also has a price. Ten years into the apocalypse, Elizabeth Kublek and Beale create the research center in Ithaca, New York. A’s are bitten survivors, sympathetic staff or guilty soldiers with loose lips.
If we know anything about the organization, they will kill anyone who knows too much.
However, even their own scientists are not immune from becoming A’s. The point of them is to try to find a cure, to which they have had zero success.
They are experiments that are gassed in the bombings and deemed expendable. This project is known as Votus. B’s can be integrated into society as a soldier or citizen, essentially benign and following the rules.
#7. THE ALLIANCE OF THE THREE RINGS.
The three rings on their insignia stand for: Campus Colony, Portland & Omaha.
During the first episode of The Ones Who Live, we find out that Omaha has just been bombed and the ruse is that a column of empties are trampling into and taking over the city. Rick and Pearl look at their television screens in horror.
In reality, the CRM does it on purpose with green chlorine gas (created by scientist Lyla Belshaw) in order to get subjects for their testing.
Though Jadis later cites that the destruction of alliance partners are due to the communities relying heavily on the CRM and will eventually fall into famine. As if we can believe it was some sort of merciful genocide.
Campus Colony is next and falls right after Kublek’s daughter Jennifer leaves the location to her relief.
We also find out that Rick and Pearl are contracted to help build the community from the ground up, unknown to a devastated Jennifer that her recon information was the cause of its downfall.
#6. THE BOMBINGS
Okafor during a showdown with Rick admits that he has bombed Los Angeles, California (Fear: The Walking Dead’s first location), Atlanta (The Walking Dead) and Omaha.
Despite the guilt of also killing his wife during one of the bombings, he insists that by doing that he saves thousands.
In World Beyond, the sympathizing soldier Barca is locked in a lab that fills with chlorine gas and drowns him. We also see Omaha in its aftermath with Elizabeth Kublek looking onto the chaos and even putting down a survivor that tries to crawl to safety.
In The Ones Who Live, Michonne and her new community are seen running from the same gas in a flashback.
#5. THE HIDDEN CITY.
Across the river from the main HQ is what is known as The Hidden City. It houses the CR’s government and innocent civilians.
As they know nothing of their military’s nefarious actions–the military can’t operate there which makes it a safe haven for confidential information.
But beware, if HQ gets wind of it, you will disappear. Their standard excuse is that someone is visiting a family member, and in truth, never returns. Their own staff is highly expendable.
The following is an article that Dennis Graham and his wife Jennifer were both reading in a coffee shop, starting to become suspicious of their employer themselves. The same article serves as a slide for the opening credits of The Ones Who Live.
#4. HUCK.
Annet Mahendru was nominated for an Emmy for her part in season one of World Beyond as Jennifer “Huck” Mallick.
A former Marine who tours Afghanistan and witnesses the very beginning of the infection during a search and rescue mission in Omaha. It is something she does not like to talk about with anyone, especially to Hope whom both relate deeply with each other.
Jennifer is a firm believer in her instincts and saving human lives. After her unit rescues survivors, thermal vision discovers that the hostiles are actually dead and the only way to put them down was to shoot them in the head.
Eventually, Sunset Protocol comes in from HQ and they receive strict orders to put down the saved civilians for fear of infection.
I’M A MARINE.
Jen puts down her entire unit, including on again off again boyfriend Drake Ramirez (Gil Perez Abraham), although with some hesitation.
After releasing the survivors, she runs away to the forests of Nebraska and is picked up a few years later by her mother who offers her sanctuary and a purpose with the CRM. Obliging, Jadis is brought to the CRM by trading Rick’s life for a luxurious lifestyle.
Starting training with Jen, the two start a relationship until Jadis rises in the ranks and abandons her. It is hinted that Jadis has a hand in demoting Dennis Graham (Max Osinksi) in jealousy of him marrying Jen.
Both Jadis and Dennis throw backhanded comments at one another in pure hatred whenever they interact.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
During an exercise involving empties (walkers) and CRM soldiers, Dennis is revealed to be under the influence. This results in the loss and saving of human lives.
Knowing that he is fast tracking to become a master sergeant, Dennis pleads with his wife to cover for him. Mallick does this in the form of erasing their digital footprints in the security database, but forgets to clear her keycard number in the process.
With the body cameras severely damaged, there is no choice but to take the fall for him which results in a two year undercover recon mission to a place called The Campus Colony.
Jen sadly looks into the mirror and carves the same scar Drake had into her own face in a reminder of her guilt. Outside of the bathroom, Elizabeth is surprised to see the injury but has one of her soldiers break her daughter’s arm with an assault rifle at her insistence to continue the mission.
As two years go by, Jen reports information and recon back to her mother and HQ in various CRM trailers. However, it appears as if the new fairytale life as Huck, a nickname given to her by a civilian on the riverbank, is more at home here than in the CRM.
Unknown to her, Elizabeth uses her daughter’s recon and Iris’s ability to instill doubt in the community of the Campus Colony to destroy it right before Felix Carlucci (Nico Tortorella) and Jen set after runaway kids.
The best friends basically become apocalyptic babysitters and she is forced to make some severely hard choices.
Jen is ultimately devastated to learn that the community was destroyed and over time pieces together the bombings until it’s too late.
Despite trying to save as many people as possible, she has to make hard decisions and despite hesitating and trying to let Felix go free (which is against the CRM), they end up fighting in a burning house almost to the death (similar to Shane and Rick, complete with a head butt.)
It doesn’t come to that (she sends him away against CRM orders to reunite with his boyfriend Will Campbell (Jelani Alladin) but Jen dies in a similar manner as Shane, both in their respective season two’s.
Ultimately, Elizabeth has Jadis come back to the research center in order to watch her daughter as she herself takes off, leaving Jen to her unfortunate fate.
WHEN IN DOUBT, BECOME THE MARTYR.
After betraying Jadis, the two fight, but Jen selflessly sacrifices herself thanks to a fatal stab to her side by Jadis, bleeding out seconds before she turns. The gas blows up, along with her body and the culling post. Portland is safe because of this heroic event.
With both of them knowing that Dennis’s wound was fatal, he sadly looks on at the cloud of green smoke from a window and immediately knows his wife is gone. To save his now adopted son Silas Plaskett (Hal Cumpston), Dennis convinces him to kill him and take over Jen’s role as an undercover soldier with the CRM. Because of Jadis’s liking to Silas, this succeeds.
Iris and Hope take the scientists and their research to a safe place in a mall, while Iris breaks off to warn Portland of what is to come.
#3. CROSSOVERS.
T.S. Elliot is a head scientist with the research center and is the very same scientist that Eugene Porter (Josh McDermott) lies about in The Walking Dead.
Jen is actually Tara Chambler’s (Alanna Masterson’s) cousin, Jadis trades people to the CRM for years in order to keep her community in The Heaps afloat.
The late Dr. Edwin Jenner consults with the CRM’s research team in France and the variants in S1 and S11 show up in multiple shows. France is also the beginning of the Wild Fire virus and where it all starts.
Jennifer and Felix are based on Shane and Rick.
Isabelle’s friend Beckett in Fear: The Walking Dead is also a mutual friend of Dennis, and Thorne is a fellow alcoholic working in consignment with the same jacket and the kill stick (that Dennis forged himself for the outposts.)
#2 CONSIGNMENT
Rick is ultimately taken care of via a hospital (again) and reluctantly works consignment/contamination in an abandoned post office in order to escape being a soldier.
Okafor saves him and Pearl from becoming A’s, but not without a price.
After being demoted, Dennis runs the culling post in New York, taking in kids who want to become soldiers in within the CRM. They use fireworks and loud music to capture and put down the dead, ultimately driving them back to the facilities for testing or returning loose test subjects.
Unfortunately, not all of the participants are willing. As seen in The Ones Who Live, most are cuffed via a steel device that has a long threaded military wire (similar to those that you zip line down from a chopper) which attaches o a small pulley on a soldier’s waist.
When the prisoners go too far, they are pulled back and lose their balance. In this case, his fourth try of escaping, Rick cuts off his own hand to escape, but ends up passing out (and cauterizes his wound on a scorching corpse) due to blood loss.
Gene Page/AMC
Because of her trading Rick for a position with the CRM, Jadis is not forced to work consignment and immediately starts training with Mallick as a soldier.
#1 ANNE.
After playing both sides in the fight with The Sanctuary, Anne (who goes by Jadis) loses her entire community because of Simon (Steven Ogg).
Sadly, she watches her undead community walk into a trash compactor, forever putting them down in a mess of gore.
In revenge, Anne cleans herself up, revealing Negan Smith’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) baseball bat Lucille and a pristine looking room inside of an old shipping container. Clearly grieving, she kidnaps Negan in an attempt to infect him with a walker bite and turn him in as an A to the CRM.
Tearfully missing the helicopter and deciding not to burn Lucille. Negan does not burn the last pictures she has of her community and vows to settle the murder with Simon personally, as he has gone against his wishes in doing so.
Eventually, Anne becomes part of Rick’s community, and begins a relationship with Gabriel Stokes in which she also takes his last name after reinventing herself for the CRM.
Seeing as people still point the blame to her (and even befriending Tara and painting Glenn, Beth and various dearly departed friends for Hilltop), she decides to try to get Gabriel to run away with her to the CRM.
When he declines and wants to tell everyone else, she tries to trade him as an A, but once again relents, leaving a heartbreaking breakup letter in her wake.
When Rick is mortally wounded on the river bank, Jadis decides to trade him for her ticket into the CRM. From there she works her way up the ranks and ultimately has too much blood on her hands.
After two miserable relationships (and Tamiel being hinted as another), she becomes cold and numb vowing to be Beale’s right-hand when Elizabeth is jailed for treason.
To keep Rick in line, she threatens his family now in various locations, should her death come at the hands of him or anyone else. Reluctantly, Rick becomes a soldier and Jadis continues to manipulate him from afar.
#BONUS NUMBER: RICHONNE.
Did I say ten? Here’s an extra. Because The Graham’s gave their lives to protect Portland, Rick and Michonne were able to reunite.
Despite Jadis being hot on their trail, the CRM has ultimately lost valuable resources (even if we see more gas being used in the trailer, which is possibly Portland) and must quickly remedy any confusion or failure.
In the chaos, Michonne is brought into the CRM, giving our lovers some time to reunite. Can they get out in time before Jadis hunts them down?
THE WALKING DEAD: THE ONES WHO LIVE AIRS ON SUNDAYS ON AMC AND EARLY ON AMC+ WITH A TOTAL OF SIX EPISODES.
STOP RELYING ON WIKIS AND CLIPS, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GET THE REAL STORY. YOU’LL THANK ME.
RELATED: REVIEW: THE WALKING DEAD: THE ONES WHO LIVE SPOILER FREE.
About the author: Katie Harden is a professionally repped New York-based/bi-coastal musical theater, entertainment journalist, and indie film actress. She is proudly part of the Actor’s Equity Association and frequently interviews colleagues, friends, and celebrities, along with reviewing television and movies. Find her at the bottom of a can of Arizona sweet tea or in the ocean! @KHardenOfficial