The Blaze Of Gory
Episode 2 of The Walking Dead: World Beyond begins with a glimpse of Hope walking past dancing flames of unforgiving fire. We then cut back to the present as our quartet encounter their first zombie. Or “empty” as they’re called here, because why not. The three kids watch helplessly and leave Iris to go toe to toe with her first zombie. As she strikes it, interspersed around this is a scene from their lessons inside the colony around how to kill zombies. Instead of following instructions and poking it through the eye socket, Iris just vomits on it instead. On the back of this, the kids continue walking while Huck and Felix remain in hot pursuit. As they walk, we cut back in time and see some flashbacks for Felix. His Father is not happy about Felix being gay and kicks him out the house. As we soon learn, he’s been holding the family together but unfortunately Felix’s father’s bigotry has completely fractured the family. In the present, Huck finds the impaled zombie and realizes they’re on the right track. As they press on, they continue to follow the tracks left behind by the kids. Around this we also learn more about Felix’s past; glimmers of horror from the night everything plummeted into hell. Back with the kids however, they find The Blaze Of Gory. This undying tyre fire apparently attracts a lot of zombies at night, like a moth to flames. Of course the kids want to check it out. Hope holds back though and isn’t sure if this is a good idea. On the road, the kids run into problems again as they’re attacked by a zombie sporting an entire hive inside its head. As it opens its mouth, insects spew forth. Unable to kill it, the kids flee to a nearby tree-house. Lighting lanterns and candles, they settle in for the night. Despite having lots of lights shining as a beacon in the window, the kids are dumbfounded over how the zombies managed to find them. Thankfully they’re high up and unable to be attacked so they turn in for the night. Only, Hope can’t sleep and decides to head down and take care of the problem herself. In the morning, the group band together and head for the tyre fire. From a distance they look over the landscape and notice, unsurprisingly, that the area is infested with zombies. Instead of circling around, Iris convinces the team to try and sneak past them all and make it to the airstrip. The only one seeing sense is Hope who tells them it’s a bad idea. Well, Elton is determined they go out in a blaze of glory and they eventually agree to take Iris’ plan. Before they do though, the group sleep out in the middle of a tennis court before sun rise. Elton sits with Hope though and discusses the end of humanity and how their generation are the endlings. In the morning, the four keep moving East but their sneaky creeping soon turns into an a flat-put run when they’re spotted. With visibility low, they keep together and manage to make it through to the other side of a fence. Only, it’s too easy and they end up stuck with another line of tyre fires to deal with. In order to tackle this, Felix decides to create a distraction by wailing a siren in a nearby building. This would draw all the zombies across and help the others to sneak past. In the middle of this dangerous plan, the kids decide to sleep it off while Hope keeps watch. Leaving them asleep and vulnerable, Hope makes a decision and walks off purposefully through the tyres to – presumably – sound the siren.
The Episode Review
If there’s one thing The Walking Dead doesn’t have a lot of it’s logic. I still remember the excitement the first season of this show generated but since then the logic has slowly been melting away. Here though, it’s a whole different kettle of fish. The kids just stand and watch as Iris is attacked. They’ve had lessons on how to deal with zombies but abandon all of that to do the stupidest things possible. As Hope said herself, they were unable to deal with 2 zombies but think walking into a large ground full of them is a good idea? And that’s before mentioning the ending! Hope is keeping watch in a dangerous area which – given the thick loads of smoke – would have probably caused them all to cough and pass out long before they decide to have a nap. The characters feel very archetypal although some of the background for Felix is a nice inclusion. The interspersed segments with the “training” though isn’t great; it not only offsets the pacing it actually has an adverse reaction to show how dumb these kids are. They clearly haven’t been paying attention to the lessons. I know this sounds like I’m taking a lot of digs at the show but given they’ve all had training in how to deal with zombies, surely the mistakes they’re making would have been covered. Well, there’s always next episode to turn things around. At least we haven’t had any “found footage” episodes like Fear The Walking Dead, so there is that!
