TWD World Beyond premiere: About that ending…

We need to talk about the jaw-dropping ending at the end of World Beyond

Whatever you might have thought about the CRM before has probably changed after seeing the series premiere of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Things were strange enough when CRM showed up for Monument Day at the Campus Colony of Omaha, and things got even worse by the end of the episode.

SPOILERS FOR THE WALKING DEAD: WORLD BEYOND “BRAVE”

If you were wondering why anyone would leave the safety of a thriving community, the answer arrives in typical TWD fashion: No one is ever safe and the thriving community ended up a barren wasteland full of the dead by the time the episode was over. Over nine thousand people lived there and they were all exterminated by CRM for unknown reasons. (Let’s put a giant asterisk* on this because we don’t actually know what happened, only that everyone was dead with CRM was standing over the bodies. It certainly looks like CRM killed them…but it’s possible that they didn’t)

But why?

And who was Elizabeth searching for?

Let’s answer the second question first. The soldier reports that “she” was not there, to which Elizabeth replies “Good.” At first you might think she was talking about Hope and Iris but the soldier only said “she” which means she was only looking for one person, unless she was only looking for one of them. Maybe she wanted Iris to get out. Or maybe she was rooting for the spirited Hope to get out and do…something.

That brings us back to the first question. Why would they kill everyone?

It’s possible that they didn’t kill everyone and the scenes were staged to look like they were. But it’s highly doubtful that a strong community that has been thriving for ten years would suddenly die off after a breach in the walls. This was something more. There were painted walkers inside the walls (similar to the ones Huck and Felix were painting), but the number of gunshots sounding off in the background and bodies on the ground suggest that people were being killed.

There were five helicopters in the area when Elizabeth landed at the colony even though she said there was only one. Where did the other soldiers go? Were they lying in wait?

There’s no question that we will learn more about what happened to the Campus Colony in future episodes, but it’s a mystery that will continue to gnaw at us as we ponder what the CRM might be up to.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.