Connecting The Walking Dead: ‘The Wrong End Of A Telescope’

2) The Last Day Of Hvass High School

Most of this week’s episode of World Beyond took place inside the Hvass High School, a large high school somewhere in the vicinity of Lincoln, Nebraska. Along with seeing the school in the present-day, we were also treated to a couple of pictures from the school’s 2010 yearbook (And a little imagination of the events leading to those pictures from Iris), following a student by the name of Sabina James. What we see of her paints a picture of a bubbly, carefree girl enjoying her senior year of high school…except, that is, for the last time we see her.

As the episode reaches its end, Iris, the last member of the group to leave the school’s basement, spies a dead empty lying on the floor, with noticeable pink hair: It’s Sabina James.

Also, throughout the episode, while the school isn’t destroyed, per se, to say everything looks right would be…incorrect. It’s intact, it certainly wasn’t hit by Cobalt or anything like that, but, what we see doesn’t exactly paint a pleasant picture.

For example, as the group explore the school’s auditorium, the front rows of seats are overturned and in shambles, while several trophy case are toppled and shattered. Meanwhile, in the school gym, which was being readied for the Sadie Hawkins Dance, there are streamers draped from the ceiling, and banners on the floor, clearly in the process of being painted, and…overturned tables left strewn all over the floor.

This reminds me of the high school near Hershel Greene’s farm, seen in season two of The Walking Dead, where Shane and Otis needed to go to scrounge medical supplies to save Carl. While Shane and Otis try to flee a herd of walkers through the high school, you can see banners for homecoming all along the walls of the school’s gym. Just like Hvass High, what was supposed to be a time of celebration for the students, was permanently derailed by the end of the world.

But, it’s more than that. Seeing the state Hvass is in, it looks like we’re seeing it in the middle of that derailment. If you think back to the wedding scene in the Fear The Walking Dead episode, “Do Not Disturb”, where the father of the bride dies in the middle of the reception, turns, bites his daughter, and then, chaos ensues, that is what Hvass High looks like, like someone turned in the middle of an ordinary school day, maybe in the auditorium, and caused all Hell to break loose.

It’s almost like you can see the same horror stories tragically playing out across the Walking Dead’s world, each one equally horrific, even if all we see of it are shadows.