The Walking Dead: World Beyond: Who ISN’T The Worst?

4) Huck

Before we start this, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that my theory about Huck’s backstory is incorrect, and that what we saw in episode seven, “Truth Or Dare”, is, in fact, true, because, it is central to whether or not Huck is redeemable, and to what degree.

Just as a refresher, in the aforementioned episode, we learned that Huck was serving in the U.S. Marines in New York State when the outbreak hit, and, was assigned to rescue civilians hiding from empties inside the service tunnels of some city. She and her squad were successful, though, sadly, after all that trouble, they were ordered by the government to initiate “Sunset Protocol”: The order to kill anyone found outside of a designated safe zone, whether they showed symptoms of the zombie virus or not.

Huck, finding the order reprehensible, chose instead to kill her own squad, rather than let them massacre innocent civilians.

Why is this so important? Well, because it tells us that, while Huck does believe in doing what’s necessary for “The Greater Good”, she abhors killing innocent civilians, even in service of that ideal.

Throughout the last two episodes of the season, we heard Huck say over and over how much she didn’t want to hurt anyone in the course of her mission to bring Hope to the Civic Republic research facility in Ithaca; Only killing Tony when all her other attempts to get the rest of the group to return to Omaha failed (Which, if you look carefully, you can see across this season).

A subtle hint of how much Huck dislikes the unnecessary killing of civilians could be seen in the season finale, “In This Life”, when she continually presses her mother about the status of Campus Colony when the latter keeps giving her vague answers about it. Honestly, I’m inclined to think that, if we see Huck turn against the CRM next season, that will be the reason why.

Something else we heard a lot from Huck over the final two episodes was how important she believed her mission to retrieve Hope was, because of how much it meant to the future. In spite of the state of the world, Huck is a fairly optimistic person, and believes that, with enough people working together, the human race can indeed have a future akin to what they would have had had the zombie outbreak never occurred, and she believes in doing whatever she can (And encouraging others to do whatever they can) to see that future become a reality.

This paints a picture a woman who is trying to do everything in her power to get humanity back on its feet, while also trying to avoid doing the sorts of things her mother has done (Without her knowledge), which, if we’re being honest…is pretty damned good.

I think, if I were to name who I believe to be the most redeemable, I’d have to say Huck, for all the reasons I just said. She wants to give everything to bring civilization back, and wants to encourage others to do the same, she also believes in making the hard choices needed to achieve that, but, not so much that she wants to risk losing her soul in the process, and carries with her the weight of the hard decisions she has had to make. I’m not sure what more you could ask for.

But, what do you guys think? Who would you say is the most redeemable villain of the first season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond? Did you think there was someone more deserving of redemption? Someone less deserving? Let me know! And, of course, if you enjoyed this, and want to hear my ideas on how to survive a zombie apocalypse, you can always pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also find it at Amazon here, and, on iTunes here!