Connecting The Walking Dead, Season Two: Konsekans

The Walking Dead World Beyond season 2

No one in Albany seemed to know that the walking dead were coming.

A good part of this week’s episode focused on Hope striking out on her own, to see if she could survive. She could then decide if she wanted to see things the Civic Republic’s way. That manifested itself as seeing Hope wander an abandoned high school in Albany, seeing what seemed to be the aftermath of the outbreak striking the capital of the Empire State quite unawares.

As Hope explores the halls of the school, even though she largely pays it no mind, we can see a large makeshift barricade made from desks, looking like something surviving students or faculty may have done in a rush as the outbreak made itself evident during the middle of a school day. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen something suggesting as much in World Beyond.

Throughout Hope’s stay at the school, we see various plaques and pictures and posters of students on the walls and pinboards. For most of these scenes, because the camera is focused on Hope, much of these (Especially the posters) are too blurry to make out, that is, until after Hope hits her head.

After hitting her head, suffering a brief hallucination, and then fighting off the empty which caused her injury in the first place, she gets clear of her haze and, for the first time, gets a good look at one of the many paper posters on the pinboards. It’s a missing person poster, looking for information on the disappearance of a cheerleader (At least, I think she was) named Candice Froder. After climbing back up the stairs she fell down (Which is how she hit her head in the first place), you finally get a look at some of the other posters Hope passed by: They’re also missing person posters, looking for other students.

If there were this many students gone missing in this part of Albany that posters would be plastered all over the walls hoping someone might know info about their disappearance, it probably means that they had been grabbed by empties. As the world approached z-day, it seems like people just began “disappearing”, going missing long enough for people to start taking notice and trying to find info on their whereabouts.

While we’ve seen this touched on a little bit in Fear, I feel like this is a much better glimpse into this aspect of the pre-outbreak world. That, unbeknownst to the populace at large, not only were people going missing, but the number of people going missing was increasing, leaving everyone else to slowly come to the realization that more and more people were disappearing, without so much as a hint as to where or why.

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I want to see this addressed in Tales Of The Walking Dead. I think this would be a great mini-story, like something you’d see in the early webisodes.

So what did you think?  Did any of these connections slip past you? Were there any that you thought I missed? Let me know in the comments! If you like this and want to see something different from me, specifically my tips to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!