The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 3 Review: The Tyger And The Lamb – Forbes

'The Walking Dead: World Beyond'

Im having a really hard time with The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Three episodes deep, and its just not clicking. Im bored. More than anything, Im just plain bored.

Unlike either Fear or The Walking Dead, World Beyond starts slow and then, outside of a couple entertaining action sequences, stays slow. Its also very dramatic in a treacly sort of way.

In Sunday nights episode, The Tyger and the Lamb, Iris reads off William Blakes poem The Tyger during one of the extended action sequences. So we hear this poem being read over everything as the characters run from zombies, kick zombies, shove zombies and do almost everything they can other than stick them with the damned pointy end.

I mean, I enjoy William Blake as much as the next guy, I just dont really get what this show is trying to achieve with this fearful symmetry? It feels like another attempt at artsy in a very heavy-handed way. Sure, Silas finds a version of the poem that shes written out with a picture of a tiger when she, and almost nobody else, is nice to him at school, but it feels like an attempt to make something seem profound or meaningful without actually doing that. Maybe Im missing the point.

Maybe Im not the target audience. Maybe its just starting off slow and will pick up and transform into something exciting. Or maybe this is all just prelude to the Rick Grimes movies.

NO. THE POINTY END. STICK THEM WITH THE POINTY END!

A few things happen in Episode 3, though surprisingly little overall given this is a show with only 20 episodes planned in total.

The most interesting part of the episode comes at the end, when a soldier in the CRM named Barca comes to speak with his boss, Elizabeth Kublek. Hes upset and confused by what they did to the Omaha community. He feels guilty and she tries to assuage that guilt by pointing out that they are, in fact, the light of humanity. She turns on the fan, the gas stove, the TV, opens the fridge, all to point out just how wealthy and advanced they are. Humanitys last hope. The ends justify the means, blah blah blah. Killing a potential threat to protect their community of 200,000 (way bigger than I thought the CRM would be) is a worthy transgression, a necessary evil. To hell with your morality, Barca, we have AC.

Don't question power.

Barca, to his credit, calls her on her BS. He doesnt buy it and he doesnt back down. Hes not comfortable with how things played out. All the dead. So she makes him soup and calls in the MPs. They arrive and take him away to some kind of medical re-education camp where hell remain until hes had a change of heart. He tells her that wont happen and she replies, cool as a cucumber, that hell just have to stay there forever then.

Kublek is shaping up to be an interesting enough villain, one who may truly believe her own idealistic vision for humanity. True believers who justify their actions as moral necessities, no matter the cost, are some of the most dangerous people out there, after all. Wiping out an entire community because they might be a threat despite not knowing where the CRMs secret city is and despite the fact that they only have maybe two trained fighters? Thats evil, alright.

Oh, and it seems pretty likely that this is where Rick Grimes is being held.

But while I find Kublek and her little organization interesting enough, I find the rest of this story fairly tepid and bland. Its too slow for its own good and the characters, while not terrible by any means, do little to spice things up.

At least they're wearing masks.

The teens all have potential to be interesting characters, so Ill hold my breath a bit longer. At least they refuse to go back with Felix and Huck, forcing those two to go on this crazy thousand-mile-long journey from Nebraska to New York with them. They could use a couple fighters not afraid to stick a spear into a zombies face.

Granted, Iris does manage to do this eventually, but its kind of funny watching this right after Fear The Walking Dead, when the most recent episode in that show involves piles of speared zombie corpses.

What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 3 Review: The Tyger And The Lamb - Forbes