The Walking Dead: World Beyond review, Episode 7, “Truth or Dare”

The Walking Dead: World Beyond crew gets a bit closer to locating Iris and Hope’s father, but a surprising twist derails things at the end.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond surprised me this week by giving us a plot twist that we may be talking about for a while. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but for a show that’s had some issues getting on its feet, it was a solid twist, and could mark a turning point.

“Truth or Dare” explores the backstory behind Huck (Annet Mahendru), a Marine with a very dark past. We knew something tragic lay in Huck’s past based on the series premiere, but it’s worse than what we could have imagined.

Meanwhile, in the present, the group makes some progress pinpointing the location of Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris’ (Aliyah Royale) dad. This discovery was made largely thanks to the group’s newest members: Tony (Scott Adsit) and Percy (Ted Sutherland). Not everyone is ecstatic about them sticking around, but more on that a bit later.

I haven’t been the biggest fan of World Beyond, but this week’s episode did intrigue me. It’s certainly not where it needs to be, and given that it’s a limited ordeal it doesn’t have time to get there, but the show just might be headed in the right direction after this week.

A map decoded

Anyway, Tony discovers that the blank CRM maps can be decoded with a bright light. When the light shines on the map, it reveals marked locations for all of CRM’s fueling stations. The best part? They’re not guarded in the least bit.

This will give the group the gas they need to make it to New York. I mean, it beats walking, doesn’t it? Side note, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: how the heck is the gas still good enough to use? In all these years, wouldn’t it have gone bad and become unusable? Anyone with an answer, please help.

Anyway, with the decoded map mystery unraveled, Iris decides to take a chance and see if the map of New York she got from Lt. Col. Kublek (Julia Ormond) can reveal anything. Lo and behold, an image of a DNA strand appears over a specific location.

Perhaps this is where Iris and Hope’s father is, which is cause for celebration and a game of Truth or Dare.

Truth or Dare

While Felix (Nico Tortorella) and Tony celebrate with some booze, the kids get up to their own fun with a game of Truth or Dare. At first, the game seems harmless, as Iris shares that if she could go anywhere or do anything, it’d be to go to the Louvre in Paris and admire the art.

But when it’s Hope’s turn to answer Elton’s (Nicolas Cantu) multi-tiered question, Percy jumps in to ask a question of his own: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Of course, we know that she is responsible for killing Elton’s mother, but no one else does. To cover up her guilt, Hope shares a story about pranking teachers at the University. Percy pushes Hope to be more honest with her answer, which leads to her storming off, upset.

It’s been a very conflicting few episodes for Hope as she grapples with keeping this secret from Elton and the others. Even though she confided in Iris about killing someone, she never revealed that it was Elton’s mother. But after that game of Truth or Dare, she’s reached her wit’s end and confides in Huck with her deepest, darkest secret.

Of course, as we come to know, Huck has a dark past of her own and understands that sometimes you have to forgive yourself for your actions. But even more so, sometimes you have to keep those secrets to protect those around you. Even though Hope is considering telling Elton the truth, Huck helps her realize that it would be more for her rather than Elton, and only devastate him to his core. After all, he still harbors hope that his mother could still be alive. Sometimes hope is all we have, so why take that away? Especially in a world like this.

Huck’s past

Prepare yourselves, World Beyond fans, as Huck’s backstory is absolutely devastating. Throughout the episode, we see glimpses of Huck’s life as a Marine, and someone that she may have been dating at the time.

The night the sky fell, everything went to hell. As Marines, she and her team were sent out to handle the undead. Soon, they had orders to shoot and kill anyone on sight, since anyone could be infected.

Huck wasn’t on board with this plan and hesitated when she and her team come upon a group of innocent civilians. She shuts the lights off and shoots her entire team, including the man she might have been seeing, just to save them.

She’s been living with that guilt and pain this whole time. This is why she’s the perfect person to help Hope understand that sometimes, you have to let things go.

A hostage situation

On their way down from the roof, Hope and Huck run into some trouble when a man holds Hope at gunpoint. Apparently, he just had to kill his brother who had turned, and he’s moments away from facing the same fate himself. Thanks to her negotiating skills, Huck manages to get the guy to let Hope go and takes him out herself.

She promises to help him, but for her, that means ending his life, as it was going to end anyway. Under normal circumstances, we may have thought her heartless, but knowing her backstory, it makes sense why she would take such a step.

Who dunnit?

“Truth or Dare” ends on quite the cliffhanger and leaves us with a lot of questions. After learning about Iris’ dreams about the Louvre, Percy decides to surprise her with a romantic makeshift setup of the museum using torn out pages from history books.

It was made for her to enjoy, but she falls asleep while admiring his work, awakening later to some strange noises. When she walks in looking for Percy, she’s shocked to find a dead Tony lying on the ground…with his face bashed in.

Iris screams for help, and as the group gathers, they realize someone is sitting inside the closet: a drunk and bloody Silas (Hal Cumpston). Given how Silas was acting towards Percy earlier in the episode and his death stare over his advances on Iris, we can assume Silas is responsible for this.

Or at least that’s what the group seems to believe, but with Percy missing, there’s no way to know for sure.

The Verdict

“Truth or Dare” is a rollercoaster of emotions, and I’m really hoping it shakes the series up going forward. I’m really intrigued to see where things go from here.

Will they pile on Silas? Might someone blame Percy? I mean, he isn’t there, meaning he could have killed Tony and fled.

Honestly, it could be anything, but for now, all eyes are on Silas.

Until next week!

Grade: B-

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