Spoilers below for the Season 1 finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, so be warned!
Zombie TV is now all wrapped up for 2020, with AMC's The Walking Dead: World Beyond having concluded its first season on Sunday night with a double-episode finale that answered some lingering questions while inspiring even more inquiries about what's coming in the second and final season. For one, several of Huck's villainous actions were revealed, from her "Hope is the only essential asset" plan to being responsible for killing Tony and shooting Percy. As well, fans witnessed Felix's lover Will going through some shit with the Civic Republic Military, and watched as Silas allowed himself to be captured by the CRM.
Two other noteworthy elements within the Walking Dead: World Beyond were a reference to Huck's father, who would presumably have been Elizabeth's husband at some point, and several current-day updates on Hope and Iris' father Leo Bennett, who is caught up in a romantic relationship with the previously introduced CRM scientist Lyla Belshaw. Luckily, showrunner Matt Negrete shined a little light on both of these topics in an interview with EW, so let's dig in.
Who Is Huck's Father On The Walking Dead: World Beyond?
Episode 8 gave Walking Dead: World Beyond fans a jolt with the reveal that Annet Mahendru's morally wavering Huck is actually the daughter of Julia Ormond's CRM Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublek. It all makes sense in a twisted sort of way, and the lineage reveal had fans curious about who Huck's father might be. Episode 9, "The Deepest Cut," follows up with the rest of Huck and Elizabeth's conversation about Huck's progress separating "the asset" Hope from the rest of the group. That convo also introduced the first big reference to Huck's absentee father, who apparently vacated the family while leaving behind a watch that somehow brought Huck and Elizabeth back together. Elizabeth seemed quite emotional about it, too.
When asked about any facts he could lay out there about Huck's father figure, showrunner and co-creator Matt Negrete said this:
Huck's dad? Oh, boy. We don't know much of anything about him in season 1. It's really about the reveal of who Elizabeth is. He does get name-checked. . . . He gets watch-checked as well. So we do know there's a history there. It's a great point: That watch is a link to their father. It's almost like there's this love that they have for their father who is not there, and it's expressed through that watch. Actually, I'm going to end it right there. I'm not going to spoil it.
Am I the only one who thinks it's curious that Matt Negrete uses the pronoun "their" during that answer? It happens in a way where it almost seems like he's hinting at Huck having a sibling in the mix somewhere. Beyond that, I'm also intrigued by Negrete refusing to spoil things after saying Huck's love for her father is represented by the watch, since I don't even know how he could spoil anything in that sense. Unless her father is Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan or something, but that seems far more like fan-fiction than anything based in TWD: World Beyond's reality. So now we get to wait and see if the show actually does intend to reveal his identity, or if it will remain an open book for fans to speculate about.
What's Up With Leo And Belshaw's Realtionship At The CRM Lab?
The Walking Dead: World Beyond first hinted at Lyla Belshaw's kinship with Leo Bennett through Season 1's multiple post-credits sequences, and fully confirmed things with the finale. The two are seemingly happy together in relative solitude within one of the CRM bases, but while Leo appears completely trusting of his girlfriend, Lyla doesn't appear to have "love" as her #1 focus. When asked how legitimate her feelings are for Leo, the Walking Dead franchise boss Scott Gimple told EW that she definitely does care about him, but that the future of civilization is indeed a bigger priority.
Of course, Leo doesn't know that, so he may have unwittingly set himself up for disaster by being so frank and honest with Belshaw regarding his true feelings about CRM, as well as his suspicions over what happened with Dr. Abbott. When asked what that all means for Leo's future, here's how Matt Negrete put it:
You raise all really good points, and those are things that we're definitely going to be exploring in Season 2. But Leo's not in a very good place at the end of that dinner, because he's about to confess more about his suspicions of the CRM and potentially a plan to find out more to his girlfriend who we've just learned is incredibly loyal to the CRM. So if he does divulge something, what is she going to do with that information? And is she willing to expose him to the higher-ups and maybe potentially put him in endanger? Those are all sorts of questions that are going to be lingering at the end of this episode going into the next season. But yeah, it's just a matter of waiting to see how that plays out. He's walking into a minefield by opening up to the wrong person there.
So Lyla Belshaw definitely appears to be the wrong person for Leo to open up to, but it remains to be seen exactly what she'll do with all of Leo's admissions. She could obviously put a call in to Elizabeth to clue her in, and it's a complete toss-up as far as what orders she would put in. She might put Leo through whatever Dr. Abbott had to go through that caused him to be one of the CRM lab's walker test subjects.
But then one has to wonder if Elizabeth would react in a less harsh way, considering Hope is now heading to team up with her father for brainy research purposes. We can only hope that Belshaw's cooking gives Leo a sudden case of laryngitis, so that he can no longer speak about his wariness out loud. It's a far shot, but it could happen.
With no concrete answers on the way for a while, The Walking Dead: World Beyond is set to return to AMC for Season 2 at some point in 2021, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more information on that front. In the meantime, horror fans can also anticipate the return of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 in early 2021, as well as the back six episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10, which will introduce Negan's wife Lucille and other new characters into the fold.
