‘The Walking Dead: World Beyond’ Stars Tease What’s Next After That Explosive Series Premiere

Spoilers for The Walking Dead: World Beyond series premiere “Brave” past this point.

After spending an hour setting up the Campus Colony, one of the three rings of CRM (Civic Republic Military), everything changed at the end of the Walking Dead: World Beyond series premiere. Not only had most of our speaking cast headed out of town — Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris (Aliyah Royale) in search of their father, with friends in tow; Felix (Nico Tortorella) and Huck (Annet Mahendru) in hot pursuit — but the city had been burned to the ground, and everyone inside seemingly slaughtered by Elizabeth Kublek’s shock troopers.

That’s quite a big move for a series, upending its premise after one episode. And it also seemingly tips the CRM very much on the side of “bad guys” in the series, what with — to use their term — liquidating the city, and all. Though it’s not 100% clear yet what the motivations behind this move are, and whether Portland or the CRM itself (the two other rings of the joint civilization) are up next, it does seem to be tied to the mysterious research Hope and Iris’s father was doing, and the fact that his communications with his daughters may have compromised whatever CRM is up to.

Does that research tie into what we know about the organization from The Walking Dead, that they sort “candidates” into categories, like Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who was last seen being spirited away by a CRM helicopter? Whatever is going on with them, for Iris and Hope, finding out the fate of Campus Colony won’t be a big surprise.

“It’ll confirm that they were bad people,” Mansour told Decider about the potential reckoning coming when the sisters learn about Campus Colony’s liquidation.”That the whole time, this whole time Hope is always like, ‘No, they took our dad.’ To an extent, you want to believe that there’s still a little bit of good in everybody. But it just confirms, no — you have to go full force against these people. Because they’re just out to destroy you. They don’t care about your well-being.”

Royale agreed, adding that if and when they do found out, CRM better watch out for the Bennett sisters, and not the other way around. “I think, especially because they left after this culminating moment, we do not trust these people,” Royale said. “We don’t trust them. Should we go through this entire journey and make it back there — we’re fighters by that point. I think we’re ready to fight.”

That all said, just because CRM murdered their friends and family and burned their houses down doesn’t mean there isn’t a little more going on than our heroes expect. According to Julia Ormond, that’s part of the point of what viewers should be taking away from her character. Citing a scene where Elizabeth offers information to the sisters meant to dissuade their search — though of course it only encourages it — she noted that the kindness viewers see from her might not be completely calculated.

“I don’t think you should be able to define it,” Ormond said. “Playing the ambiguity of that is part of the role… You should be able, as the story unfolds moving forward, be able to look back to that moment and go, ‘Ah, it was that.’ Or, ‘It was this.'”

The other purpose of that ambiguity, in Ormond’s mind? Spurring Hope and Iris on to action.

“The leader’s quite often — unless it’s Rick Grimes or unless it’s somebody like that — the leaders are quite often supporting roles,” Ormond noted. “And for this, it’s the two girls, it’s Hope and Iris. It’s the other kids. They are at the center of this. Very much how Elizabeth feeds into it is to nudge: what do they trust? What don’t they trust? Do they have any option? Or is it that they’ve got nothing else to lose? Are they going to be nihilistic in the face of feeling that there’s no future? Or are they going to be part of creating the future?”

We’ll just have to stay tuned to The Walking Dead: World Beyond to find out. New episodes premiere Sundays at 10/9c on AMC.

Where to watch The Walking Dead: World Beyond