'The Walking Dead: World Beyond' Episode 9 Review: Huck and suspense-filled plot sets up an intriguing finale
Spoilers for 'The Walking Dead: World Beyond' Episode 9 'The Deepest Cut'
Trust 'World Beyond' to set up a sizzling finale with a good two episodes that notch up the suspense factor. After what seemed a sedate journey of four teens discovering the post-apocalypse world, 'The Deepest Cut' wastes no time in explaining the developments in Episodes 6 and 7. To get the spoilers out of the way, Huck (Annet Mahendru), actually known as Jennifer is the spy in the teen's group. She is tasked to take care of 'The Asset" and all of us thought it would be Hope (Alexa Mansour), but we were wrong.
It turns out that Iris (Aliyah Royale) was the one Huck was tasked to keep an eye out on all along. Lt. Kublek (Julia Ormond) embeds her daughter, Huck in the group of teens and believes she was the one who the CRM have termed for the future, for reasons not yet known. With time running out, Huck is asked to get Iris on her side irrespective of the consequences and she goes about her job with absolute disdain. Parallelly, there is a storyline involving Elton (Nicolas Cantu) that might have just shaped his future in Hollywood.
The Hollywood line is not a stretch. Cantu is a promising actor and he puts his skills on full display as he unearths the biggest secret: That Huck was the criminal mastermind. In search of Silas (Hal Cumpston), a weary Elton finds a mortally wounded Percy (Ted Sutherland) instead and attempts to keep him alive after realizing he was shot. As he struggles to get Percy going, his inner voice (in Percy's form) tells him about the need to move on and become stronger in life.
As he combats his past, he also has his first fight with the Empties to save Percy's life. And that's when the reveal happens. Elton finds a radio on Percy and tries to reach out to Felix and gets Huck on the line instead. That's when Percy musters up his energy and shuts him down saying it was Huck who shot him. In the meantime, for the audience, every minute of Huck's screentime makes it evident that she's determined to cut Iris off the rest.
Felix Carlcucci (Nico Tortorella) gets injured while fending off a bunch of Empties, but in the final scene, it is shown that it was Huck who slashed his leg to render him helpless. There's enough drama as Iris decides to not move forward without Felix, however, Hope deciphers the code that would apparently lead them to their father, but finds out it was a piece of communication all along which read: "Raft embed agent en-route to NY w/ asset + four."
And then there's another character introduction: Felix's boyfriend, Bill (Jelani Alladin). Quite simply, this episode establishes the very reason Felix is on this trip, although now rendered helpless, it remains how he and Iris track Hope and Huck who've left while the former has a plan of taking care of Huck on her own.
Final thoughts
Has this attempt been enough to convince fans to stick around and watch the new season? Maybe. 'World Beyond' came in with a lot of hype and those disappointed with the developments can give it another shot. 'The Deepest Cut' focuses more on the mission and keeps the emotions aside making it one of the better episodes in the series. It does promise a scintillating finale, but there are still a lot of storylines that need to be tied up before 'The Walking Dead' in typical fashion jolts us with a massive cliffhanger.
'The Walking Dead: World Beyond' airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC. The finale is a two-hour affair with Episode 10 following right after.