The Walking Dead: World Beyond: Quatervois (2021)
Season 2, Episode 5
6/10
"Quatervois" raises a little hope for what could be a series finale that will bring something really interesting to The Walking Dead universe
9 May 2024
The Endlings visit the culling facility where they enlist Silas' help to break Hope and Leo out of the research facility the next day using one of the facility's box trucks and Dennis' key cad; although initially reluctant, Silas agrees to help. Elton continues to grow closer to Asha who reveals the truth about her mother's illness, explaining that it has to be kept secret as those who wish to lead the Perimeter in a different way will use it against her. Iris and Felix, joined by Percy disguised as Elton, have Indira and Dev turn them over to the CRM and manage to fool Kublek into believing their story.

Experimenting with Hope's suggestion of using yeast, Leo and his colleagues have some success in accelerating the decay of the undead before Hope reveals the truth to her father. Leo agrees to their escape plan, but Silas is captured by CRM soldiers, foiling it. Increasingly suspicious of the CRM, Huck finds coded transmissions in her mother's safe confirming the CRM's guilt and that they are using some of the people from Omaha and the Campus Colony as test subjects; Huck seeks out Leo's help to stop it. In a post-credits scene, Lyla is delivered Sergeant Major Barca as her newest test subject by Jadis who declares that Kublek has been recalled to the Civic Republic indefinitely and Jadis is now in charge.

The fifth episode of the second season of TWD: World Beyond, titled "Quatervois" (or, from French, "Crossroads"), kicks off the group's plans to rescue their members from the Civic Republic facilities. New discoveries raise the tension.

"Quatervois" begins with an "emblematic" scene for the team, where each of the characters kills an empty, especially Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Elton (Nicolas Cantu), reminding us that the characters' situation is very different from where they started at the beginning of the previous season.

During the opening, we see Iris, Elton, Felix (Nico Tortorella), Will (Jelani Alladin), and Percy (Ted Sutherland) conducting a field reconnaissance to find out where Silas (Hal Cumpston) is. The meeting is marked by Iris convincing the boy to help them in the plan to rescue Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Leo (Joe Holt) from the CR and then head towards Portland to report what the CRM did to the city of Omaha. The sequence tries to appeal to our emotions but doesn't quite succeed. In fact, this is a recurring problem in the episode, perhaps due to ineffective direction for the actors.

The plan was to infiltrate Iris and Will into the CR, and when they were reunited with Hope and Leo, they would leave through the Waste Terminal with Silas' help. Everything starts to go wrong when Percy interferes and goes along with the team, pretending to be Elton. Although nothing was discovered - which could have been, had Huck (Annet Mahendru) decided - it was extremely irresponsible of him to do so.

When they are picked up by the CR, the three go through a moment with Lieutenant Elizabeth (Julia Ormond) in another scene that is completely off-key. The characters' facial expressions and reactions during this moment are almost comical, which should be tense and definitely not funny. The attempt to maintain a dialogue full of cynicism failed miserably here.

Huck and Elizabeth have some of the coolest moments in the episode. After the former infiltrates her mother's office and finds compromising documents, she needs to keep up appearances and convey that nothing is happening, with dialogues that actually leave a doubt as to whether the lieutenant can pick up on the nuances in the conversation or if she is really just trying to be a good mother - whatever that means. Both characters are very complex, which is very welcome in the series.

Before everything begins, Hope is haunted by a dream where her father is killed by the CRM for, according to him, not stopping questioning about Iris. Haunted by this, she sets out to search for him and ends up finding him in the laboratory, with other researchers, who say that Hope's formula for fermentation - that boring dialogue in the episode "Exit Wounds" and the way she made drinks in Omaha - could be useful for accelerating the decomposition of the empties. It's funny to pay attention to these small details because they could potentially plant a possible loyalty from Hope to the CR in the future.

Then comes the moment of the plan. Silas heads towards the place where they should leave, and Leo decides that he needs to say goodbye to Lyla (Natalie Gold) - which he obviously shouldn't do considering she was the one who told the authorities about Hope being "gifted" without informing him, which already proves she's not the most reliable - and Will and Percy prepare on the outside. And that's when everything starts to go wrong.

Silas is discovered and surrounded by CRM officers, and Leo is found by Huck who shows them the stolen documents. She raises suspicion that Omaha was indeed destroyed by the army, and that, furthermore, experiments are taking place inside the CR facilities.

Regarding the experiments, it's nothing new to us. In "The Wrong End of a Telescope," we see Lyla reporting on her experiments and results carried out on the empty previously known as Dr. Samuel Abott. In "Foothold," she asks Elizabeth when she will receive new subjects to continue the studies.

And in the post-credits scene of the episode, we have another subject being delivered. It's Sergeant Barca (Al Calderon), last seen in "The Tyger and the Lamb" (third episode of the first season) who had been sent to the "Health and Wellbeing Complex" by Lieutenant Elizabeth. A CRM soldier informs Lyla that she should report her results to her while Elizabeth is away. When the soldier removes her helmet, it's none other than Anne-Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) - finally.

With an episode that seems to be the beginning of the end, "Quatervois" raises a little hope for what could be a series finale that will bring something really interesting to The Walking Dead universe. Although the excitement is still low, now we just have to wait and see what awaits us at the end of the season.
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