The return of Walking Dead: World Beyond fixes one of the spinoff's biggest problems - useless zombies. One spinoff wasn't enough for AMC, and in early 2020, Walking Dead: World Beyond premiered as a sibling series of the main show and Fear The Walking Dead. The least popular of the trio (in both critical and commercial terms), World Beyond's teen-centric approach didn't necessary resonate with The Walking Dead's core audience. Arguably the biggest problem, however, was how World Beyond's zombies felt like an inconsequential afterthought amid the deluge of hormone-fueled drama.
Season 1 was a zombie show desperately trying not to be a zombie show; the reanimated rotters' presence barely an inconvenience for Walking Dead: World Beyond's core group. Thanks to years of safety at Campus Colony, the likes of Iris and Hope Bennett began the story incredibly naive to the zombie apocalypse and its hazards, but their arrogance was never punished like inexperienced folks routinely are in The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead. The young protagonists made noise without care, ignored zombies they should've put down, and treated walking corpses as curiosities rather than deadly threats, but never received the wake-up call they needed.
Thankfully, Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 rectifies that problem. In the premiere episode, "Konsekans," zombies are the ever-present danger they always should've been, and those who underestimate them very quickly learn not to. When Hope strikes out alone from the CRM, for example, she bundles her way amateurishly through an infested school, suffering a concussion during her very first tussle with a single zombie. Her journey goes from bad to worse, as Hope then narrowly avoids a grisly death after encountering a gate holding back dozens of hungry undead. Quickly realizing the apocalypse is far more treacherous than her time in World Beyond season 1 suggested, a desperate Hope has no choice but to reluctantly accept the CRM's sketchy offer of safety.
Elsewhere, Iris undergoes a drastic change of attitude in response to losing her sister during World Beyond's season 1 finale. Aliyah Royale's character is tougher, meaner, and less forgiving in season 2. As well as training to get stronger, she's finally embracing the hardships that come with the end of the world, rather than just smiling her way through, and by sharpening her combat skills, Iris is essentially acknowledging how lucky her group were to come this far without dying.
Even going back to Robert Kirkman's original comic book, The Walking Dead has always been a drama series first and a zombie horror second. But where the main show and Fear The Walking Dead have (mostly) kept the undead relevant, World Beyond season 1 would often forget a zombie apocalypse was actually happening. The harsh realities of survival seemingly didn't apply to the Bennett sisters and their friends, who would play street bowling, dance in zombie-infested buildings, and do various other activities that'd have Rick Grimes crying into his cowboy hat. World Beyond season 1 failed to understand what The Walking Dead knew from the very start - for the human drama to matter, the outbreak needs to matter. Without that undercurrent of reanimated fear, the entire Walking Dead concept collapses.
That's why it's so morbidly encouraging to see Hope struggling alone in the wild in World Beyond season 2's premiere episode, and Iris taking a darker route. If this scenario was happening last season, Hope would've skipped through the corridors, lucked-out against any zombies, and probably found time to practice her tap dancing along the way. But Hope getting knocked out by a single zombie and having no choice but to seek help from her mortal enemies is a huge improvement, not only making the dead mean something again, but also highlighting how sheltered and inexperienced Campus Colony's survivors are - both things Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1 never did.