The Walking Dead: World Beyond foreshadows dark times ahead for Huck/Jennifer Mallick, with Elizabeth hinting toward her own daughter’s death.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond is heavily foreshadowing Huck’s death before the end of season 2. Played by Annet Mahendru, Huck debuted in The Walking Dead: World Beyond as a Campus Colony security officer, but by season 1’s conclusion, her true identity was uncovered – Jennifer Mallick, CRM staff sergeant. Assimilating back into Civic Republic Military life, Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 finds Huck’s loyalties divided. On one hand, “Jennifer Mallick” is desperate to rebuild her military career and earn the respect of her mother, Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublek. On the other, “Huck” has glimpsed life beyond the CRM’s iron grip, and no longer shares their ruthless perspective on outsiders.
Troubled during the early episodes of Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2, Huck finally picks a side after realizing her mother, on behalf of the CRM, was involved in the destruction of both Omaha and Campus Colony. Discovering secret documents in Elizabeth’s safe, Huck loses faith in both her mother and her employers, passing secret documents onto Leo Bennett in a vain hope of halting the CRM’s evil plan. But while Huck might’ve finally resolved her moral conflict, she might not survive long enough to reap the warm glow that comes with doing the right thing.
In “Quatervois,” World Beyond‘s Huck enjoys(?) the tensest of dinners with her mother. By this point, Huck knows Elizabeth is involved in some deep, dark, genocidal business, while Elizabeth clearly suspects her daughter has been poking into affairs beyond her pay grade. The most awkward bolognese preparation of all time sees Huck and Elizabeth simmer with passive-aggressive rage over a pan of boiling water, but it’s a speech from the latter that ominously paves the way for Walking Dead: World Beyond‘s future Huck death.
Elizabeth begins by describing how parents must teach their children, “the excruciatingly hard things that need to be done to protect the world form itself.” That alone isn’t an especially promising start, but Elizabeth goes on to describe a time before the apocalypse when a young Jennifer would get covered in bolognese on vacation, so her mother would take them out to the ocean and wash her child off in the waves. The monologue gets more foreboding when Elizabeth admits, “you were so gentle then, so trusting… I couldn’t bear the though of anyone else destroying that in you, so…” She trails off, but Elizabeth seems primed to say, “so I did it myself.”
There are a trio of major red flags building toward Huck’s death in Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2. The first comes when Elizabeth speaks of “excruciatingly hard things that need to be done.” Time and again, Elizabeth Kublek has proved her ceaseless commitment to the CRM’s cause. Forced to choose between killing her own daughter and protecting the sanctity of the Civic Republic, her choice is a coin-flip. Huck could feasibly become another necessary sacrifice among the thousands of lives Elizabeth has taken in the CRM’s name. The second warning sign is the implication that Elizabeth couldn’t abide anyone but herself taking away Huck’s innocence. Elizabeth’s line hints that if the CRM’s top brass decided Huck needed to go, she’d rather do it herself than let anyone else perform the deed. Rounding off the spaghetti foreshadowing is this strange mental image of a mother holding her daughter in the ocean to wash away the deep red of pasta sauce. It’s not difficult to see how, now Huck is in her 30s, that could translate into a violent altercation between the pair, with Huck once again washing away in a sea of red.
Were Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 to end with Huck’s death, that could be considered a fitting end for Annet Mahendru’s character. Huck killed and lied under CRM orders, and is only now realizing she spent season 1 batting for the wrong team. Giving her life for the Bennett family, or simply for the continued survival of humanity outside Civic Republic borders, would be an apt way for Huck to atone. Being killed by her own mother, meanwhile, would cement the CRM as truly evil… as if they weren’t bad enough already.
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