Walking Dead World Beyond Explains A Confusing Season 1 Line

The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1 included a confusing line about Huck's watch leading her to the CRM. Season 2 finally explains how.

The closing chapter of The Walking Dead: World Beyond finally addresses a strange season 1 line about Huck's watch. Though Annet Mahendru's Huck debuted in Walking Dead: World Beyond as an honest, hard-working security officer from Omaha, season 1 eventually revealed her true allegiance lay with the CRM. More than simply a loyal Civic Republic officer, in fact, Huck also had the privilege of calling Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublek her mother.

Flashbacks show Huck was serving as a U.S. marine when the outbreak began, but defied orders by gunning down her own unit to save innocent civilians. Huck then made the long trek to reunite with her mother, who was on her way toward founding the Civic Republic. How Huck managed to find Elizabeth in the early days of the zombie apocalypse is the only big blank period of her backstory, with Walking Dead: World Beyond offering no details about their reunion. The sole clue comes from Elizabeth herself, who said in season 1 that Huck's watch, which once belonged to her father, "Brought us back together safe and sound, despite everything."

Without any extra context on how Huck found her mother during the early outbreak chaos, Elizabeth's watch line was a confusing moment in Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1. The scene failed to clarify whether Elizabeth was speaking figuratively, or whether the watch genuinely helped she and Huck come together. Maybe the watch had an engraving that meant Huck knew where her mother would be waiting, or perhaps the timepiece had a navigational tool (as many watches do) that saved Huck from losing her way - especially since the Civic Republic's original location is a closely-guarded secret.

Over a whole season later, the question is finally answered by Walking Dead: World Beyond's series finale. Dealt a fatal blow by Jadis, a dying Huck speaks about her father's watch, admitting, "My mom likes to say it's the watch that brought me and her back together." Her words and tone in this scene confirm Elizabeth's World Beyond season 1 line was only ever superstitious nonsense. The watch played no meaningful part in helping Huck find the early Civic Republic, and their reunion should be credited to her survival skills alone. Huck's final moments also prove she doesn't share Elizabeth's superstition, valuing the watch more as a reminder of her father than for "leading the way" to her mother. That wasn't obvious in season 1, largely because Elizabeth Kublek is a practical and ruthless woman who sent on her own daughter on a dangerous undercover mission for 2 whole years. She's hardly the first person you'd expect to carry good luck charms, or get sentimental over jewelry.

Elizabeth's character inconsistency is explained by the real (i.e. narrative) purpose behind Huck's watch as a theme in Walking Dead: World Beyond. As far as Elizabeth is concerned, the watch brought her daughter back home when the world fell apart. By the final episode of World Beyond season 2, Huck has learned about her mother's evil activities and her involvement in the destruction of both Omaha and Campus Colony. Emotionally detached from her sole surviving parent, Huck uses the watch as a makeshift timer to detonate the CRM's supply of Project V, taking her own life in the process. Thus, the watch Elizabeth believed brought her closer to Huck ultimately drives them apart... forever.

Now it's clear Walking Dead: World Beyond was angling for an elaborate poetic metaphor with Huck's watch, and though Elizabeth's season 1 line might've been strange, the spinoff was foreshadowing Huck's demise and the separation of mother and daughter all along.