The Mark Twain Reference You Might Have Missed On Walking Dead: World Beyond
Without cars or planes, traversing an apocalypse wasteland version of the United States isn't all that different from traversing the land in the 1800s. Only, now there are also zombies to deal with. At least, that's the case in The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which sent one of its characters on their own version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The fifth episode puts the young heroes up against a classic American obstacle: the Mississippi River. Since sisters Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris Bennett (Aliyah Royale) are determined to get to New York to find their dad, they are going to have to cross it at some point. However, crossing it isn't so easy in the apocalypse because the military has long since blown out all of the bridges. Luckily, they brought Silas (Hal Cumpston) and Elton (Nicolas Cantu) with them, who give them the power of teamwork. Together, with their two adult chaperones, Felix and Huck, they decide to build a boat.
But while the kids are focused on how to get across the river in the present, ex-security officer Huck, played by The Americans' Annet Mahendru, has a flood of flashbacks upon seeing it. Her memories reveal both the origins of her nickname and a reference to the writer Mark Twain.
Huck was found floating down a river on a raft
Much of the episode actually dives into Elton's backstory, showing him with his parents in a natural history museum at the start of the apocalypse. Though he wasn't with them long, it's clear they both had a huge impact on him, including inspiring his catchphrase. But while Elton is the focus of the episode, we also get to learn a little more about Huck.
Up until this point, we didn't know much about Huck. We know she and Felix (Nico Tortorella) were both security officers at the Omaha Campus Colony, where the teens lived at the beginning of the season, and she used to be a sniper for the U.S. Marines. Now, we get a glimpse into how she got to the Campus Colony in the first place: she was found floating down a river on a raft by their security team. She got the name "Huck," because her story is similar to Huckleberry Finn's in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the book, Huck Finn spends much of his time traveling down the Mississippi on a raft, facing various dangers. Huck herself was injured and close to death when she was found.
The rest of the episode seems to suggest a raft wouldn't cut it, though, since the group puts a lot of effort into building a nail polish-powered engine for their boat. That definitely wouldn't have been possible in the 1800s, but it turns what could have been several episodes on the river into one, as they already reach the other side by the end of the episode. So, we won't be seeing much of The Zombie Apocalypse Adventures of Huck (and Friends) after all. Mighty Mississippi: 0; Mighty Survivors: 1.