The Tech Question That Bothers The Walking Dead: World Beyond Fans
Spoilers for The Walking Dead: World Beyond episode 5 ahead!
As if being a teenager wasn't difficult enough, imagine having to go through puberty in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Putting a young adult twist on the zombie genre is basically the whole idea behind the newest series in The Walking Dead universe. They may be kids, but they go up against some pretty serious threats, not just in the form of the undead, but also the Civic Republic Military. And in the latest episode, they had another foe to go toe-to-toe with: Mother Nature.
The fifth episode sees sisters Bennett (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour), along with their friends, continuing on their quest to reach New York to locate their father. However, since they began their journey in Nebraska, they have to go up against a major bump in the road, namely, the Mississippi River. While it's a prominent fixture in the works of Mark Twain, our heroes have a difficult time coming up with a solution to go any further. With no bridges to get across, the kids reach the only conclusion they can: build a boat.
However, they don't just tie some branches together and try to sail across the river, Huck Finn-style. They build a pretty decent boat, with a working engine, and for some fans, the logic just doesn't add up.
Fans wonder how a bunch of kids managed to build an engine in just one day
A bunch of World Beyond fans recently took to Reddit to voice their frustration at the apparent logic gap in this week's episode. As Redditor littlecatladybird put it, "I really try not to nitpick, but the fact that this group of kids built a boat and a working engine seemingly in an afternoon is really pushing my suspension of disbelief to the edge. Like...really? Are they all geniuses or am I just particularly dumb?" The tech issue became particularly eye-opening when fellow Redditor Keith16074 pointed out a simple workaround that would've at least made the project make a bit more sense: "I wish they would have made it take place over the span of several days. That would be much more believable." While there's more of a sense of urgency getting everything done within a single day, it does beg the question as to how these teenagers have the technical know-how to build a functioning engine so quickly with limited resources.
The question of how technically-proficient these kids are becomes even more confusing when you consider these teens have made some pretty poor weapons in the past. If they can build an engine, then surely they can also slap together a sharp spear, right? As Redditor ilikebeer19 put it, "Build a pontoon boat out of garbage with a nail polish fueled steam engine that works, in a day? No problem boss. Make a spear that wouldn't fall apart the first time it's used? Me no understand."
Granted, these teens have been in the zombie apocalypse for most of their lives at this point. It's not outside the realm of possibility they've learned how to quickly put together intricate pieces of technology on the fly, but it just hasn't been officially established on World Beyond how they acquired that knowledge. As anyone who is a fan of The Walking Dead and its spin-off shows will tell you, this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Redditor SRVisGod24 brought up the following, "Almost as eye rolling as last season on Fear [The Walking Dead], where they had a bunch of kids help repair a broken down airplane lmao." Perhaps engine repair is just something they teach in classes nowadays, in this universe.
A few logical inconsistencies aside, The Walking Dead: World Beyond has done a solid job of expanding what fans know of this franchise. It's already revealed what "A" and "B" mean in the context of the CRM. Chances are there's still a lot more to learn, until The Walking Dead TV movies come out.