The Walking Dead: World Beyond’s Second CRM Post-Credits Scene Explained

Sunday’s The Walking Dead: World Beyond, “Shadow Puppets,” ends with a new post-credits scene returning us to the Civic Republic research facility where the shadowy organization is conducting experiments on empties. Located somewhere in New York state, the lab is where Dr. Leo Bennett (Joe Holt) of the Nebraska Campus Colony is away as part of a months-long science exchange with the Civic Republic — supposedly to develop a cure to the zombie virus. Its location is on the coded map that Civic Republic Military Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) secretly passed to Leo’s daughters, Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour), just before Kublek’s forces massacred the almost 10,000 survivors living inside the Campus Colony.

In this second post-credits scene, CRM scientist Dr. Lyla Bellshaw (Natalie Gold) opens a drawer and pulls out “Advanced Immunology: What to Know in the Age of the Unknown,” written by Bennett for the Nebraska State University Genetic Research Laboratory. Tucked inside is a hand-drawn card signed by Bennett’s teenage daughters, who are leading a 1,100-mile trek to New York with friends Elton (Nicolas Cantu) and Silas (Hal Cumpston).

Chaperoning their journey is Huck (Annet Mahendru) and Felix (Nico Tortorella), whose boyfriend, Will, is away with Bennett as his security detail. Bennett is pictured in the photograph on Bellshaw’s desk, as is Dr. Samuel Abbott (S.J. Ovaska) of Portland, Oregon — the bearded scientist-turned-science experiment whose reanimated corpse was studied by Bellshaw in episode 104, “The Wrong End of a Telescope.”

Bellshaw receives a phone call from Kublek, answering: “Hello. Yes, I’m still working on that, but — of course. It will be taken care of by the time they arrive. Dr. Bennett won’t be a problem. His security detail won’t be, either. Of course. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel.”

“They” is the group moving towards the research facility — now with the help of grifter Percy (Ted Sutherland) and his uncle, Tony (Scott Adsit), who possess a truck and enough fuel to get them to New York much quicker. They’ll need to hurry: Iris and Hope’s quest started when their father secretly sent them distressing communications, alerting them that things have gone bad with the CRM.

The stinger ends with Bellshaw looking out into what appears to be the same space where a zombified Abbott, along with dozens of other empties labeled as “TS: A” for Test Subject A, were muzzled and restrained. We don’t see any empties, but we hear the sound of rattling gurneys and the growl of multiple zombies as the episode cuts to black.

In “The Wrong End of a Telescope,” Bellshaw records notes on her subjects and states that “climate variation tests” are scheduled for the next day. These could be the experiments occurring off-screen in “Shadow Puppets,” which is just the last episode this season to end with a post-credits tag.

The end credits teasers raise “a lot more questions that we’ll also be answering later on this season and into next season,” series co-creator and showrunner Matthew Negrete previously told EW. He added the post-credits scenes are “a little bit of a tease of things to come,” referring to more World Beyond as well as the Walking Dead feature films following CRM captive Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of The Walking Dead: World Beyond premiere Sundays at 10/9c on AMC.