For many viewers of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, the chief reason they have been watching is to find out how the series would eventually connect to the mystery surrounding Rick Grimes. As we know, in the ninth season, Rick Grimes was medically evacuated by the CRM on The Walking Dead and taken to an unknown location. Other than that, all we know is that Grimes’ whereabouts will be explained in the eventual Rick Grimes’ movie.
In the meantime, the second spin-off of The Walking Dead, World Beyond, concerns itself specifically with the CRM, which we now know is short for Civic Republic Military. Over the course of the first two season of The World Beyond limited series, we have learned that the CRM is headquartered in New York, that they are experimenting on humans in order to find a cure, and that they are trying to assemble the people most useful to extending civilization into the future.
Everyone else is expendable.
In the parlance of the CRM, “B”s are useful to building the future of civilization (“A”s, meanwhile, are used as test subjects in human experiments). Rick Grimes is a B. Hope, one of the characters in The World Beyond, is also a B. She has genius-level intelligence, and after the CRM tricked her into journeying across the continent from Nebraska to New York, Hope also now has real-world skills. That makes her, like Rick Grimes, very valuable to the CRM.
We do not know how Rick Grimes feels about the CRM, but we do know that Hope is not a fan. In the season finale of The World Beyond, the chess pieces were essentially put into place for what will be another All Out War, of sorts, in the second and final season of The World Beyond pitting the CRM against Hope and her alliance. Hope — who allowed herself to be abducted by the CRM — will be attempting to take it down from the inside, while her friends )in addition to the survivors of the Campus Colony) will be trying to dismantle the CRM from the outside (the CRM massacred almost everyone at the Campus Colony because they were not useful to them).
This All Out War between Hope and her alliance and the CRM will almost surely culminate with the Rick Grimes movie. Some of The World Beyond characters may still be alive, and some may even figure into the movie, but I would guess that The World Beyond storyline eventually lights the match that leads to a broader effort, led by Rick Grimes, to overthrow the fascist military organization. No offense to the characters on The World Beyond, but most of them are kids, and they don’t have the experience or leadership skills to overthrow a huge military organization. Rick Grimes does.
That’s ultimately where I expect Rick Grimes will come in. After Hope and the remainder of the Campus Colony light the match to start a revolution, Rick Grimes (and possibly Michonne!) will take over and (hopefully) lead that revolution to victory.
The pieces of this puzzle will continue to come together again starting in February 2021, when The Walking Dead returns.