The Walking Dead: World Beyond: Lyla Belshaw dies during zombie attack in her own research lab

Lyla Belshaw died during a zombie attack in her own research lab on Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond on AMC.

The season two episode titled Blood And Lies centered on the hunt to find the conspirators who stole a toxic vial of chlorine gas that accelerated zombie creation.

Lyla [Natalie Gold] at the start of the episode checked the vitals of a former officer in the CRM named Barca [Al Calderon] who struggled with his involvement in the destruction of the Campus Colony.

Barca, who had previously been ordered admitted into CRM’s Health and Welfare Complex until he felt better, was strapped down and locked in Lyla’s laboratory. She said to her lab assistant after examining him that ‘assuming no abnormalities, he should be suitable for our purposes.’

Lyla then went to Leo Bennett’s apartment to have dinner with him and his daughters. She told her assistant that she would be back later to begin the experiment on Barca.

When Lyla returned to her lab the next day after the power outage, Barca, who was strapped to the wall, told her that she was going to hell. Lyla ignored his cries and looked at her clipboard.

‘What we do now matters,’ said Barca to Lyla. ‘Tomorrow is filled with blood and lies. It’s all it will ever be.’

Barca kept screaming at Lyla who was standing outside of the room, but then she pushed a button so she didn’t have to hear him anymore. She spoke into her recorder about the ‘test subject.’

Lyla said he was 24-years-old and healthy and she was standing by to proceed with the exposure trial. She then held in her hand a test tube cylinder full of fluid.

In another lab, Leo [Joe Holt] was holding up a similar test tube cylinder of liquid that Percy [Ted Sutherland] took from Lyla’s lab. As Hope Bennett [Alexa Mansour] and her sister Iris Bennett [Aliyah Royale] watched, Leo tested the fluid and learned it was chlorine.

‘They gassed everyone back home,’ said Hope. ‘That’s how they did it.’

‘That was how they killed so many people,’ Iris said.

Leo noted that ‘mass amounts can be produced with very little effort. As he was explaining to Iris and Hope how the gas worked, Lyla was in her lab gassing Barca with the same chemicals.

‘They can’t just get away with this,’ Hope said.

‘They already have unless we do something about it,’ said Iris.

Hope then pointed out that liquid chlorine was supposed to be colorless. Leo said he was wondering the same thing. He said that something must have been added to it.

Leo then hid the vial in a thermos and said they needed to keep it safe until they figured out what it was.

Back in Lyla’s lab, Barca was now dead from the gas and she started a clock to see how long it would take for him to transform into a zombie.

‘This is how we have tomorrow,’ Lyla said, convincing herself that her experiment was justified.

Just then two security officers burst into her lab and told her there was a problem.

In another room at the CRM, Silas Plaskett [Hal Cumpston] was being held after being discovered suspiciously outside one of the complex’s backdoors. Silas had no shoes on when Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes [Pollyanna McIntosh] walked in to interrogate him.

Silas told her that the guards had taken away his shoes so that he wouldn’t run. Jadis asked him why he was found where he was not supposed to be. Silas told her that he was just lost. She asked him if he liked the culling facility he was working at and he said it was like a junkyard, but he liked it.

Just then Dennis [Max Osinski] was let into the room. He first stared at Jadis and said that it had been a long time. She told him that she was just doing an audit and checking some things out. She also told Dennis that she saw Staff Sergeant Mallick ‘Huck’ [Annet Mahendru] but that she wouldn’t call her by her first name.

‘Well, she is a soldier,’ said Dennis.

Jadis asked Dennis if he believed Silas’ story that he was lost and he stood up for him.

She decided to let Silas go, but told him not to get ‘lost’ again.

In another area at the CRM complex, Hope was busy taking apart a speaker to hide the coffee thermos with the vial inside. She was in a common area of the CRM complex when Mason [Will Meyer] walked in. She covered up what she was doing and asked Mason if he wanted to hang later.

Leo was still in his apartment and was reading up on the history of chemical warfare when there was a knock at his door. It was Lyla who warned him that security was coming to question him.

‘What?’ said Leo.

‘I know that you Felix and the girls took that vial from my lab,’ said Lyla. ‘I don’t know how you did it but…’

‘What vial?’ Leo responded.

‘Leo please , they are coming,’ said Lyla. She said that security brought her in for questioning. She told Leo that all of the vials of ‘specimens associated with CRM operations’ are stored in a refrigerator with security sensors and that they knew a vial went missing during the blackout.

Lyla asked him to stop pretending and said she cover for him so they wouldn’t hurt Leo and his daughters.

Leo opened the door and there were three security officers who told him that he needed to go with them.

Iris was spending time with Percy, who was putting on his shirt. When Iris kissed him, she happened to look out the window and saw the CRM was arresting her father.

Felix Carlucci [Nico Tortorella] was outside and tried to stop them. He told the CRM officers that he was Leo’s security detail.

Iris told Percy to find Huck and she went to her father’s apartment. When she got there, Hope and Lyla were already there and she asked them what was going on. Hope told her that Lyla wanted to make them an offer.

‘I need the vial you stole,’ Lyla said. Lyla said she knew she hadn’t given them any reason to trust her but that she would answer any questions that they had. ‘You need to decide now. Your dad’s life depends on it.’

Huck meanwhile was brought in by Jadis who told her that during the power outage there was a security breach. Huck played dumb and asked her for details on the breach. Jadis said that the incident occurred where the CRM has a sensitive research facility.

Jadis told Huck that she wanted her to take point on the investigation. She said something valuable was taken and she wanted to see if she could help her get it back. Jadis walked her into a locked room where Leo was being detained.

Meanwhile, Lyla took Hope and Iris to her laboratory. She told them that she developed the vial right in this lab that no one is supposed to know about. She told them that they used the lab to ‘study reanimation.’ She told them to understand what happens to people after they die that she needed to study them while they were dying.

‘So you killed all these people for research,’ said Hope of the people locked in a cell at the lab.

Lyla denied it and said that ‘most’ were found bitten out in the wild. She said that this place made them pass a gift to science.

‘Most?’, asked Iris.

Lyla showed them a video of a man walking around the cell trying to grab a mouse that was walking around the room. She told them that the dead will never get tired but that the mouse would.

‘None of us will ever be safe as long as this exists in the world,’ Lyla said.

Hope demanded that she tell them about Omaha. Lyla said she had developed a test serum that would delay the time between death and reanimation but that she needed more test subjects. She said the CRM told her about a secret military operation where tens of thousands would die and that this operation was critical to the survival of the human race. She said the CRM has no idea what its military does outside its walls. She said Dr. Samuel Abbott [S.J. Ovaska] threatened to tell on them ‘so they made sure he never would.’

Then Hope and Lyla realized that the person locked in the cell chasing after the mouse was Dr. Abbott. Iris asked her why 100,000 people would need to die. Lyla said she herself asked why and they warned her to never ask that question again. She told them that she couldn’t stop them.

‘You could have,’ said Iris. ‘You put your own safety before those people’s lives.’

Lyla told her that if she resisted that they would have killed her, too. She said she wanted to help find the answers that would save humanity.

Hope asked her if she found the answers she was looking for. Lyla told them that they had to trust her that giving her the vial back would save their father. She told them that she cared about their father and was doing this to save him.

‘Giving me that vial is what keeps both of us alive,’ said Lyla.

Hope then told her where she hid the vial and Lyla ran out to get it. Iris was not happy that hope trusted Lyla, but Hope said she didn’t see any other option to keep their father safe.

Dennis meanwhile drove Silas back to the outpost and told him he was on guard duty. Silas told Dennis that he lied and that he wasn’t really lost. Dennis said that he knew that he was just looking for his friends. Dennis told him that he backed him up because he didn’t know what would happen to him if he didn’t.

‘Kid, I can’t make you want this,’ said Dennis about training Silas to be a soldier.

At the same time, Leo was being questioned by Huck and Jadis. He told them that he didn’t know anything about the missing vial. Huck asked him who he was with the previous night. He told them about his family dinner with Lyla.

Huck asked Leo why he wanted to date Lyla. He said she wanted to be part of his family and declared that he loved her.

Jadis jumped on that and asked Huck what she thought was going on. Huck said she thought Leo was covering for Lyla. Jadis agreed with her assessment and then told security officers to go find Lyla announcing, ”We found our conspirator’.

Hope meanwhile looked out at the security monitors and saw a police team was nearing them and she told Iris to run. The security team entered Lyla’s lab and Hope and Iris hid. Just when they were close to being discovered, the security team was called back and told that the suspect had been located.

Jadis continued to question Leo. He denied that he was working with Lyla to cover up anything.

Lyla then walked into the interrogation room and told Jadis that she had found the missing vial. She asked him where she found it and Lyla told her that she had to be honest that ‘Dr. Bennett stole it with the help of his daughters.’

‘They became suspicious I was involved in classified experiments and took it from the storage freezer,’ Lyla said handing it over to Jadis

Lyla stared at Leo and told him there would be no more lies. Then she told Jadis that she couldn’t hurt Leo because he was too valuable to work on Project Votus.

She said it was a project that involved studying live test subjects through death to further their research on reanimation. Jadis told her ‘not another word.’

She told Jadis to let Leo go because she was on the verge of a significant breakthrough. She said she had a test subject going on eight hours without reanimation. She said with Leo’s help she believed she could make significant advances.

Jadis said that she believed her and gave Leo a deal. She told him he would get out along with his daughters but that in exchange that he had to focus his efforts on Lyla’s project. He agreed.

Jadis then told Lyla she wanted to see the breakthrough subject herself. Huck went with them. When they got down to the lab, they saw that the test subject had turned into a zombie after all.

Jadis was not happy and told Lyla that Leo would not be assisting her after all and instructed Huck to remove the test subject’s restraints. Huck then cut the zombie loose.

Lyla was scared as Jadis told her that it was her job to eliminate security threats and that she was one because she lied to them. Jadis said she already handed the baton onto Leo who was the better bet because he was easier to control because of his daughters.

Huck cut the zombie free and locked Lyla in the room with it. Lyla banged on the door begging them not to do this. Huck stood outside the door with Jadis and watched as Lyla screamed and eventually the zombie bit her.

‘Another tragic accident but these things happen,’ Jadis said.

Huck said she knew from the start she was covering for Leo. Jadis told Huck that she was ‘smart as hell’ and wanted her to be debriefed on the whole project.

‘There’s more?’ said Huck.

Jadis told her the Campus Colony and Omaha were part of a tactical operation.

‘What comes next won’t be easy but it will secure our future for centuries to come,’ Jadis said.

Huck went back to her apartment and was shocked to find Percy sitting there holding a knife. Percy then grabbed a gun and pointed it at Huck and she told him if he was going to kill her to go ahead.

‘We both know I deserve it,’ said Huck. She then said she wanted to share something with him.

Leo was also back at his apartment meeting with his daughters and Felix. He told them he didn’t know what would happen next. He said Jadis told him to report back to work on Monday. Then there was a knock on the door and it was Percy.

‘Percy what did you do?’ said Iris who answered.

Percy told them that the CRM never intended to have an alliance and that they were going to wipe out Portland. Iris told them they had to destroy the gas.

‘And we take this place out with it,’ said Hope. ‘This isn’t just about saving Portland and getting out of here. We can’t let them keep this place.’

Hope said they should get the scientists out so they could continue their research. Iris asked Percy if he planned on killing Huck.

‘I wanted to but I didn’t,’ said Percy.

Iris kissed him and said she didn’t want to leave tonight and he told her ‘then don’t’.

Hope went to see Max to hang out and was shocked when he shared with her that his father was Major General Beale.

Huck went to see Dennis. He gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong. She said she didn’t know where to start.

She told him that everything that they did ‘was for nothing’ and that the CRM was going to eliminate Portland using gas and ‘using the empties to cover it up.’

‘The plan is to kill 87,000 people,’ Huck said. ‘There is no way to warn them.’

Dennis was stunned.

Silas then saw Huck kissing Dennis.

Huck told him, ‘I guess we got some s*** to talk about.’

The Walking Dead: The World Beyond will return next Sunday on AMC.