We do get to see the crew walking—yes, they killed every last El Camino they stole—through sunny and thoroughly destroyed southern California. Anaheim, more precisely. Yes, they do indeed tromp through Disneyland’s ruins. No, there are no Mickey Mouse zombies. Yes, I’m slightly disappointed. Lest viewers think this episode accomplishes nothing for the plot, the crew does indeed finally arrive at the coordinates Citizen Z gave to them. It’s not quite what they were expecting, though—a ramshackle dive bar with an older tea-slinging woman behind the bar. While the team scout the bar, Citizen Z discovers a hacker’s fingerprints on his system. After some tracking, he discovers whoever broke into his laptop accessed files for Operation Bitemark. Is the op compromised?
And now, a peek at the crew as they were before the apocalypse changed them for better or worse.
First up, Citizen Z, a.k.a. Simon Cruller. Our favorite computer wizard wasn’t always on the NSA payroll, it seems. Nor does he look good in an orange jumpsuit. Simon’s hacking skills landed him in federal lockup with impending espionage charges. He won’t plead guilty. Which is good because NSA needs him to join them on their next greatest mission, one so secret, Simon can’t even tell his lawyer what it is—zombies. Obviously the intrigue offered by the NSA worked. Simon signed on with them, went to their north-most outpost, and has been a one-man tech team keeping Operation Bitemark alive.
We flashback to Roberta while she’s struggling to keep tabs on deployment orders for her unit and the other units at the same National Guard base. Her stress levels bounce off the ceiling several times, but her compatriots aren’t bothered by any of it as they catch a game on TV before moving out. Everything is pretty SOP, until there’s a crash outside. An ambulance rammed into the building. The driver is MIA. The patient strapped in the back is still very much present, and very much undead. Roberta tries to help the patient, under the impression he’s panicked and injured. Yeah, no. She heads inside to call for another ambulance. The phones are dead. Ditto for her unit, unfortunately. They attack her and she’s forced to put a bullet in their heads. Quick on the uptake, Roberta figures out they’re zombies without anyone spelling it out for her. Her fast-thinking may be why she’s the one leading the team. Or, you know, not being a martyr.
Turns out Doc wasn’t always high as a kite. His five-year sober streak ends with the apocalypse, though. It’s just another day in the office for the kindly therapist. His patient is likewise dealing with addiction and they have a pretty relaxed dialog—anything else in Doc’s presence is unheard of, to be honest. There’s another therapist in the office, who can’t quite handle her manic patient. Doc has to save the day, strong-arming the guy and talking sense to him. While the therapists work, the outside world devolves into chaos. That chaos finds its way indoors. Zombies eat the other therapist, her client, and Doc’s patient. Doc eats an OxyContin tablet to brace himself for what’s outside before escaping into the fray. Right after we came back from his flashback, Doc finds a Z-weed joint and lights up. Not much has changed since Doc saw his first zombie.
You guys ready for the surprise guest? Mack returns for Addy’s turn in the way-back machine. He’s on the ice, being ferocious during a hockey game. Addy is just as fierce in the stands cheering on Mack’s opponents. Just when the game gets good—Mack and the star player from the other team drop their gloves to duke it out—a zombie runs through the stands and smacks into the Plexiglas. From there it’s pure chaos. Mack and his sparring partner leave the ice together. The other guy doesn’t make it far. Addy manages to dodge the crowds, ducking around the worst of it until she runs into Mack, who can’t quite kill the zombie snapping at his throat. Addy lends a hand and the two team up. Mack has a chance to return the favor, braining a zombie pinning Addy against the wall. They make a pact to stick together. Which means Mack is tagging along when Addy realizes she has to get to her mother and brother at the house. Tagging along, in the end, is what lead to Mack’s demise. Was it Addy’s pretty eyes or an overly large sense of duty to help others? I’d say a dash of both, honestly. He stayed with her in the beginning because they both needed help. They remained together later because he just could not let her go and the mission became much more important after Murphy nuked half the USA.
We saw the most emotional part to 10k’s apocalypse beginning a while back. What we didn’t see was bright-eyed 10k, then simply Tommy, encountering his first zombie. He’s out on a camping trip with his dad, enjoying an afternoon fishing alone. A forest ranger, undead of course, shambles his way with three arrows in her chest. Quickly more zombies join them—hunters and rangers who were likely attempting to kill the zombies in the forest, only to die in the process. Tommy drops his fish and runs. He’s nearly z-lunch when his dad catches up, clearing the zombies with precision shooting. Now we know where 10k learned his skills from. Skills he puts to use daily. His dad must be proud.
Grab your tissues, Vasquez’s flashback hits a few emotional triggers. Guilt-ridden over the deaths of his family because of his job, Vasquez tortures himself mentally. He’s keeping watch over his wife and daughter’s caskets in an unlit funeral home. The funeral director doesn’t even know he’s in there until he accidentally walks in, then gives the mourning man time alone. Vasquez kneels to pray. Scratch, scratch. He calls to the funeral director to ask if they have rodents in the building. No answer. The scratching continues. Finally the director comes back . . . or at least his reanimated body does. There’s a fight. Vasquez empties his gun into the zombie’s chest. No good. He ends up bludgeoning the thing to death. Good timing, too. He’s just in time to watch his undead wife and child crawl from their caskets. His gun is empty. He has no backup. Vasquez realizes he will have to beat his family like the funeral director. We don’t see the kill. We just hear Vasquez’s anguished scream as he realizes what he has to do. Killing his family for the second time hardened the man beyond what was necessary to do his job. Wandering the apocalypse alone turned that into a ruthlessness and stubborn moral code no one can break. Not even Roberta.
Last stop on the flashback train—Murphy. As expected, he’s in jail.
Unexpectedly, Murphy doesn’t look a thing like himself because I am so used to seeing him blue and covered in scars. But when he opens his mouth, it’s pretty much the same smart aleck the crew has dragged from New York to California. He’s hosting a poker game in the prison yard—where he’s doing time for postal fraud. As sometimes happens, a prisoner is stabbed in the yard. Yeah, you guessed it, the guy turns zombie. Everyone panics when the guards start turning as well. Murphy saves his own hide, running through an open gate and closing it before his poker pals can join him. It’s always been Murphy First in his book. Then the vaccine made him actually care about the well-being of the zombies. Feelings are uncomfortable. I get it. Being The Guy to end the apocalypse? It’s too much to bear. Murphy tells himself, “I don’t want to be the savior of the human race. I don’t want to be the zombie messiah.” He doesn’t want to be accountable for his actions anymore. If he screws up, like he did to land in prison, that’s it for humanity. That’s an awful weight on his shoulders. When he breaks down, Roberta gives it to him straight, “There isn’t a happy ending for any of us, but you, you are the one person who can change that.” How long can she keep him together? At this point, it’s like fixing a shatter vase with bubble gum. It’s holding, but ain’t pretty.
There’s one episode left in season two, with a season three already ordered for later this year. How much chaos can they cram into this finale? It’s hard to top nuking the country.
Yo, where are you going? ID, please. The show we’re discussing uses profanity and contains adult situations.
Kelly still thinks she’s going to bat her eyes and get Ash to help. Man, she’s not paying attention. Ash is out to care for numero uno. In order to save his bacon, and by default everyone else’s, he’s gotta figure out what’s actually written in the Necronomicon. Thirty years schlepping the thing around and he didn’t think to do this before the end of the world is nigh? Man, and I thought I procrastinated hardcore. Kelly gives up simply asking for help and steals Pablo’s motorcycle so she can save her dad.
Oh and Pablo says she took the Necronomicon.
Cue a miraculous cleanup for Ash and Pablo, then we join them on the road. They’ve picked up a hitchhiker—Mr. Roper. Well, he’s DeadRoper now, and he still hates Ash with the fire of no less than ten-thousand suns. Most people do. He’s not unique. What is unique is the in-car fight between DeadRoper, Ash, and hapless Pablo. Pablo thinks he can learn to fight like Ash. He takes one hit, all Ash needs to get into Fight Mode. Pablo, “…but I just got hit; I don’t know what to do!” You’ll learn, Pablo, or you’ll die. He makes a valliant attempt to save Ash, smashing a bottle over DeadRoper’s head. Yeah, that’s not going to work. But it does give Ash something he can partially hack the Deadite’s head off with before pushing it out the window for an oncoming car to behead. Now they have to clean up again. Will someone test to see just how much blood a moist towelette can remove? For science.
Amanda Fisher is on Ash’s trail, following the weird breadcrumbs to what was once his doorstep. His neighbors have nothing nice to say. Nothing useful, either. Amanda finds the business card for the book store Ash is trying to get to, thanks to the severed arm he left behind. Not his own. Her chase for clues ends abruptly when the state police arrive, shooing her away because she’s still suspended. That’s okay. She’s got the card and saw the police sketch of Ash. It’s a no-brainer from here on out. Just like the Deadites Ash offed.
At Mr. Maxwell’s place all is . . . comfy and cozy? Well, crud. Ash and Pablo look like asylum escapees, covered in DeadRoper’s blood and wielding weapons. Surprise, Mrs. Maxwell wasn’t dead. (Liar) She had amnesia after the car accident. (Pants so on fire) But she’s slowly remembering everything again. Yeah. Right. Ash sees through her game. But is he just paranoid or is Mrs. Maxwell really DeadMom? They should stay for dinner and find out.
Ash oozes charm at dinner. No, wait, that’s the roast beef oozing. Never mind. Just when the schtick has hit the, “Maybe she’s not a Deadite,” point, Ash takes matters into his own fist. One shot to the jaw does the trick, bringing DeadMom to the surface. There’s a couple weird boomstick point-of-view shots, which I actually don’t hate despite the camera jiggling, during the fight. As usual, the physical action is astounding. The gore which comes as a result of the fighting is just as wonderful, done primarily with practical effects with a little digital to augment—which is how you do it, folks. DeadMom kills Mr. Maxwell. Then she and Kelly vanish.
Kelly runs upstairs to hide and figure out what’s going on with her family. DeadMom is there, pretending to be regular ol’ Mrs. Maxwell. Maybe they can find a way to help? Yeah, no. DeadMom attacks when Ash and Pablo join them in Kelly’s childhood room. Poor Pablo tries again to jump into the fray, stabbing DeadMom in the head. No good. It’s gotta be decapitation. And the only thing they have handy capable of severing heads ends up stuck in a wall at one point. Get control of your chainsaw, Ash. Sheesh. He does, of course, unleashing about five gallons of blood on Pablo and Kelly.
They bury Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell in the front yard. Kelly officially joins Team Badass. But, uh, what about the book? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Pablo had it the entire time. That’s okay. They’re back on the road again, on the way to the bookstore. They better hurry. Amanda is waiting.
Roberta saves Vasquez’s bacon big time. She stops Kurian from injecting the Zmurph serum into her newest crewmember and suggests Kurian take the inaugural dose. Trapped with no way to avoid outing the scheme, Kurian doses himself. He’s not quite dead yet. Matter of fact he’s feeling good enough to go for a walk. A short walk. To a box containing a severed zombie head, which La Reina orders him to stick his hand into as a test for the cure. Amazingly, Kurian doesn’t turn. It’s enough to convince La Reina to dose her entire crew—except Escorpion, a.k.a. Hector, who takes Vasquez off for another round of torture. He’s the lucky one. The serum works as intended, with a slight delay before Murphy is able to make them do a soft shoe to Brittney Spears songs—which he doesn’t do in this episode, but should. Taking control of Kurian, Murphy sets him to work making more serum.
Off in Hector’s torture chamber, Vasquez finally confesses to the attempted murder. As reward for his honesty, Hector has Vasquez strapped into what’s essentially an iron maiden, only with a zombie instead of sharpened spikes on the door, so a zombie maiden. There Vasquez is forced to listen to Hector’s woefully typical, “This bad stuff happened to me as a kid and that’s why I’m a murderer,” speech. I would have preferred to hear just about anything else from the character. He’s called away to a meeting. Thank goodness.
To say Roberta isn’t onboard with the Zmurph plan is a vast understatement. She washes her hands of Murphy’s plan for Kurian and the Zeroes the second she realizes it’s a thing which is really happening as they stand there trapped in what will probably become a nest of ravenous Zmurphs. Leaving Murphy to deal with Kurian, Roberta heads to warn the others that they need to get out ASAP. Before they fully formulate a plan, she’s called to the meeting with Hector and La Reina. Before she goes, the others are tasked with finding Vasquez.
At the meeting, Hector lies so much his pants spontaneously combust. Roberta calls him on the bull, admitting that Vasquez has no interest in killing La Reina, just the man who murdered the former DEA agent’s family. Murphy strolls into the meeting just in time to control La Reina, making the meeting go favorably for their group. Not so much for Hector. Murphy gets a little too eager to flex his power, ordering Roberta to kill Hector. They’re only saving grace is the meeting is amongst other Zmurphs.
Zmurphs Murphy loses control over moments after Roberta leaves with Hector leading the way to the torture room. The time to leave is, like, fifteen minutes ago. Kurian in hand—because he wants more serum even if the doctor is lusting for Murphy blood—Murphy runs to the lab. One can only assume he means to grab whatever supplies they’ll need to make a cure on the road. Roberta ends that plan by decapitating ravenous Kurian.
With Vasquez free and Hector locked in the zombie maiden, there’s nothing stopping them from walking out the same door they came in through. Right? Ha. Ha ha ha. La Reina and the other Zmurphs are on the hunt for their master. She recovers Kurian’s head before leading the Zmurphs through the power plant tunnels. Doc gets an idea to use the zombies trapped in the power plant to fight the Zmurphs, except the doors won’t open. That’s okay, Murphy here to save the day. He uses his powers to agitate the zombies, their weight breaking the doors.
Did anyone else kinda want this fight to suddenly stop and turn into a dance routine from Westside Story? Just me? Okay . . . .
The crew runs for it. Murphy lags behind. Guilt weighs heavy on the poor guy. He’s not okay with zombie on Zmurph violence, but what can they do? The mission is more important. Something he nearly forgot in the rush of having his own people to control. Despite misgivings, he leaves the underground power plant, joining the others on the now-deserted street.
Deserted except for Hector. It looks like the nutjob chewed his way through the zombie maiden. Hector and Vasquez have an honor fight. Roberta makes everyone stand down so the two can pummel each other. The fight ends with Vasquez tossing Hector to the zombies clambering to climb the ladder. That’s it for the Zeroes. Right? Maybe. We know Kurian’s head lives to see another day, but who is the one saving him at the episode’s end?
The gang borrows the Zeroes’ fleet of El Caminos and hits the road in style. They’re not far from the border. If they don’t muck things up, they could reach the lab in a day.
I’ll save you some time. Here’s the big whopping plot in one sentence: They prepare to leave town.
Duh? There’s no way to reclaim Alexandria until the herd calms down. The choices are limited; either they settle in for a long wait or they leave Alexandria and come back to clear the walkers with replenished resources. Why the writers needed forty minutes to make this happen boggles the mind. Viewers already knew what needed to happen for the characters to live to see the second half of the season. Why waste thirty-five minutes of screen time drawing out the inevitable?
Not only is this episode a gigantic waste of time, they also kill off someone vital to the show’s continuing plot. Deanna is yet another victim of the convenient death scheme. Something we all saw coming each time she got closer and closer to realizing Rick isn’t the man she should leave in charge of her people. Her people. Not his. Rick cannot and will not see the Alexandria natives as part of his crew. Something he’s called out on in the episode during a deathbed conversation with Deanna—who is only dying because she saved his life. Six seasons of them killing off Rick’s naysayers and I’m to the point where I’d rather see the man himself written off the show than someone who simply questioned why he’s such a poor leader. It’s boring. Predictable. A surefire way to turn fans completely against the character when we should still root for him, questionable morals and all. I wouldn’t loathe Rick as he’s written for the show nearly as much if the writers would just stop killing anyone who stands up to him for the sake of their own moral code.
Women get dealt poor hands on this show all the time. Carol is still plagued by this unreasonable story line pitting her against Morgan. Not only that, she also suffers a random concussion which makes her physically inferior to Morgan. If the writers hadn’t made her trip and fall for no other reason than to give her the concussion, the fight would’ve gone in Carol’s favor. They realized too late that pitting the two against each other was a mistake. Both are essential characters. If they didn’t cripple Carol, Morgan—who is now the conscious for the show since they’ve laden Glenn with Baby Daddy Syndrome—would be dead alongside Dale and Hershel, the other poor unfortunate souls to carry the title of Captain Moral Integrity. So instead of a fair fight, we get a one-sided, poorly motivated fight which ends with Carol cold-cocked by Morgan, Morgan knocked out by the prisoner, and poor Denise used as a meatshield so the prisoner can escape past Tara, Rosita, and Eugene.
Then there’s Michonne. Most of Deanna’s deathbed moments were spent highlighting the fact that the writer’s haven’t given Michonne a reason to fight for Alexandria, its people, or even Rick’s people. Aside from being present to wield a sword, Michonne has no motivation. No purpose outside killing. It shouldn’t take this long for them to realize they’ve forgotten to write essential human needs into a main character.
Everyone in Alexandria is hiding. Or so we assume. At no point are Deanna’s people accounted for. The only townsfolk we see outside of Rick’s main group are the one’s shoehorned into the plot. Denise is present to give the prisoner a way to freedom. Jessie is present because Rick wants to do bedroom things with her and she has his daughter in her house. She’s also the mother to two boys capable of screwing everything up with very little effort—because it’s easier for the show to place blame on the impulsive actions of children instead of writing feasibly flawed adults. Ron’s big moment comes when he locks Carl in the garage and tries to kill him, drawing attention from nearby walkers who then overrun the house. Sam’s part in everything is, well, not very well thought out.
One surefire way to grind my gears is to mishandle mental diseases in a show. Sam has PTSD. The entire Morgan episode was to essentially demonstrate how the show would depict PTSD in characters from here on out. Cool. We’re talking about an actual issue which plagues thousands of people. And then they mess up. Jessie says the words no PTSD influcted person should hear, “Just pretend . . . .” No. Don’t. Stop. All they did is hand a child’s character the exact opposite coping mechanism from what he should be using. Escapism isn’t the cure to PTSD. It’s a death sentence. If the writers really wanted to explore the nuances of PTSD and how it affects the survivors, they should have put more time into Sam’s scenes. Instead, like so much in this episode, they cram it in and use it as a catalyst for more things which don’t make sense. Why would a frightened child, even with PTSD, speak when surrounded by things he knows want to kill them? Sam is mentally ill, not a moron.
The big whopping plan to escape is a callback to season one’s “Guts,” where Glenn and Rick covered themselves in walker goo and went to fetch a truck in order to escape Atlanta. Yawn. We’ve seen this before. It’s not even amusing to watch Father Gabriel’s reaction. Gabriel is another character wedged into the plot, but I’m not even sure why at this point. Everything out of his mouth is something which should be shown on screen, not told via dialog.
We get a couple short scenes with Glenn and Enid. Neither of which are vital to the plot. Maggie is likewise a throwaway bit in the episode—she crawls up a ladder to escape the herd and that’s where she stays through the episode’s end.
Then there’s the big post-credit scene. Yet more wasted time and money. Fans know Negan is coming. Matter of fact, if the episode with Daryl’s abduction had been written better, they wouldn’t have needed the post-credit scene to properly introduce Negan’s good squad. Instead they create a reason to put Daryl on screen in the guise of bringing Negan’s crew onto the stage for the second half of the season.
I’m fed up with the current showrunner. He’s run what was once decent television into the ground by leading fans by the nose to the story conclusions he thinks are entertaining. It’s dull. Trite. Nothing exciting happens for eight episodes. Why is AMC wasting money to make this guy’s vision come to life? Their numbers are down, despite self-created hype. Sure, the mid-season finale did a little better, but the viewer numbers aren’t enough to make up for what they lost from episodes 602 through 607. When TWD comes back on February 14th, will we suffer through more of the same? I hope not.
There’s too much talent in this cast to continue with poor storytelling. Something’s gotta give, AMC. Give your fans and your actors the showrunner they deserve, not the one who tells you pretty lies but cannot deliver the quality episodes you want.
The fans don’t want braindead Liv, jonesing for relationship bliss more than stability in her life. They want intelligent Liv who makes great strides to accept herself while remaining a vital part of the crime-solving team. While they did try to make that happen in this episode, eventually the effort becomes too much and we lose Liv to the brain’s influence. It’s annoying. I shouldn’t have to tune out the lead character to enjoy a show. Why would the writers think we want to see one of few female-lead shows on TV centered around yet another weakly-written woman obsessed with who she’s going to marry? I honestly expected more from them.
Liv isn’t the only character suffering from poor planning by the writers. Clive has been a great big void for personal information since the get-go. In this episode, they’re forced to disclose his entire personality, family history, and past relationships. But because there’s so much to cover, this venture into last-minute character development happens in a two-minute conversation with Agent Bozzio where she info-dumps everything vital to the case, with just enough fun tidbits thrown in to distract fans from realizing these are things we really should already know. It sours the interesting parts of Clive’s personality, making later jokes at his expense fall flatter than Rita’s sense of humor.
The woman we saw ditching a package on Bozzio’s welcome mat is Regina Sumner, Clive’s ex-girlfriend. What? Clive has a social life? Don’t die of shock. Regina finds herself dead after a man attacks her and she’s shot in the back by an unseen killer.
Clive IDs the body on the scene. He also IDs the murder weapon—his 9mm handgun, which Regina stole the night before her death. Seeing as he’s now suspect number one, Detective Cavanaugh is brought in to handle the case. Or in this show’s way of thinking, Cavanaugh is an insulting nitwit while Liv and Ravi attempt to solve the case without Clive. Because Clive is the only competent detective on the force, despite having some of the worse closing numbers because he’s caught up in the zombie weirdness. Sure. Makes sense to disregard the intelligence of an entire department just to make a character with no development until eleven minutes into episode 208 look better.
Turns out, Regina was, like every other woman on this show, completely unhinged when it came to men. She chased police officers, dated them, then obsessed over them to the point where she created Photoshopped wedding and engagement pictures, announcements, etc. She’d know how to make them look real enough, Regina boasted the title of worst wedding planner in the city. A former client, Uma Voss—who Regina sued for non-payment—was blessed to have the psycho show up to her wedding drunk. This was after Regina slept with Uma’s fiancé, Matthew. Yup, you guessed right. Matthew is a police officer. That trail runs cold. Liv chases down an SUV pictured not only in the photo album Regina made for Clive, but also Matthew Voss. The SUV tracks back to Chief Walt Price. Liv, the genius, is caught after breaking into the SUV.
Orange is not Liv’s color. Nor does jail time sit well with her dietary needs. She nearly eats possibly the most obnoxious character introduced on the show—a fellow inmate who literally doesn’t shut up for the entirety of Liv’s jail time. Luckily she’s released in the nick of time. Ravi greets her with a Regina milkshake. Yeah, because more obsessive brain is just what the fans want to see. Liv’s already put Major on high alert with her batty behavior—breaking into his phone to read texts, weeping because he won’t unlock the safe he keeps his zombie-killing supplies in, scanning his Facebook page for anyone and everyone who may be flirting with him, and the icing on the cake comes when she does half of this in front of Gilda/Rita.
The case itself runs in circles until they look at the scrapbook again. What’s this? Uma’s ring on Regina’s finger in a photo? The linchpin for the entire case was under their noses the entire time? How convenient. Uma and her brother Karl confronted Regina the night she died, intending to scare her into leaving Matthew alone and retrieving the ring. They didn’t expect her to fight back. Uma shot Regina to save her brother. Case closed.
What’s not so simple to wrap up is the production time on Super Max. Thanks to Liv’s blood sample, a new Max Rager scientist has reformulated Super Max, giving it more of a punch without the psychotic side-effects. It’s not one-hundred percent safe. Du Clark swears by the new formula, putting it to test during his workout with Major. He’s stronger, faster, and holding onto an anger issue the size of Manhattan. But it’s still a step forward. If Major doesn’t do something to derail Du Clark and Gilda/Rita, there’s going to be many, many more Super Angry people in the world.
The gang somehow finds themselves carless and hopelessly surrounded by zombies at the United States/Mexico border. Murphy’s near-death experience means he’s more a sack for them to heft around than useful for keeping his kind at bay. They’re cornered. No chance to fight their way out with maybe four bullets amongst them. All hope is lost. The mission is over!
Wait, is that Escorpion peeking from a basement door? Follow him, guys.
Down they go into what I can only assume is a power plant of some sort. The Zeroes found a way to make the zombies work for them—without chaining them to a giant wheel like the ill-fated survivors in Burrtown—by cramming them in a tank and letting them decompose. The compost’s heat runs the turbines for the Zeroes’ power plant. It’s ingenious, really. We may have found the one group with high enough IQs to recreate society if the zombie outbreak is ever controlled.
That’s exactly what their leader, La Reina, plans to do. She needs a little help, first. Which is why Escoprion keeps popping up in the crew’s way. The only surefire way to end the outbreak is to make a cure. For that, they need Mr. Murphy. La Reina is freakishly possessive of Murphy. He and Roberta are treated like heroes. But not even heroes get to keep their weapons in the queen’s presence. The gang is disarmed before they’re allowed to venture beyond the lush gardens within the Zeroes secure compound.
Inside, they’re taken to the lab where La Reina has recruited a scientist capable of taking Murphy’s blood and delivering the cure her entire plan for the future hinges upon. One guess who lurks in the tiny, bloody lab . . . . Yup, Dr. Kurian. Roberta nearly kills the guy then and there. She hesitates, a weakness La Reina catches immediately. Why won’t Roberta kill Kurian? He may be the only PHD left on the planet capable of synthesizing a cure. Which he can’t. But she doesn’t know the truth.
Only Murphy understands why they’re all about to be up Feces Creek. Kurian has a plan, though. One which will put Murphy firmly atop the food chain from here on out. While the others are off receiving their reward from La Reina, Murphy hangs back in the lab to snarl at the man who ditched him back with the phytozombies. Kurian talks Murphy down, then wins him over when he produces batch one of the Murphy-zombie serum. It’s not perfect, but effective. Murphy has full control of the unfortunate Zero goon Kurian turns. The scene is thrilling. *wink wink*
What about this reward La Reina promises the crew? Well, they can either take a lifetime supply of whatever they wish, or become cartel members. Vasquez spots the trap. The Zeroes never give options. Either they join the cartel or die. But there’s a catch—they have to pass the examination. Ambushed, the crew is dropped into an improvised gladiator arena. The examination is simple, whoever survives both rounds in the arena becomes cartel members. Round one is a cakewalk. Addy puts the lone zombie down without blinking. Round two is trickier. In the dark, the gang must dispatch about a dozen zombies. For our crew, it’s no problem. They’ve faced worse since leaving New York.
Now everyone is Team Zeroes. They just need to look the part. Before the gang parties, they take a trip through the Zeroes’ Day Spa for makeovers. 10k doesn’t know how to react to his pedicure and Doc’s beard will never be the same after. Even their weapons get a makeover—cleaned, sharpened, and loaded before Escorpion returns them to the crew as part of their cartel induction.
Vasquez is going to blow it for everyone. He realizes Escoprion was the masked man who killed his wife and child. Despite Roberta imploring him to be patient, wait until they create a plan to escape Mexico, Vasquez still attempts to shoot Escorpion in the middle of the shindig. Desperate to avoid being killed, Roberta thwarts the attempt. Vasquez is taken into custody for questioning because everyone thinks a Reina is his target. But if she’s the target, surely he’s working for someone. Yet again, Zona is brought up, with the addition that it’s populated by “rich bastards.” A trussed-up Vasquez bobs and weaves around Escorpion’s questions like Julio César Chávez in the ring. The interrogation ends when Kurian requests a meeting with La Reina.
The cure is finished! Not really, but the Zeroes don’t know there is no chance of making a cure from Murphy’s blood. Kurian’s verbose bragging does nothing to convince La Reina the cure works. She wants proof. Vasquez becomes the volunteer for the inaugural dosage.
The episode ends with a needle at Vasquez’s throat. Yes, I yelled at the television. No, I have no patience to wait for a week. The show’s producers are evil for okaying the To Be Continued ending.
Glenn lives! No, I couldn’t wait to say it. Plus, it’s how the episode opens. Yet again, we backtrack in time to follow what happens after Nicholas’ body dragged Glenn off the dumpster. As I thought, the walkers tear into the warm corpse, leaving Glenn untouched, but traumatized. While they’re distracted, he shimmies under the dumpster. Several walkers give chase. This feels a lot like Glenn’s introduction on the show. You know, when he saved Rick — a mistake, if you ask me — after the former sheriff’s deputy crawled under a tank. Only there’s no one to bail Glenn out of this situation. He’s on his lonesome. Killing the walkers posing the most threat creates a rather effective barrier to seal off his cubbyhole. Now all he has to do is wait for the walkers to lose interest . . . before his water supply runs out. The coast clears after what probably feels like an eternity when crammed under a reeking dumpster. Glenn slithers through the dead walkers. His first concern—water. Nicholas had a bottle on him, but it’s empty.
That’s okay, Enid just happens to be in a nearby building. Her first attempt to give him water results in a puddle. Glenn breaks into the antique store, following his only hope to find water in a timely manner. Desperate for news about Maggie and Alexandria, he attempts a civil conversation. Enid, written to be one of the most incoherent characters to date, bolts for no reason. There’s a lot of back and forth. At one point Glenn nearly leaves the girl, but Maggie wouldn’t like it so he goes back to drag the girl to Alexandria. Along the way, they grab some balloons—possibly useful against walkers, mostly to fill a plot hole explaining how Glenn will signal the crew at the episode’s end. This would be far more entertaining if Enid weren’t Carl with breasts. She has no personality beyond sullen teenager who’d seen too much. Which is literally everyone on this show, no matter their actual age.
Back in Alexandria, it’s more of the same ol’ same ol’. Maggie is ever-vigilant for Glenn’s signal. Rick, insensitive to the core, dismisses concern for her husband and redirects the conversation to how to move retrieve the cars from the quarry and move the walkers. Father Gabriel sets up a prayer circle, like that’s going to make a difference when the morale inside the walls is already shot to crap. Speaking of shooting, there’s more sullen teen angst action between Carl and Ron when Rick takes Ron out for his first official gun lesson. Like a d-bag, Carl interjects some smart comment every time Rick shuts his mouth. Even I want Ron to at least wing him with a shot by the time the real feces hits the fan later on.
Can Morgan live with Rick if he won’t kill? It’s not even a matter of staying in Alexandria at this point. Deanna would have no problem keeping the pacifist around. Morgan pulls his weight and has deep insight to what would motivate future human attackers. He’s an asset. Rick sees only a threat looking at the man who is the only reason he even made it to Atlanta for Glenn to save, thus introducing him to the people forming his little kingdom—and by some ridiculous default Carol is in agreement, simply to keep her relevant in the episode. There’s no logical reason for Carol to be this distrusting. She’s written so oddly this season. The writers backtracked hardcore on where her trajectory lead—sociopath land. Sociopaths don’t care what happens in a society, even one this small, unless it impacts the way they live. Morgan isn’t a threat to Carol; she shouldn’t be so invested in undermining his position in their community. This whole witch-hunt is added to drum tension in an otherwise lackluster episode. The only important bits happen in the first and final two minutes. I just saved you forty minutes of your life. Use it wisely.
Carol winds up stalking Morgan. Because, how else will they make something epically stupid happen with the prisoner no one else knows about unless poorly-written and paranoid Carol acts as catalyst? First, she has to ditch Judith. Here comes Jessie, a walking womb they dump the kids on without much concern for her as a person. While Carol waits for Jessie to put something away; which takes five minutes too long just so the following conversation can happen between Sam—still upstairs—and Carol.
Sam, “If you kill people, do you turn into one of the monsters?” Carol doesn’t even think about her response. “The only thing that prevents you from becoming a monster is killing.”
Spencer may be the densest character on television. He is nearly eaten playing Batman by crawling across a rope tethered between the wall and the slowly-crumbling church. The grappling hook fails, dumping Spencer amongst the walkers. Rick and others haul him up. Tara risks her life to provide cover fire. In a stunningly stupid move, Rick yells, “Tara! You almost died once for these people. What the hell are you doing?” Facepalm. Headdesk. They can hear you, Rick. Tara’s eloquent response speaks for all.
But why would Spencer play piñata in the first place? To go get a car, of course. The same plan Rick hatched, more or less, only executed with the grace of a newborn foal. And why didn’t Spencer tell Rick his plan? Rick listens to himself, no one else. Which is why Rick is literally the last person I would want leading my survival group. His selfishness knows no bounds. Deanna isn’t ignorant to this problem. When she comes to thank Rick and his people for saving her son, she asks Rick why he saved Spencer. “…he’s your son,” Rick responds automatically, then waits for a Scooby Snack. “Wrong answer.” Deanna isn’t impressed. She expected Rick to finally grow to see her people as his after passing the torch.
There’s no time to fix Spencer’s boneheaded mistake. Shortly after Glenn’s balloon signal is spotted, the church belfry topples. The wall is breached. The midseason finale will be a mad dash to either outrun the walkers or stand their ground against, oh, at least five-hundred sets of snapping jaws.
The episode’s opener is downright beautiful, some of the best cinematography on TV this fall. But once the episode’s plot rolls on, it’s pretty clear there’s nothing grounding the action in the overall story line for the season. Forty minutes for what’s essentially a pit stop to grab supplies.
The gang is caught in a forest fire, along with enough zombies to make traveling by foot dangerous. They fight their way through the smoke to a seemingly abandoned hotel. Knowing the show’s history, it’s seriously unlikely the place is empty, but any port in a firestorm. Inside, a group of frightened business people bicker over whether or not to let the strangers inside. One man, Iggy, takes initiative to be a decent human being and unlocks the door.
That’s about the time I realized one of the businessmen is none other than Anthony Michael Hall. A shame they couldn’t do more within the episode while working with such a strong actor as guest star. Hall plays Gideon Gould, a professional hot air blower. Not really, but that may as well be his job. Instead the guy tells business people how to best B.S. each other by talking in circles. He carries a “talking stick” and an ego almost as big as Murphy’s.
Gideon and his gal pal Dana somewhat take over, forcing Roberta and her group to participate in ridiculous trust-building exercises. He goes through the group giving his first impressions. Yes, they’re on the nose, but he ends up planting the seeds for everyone to distrust 10k later in the episode. Dana, Gideon, Addy, and Roberta sit to talk terms to sharing resources. A couple of the guys go with Iggy to check out the kitchen. Vasquez mother hens Murphy while he attempts to nap. Using his psychic zombie weirdness, Murphy distracts Vasquez to wander around the hotel. Addy leaves the meeting with Dana to salvage parts from the satellites on the roof and flirt. A gunshot brings everyone together again.
Murphy has a hole in his chest. Did he have that before? Didn’t think so. Another unlucky sap, Greg, is likewise leaking blood. Vasquez, using his Sherlock-worthy skills determines they were injured by the same bullet. It passed through Murphy and into Greg’s heart. Murphy’s blood is the only reason the guy isn’t a zombie yet. Working on that theory, Doc doses Greg with a hearty helping of Murphy’s blood. Waste not, want not. Murphy won’t miss what’s already outside of his body, right?
Gideon calls yet another group meeting to determine who shot the men. Automatically, they blame 10k. Addy steps up to defend him, but she’s nowhere near as convincing as the man himself. Vasquez, so not on board with Gideon’s methods, returns to the party with a duffle bag overflowing with food which the hotel survivors thought long gone, not squirreled away in a personal stash. Murphy and Greg were nearly killed for candy bars. The hotel survivors turn on Iggy, who by far the sanest, kindest person in residence. They’d assumed he took the food since he has one of two keys and Gideon is beyond reproach. Iggy is unceremoniously flung out into the smoke and encroaching zombies with only a small sledgehammer. Washington is given the pantry key and ordered to lock it down. Shortly after, Gideon finally gets around to offering Roberta food for her people. They hit the kitchen. Zombie Washington hits them. He also kills Sheila before they’re both given Mercy. The remaining food is gone.
Someone shoots at Doc. Everyone arms up and gives chase. Dana gives the shooter a free pass while Addy isn’t looking. The women wind up trapped in a closet—quit snickering—where Dana begs Addy to take her with them when they leave. Nearby zombies hear them. Roberta and Vasquez save their bacon before resuming the search for the shooter. The follow them, but come up empty-handed. While everyone scurries around for mysterious shooters and missing food, Murphy dreams about the zombies outside, subconsciously calling them to the hotel. They break out of the quarantined sections in the hotel. The fire zombies the gang fought through join the fray, eventually breaking the glass on the hotel doors. Everyone holes up in the makeshift sickbay.
Right on time, half-zombie Greg wakes. Doc asks him to identify the shooter. He points to . . . no, not Gideon, as much as we want him to suffer for being obnoxious. Travis is the shooter; Dana his lover. All they want is to get out of the hotel and away from Gideon. There’s a shootout. Greg dies again. So does Travis.
Victorious against the zombies outside, Iggy returns to the hotel. Truly apologetic, Gideon welcomes him back to the fold and offers the sacred talking stick. As thanks, Iggy whacks Gideon with the dang stick. Murphy wakes, confused and suffering the mother of all headaches.
The hotel group thanks Roberta’s crew for their part in overthrowing Gideon’s ridiculous stranglehold on their future by giving them a van and supplies. Will it be sufficient to see them through to the California lab? Do I need to ask? Of course it won’t. Murphy’s Law rules everything which happens to the crew—if it can go wrong, it will. My bet is the van will spontaneously combust when they all go on a pee break or something equally ridiculous.
Addy finally manages to build a functional radio and makes contact with Citizen Z. CZ has been trapped in the base with zombies this entire time, yet didn’t manage to kill them all. Someone is slacking. He warns the group about the mega-zunami heading their way and advises they divert south through Mexico to avoid it. Roberta isn’t onboard with that plan. Not when they’re so close to finally hitting the California border. That’s okay. The RV they’re in makes the decision for everyone, breaking down near the Grand Canyon. Roberta, Addy, Vasquez, and Murphy hop on the ATVs hauled behind the RV to find another vehicle or a place to hole up for the zombie storm. 10k and Doc head toward the cliffs, hoping higher ground will keep the worst of the attack at bay.
Up the road, Roberta’s group finds a casino, complete with distrusting occupants who tell them to get off tribal land. That is until she shows them the zunami heading their way. The gang is taken inside and introduced to Chief, Danny. Danny is convinced his casino defenses will hold. Nothing they say can change his mind.
Up on the cliffs, 10k and Doc run into Danny’s son, Red Hawk. If you thought Danny and his crew at the casino had trust issues, Red Hawk makes them look like Boy Scouts. He’s violently opposed to white men being on the tribe’s sacred cliffs, blaming their poisonous souls for the apocalypse. Red Hawk’s sister, Ayalla, and another woman, Kuruk, roll their eyes at the he-man chest banging, grab 10k and Doc, and treat their wounds. As a bonus prize, Doc gets to go on a nice peyote trip. For the pain, of course.
Not long after Doc’s brain is well and truly cooked, Red Hawk traps the guys in snares, calling them the early zombie warning system. Sure enough, a zombie shuffles by not long after. Doc spirit walks, killing the first walker. Ayalla rides in to save the day when a second approaches and Doc’s spirit gets camera shy. She takes them to the casino so they can warn her father.
While Doc and 10k play cowboy, Roberta uses the makeshift radio Addy builds with Jerry to talk CZ though using a rocket launcher. See, he’s got this one zombie he just can’t put down. Obviously the reason is his bullets are too small. Time to upgrade. Except, rocket launchers don’t really like the cold. The device’s battery is too cold to function properly. CZ ends up running from the zombie while warming the battery . . . in his underwear. Roberta did tell him to put it the warmest place possible. Once the battery is ready—and after CZ nearly loses the rocket launcher three times—he shoots the Z. It’s a great visual effect moment as the zombie melts in the blast.
Danny finally understands why Roberta’s group is so concerned about the zunami. He orders his people to follow Ayalla to the sacred cliffs. He stays behind, though, unable to leave the land where his wife’s spirit resides. Shortly after everyone drives away, the first zombies hit the casino. It takes about a minute for them to demolish the building.
Back at the cliffs, there’s a huge problem—the zombies are dive-bombing from above. They need to find a way to drive them from the cliff. Doc, having a deep connection with the spirits in the wall paintings, ponders if zombies are as dumb as buffalo. Only one way to find out. They set the grass on the plateau above the cliffs ablaze, hoping the fire will turn the zombies toward the Grand Canyon. Murphy freaks when he realizes the zombies will die. He wants to save them. He feels their pain. The crew hold him back. They watch, breathless, as the first zombies redirect at the fire. The plan works like a charm. Zombies tumble down into the Grand Canyon by the truckload.
The tribe says goodbye to their friends from the Z Nation (ha ha). Each is given a token to remember the adventure. Except Murphy and Vasquez. They’re waiting at the bus the tribe gave the gang. Murphy is still distraught about the zombie deaths. Nearly inconsolable. Roberta pulls no punches.
“The day is coming when you’re gonna have to decide what you are, human or zombie. And when that day comes, I want you to remember which of the two is trying to keep you alive and which one wants to eat your brains.”
How much of the zunami did they successfully divert? Hopefully all of it. They’re so close to California. So close to finally being done with broken cars, no food, sleeping with one eye open, and Murphy’s sourpuss expression. The real question is, what will go wrong next?
Is there a point to this episode? All it does is establish that Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham cannot return to Alexandria in time to help with the Wolves, walkers, or internal morale troubles. Which we knew because, gasp, we’re stuck in the same two-day timeframe six friggen episodes into the season. If we’re forced to relive the same day over and over, let it at least have a cheeky groundhog with smooth dance moves. I will hazard a guess that with everyone finally accounted for in this time frame, we’ll finally move forward with the plot. Won’t hold my breath, though. The writers have forsaken common sense in storytelling. It’s like the current writing room is populated by teenagers who swear they know what they’re doing, but really all they’re doing is making a huge mess and Mom—the producers—gave up cleaning.
Storytelling 101: Time must always move forward. On cue you say, “But, Groundhog Day. You just mentioned a movie stuck in a time loop.” Now, now. It’s not that easy to dismiss what I’m saying. Time still flows forward for the main character. Each day is different for him, he still has tomorrow and yesterday, they just happen to have the same events. People who work on repetitive production lines still move forward in their personal time line even though they repeat the same thing all day every day. They progress emotionally and physically. It’s an entirely different beast than breaking chronology to backtrack and tell portions from the story we already really know without writers leading us by the nose to figure it out.
Even within this episode they break that cardinal rule. There is no reason for the story to follow Daryl through to the following day, only to wind back the clock for Sasha and Abraham’s scenes. Everything the duo did in the episode could have taken place within the time line set by Daryl’s ordeal, including their initial entrance into the office building where they wait out the night. It would’ve taken no time at all to establish their location and well-being if edited into the episode during a specific moment to ramp up tension for Daryl’s abduction scenes. What they’re doing is stealing time for character building. Something which should flow naturally as each character finds their footing within the plot. The writers constantly fail at this basic storytelling skill. Whenever they realize they’ve forgotten character emotions, they create an awkward lull in the story and cram in as much as they can. It puts two essential fighters in this world on the sidelines simply so the writers can create yet another love story subplot. At least I think that’s what they wanted to do in this episode. Abraham’s dialog is so clunky, I have to watch his scenes three times to figure out what he’s actually saying.
Abraham and Sasha are useless in this episode—except for the missile launcher he recovers near the episode’s end. What about Daryl, does he do anything vital to the plot? Ha. Ha ha ha. Yeah, right.
The episode opens with the trio shaking the walker herd at the twenty-mile mark. When they turn off the parade route, someone shoots at them. Daryl dumps his bike, but recovers enough to ride out into the woods. Yes, more forest scenes. I’ve started naming the trees, because surely every scene in this show is filmed in the same acre of forest and I’ve developed more of a relationship with the foliage than any character since Hershel died.
Daryl isn’t alone in the forest. Burned walkers litter the ground. As he flees further into the trees to hide from whoever attacked them, he stumbles across two women who obviously think he’s one of the shooters. A man knocks him out. There’s weird Daryl POV sight gag taking us into the next day. Fancy another walk in the woods? The strangers bind Daryl and set out to find their friend. No friend at their destination. Daryl escapes when one woman, Tina, faints, stealing their bag containing his crossbow and pack. It also has Tina’s insulin. Yup. He takes it back. Just in time to grab his abductors and hide from the shooters. There’s no interaction between the groups. The search is called off. “We only wanted to take this so far,” one man tells his cohorts over the radio. Essentially, there’s no point to these men other than forcing Daryl to interact with his abductors a little longer.
After the shooters leave there’s, you guessed it, more walking. They find a bunt-out greenhouse where friends of the abductors once lived. The friends burned in the fire the abductors set. They also turned walker and are trapped under a layer of melted glass. Tina is bitten. Driven by who-knows-what, Daryl asks them the standard questions for bringing someone new into the community. They pass with flying colors. For about five minutes. When Daryl recovers his motorcycle, they steal it and the crossbow.
That’s okay. There just happens to be a conveniently placed truck fifty yards away. No spare crossbow, though.
When the two story lines finally hit the same time line, Daryl arrives in the small town to retrieve Abraham and Sasha. They drive toward Alexandria. The only interesting part of the entire episode is a short message over the radio. Is it a distress call from Glenn? Man, I hope so.
