The dead guy this time around is frat bro numero uno, Chad Wolcoff. He was the guy everyone relies on when they just can’t make it through their fourth beer bong. He was also a prick notorious for getting his bros in trouble with his pranks—one guy landed on the sex offender’s list after Chad told him to streak and set his path to take him past an elementary school. Chad’s offed by someone in a giant furry blue bear suit. How hard can it be to track down a suit so distinctive? Impossible, judging from Clive’s numerous failed calls to local costume shops.
Liv on bro brain is a peach. She cakes gaudy, glittery makeup on Ravi’s face, topped off with “FART” written on his forehead. She also drinks like a fish, belches, and talks like a brain-dead idiot. She’s dead, but her brain is fully functional. Thankfully. Or not. Her visions aren’t much help. Except one. Her second vision introduces them to the other Chad Wolcoff. This Chad spends him time talking to teens about the dangers of drunk driving. Chad and Chad faced off a while back when BroChad got drunk and posed as SoberChad at a school, where he proceeded to tell teens it’s cool to drive drunk. After Clive finally finds the bear suit, he thinks they’ve hit a dead end. Sonny and his girlfriend were at home having Furry Relations (much to Liv’s amusement) the night of the murder.
Or was he?
Turns out, Sonny killed the wrong Chad. SoberChad wasn’t always straight-laced. Back when he was fifteen, he hit and killed Sonny’s father. Because he was a minor, the punishment wasn’t as severe as Sonny would’ve liked. Over the years Sonny looked for Chad. When he found BroChad online, he wanted to face him again. BroChad didn’t make a good first impression, obviously.
This episode was Blaine-heavy. He’s concocting a drug war between himself and Mr. Boss, the local Big Boss when it comes to the drug trade. A position Blaine wants desperately. He sets up several rich kids amongst high-end clubs to sell his Utopium. In return, Boss orders hits on every last one, including Speedy, Blaine’s face-man for his business. Undaunted, or already prepared for this rebuttal from his nemesis, Blaine pays a visit to the District Attorney, who just happens to be one of his best brain-buying customers. They reach an agreement to start a case on Boss, but it’s going to take some hefty bribes to undercut the firm footing Boss has in the city. That’s okay, Blaine just needs to pay a visit to his dear daddy, played by Robert Knepper. As expected, Angus DeBeers just like his son. Blaine uses every manipulative trick in his book to work his father, finally demanding half a million dollars or he’ll overthrow his father, take over the family business, and lock Angus in the looney bin . . . just like Angus did to his father. Now Blaine has the means to take over the Utopium drug trade in the city.
That’s good news for one character in particular. No, not Ravi; he’s still drawing blanks when it comes to finding the tainted Utopium. However, he thinks if he can understand the drug, he’ll have a better chance of figuring out a zombie cure without the specific strain from the boat party. This leads to Ravi begging Major to join him on a drug-seeking mission at a high-end club. Ravi floats on an euphoric cloud, attempting to monitor his reaction to the drug with the voice recorder app on his phone. Spoiler: the audio provides little to no help the next day. Bored watching his friend have all the fun, Major takes Ravi’s second vial of Utopium. Then he wants more. When we find Major again, he’s passed out in the bathroom. A stranger finds his phone and calls Liv. She dutifully drags the kite-high men home. But before the cab drives a foot, Major grabs her phone and throws it out the window, telling her, “They can hear you and they’re always listening.” Or something to that effect given all the slurring. Liv and Major have a bonding moment on his bathroom floor. He asks her to stay and take care of him. She’s elated, thinking they’re finally on speaking terms. The bubble bursts the next day. Major replaces her phone, but won’t see her. Guess who’s falling down the Utopium hole? Yup. Major’s an addict. It’s either that or stew in guilt over the man he killed and the many more he’ll murder to keep Max Rager’s goons from going after Liv.
How much longer can Major keep the wolves at bay, though? He almost spills the beans to Liv twice in this episode while under the influence. What’s stopping him from blabbing to Ravi? Even if he does, there’s not much they can do to take down Max Rager short of killing Vaughn Du Clark.
For the first time in nearly five years, I’m throwing the B.S. flag on TWD. This episode is beyond ridiculous. It jumps from Rick shooting Pete to the Alexandria survivors staring at a walker horde numbering in the thousands. Yeah, that’s cool and all, but what are they doing there? Why are they futzing with this many walkers? Who is this guy arguing with Rick so much about a “dry run?” Dry run of what? Turning Daryl into walker bait, apparently. Just about everything before the opening credits makes little to no sense. It doesn’t get any better.
The episode bounces constantly from the present to the past. It’s confusing. Frustrating. Made me homicidal about twenty minutes into the episode when I finally just wanted to watch the plot in chronological order instead of the convoluted and drawn out method utilized in the episode. There are several moments when it cuts from a flashback—presented in black and white to lessen viewer confusion—to Rick and crew walking through the forest for ten seconds, then back to the Same Exact Scene in the flashback it cut from. Are you confused yet? Just typing it hurts my head. What were the writers, director, and editor smoking when they cobbled this idea together? Did they shoot up Krokodil in order to feel like a walker before locking themselves in the editing room? It’s the only way to make sense from the mess they made of the plot.
Sad thing is, the plot itself is pretty straight-forward. Let me try to sort it out and spare you the brain cramp I’m dealing with.
Deanna, kneeling in Reg’s blood, bonds with Father Gabriel for a brief moment after she realizes he was right to warn her about Rick. Abe takes Reg’s body to the cemetery to await burial. Pete’s family mourns their loss. Tara is awake and well in the clinic. Glenn and Nick stumble in fresh from their near-fatal fight. Maggie and Eugene fuss over their respective people. Tara is just happy the mullet survived. Carl is seen once in the episode, sitting on a roof with his kinda-girlfriend. Rick tells Morgan that he doesn’t taken chances. Morgan is locked in the prison room until morning after Rick collects his thoughts. They discuss the Wolves and what happened at the trucks. Daryl and Rick don’t see eye-to-eye on Daryl’s recruitment missions. Heath and his supply-fetching crew return to Alexandria. Eugene, in typical Eugene fashion, awkwardly allows them to drive through the gate. Morgan gets the penny tour of Alexandria. Father Gabriel sets to digging graves for Reg and Pete. Rick and Deanna agree—Pete will not be buried in town. Rick and Morgan take the killer’s body away to bury in a location none of the townsfolk will ever see. Ron, Pete’s eldest son, follows the men to the burial site. He ends up drawing a few walkers to their location. Rick saves the boy from falling off a cliff. He gives him a stern talk about how Ron can’t defend himself; Rick will teach him, but not right that second.
All of that was simply lead-up to discovering the thousands of walkers trapped in a quarry not too far from the town. This is how the people survived without learning how to defend themselves; most of the walkers are crammed in the quarry. A few escape, but not enough to pose a real threat. However, the semi-trucks the quarry’s former tenants put in place to defend themselves—that plan obviously didn’t work—aren’t so stable anymore. Rick sees the problem and brings it back to Deanna and the town. Heath fills in the information gaps since he already knew about the horde but didn’t consider it an issue. They must act now before one of the trucks barring the walkers falls. Carter, the new guy seen arguing with Rick in the opening scene, continues to argue with Rick. Big surprise.
They concoct a plan to move the walkers west, away from Alexandria. More arguing from Carter. Then Deanna and Rick corner him—he’s built a wall once, why can’t he build another barricade to keep the walkers off the road leading to their front gate? Obviously Carter agrees. The nexk set of flashbacks take place as they’re building the barricade. Daryl puts his foot down; he will be going to find new townspeople after they move the walkers. Carol continues to play “scared little lady” to fit in, however Morgan sees through it. He notices the way Carol is always watching, assessing the situation and confuses her with a cop. Maggie tells Tara about Nick’s part in Noah’s death and the murder attempt on Glenn. She gives Tara the power to spread the stories, let the town decide if Nick should be banished. For now Tara will follow Maggie’s lead when it comes to Nick. Rick corners Deanna on the premise of giving condolences about Reg. She sees through it and tells him to speak his mind. He tells her he will be training everyone how to defend themselves and use guns. Right on cue, walkers discover the build site. Rick holds back his crew, telling Carter and his friends to take care of the walkers with their shovels. That lasts about five seconds until they realize there’s too many walkers. The A Team steps in and clears the undead in a blink.
Later that night Eugene overhears Carter telling other Alexandria survivors he will kill Rick and take back the town. Eugene freaks, drops a jam jar, and is nearly shot in the head by Carter. His bacon is saved when Rick walks in and disarms Carter. The man is given another chance to work with Rick and his crew. The act of mercy doesn’t fool Morgan. He saw the real Rick in the armory with a gun pressed against Carter’s head. Grudgingly Rick admits he wanted to kill Carter just so he doesn’t screw up and get anyone killed. But he doesn’t have to pull the trigger himself; he realizes men like Carter will always end up dead. It’s just the way things happen.
In the armory again. Rick finally talks to Jessie, Pete’s widow. She tells him off for the way he man-handled and berated Ron. Understanding the need to learn self-defense, Jessie has been taking shooting lessons from Rosita and will teach her boys herself. Without Rick. Guess there’s no booty calls in his future.
The next day, the day before they play out Rick’s scheme, the townsfolk who volunteered to help with the plan meet to map out the route Daryl, Abe, and Sasha will drive in order to lure the walkers westward. Abe stops Sasha and asks her if she’s on the mission to die. She says, “No.” The crew stop by a tractor supply store with a dozen or so walkers trapped inside banging on the glass. The noise will draw the horde away from the planned route. Rick says they’ll come back before dark to clear the walkers. Glenn stops Nick to tell him he will sit out the following day; Nick isn’t ready to take on walkers again.
They arrive at the quarry. Rick gives a rousing speech about getting the walkers before they attack the town. Then things go wrong. One truck blocking the eastern path falls from the narrow road, giving walkers a direct route to their backyard. Instead of simply planning their attack, they must now act on it. Carter, of course, argues that they aren’t prepared.
This is actually where the episode begins, if you’ve lost track.
From here on out, it’s all walker action. Daryl plays pied piper, leading the initial rush from the quarry. Abe and Sasha meet him at the hill’s base. Together they lead the horde from the quarry east. While they’re driving, Glenn, Nick, and Heath double back to the tractor store to deal with the noisy walkers. After a false start on the killing, they eventually just blow out a window and open fire. Nick saves Heath’s bacon. It redeems him in Glenn’s eyes a little. Michonne, Rick, and Morgan wait on the far side of the barricade with flare guns. When the horde reaches them, they shoot westward, drawing the walkers’ attention toward where they need to shamble. At one point, a few walkers wander off. Abe jumps from the lead car and lures them back onto the road. When Sasha asks him why he’s acting like a nutjob—talking about pieces of Pete’s brain still in his ear—Abe says he’s just living large, much like Sasha when she snapped and slaughtered numerous walkers for fun.
Everything is going smoothly. Until Carter is grabbed and bitten by a walker. He squeals like a stuck pig, drawing walkers off the road. Luckily, or unluckily, Rick is nearby. He kills Carter. Michonne and Morgan lament the death, but both understand that’s just how it is nowadays. The others alongside the road fire their guns to draw the walkers back. It works. Well, for a moment. Not long after a horn sounds, distracting the walkers again. The horn is coming from Alexandria and now a few thousand walkers are out to find it.
Instead of presenting this version of the story, the showrunners decided to start with the zombie horde and edit the episode to flow inside out, starting in the middle for the present action and the beginning for the flashbacks. If they’d edited it better, I wouldn’t be so livid. Instead of large story chunks to lay groundwork, they cut it into tidbits, dropping ten seconds of storyline here and there amongst personal dramas and too-long clips featuring walkers, well, walking down a road. The undead action stopped being cool the second they hit the road. Then it became a rainy-day parade with no bathroom in sight, but you’ve down an entire pot of coffee just to be awake enough to watch the soggy festivities. It’s not fun. It makes no sense why you would put yourself through such torture for maybe a few enjoyable seconds as your favorite float passes. But it’s not the same. It’s not as entertaining. You begin to wonder if the parade will even be worth attending the following year if there’s a chance of rain.
I’ll tell you right now, if the show pulls this flashback stunt again, I’m not only done with the parade, I’ll forget there’s even a holiday to hold a parade for, rain or not. This episode was a waste of time. Whoever edited it and the people who then looked at this cut and said it was good to go need to relearn a few story-telling basics. The episode is a joke. My ability to take anyone in TWD’s post-production staff seriously is fractured. Just like my sanity after piecing the plot together for you guys. Here’s hoping the next episode makes more sense.
Doc spots a gigantic cheese wheel and takes a bite. Then Roberta and Addy push the sucker downhill, letting gravity take care of the undead parade. Vasquez helpfully suggests they head to a Mennonite community not far away. He’d been by there six months prior and saw survivors. Considering Serena can’t waddle five feet without projectile puking, it’s a good thing the community isn’t across the state. There’s a long, drawn out sequence covering Serena’s attempt to win gold in the Vomiting Olympics. Give the woman a medal and let’s move on, already. My lunch is trying to crawl up my throat. Note to self: leave the finger sandwiches for after the show.
After the worst of Serena’s morning sickness is over, the group is fired at, destroying the SUV they stole from the Zeroes. Vasquez takes a long-range radio as a souvenir. Serena saves the day, opening fire with an automatic rifle and cursing so much a sailor would be jealous. Hate to admit it, but as gross and annoying as she can be, I’d want her at my side during the apocalypse. If, you know, I still played for Team Living Folk.
Faced with yet another car problem, they simply steal the truck from the woman Serena killed and roll down to the Mennonite community. Vasquez and 10k scout ahead. 10k takes out a few zombies covered in what’s later revealed to be anthrax. Not exactly the fun kind of white powder. Vasquez takes a minute to steal food and listen to the stolen radio. Roberta makes the call to take a chance and enter the community to ask for help. Good thing, too. Not long after they make contact with the Mennonite leader, Jacob, 10k succumbs to anthrax poisoning and Serena’s water breaks. The baby is on the way. No one is prepared, least of all Murphy.
10k is shuffled off to a bunkhouse with other anthrax patients. There’s not enough Cipro, an antibiotic made for animals but still okay for human use, to cure the sick Mennonites and 10k. All they can do with their current supply is stave off death for a little longer. Addy and Vasquez take Jacob to a small town nearby in hopes of finding more antibiotics in the pharmacy. One problem, though; they aren’t the first to reach the pharmacy. Inside they find a junkie who has literally taken everything behind the counter in an attempt to kill himself. Obviously it didn’t work. The junkie asks them to kill him. When Addy declines, he desperately attacks Vasquez, who shoots him in the head. Jacob judges their actions harshly after Addy explains it’s just the way they have to do things now.
Back at the community, Serena and Murphy are flat-out ridiculous while dealing with her labor pains. Doc has no clue what to do between a sick 10k and the mother-to-be’s screaming. At one point Doc arms himself with a meat cleaver after witnessing the baby pushing through Serena’s stomach to say hello to her father. Murphy isn’t fazed. After Addy and Vasquez return, she succumbs to the anthrax, as well. Roberta is pushed into a corner. She can let two of her people die, jeopardizing the safety of Murphy and the baby who both carry the cure, or she can rob some very nice people and doom their sick to death. The latter option wins. There’s simply too much at stake—which she conveys to Jacob as they steal what little Cipro is left.
Back on baby watch, it’s time for the blessed event. This is one determined newborn. The little girl not only pulls herself from Serena’s womb—without injuring her mother—but she also chews through her umbilical cord. The crew aren’t the only ones to witness the birth. Zombies from everywhere flock to the barn, including three people leading a camel.
Yes, they snuck in a Jesus joke. You may applaud them for their audacity.
The zombies are riled up once Murphy holds his daughter. He can’t control the undead, they’re too focused on his daughter. Serena sacrifices herself, attacking the zombies so Murphy and the others can flee. Roberta stops to give her mercy after she turns. It’s unclear how, exactly, everyone makes it out of the barn unscathed considering 10k and Addy were too sick to move at the moment of the birth. Television magic, I guess.
Father and daughter have a nice bonding moment before Roberta orders everyone back into the truck so they can continue to dodge the nuclear fallout and head toward California. Murphy takes a second to give his little girl a proper name, Lucy, named after his mother.
And the moment is over when the camera cuts to the giant cheese wheel still mowing down everything in its path.
How fast can the group travel with a newborn on board? Hard to tell. Plus, there’s now the problem of feeding a baby without a mother or supplies. What does Lucy eat? We’ll probably find out soon. I’m going to guess baby doesn’t crave momma’s milk.
Three months after Meat Cute blew up, Liv is still persona non grata when it comes to visiting her family. She gives it another try, anyway, hoping time healed her brother’s mental anguish over her refusal to donate blood. Yeah, no. He’s still holding tight to that grudge, telling Liv, “Go away. Don’t come back.” Which is pretty much the same thing their mother says before Liv walks into Evan’s hospital room. They aren’t the only ones with a bone to pick when it comes to Liv’s recent behavior, Major has her in the doghouse since the moment she turned him without permission. Hey, she gave you the last dose of the cure, dude. Show a little respect.
Speaking of the cure, it may not be one-hundred percent effective. At least, that’s what Ravi alludes to as he laments the lack of tainted Utopium necessary to replicate the cure so he can actually test it. Final Hope, a.k.a. New Hope, is the only rat left from the experiments. It’s doing well considering at one point it craved burrowing into other tiny furry heads to munch brains. However, the rat is terrified of Liv. Turns out, it’s not just the rat with zombie-senses similar to Spider-Man’s spidey-sense. Major shows a similar side-effect. Anytime he’s near a zombie, as is the case when he meets a new personal training client, the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. The cure turns former zombies into zombie-detectors. Handy skill to stay alive. It could also be put to use for other nefarious purposes. More on that later.
Ready to meet our first corpse for the season? Wendell Gale is a peach of a man. A rotten peach. He’s old, grumpy, and quite the racist bastard. Which essentially makes everyone living in a mile radius from his house a suspect. It also means Liv is unbearable in this episode. At one point Clive is so fed up with the rubbish she spews, he looks ready to punch her. The personality is wishy-washy. It’s like the writers realized they went too far and held back during certain scenes. But then they went Full Bigot at times, too. Personally, I would’ve nixed the racist personality. Yes, we get it, old folks love to hate what they don’t understand. Did they necessarily need to manifest this in the form of intense racism? No. They didn’t. It was a lazy way to write a grumpy old man and give them a wider suspect pool to play with. Half-baked detective work and a couple insignificant visions narrow the suspects down to three people—Wendell’s sister-in-law Clara, the neighborhood bad-boy Rodney, and neighbor Byron Thistlewaite. The case itself is pretty straightforward once Liv finally has a clear vision starring Byron’s darling dog. Wendell, notorious for yelling at Byron about where his dog dropped its dung, locked the mutt in his shed to teach his neighbor a lesson—leash laws aren’t a joke and curb your dog. Instead of having a civil conversation, Byron jumped to conclusions after a little ribbing from Wendell and kicked the carjack out from under the car Wendell had crawled under to work on. The car killed the old man. A distraught Byron heard his dog in the shed and rescued it. Now he has a safe dog in need of a new home since he’s going to jail for murder. Congratulations, idiot.
When Liv isn’t being mostly useless in the investigation, she’s tracking down her favorite person in the world, Blaine. She needs his past connections to score more tainted Utopium. But it looks like she’s hit a dead end. Blaine is a legitimate businessman, shilling funerals to his fellow humans. Okay, he’s still selling brains, as well. Can’t change a tiger’s stripes. Which is why it’s no surprise that Blaine is setting himself up to be the largest Utopium dealer in the city. He still doesn’t know who cut the batch he sold at the boat party where Liv was turned, though. Given a new mission, Blaine tracks down Don E—pothead and former stooge—to ask who cut the Utopium from the party.
If they’re going to make a cure, it needs to be soon. Vaughn Du Clark is a desperate man. The revelations about Max Rager and its weird side-effects put a dent in their sales numbers. He has a plan. A nefarious plan. First, get Super Max on the shelves. Doesn’t matter if the side-effects still happen. They have an ace-in-the-hole. Someone with the ability to find zombies. Yep, you guessed right. Du Clark calls Major into his office and lays out his plan. Major will take the list of known zombies, venture out into the world, and murder the undead. That was his original plan, after all, so why change? The problem? Du Clark lists Liv as his number-one enemy. To pacify his new boss, Major take out his newest client/zombie. Maybe that’ll keep Du Clark off his back for a while.
It won’t keep Du Clark’s assistant from playing double agent. Gilda is making herself at home in Liv’s apartment, posing as her new roommate since Peyton bolted after Liv killed a zombie in their kitchen. Gilda is the reason Major is locked in his new position as zombie slayer. She bugged Liv’s phone. How much more chaos can she cause before Liv finds out about Gilda’s connection to Max Rager? Plenty.
A slow start to season two. The twists and turns come in fits and starts. Unlike season one, they laid the groundwork for the overall season story line early—a luxury they didn’t have before when the bulk of the show’s time was spent simply explaining the universe. With that mess out of the way, I expect more from the show. Will they shake off the sophomore curse? We’ll see.
Slow your roll. This review contains spoilers. Are you ready?
The family is finally back on track with their original plan—pack everything they need and drive out to the desert to wait out the worst. That last part is hysterical. They’re not paying attention to what’s going on around them. Travis is convinced the government will find a way to fix the infected. Daniel is far more practical. He knows it’s “us versus them.” Which them, though? The infected and their mindless search for sustenance? The soldiers imprisoning them in the Safe Zone? The government doctors kidnapping anyone and everyone with symptoms of illness, both physical and mental? For Daniel, it doesn’t matter so long as he and Ofelia survive. The only reason he stays with Travis and Madison is because they’re heading to the medical facility to retrieve Liza and Nick. He won’t leave the city without Griselda. Daniel’s practicality demands they kill Adams so he doesn’t alert the remaining soldiers in the city. There’s an argument, of course. Travis wins the round, with an assist from cold-hearted Madison, and they take Adams along to provide a map for the military compound housing Exner’s clinic.
Except then the bleeding-heart lets Adams go. Why? Because Adams whines endlessly about being tortured. Cry me a river. Going from what we saw on-screen, Daniel gave him a couple paper cuts. This is why it was vital they establish the torture on-screen in episode five. Without it, the story line with Adams falls flat and makes no sense later on when Adams catches up with the group to confront Daniel. Why go back for revenge? Adams wasn’t permanently harmed. His wounds were entirely superficial. He showed no genuine mental anguish during or after the lackluster torture scenes. It’s another case of the writers drumming up tension without actually establishing any.
Not even the massive wave of infected in the second half of the episode manages to make an impression. As part of the plan to sneak into the military compound, Daniel utilizes the stadium overflowing with infected to distract the soldiers. There’s the usual footage starring clueless men shooting through a chain link fence. All the actual hand-to-teeth action is seen through Liza’s eyes as she’s preparing to evacuate with the clinic staff. In slow motion. While she stands still for two and a half minutes—I timed it—doing not a bloody thing. There are times for realism; any person faced with a zombie horde would freeze. However, with an already snail-paced first season and copious slow-mo shots, this was a bad call by the production crew. There’s no sense of urgency from the characters. They’re watching dozens die at the hands of people they assumed were just sick. Yet they stand around, twiddling their thumbs. Even when Liza discovers that Exner murdered the clinic patients who couldn’t be transported—the helicopter evacuation team tucks tail after discovering the infected horde—her reaction is, “Oh. Well, they’re dead. You, the woman who killed them, should come with my family.”
A lot of questionable behavior by the survivors gets swept under the rug. One exchange cannot be overlooked. While Travis, Madison, Daniel, and Ofelia are in the compound searching for their kidnapped family members, Chris and Alicia wait with the cars in an underground garage. Once the feces hits the fan, some of the soldiers tuck tail and run. A few find the kids and demand they hand over the keys to the SUV. Alicia and Chris fight back as best as they can. Then one of the soldiers stops and threatens to rape Alicia. This is not okay anymore. I’m tired of every man on TV with questionable morals resorting to rape in order to prove they’re not the good guys. Quite frankly, it’s lazy and predictable. Plus, it makes no sense. “Oh, we’re being chased by zombies? Let me stop and try to rape this chick.” Yeah, no. That’s simply not how the flight-or-fight trigger works. These men feared for their lives, not their libidos. Stopping to grab a little action before securing their safety goes against human nature. Writers, leave the rape threats on the cutting room floor. Surely as a group we’ve all moved past this bad-guy trope.
What about Nick? Well, he’s still got a friend in Strand—the well-dressed man he shares a cell with in the clinic. They break out after it’s obvious the soldiers are fleeing. Do they help anyone else? No. It’s another nail in Nick’s likeability coffin and doesn’t do a thing to make us find common footing with Strand. They’re sitting ducks in the compound, soldiers or not. The guy they needed to get a ride to freedom is somebody’s dinner. Then they walk the wrong way down a hallway with an automatically locking door. Luckily Liza happens to find them, and the others trying to save them, and unlocks the door. As reward for the assist, Strand takes them to his oceanfront property. They’re not staying in the gorgeous house. Strand is a nomad at heart. He knows setting up camp is a death sentence.
There’s business to take care of before they can leave the house for the yacht floating just off the coast. First, Ofelia has a bullet wound from Adams’ attempt at revenge. It’s not clear where, exactly, she is injured, just that it isn’t likely to kill her. Second, their only trained medical person was bitten in the rush to escape via a detour through the military compound’s kitchen. Liza takes a walk down to the beach. Nosey Madison follows. Turnabout is fair play in the apocalypse, spurring Liza to ask Madison to kill her before she turns—a talk which went the other way around about the time the Safe Zone was established. It takes so long for this talk, Travis finds the women. He ends up putting Liza down, despite both women agreeing it’d do irreparable damage to his fragile psyche. The episode ends with another drawn out set of slow-motion shots ranging from Travis’ anguished lament in the surf to Chris discovering his mother’s body.
That’s it. There’s no momentum catapulting these characters into season two. It’s inexcusable. They knew well in advance that FtWD would have a second season. It wasn’t like they wrote season one completely blind to the show’s future, as so many infant series do nowadays with fickle audiences and wary network executives. The Walking Dead franchise is more or less all AMC focuses on as their cash cow. So why end this show in particular in such a boring way? Yes, they kill a main character. Yes, it should be tragic. But it isn’t. Liza isn’t given enough screen time to make fans like her enough to mourn. The slow-motion ending drags down the tempo and Travis’ breakdown in the surf is almost parody. I do not have high hopes for season two. If this show sees a third season, it’s simply because AMC is milking this cow until the teats run dry, then putting it out of its misery.
Hold your horses! There’s spoilers in this review.
Travis attempts to grow a pair and confronts Moyers about Griselda and Nick’s abduction. Eventually he whines enough, Moyers gives in and takes Travis for a ride along with a seriously overworked unit. Their final destination is the military base camp and medical facility two miles east of the safe zone where Liza and Exner are holed up—one doctor and four nurses tending to every sick/injured civilian in Los Angeles. Travis and Moyers don’t see eye-to-eye on anything, most importantly the actual classification for the infected. Moyers knows they’re dead. Travis thinks there’s some wondrous cure on the way.
In an attempt to fix Travis’ point-of-view, the soldiers stop to dispatch an infected woman and invite him to take the shot. Hey, it’s only three points in their absurd zombie-killing game, but that’s good enough for Mr. Pacifist, right? Obviously Travis can’t take the shot. The second he spots the woman’s name tag, he steps away from the sniper’s rifle. One of the guys kills the woman and they’re on the road again.
Not for long. A distress call comes in. A unit is trapped in an overrun library. They take a detour to bail out their fellow soldiers. It’s a train wreck. Moyers is presumed dead. The others jump back in the vehicle and make it clear—Travis isn’t going to see Liza and Nick. They’ll drop him off near the fence before heading out to evacuate their families. If their families are still alive. So much for Travis’ attempt to exert power in his newfound position as mayor of safe zone number whatever.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room—Daniel torturing Ofelia’s soldierboy, Adams.
I had such high hopes after seeing this character turn to embrace necessity to Get Things Done. Problem is, producers failed this character horrifically. They destroyed his reputation as the old wise man to give him a darker twist, the man who’ll do anything to save his family.
This is the same ruthless breed which begat Rick Grimes from season 4. You know, the man who tore a man’s throat out with his teeth. At no point did they hesitate in Rick’s defining scene. Yet when it came to bringing Daniel around to the same character traits, they chickened out. Big time. The man tortured Adams. Daniel cut him open numerous times. We never clearly see the wounds. We don’t actually see more than ten seconds of active “torture.” There’s more detail in the episode 103 scene when he blows an infected man’s face off. Yet we’re supposed to believe it’s so bad his daughter runs away from him. Then they turn around and make Madison so blasé about the torture, it’s like Daniel just gave Adams a bad manicure.
What was the point of kidnapping and disfiguring Adams? Information. Namely about Cobalt, a call-sign Daniel hears repeatedly on Adams’ radio. The same call-sign is repeated while Travis is riding with Moyers and his unit. But what does it mean? The military will pull its forces at 0900 and “humanely” terminate the living within Los Angeles. Really? We waited the entire episode to learn that Cobalt is probably the same call-sign used in Atlanta before they blew it up? Which means these families will be caught in a similar scene as when Lori and Shane met Carol and Ed. Yawn. We already knew this is what would happen, writers. Did you hope fans somehow forgot? That we wouldn’t be able to predict this type of situation happening when it was clear in TWD; blowing everything up was the only solution the military could concoct to stem the rapidly spreading outbreak? Again, they built all this tension and fell far short of the goal line.
Now we know more-or-less what’ll happen in the first season finale. Do you hold out hopes they’ll actually manage to create a clever plot twist or have you given up on this show like so many fans who’ve turned their full attention back to waiting for TWD?
HBiC has a bone to pick with Murphy, just like everyone else in the USA. He stalks the Zombie Road, first to make quick meals out of bandits, then he discovers a zombie he can’t control. Murphy’s mental immunity makes him a threat. Unfortunately, the lack of compatibility between zombie and blaster brains means Murphy is useless as nipples on a male hog when it comes to controlling the blasters and directing them away from the group. He’s also doggy paddling in the river Denial, refusing to admit the nuclear fallout forcing the group to walk away from California is his fault.
The crew meets up with a Mad Max style wagon train. Okay, by meet I mean they saved their bacon when bandits attack the train in order to steal their vehicles. The bandits are killed. The vehicles are safe. Sam, the truck driver in charge, offers Roberta and her crew a place with his people. They’re heading to Edmonton, where the cold weather will protect them from zombies. Most of his people won’t make it another ten miles, let alone a long haul to colder places. They’re dying from radiation sickness. Of the twenty people in his wagon train, the majority ride in the medical truck. Including his son. Sam is also sick, but wading in Denial river alongside Murphy. The radiation sickness colors his judgment, making the car his nephew, Wrecking Ball, drives all-important. He nearly loses half the wagon train chasing after bandits who manage to steal the car from a stoned Doc and Wrecking Ball.
Yes, there’s Zombie Weed on this wagon train. Wrecking Ball claims it came from a lab in Minneapolis who grows it in an old GMO lab with fertilizer made from zombies. Murphy and Cassandra are big fans. The Z-Weed actually helps Cassandra regain some of her cognitive functions. It doesn’t stop her from eating her way through half a dozen bandits in order to recover the car.
HBiC rallies his blasters to attack the wagon train with Murphy aboard. Murphy doesn’t stick around. The second he’s given a chance, he steals Sam’s oh-so-precious car, leaving the semi-truck and the medical truck far behind. Cassandra watches from the back seat. HBiC doesn’t have to work hard to overcome the wagon train, Sam’s son keels over and turns. Within a minute, every sick person in the medical truck is a blaster. Addy bails from the truck. The others practice awful aiming trying to kill the blasters before they jump onto the main truck after Addy. By this point, the only survivor from the original wagon trail still breathing is Sam. Roberta realizes sticking around will equate a death sentence for her people. They all jump from the semi-truck. Down the road, HBiC kills Sam and the truck explodes.
The gang backtracks up the road and grabs a truck. They set a destination for Minneapolis, chasing the lab information Wrecking Ball provided. Luck would have it, Murphy has Wrecking Ball in the car with him. He uses the guy to get directions to the lab. Despite running away, Murphy is still going in the same direction as the people who want to turn him in and make a cure from his blood.
Hopefully Wrecking Ball’s information is good, not clouded by all that Zombie Weed.
His position doesn’t thrill Madison at all. She’s playing single mom with five extra people to feed and clean up after. Liza can’t help; she’s the only one tending to the injured and sick inside the gates. But what does Travis do all day? Hang around the main gate, waiting for Moyers to need him? Which is exactly what happens after Moyers announces that there is a six-mile buffer between the fence and the nearest infected person. The officer needs Travis’ smooth-talking skills to convince Doug to submit to medical testing. He does the job, only to later find out Doug broke curfew and was taken away to a medical facility.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s spoilers in this review. You sure you’re ready to read it?
Travis exposed Doug’s mental instability. Anyone not normal and one-hundred percent functional isn’t welcome in Moyers’ safe zone. Is Travis putting the same hyper-focus on his kid? Nope. Chris tells Travis there may be survivors on the hillside outside the fence after spotting someone using a mirror to send a distress signal. It isn’t until Madison hears about the discovery and talks to Travis about it that he brings it up to Moyers. But like Doug, his attempts to make things better backfire. The episode ends with Travis sitting on the house’s roof, watching muzzle flare light up the window where Chris spotted the S.O.S. signal. Anytime he interferes, people are hurt.
His fiancé isn’t doing much better at keeping her head down to wait out the worst. When Madison is certain Travis won’t do anything about the possible hillside survivors, she breaks out of the fence. Up on the hill, it’s obvious the military have been through there. However, the corpses don’t look right. Madison is nearly spotted by a patrol unit and crawls under a car to hide. It puts her face-to-face with a dead woman. That’s when it dawns on her, most of the bodies stinking up the street weren’t infected. The military mowed through them and moved on, leaving them to rot. At least Madison took some form of action, though she never found the house with the survivors. When the episode opens, she’s more concerned with painting the family room again because she can still see the blood stains from when Daniel saved Travis. She has this delusion that they can host an open house to sell the place. Yeah, like the fickle market will survive a zombie apocalypse. It can’t even handle a drought. Meanwhile, she’s so tense, she’s dropping the ball on her Nick Watch. Like most unrepentant junkies, he found a way to score morphine—stealing it from the men next door with congestive heart failure. Hell rains down on Nick when Madison does find out. She beats him, leaving him with a black eye and a boatload of embarrassment. As for Alicia? Other than breaking into Susan’s house and giving herself a tattoo, she might as well not be in the episode.
The main action is actually with Liza. The military finally brings in a doctor to evaluate the sick and injured in the safe zone. Dr. Exner’s first order of business is to call Liza on her lie; she’s not actually a nurse. However, Liza’s quick thinking and natural compassion are commended. Exner asks Liza to help her visit everyone in the safe zone in need of medical attention. They eventually circle around to the Clark house. Griselda will need surgery to save her foot. Daniel plans to leave with her. Next, they corner Nick to see if he needs help weening off the junk. Exner sees through his lies, but doesn’t make a fuss. Later that night the soldiers come for Griselda. Before they make it out the door, the switch is flipped. They’re not taking Daniel. Instead they want Nick. He’s caught and handcuffed. Madison is beside herself, blaming Liza. Nick and Griselda aren’t the only ones who leave that night. Exner more or less begs Liza to join her to help these people. After mouthing, “I love you,” to Chris, Liza climbs into the transport vehicle. She may be going to help others, but for the most part I believe she’s going to keep an eye on Nick for Madison.
Daniel is written as the Wise Old Man. It’s annoying. He more or less predicts what happens before Griselda and Nick are taken, ruining the surprise. Sure, he has a cool story to tell, but is it necessary in every episode? We get it. They want to draw parallels to other refugee camps. Having Daniel present is enough without giving him these endless monologues. It’s like they’re telling the story twice per episode. Fans aren’t that dense. Quit guiding them by the nose.
Where did they take Nick? Do we really care? I don’t. But we’ll likely see this mysterious medical facility in the next episode.
It’s glorious. It’s bloody. Best yet, it’s simplistic. No complicated or contrived tension between the characters. The plot rolls out naturally. Are there parts which don’t make a lick of sense? Of course. This show is written for the most part to parody other shows which take themselves far too seriously at times. But that’s the beauty of this show. It’s not bogged down by things like physics.
Citizen Z is still on the run from the NSA zombies loose in the base. He left Dog alone in the command center with orders to stay no matter what. But where’s Citizen Z going? To the weapons locker, of course. Hilariously, even though he emerges from the storeroom with two full bags of guns, he still relies mostly on a baseball bat to dispatch any zombie in his path on the way back to Dog.
Matters aren’t quite so easy for everyone else. The broadcast from Citizen Z turns the small town in Wyoming into the O.K. Corral. Everyone and their psychotic mother is on the hunt for Murphy. A few factions are in play for this episode. First, the bounty hunter introduced in episode 201, Vasquez. Then there’s the Skull Face guys—who never stand a chance. The instant Vasquez sees them, he opens fire. That sets the tone for the entire episode. It’s a free-for-all. Every moving body has a target on their forehead, living or dead. There’s also Soccer Mom, fond of a shotgun loaded with less lethal bean bag shells. Her luck runs out after landing a shot to Murphy’s gut; Cassandra—still very much feral—eats her for lunch. Escorpion, played by Emilio Rivera (Sons of Anarchy), uses a rocket launcher as his weapon of choice. His scenes are few and far between, but the damage he does with that launcher are felt for most of the episode after he deafens 10k with a blast. The last bounty hunting crew to get face time are the Rednecks. They’re just dumb enough to fail right in the pursuit of The Murphy.
Throughout the episode, the main crew get their backsides handed to them. This provides odd little flashbacks for everyone. Addy remembers riding her bike down a suburban street. Citizen Z recalls falling in a park and being scooped up by his mother for comfort. Roberta’s subconscious takes a dip in a pool. Doc doesn’t flashback, he has an out-of-body experience. While floating near the ceiling, he watches Redneck #2 strangling him, then spots a letter opener on top of a bookshelf and tells himself to knock it down. Murphy’s vision is, of course, smoking a joint with a beautiful woman.
During the chaos, everyone eventually ends up in the world’s most depressing motel. This place was sad in its heyday. After the apocalypse, it became the place where happiness goes to die alone and forgotten. Redneck #1 and #2 are taken out by Vasquez and Doc in the motel. After #1 collapses, Vasquez decides to join forces with Roberta. She doesn’t say no; he just saved her life. Everyone is scattered in the building. Mack and Addy split up to avoid zombies and find Murphy. He goes down, she up. What neither could predict is the insane number of zombies drawn to the motel thanks to their prey. Caught alone in the stairwell, Mack is swarmed. The nearest door is chained shut. Addy does her best to get to him, but it’s too late. She stays with him, watching the zombies bite him, until he turns and she gives him mercy. Everyone else makes it to the roof where Murphy contemplates jumping. He and Roberta argue, but it’s mostly for show. Murphy jumps, landing in a swimming pool lined with zombies.
He doesn’t make it far. Angry, Addy tracks him down like a bloodhound. She yanks him from the van and beats him until the others drag her off of him. If Murphy hadn’t run from them, Mack would be alive. It’s a harsh truth they all realize the second Roberta asks, “Where’s Mack,” and Addy breaks down. Murphy’s fight leaves him in an instant. Even Cassandra complies when 10k motions her to climb into the van.
Mack’s death is only the second main character loss on the show with any serious impact. It was just assumed he’d continue to be there for Addy even though they aren’t a couple. He made the trip to the compound she called home to make sure she survived the nuclear blasts. No one told him to check on her, he just did it. Mack was the one to suggest they rejoin Roberta’s mission to deliver Murphy to California. As much as he got in the way, he also helped round out the group.
They’re not down a fighter, though. Vasquez hops in the van with everyone at the end of the episode. His plans to sell Murphy to the highest bidder must be out the window after seeing how far the living will go to collect the bounty and promised cure. A solo bounty hunter won’t make it a block with Murphy in custody and he knows it. He also knows the nuclear fallout will make driving westward impossible. They have to skirt the worst damage and hope to find a clear way to the lab. If the lab hasn’t been blown up like so much else in the US.
They decided to put huge, radioactive craters in the USA and then went on to write clever ways for the main characters to escape certain death. The only one we knew for sure would walk away was Murphy. Even if he didn’t drive away, something about his changed nature would surely save his hide. Cassandra’s too, now that she’s this mystical Other like Murphy.
What about the Roberta, 10k, and Doc? Sure, they make it to a vehicle—I’m assuming they steal Dr. Kurian’s SUV since Murphy has the van from the drug warehouse—but a car isn’t fast enough to drive beyond the 3-8 kilometer blast radius. Roberta demonstrates some fancy defensive driving techniques, magically finding a tunnel to drive into to spare them from taking the brunt of the impact once the blast catches up with them. The car flips, leaving the trio in a situation we’re all too accustomed to on this show—carless, no supplies, and hardly in any condition to wander around a desolate wasteland to find provisions which haven’t been irradiated. Especially since Doc has a hole in his shoulder. It’s not clear how long they wander around before Doc’s injury prevents him from going on. 10k stays to nurse Doc. Roberta continues wandering aimlessly. Because that’s smart. Just when she’s ready to give herself Mercy, a little girl screams and it’s time for killin’. The effects for this season are far better for the fight scenes. Like some of Roberta’s other fights, this one is done in stylized slow-motion, where each fatal strike is full speed, but everything else is nice and slow. It gives great detail for the zombie makeup and fight choreography. It also distracts one from remembering that Roberta is actually too weak to walk, let alone take out half a dozen zombies. Smart. The girl’s family takes Roberta in for a while, feeds her, and sends her back out with food and water to find the guys.
Mack and Addy are back. The band of sister-wives was decimated after one boy they sent to his certain death grew wise and returned to torch the place. Those who didn’t burn alive were eaten by the zombie bear. Only Addy and Murphy’s baby momma, Serena, survive. Mack picks up Addy on his four-wheeler and off they go. Where? Well, looks like they want to rejoin the “Get Murphy to California” parade. The pair, not a couple anymore given the angsty tension in their solo scenes, find a cell phone tower and set up a signal for the others. They aren’t alone for long. Zombies find them and decide it’s lunchtime. Luckily 10k and Doc just happen to be in the same junkyard. Most of the gang is back together again. Using information Addy gleans from a radio broadcast in Spanish, they head out, picking up Roberta on the way. It’s amazing how these people find each other so easily. I can’t even find my friends in a parking lot if we’re separated while hunting old ladies for dinner.
That just leaves Murphy and Cassandra on their own. Murphy heads to the nearest town. He promptly breaks into a vintage clothing store for a lot of therapeutic shopping. The undead locals are pretty friendly, lending a hand to carry his new wardrobe. Cassandra, on the other hand, has to claw her way out of the crater which was the lab before she tracks down the man who ensured she survived the apocalypse no matter what. She’s a tad feral by the time they meet up in the clothing store. Which is the only way to explain why Cassandra allows Murphy to dress her in gold spandex and a white mink coat. While Murphy plays dress-up, his name is being spread amongst the survivors in the US like wildfire.
Citizen Z—trapped in the NSA’s computer room after a nuke defrosted zombies in the downed airplane from the pilot episode—sends out an all-call to find Murphy and get him to California, going so far as to lie about a bounty and promising first crack at the refined cure once it’s finished. Which is exactly what Addy hears on the radio. The Spanish message she heard is a response, telling survivors to head to the speed-bump sized town where Murphy and Cassandra are holed up in a strip club. Like you expected Murphy to go anywhere else.
The gang catches up with them, and more than a few other people looking for The Murphy. There’s some witty bantering, a zombie strip show, and a gunfight with a gentleman who’s so, so certain he’ll be the one to drive away with Murphy tucked safely in his trunk. Don’t skip the fight’s conclusion. The final zombie death is . . . unique, to say the least.
With everyone in the USA looking for Murphy, the show’s cleverly turned everything on its head even more than when they decided to nuke everything. Instead of relying on internal drama and the occasional accidental run-in with unsavory survivors, the fight is coming to them. Or Murphy, rather. However, Roberta has no plans to abandon the mission now. They’re close to California. Now all they gotta do is beat everyone else to claim the prize.
Liv on bro brain is a peach. She cakes gaudy, glittery makeup on Ravi’s face, topped off with “FART” written on his forehead. She also drinks like a fish, belches, and talks like a brain-dead idiot. She’s dead, but her brain is fully functional. Thankfully. Or not. Her visions aren’t much help. Except one. Her second vision introduces them to the other Chad Wolcoff. This Chad spends him time talking to teens about the dangers of drunk driving. Chad and Chad faced off a while back when BroChad got drunk and posed as SoberChad at a school, where he proceeded to tell teens it’s cool to drive drunk. After Clive finally finds the bear suit, he thinks they’ve hit a dead end. Sonny and his girlfriend were at home having Furry Relations (much to Liv’s amusement) the night of the murder. 
This episode was Blaine-heavy. He’s concocting a drug war between himself and Mr. Boss, the local Big Boss when it comes to the drug trade. A position Blaine wants desperately. He sets up several rich kids amongst high-end clubs to sell his Utopium. In return, Boss orders hits on every last one, including Speedy, Blaine’s face-man for his business. Undaunted, or already prepared for this rebuttal from his nemesis, Blaine pays a visit to the District Attorney, who just happens to be one of his best brain-buying customers. They reach an agreement to start a case on Boss, but it’s going to take some hefty bribes to undercut the firm footing Boss has in the city. That’s okay, Blaine just needs to pay a visit to his dear daddy, played by Robert Knepper. As expected, Angus DeBeers just like his son. Blaine uses every manipulative trick in his book to work his father, finally demanding half a million dollars or he’ll overthrow his father, take over the family business, and lock Angus in the looney bin . . . just like Angus did to his father. Now Blaine has the means to take over the Utopium drug trade in the city.
How much longer can Major keep the wolves at bay, though? He almost spills the beans to Liv twice in this episode while under the influence. What’s stopping him from blabbing to Ravi? Even if he does, there’s not much they can do to take down Max Rager short of killing Vaughn Du Clark.
HBiC rallies his blasters to attack the wagon train with Murphy aboard. Murphy doesn’t stick around. The second he’s given a chance, he steals Sam’s oh-so-precious car, leaving the semi-truck and the medical truck far behind. Cassandra watches from the back seat. HBiC doesn’t have to work hard to overcome the wagon train, Sam’s son keels over and turns. Within a minute, every sick person in the medical truck is a blaster. Addy bails from the truck. The others practice awful aiming trying to kill the blasters before they jump onto the main truck after Addy. By this point, the only survivor from the original wagon trail still breathing is Sam. Roberta realizes sticking around will equate a death sentence for her people. They all jump from the semi-truck. Down the road, HBiC kills Sam and the truck explodes.
His fiancé isn’t doing much better at keeping her head down to wait out the worst. When Madison is certain Travis won’t do anything about the possible hillside survivors, she breaks out of the fence. Up on the hill, it’s obvious the military have been through there. However, the corpses don’t look right. Madison is nearly spotted by a patrol unit and crawls under a car to hide. It puts her face-to-face with a dead woman. That’s when it dawns on her, most of the bodies stinking up the street weren’t infected. The military mowed through them and moved on, leaving them to rot. At least Madison took some form of action, though she never found the house with the survivors. When the episode opens, she’s more concerned with painting the family room again because she can still see the blood stains from when Daniel saved Travis. She has this delusion that they can host an open house to sell the place. Yeah, like the fickle market will survive a zombie apocalypse. It can’t even handle a drought. Meanwhile, she’s so tense, she’s dropping the ball on her Nick Watch. Like most unrepentant junkies, he found a way to score morphine—stealing it from the men next door with congestive heart failure. Hell rains down on Nick when Madison does find out. She beats him, leaving him with a black eye and a boatload of embarrassment. As for Alicia? Other than breaking into Susan’s house and giving herself a tattoo, she might as well not be in the episode.
The main action is actually with Liza. The military finally brings in a doctor to evaluate the sick and injured in the safe zone. Dr. Exner’s first order of business is to call Liza on her lie; she’s not actually a nurse. However, Liza’s quick thinking and natural compassion are commended. Exner asks Liza to help her visit everyone in the safe zone in need of medical attention. They eventually circle around to the Clark house. Griselda will need surgery to save her foot. Daniel plans to leave with her. Next, they corner Nick to see if he needs help weening off the junk. Exner sees through his lies, but doesn’t make a fuss. Later that night the soldiers come for Griselda. Before they make it out the door, the switch is flipped. They’re not taking Daniel. Instead they want Nick. He’s caught and handcuffed. Madison is beside herself, blaming Liza. Nick and Griselda aren’t the only ones who leave that night. Exner more or less begs Liza to join her to help these people. After mouthing, “I love you,” to Chris, Liza climbs into the transport vehicle. She may be going to help others, but for the most part I believe she’s going to keep an eye on Nick for Madison.
Mack’s death is only the second main character loss on the show with any serious impact. It was just assumed he’d continue to be there for Addy even though they aren’t a couple. He made the trip to the compound she called home to make sure she survived the nuclear blasts. No one told him to check on her, he just did it. Mack was the one to suggest they rejoin Roberta’s mission to deliver Murphy to California. As much as he got in the way, he also helped round out the group.
