Whether it’s through bad calls from the government, medical professionals, and police forces or if the mass panic in large cities like Los Angeles is the perfect breeding ground for new zombies. More often than not, I find myself watching the background action in every scene. Why continue to shove poorly written characters in our faces when the best part of the show happens without them? Numerous fans have told me they’d much rather the show follow Tobias. He seems to be the only one fully aware of the ramifications of these attacks and what it means for mankind’s future. But he’s only on screen for a few minutes total halfway through the season. It’s like the writers want to hide his intelligence after realizing how moronic the lead characters are when it comes to common sense.
Head’s up! There’s episode spoilers in the rest of this review.
Some of you surely think I’m overreacting, that there’s no way the same people who gave us Rick Grimes and company can produce such wholly flawed characters. I’m not talking flawed like Carol’s sociopathy or Daryl’s antisocial nature. We’re talking characters so poorly written, if they were actual people, they’d find it impossible to function in normal society without ending up injuring themselves or others. Madison in particular cannot operate under basic logic. In the beginning of this episode, not much time has passed since we left off in episode 2. So she should still feel the adrenaline rush—or at least the let-down from it—after bashing in Artie’s head with a fire extinguisher. You know, her friend and coworker. The man she risked her life to help despite Tobias’ warnings. At no point does reason say Madison should force her children to wait at the house for Travis and his family when she knows these infected people can and will hurt others. Not to mention, she watched an infected neighbor chow down on the birthday party crew, so she knows danger is at their door.
Does she make Captain Addict and Princess Stubborn climb into the car? No. Madison sits them down to play Monopoly. Her dingbattiness must be inherited by the kids.
When they hear a noise at the door, Nick just wanders over to open it, letting in a stray German shepherd. Hold that thought for a second. I have a bone to pick with the writers about that dog. It’s always been a big mystery on TWD: where are the animals? We’ve seen a few, either eaten later on or too feral to re-domesticate. It only makes sense that this show would attempt to show what happened to them. It doesn’t make sense to introduce a gorgeous dog, only to kill it off-screen minutes later. There’s no point in forcing fans to listen to a dog’s whimpering and yelping as its attacked. Matter of fact, that is flat out cruel. Yes, people react when animals die. It’s a lazy way to garner emotions from the audience when they aren’t connecting to the humans in the story. Make us care when people die. Quit using animals to make up for two-dimensional characters.
When the infected neighbor breaks into their house and kills the dog, Madison and the kids return the favor and break into the house next door. Nick steals their shotgun. Madison snags the shotgun shells. Alicia wanders around, wondering what’s going on because he mother refuses to tell her that zombies exist.
Across town, Travis, his family, and the Salazars are forced out of the barber shop by a fire in the strip mall. Griselda’s foot is broken when a police water cannon topples a scaffold. Luckily they just happen to be right next to Travis’ truck. Going to the hospital isn’t an option—duh. Hospitals are ground zero for all infections and viruses. We’ve always said the first institutions to fall would be anything medical. That’s one thing the writers for the show got right.
Unable to find help for the injured woman, Travis opts to bring them with him to the house. They arrive seconds after the dog dies. Madison attempts to cut them off before they find the infected neighbor inside the house. Despite hearing the munching noises, Travis strolls up to his undead buddy and almost gets the same treatment as the birthday party crew. Daniel saves Travis, despite Travis demanding no one shoot the shotgun. The makeup effects for the infected in this scene are amazing and detailed.
Back at the neighbor’s house, Alicia backtracks by herself to grab the shotgun shells Madison dropped. She’s attacked by their neighbor, Susan. Chris comes to her rescue and gets punched in the nose as thanks. With everyone together, they should be ready to head to the desert, right? Wrong. Travis demands they wait until daylight. The Salazars argue whether or not they should go with the others, considering Liza is going to school to be a nurse and may be the only medically-inclined person they can find given the scene at the hospital they passed on the way to the Clark house. Ofelia thinks that since the others are kind, it’ll mean they survive. “Good people are the first ones to die,” Daniel tells her. They’re still arguing when Travis and Madison finally get in the car and drive away in the morning. For a heart-stopping minute, I wanted them to just drive off and never be seen again. It doesn’t happen. Susan’s husband returns home. Madison rushes back to warn him. Too late. He reaches out to embrace Susan . . . splat! A soldier puts a round through Susan’s skull.
Half the National Guard suddenly appears in their little suburb, locking it down. They catalogue every living person in the neighborhood. The corpses are taken away in body bags. Now they’re stuck huddling in the middle of a crowded city where the infection rate is climbing.
They should’ve left the minute Madison got home with Artie’s brains on her jacket.
First, adding unnecessary time to the pilot, killing what little momentum was in the episode with slow pans of Los Angeles, false zombie sightings, and sandpaper smooth character development. The latter is a huge deal-breaker for fans. They need a character to latch onto and love as a friend. I’d hoped the second episode would be better without the luxury of extra time to futz around, forcing it to focus on the plot. Yeah, not so much. All they managed was to make a bigger mess of the characters. Then, they continuously used slow-mo shots to try and ramp the tension throughout the episode. Except after an incredibly snail paced pilot, starting the second episode with a quiet slow-mo shot of Alicia walking down the street is the exact opposite of what they needed to do to catch fan’s interest again.
Caution: Show spoilers below.
The writers for this show can only write one female stereotype—the strong, independent woman who doesn’t need to listen to anyone, let alone a man, in order to keep her family safe. Madison was locked into this trap from the get-go. In this second episode, Liza is crammed into the same mold—vehemently refusing to deal with Travis even though the tone in his voice when he calls her to warn her about the strange happenings in L.A. says something is seriously wrong. Automatically, she jumps down his throat, much like Madison when he attempted to tell her there was something wrong in the church where Nick got his fix. Alicia does nearly the same thing after visiting her boyfriend Matt, only to discover he’s so sick, he should be in the hospital. Madison warns Alicia to back away, afraid Matt will turn into whatever Cal was before Nick ran him over twice. “People are getting sick. It could be contagious.” Predictably, Alicia fights her mother. “If he has it, I have it.” While it provided a great throwback to the harsh secret Edwin Jenner told Rick Grimes before the CDC building exploded on TWD, it makes no logical sense for Alicia to completely dismiss her mother’s concerns. At no point does she stop to actually process what is going on. The women all give into knee-jerk reactions, simply to create tension. It makes them all one-dimensional, dull, and predictable. Even Madison’s emotional breakdown near the episode’s end is telegraphed. Strong, independent women always cry when alone. Then when someone catches them, they brush it off. Yawn.
So what actually happened in episode two? Travis and Madison concoct a fool-proof plan: gather their kids, his ex as well, and drive out to the desert to wait out whatever is going on. Oh and detox Captain Addict. First, find Alicia. A task hindered by overworked cell phone towers and her stubbornness, as mentioned earlier. After they spend far too long arguing whether or not it’s safe to be around Matt, he finally sends Alicia away. This time she listens. Travis drops everyone off at home and heads out to pick up Chris and Liza. Chris dodges Travis’ calls like a professional disgruntled child. While he’s busy with his metaphorical fingers in his ears, Chris winds up smack dab in the middle of ground Zero for another officer-versus-undead shooting. The public doesn’t understand why the officers unloaded their magazines into the homeless man.
In a scene reminiscent of the 1992 L.A. riots, the crowd demands an explanation. Chris films the altercation, which only incites the protestors as they defend his right to film the police who tell him to stop. By the time Travis deals with Liza’s unreasonable refusal to listen to his warnings and they track down Chris, the riot is in full swing. An infected woman shuffles toward a female officer and is shot twice. The second she hits the ground, pure chaos erupts. Travis and Liza grab Chris. They run until the riot is too much to navigate, eventually begging for shelter in a barber shop owned by Daniel Salazar. His wife Griselda is the one who makes the final decision to provide a safe place for the family. Daniel’s daughter, Ofelia, is also there. The episode ends with them still trapped inside the barber shop while outside, the rioters blow up vehicles and loot shops which haven’t been locked up. Back at home, Madison is desperate to score meds to wean Nick off heroine. She leaves him with Alicia to break into the nurse’s office at the school, where she scores enough OxyContin to do the job. Hopefully. As she’s ready to leave, Tobias suddenly appears—never mind that he doesn’t have keys to the school or a reason to be there, really. But since he warned Madison about the outbreak, she relents and gives him back his knife. Oh and helps his steal food. Because that’s what good guidance counselors do, right? Sure. They also hand out drugs and encourage kids to have unprotected sex—my disbelief crash-landed the second she willingly committed a crime with the kid. Tobias and Madison aren’t alone.
Artie, the school’s principal, has a new, fresh look. He shambles after them. Stupidly, Madison tries to help and is attacked for her efforts. Her big, bad protector doesn’t so much as make Artie flinch with his itty bitty knife. When the infected principal turns on Tobias, Madison rescues her rescuer by bashing her friend’s head in with a fire extinguisher. She takes Tobias home, leaving the food they stole. Because that makes sense. If you want to die from starvation. The episode ends with the family living across the street becoming Infected Chow and Alicia finally demanding to know what’s going on.
The most frustrating thing about this episode is the fact that they more or less present Tobias as an apocalypse expert. He babbles tons of useful survival information. But when it comes to practicing these skills, nothing. Nada. It’s dumb move after dumb move. First, fruitlessly stabbing a man repeatedly in the chest. Second, leaving the food behind. They wrote him as the Harbinger and Encyclopedia, but negate these traits at every turn when Madison doesn’t accept what he’s telling her. The show is written almost as if each character is trapped in their own bubble, utterly incapable of actual interaction with each other. How do they expect fans to root for what should be a cohesive survival unit when the characters have no vested interest in one another? Yes, it’s early in the game, still. However, the season only has six episodes. There’s not much time left to build up the characters from their current two-dimensional caricatures. Without a connection to this family, all the groundwork they’re laying for the apocalypse— the riot scenes were brilliant if one ignores the family story line— is for naught.
Given the amount of undead action on our plates, and the ferocity with which we love the shows, it’s only right to have a survival plan in place to make it through those rough episodes.
Note: this is not to replace your current go bags, escape routes, or safe haven plans.
Prepare your viewing room.
Remove any and all breakable items from the room. There may be random bouts of flailing or flinging things at the television screen. We don’t want to ruin anything important.
Ensure there’s a clear path to the bathroom. You’ve only got a couple minutes during commercial breaks to answer nature’s call. Don’t waste a second tripping over shoes or toys. Miss one second of the action and you may miss saying goodbye to a favorite character.
Build yourself a squishy fort. Load it with pillows and blankets. Pillows come in handy when you need to hug a character, yet can’t. Blankets provide the perfect Gore Shield, lest the blood and guts on screen become too much to handle.
Kleenex. Trash can. Need we say more?
Secure your noise-sensitive pets in a quiet room with their favorite toys and a goody or two. Some animals don’t react well when their owners randomly shout at the television.
Keep a roll of duct tape on the coffee table. Just in case you have that one friend over. You know, the one who stands and paces while yelling at the TV.
Refreshments. You need to keep your strength up.
The ideal foods to serve should be cold or room temperature. Soft, yet not too messy. This is in case you drop the food during a tense moment. Hot foods will burn your lap. Messy foods stain clothes/carpets/furniture. Hard foods, when thrown, have the potential to break glass. Like a TV.
Beverages should be cold to prevent burns. Preferably clear. Again, to prevent personal harm or property damage if spills happen in the heat of the moment.
Plastic or paper serving dishes, plates, and cups.
Avoid foods and drinks which resemble blood, internal organs, or raw meat if you have a weak stomach for gore.
Drink plenty of water. Exciting shows raise your heartrate and blood pressure—just like jogging*. Maintaining adequate hydration will keep you comfortable. (*Do not use TDW or FtWD as a replacement for your regular exercise program.)
Play nice with others.
Call dibs on bathroom use to avoid a stampede when commercial breaks hit.
Warn your neighbors if you feel you will yell at the show. This is especially important for apartment dwellers, those with noise-sensitive roommates, or folks living in otherwise quiet neighborhoods.
Do not, under any circumstance, discuss potential spoilers while the show is airing. Your viewing party pals may enjoy being surprised. Don’t ruin it for them.
The tortoise-pace they’re traveling at frustrates Murphy to no end. He takes it out on Citizen Z, demanding the compu-geek get his tail in gear and locate Dr. Marilyn Merch, the woman who gave him the zombie-virus vaccination back in the prison. Murphy’s anger comes out of left field. The entire drive, he’s been a suitcase, more or less—along for the ride and not doing much to help. Suddenly, he’s itching for revenge against Dr. Merch. It could be his deteriorating condition ramping up his frustration. Without open communication from California, he’s not getting any answers about what’s happening to him or what will happen a week from now, or years down the road. How much of Murphy will be left by the time they reach the lab?
If they reach the lab in California.
Yet again, the brain trust escorting Mankind’s Hope does something stupid and end up without access to their car. In the middle of a zombie-infested golf course. Why did it take all five of them to check a bridge? Roberta could’ve hopped out, jumped on the thing a few times to test it, then hope back in and drive on. But oh no, everyone piles from the SUV and onto the bridge, allowing a small zombie horde to cut them off from the car. Into the clubhouse they go. Except Murphy. He takes advantage of his new natural zombie appeal and snags a few practice swings on the course. Which means he isn’t present for the rescue-slash-meeting with a trio of new survivors. After bailing Roberta, 10k, Doc, and Cassandra out of a bind, the new guys—Frank, Janice, and Henry—invite everyone for a few drinks. One thing leads to a few too many drinks and Murphy spills the beans on his whole savior gig.
Somehow the next round of drinks ends up drugged. No clue how that happened. Murphy is abducted. Everyone else is handcuffed in an uncomfortable conga line with a zombie. Good thing there’s an umbrella handy. Does anyone else have a hard time suspending belief long enough to buy that any of the weapons used on the show would work to puncture a skull?
Fred and his gang drive Murphy into the middle of nowhere—not to be confused with the vast nowhere they’ve driven through for the entire show—and lay out their master plan. Mr. Savior will lead them into a pharmaceutical warehouse where they will load up on OxyContin. Because, as everyone knows, the only currency in the apocalypse is drugs. Only losers barter with food and other items essential to survival.
There’s one catch in the plan—the zombies aren’t the same run-of-the-mill undead they’ve run from since New York. Oh no. Half of the Zs are wired on Ritalin. Others, well, let’s just say the little blue pill doesn’t need a functioning circulatory system in order to affect a man. I’d like to thank the writers for sparing us from actually witnessing undead love-making. The reactions from Roberta and Doc were enough to sell the idea without crossing that line.
Murphy is one step ahead of everyone, concocting his own evil plan. First, he spits in Janice’s water. Then he works on her emotions, reminding her about her husband who died the last time they attempted to snag the drugs. Come to find out, Murphy’s mental mojo doesn’t just work on the undead. He controls Janice like a puppet, making her raise and lower her gun with a thought. Since it works so well, he takes the opportunity to scratch Henry, adding to his puppet army. Moments before he enters the drug company’s gates, Murphy bites Fred—insurance lest his plan go awry at any point.
Which, of course, it does.
Unaware that Murphy has his own escape plan in place, Roberta, Doc, 10k, and Cassandra barrel into the building. The distraction, plus the zombies following shortly after, gives Fred a chance to hold Murphy hostage. He’s the savior, after all. Killing him would put a damper in everyone’s day. Annoyed by being held like a damsel in distress, Murphy orders Fred to kill himself. The zombies take care of Henry and Janice. Everyone piles into a conveniently placed van and they drive off into the Colorado sunset.
It’s not the most meaningful episode, save Murphy’s Puppet Master routine and Cassandra’s dwindling health from the infection in her leg. But, hey, they’ve got yet another maybe-reliable car. Citizen Z thinks he’s on the right track to find Dr. Merch. Things might finally go right for Murphy and his escort team just in time for the finale.
Yawn if you’re as tired of the same recycled story line as I am.
The gang is back together again. Citizen Z actually did something right, leading everyone to the same underground bunker in Utah for a happy reunion and to grab supplies from Chester. Who happened to put a bullet in his brain not too long before they showed up. Oops. Oh well, the food and water are still there. Before the hugging and back-patting fest, Addy and Mack venture the tunnels alone, killing any stray zombies they came across. One already dispatched zombie is tied to a chair with a bag over his head. O . . . kay. Seems perfectly normal.
In another room, four zombies shamble around aimlessly. Addy takes the lead, dancing into the fray and singing a nursery rhyme with an apocalypse twist. Mack isn’t entertained. He’s concerned about the lingering effects from Addy’s breakdown at the river. (I’m still concerned about the lingering effects of that episode on my mind, as well, Mack.)
Mack asks Addy, “You couldn’t just give them Mercy?”
Addy replies, “What fun would that be?”
Not long after everyone is reunited, Addy takes a swing at Chester’s corpse. More than a few swings. It looks like she is warming up for the Home Run Derby. “Somebody got up on the wrong side of the apocalypse,” Murphy observes. Hey, Mack? Your girlfriend lost a cog or four after her little dream-fest. May want to see if you can find her professional help.
Good news, everyone! The scientists in California aren’t dead. Just when I thought for sure the gang would be left up Feces Creek with nothing but Murphy’s shining personality to paddle with, Citizen Z delivers the good news—their cross-country trek and the lives they’ve taken/loss aren’t a giant waste of time. Paired with the new-to-them SUV and they may just arrive in California with everyone safe and sound. Unless the writers decide to employ yet another vehicle mishap to delay the mission again.
On their way through Utah, west of Salt Lake City, the gang comes across a handful of zombie boys. Further up the road, they spot a live boy walking along like there’s no apocalypse. The boy is under the impression that he can simply walk into Mord—Salt Lake City and visit his father. After all, his mother says it’s okay. Roberta isn’t buying it. Why lie to the kid about the city being overrun? They pack the kid into the overly crowded SUV and drive down the road to talk to mommy dearest about her shining parenting skills.
Despite bringing back the kid safe and sound, the crew is met at the community’s gate by armed women. There’s not a man in sight. For a reason—there’s absolutely no men allowed inside the gates. Not even humanity’s savior. Murphy, Mack, Doc, and 10k remain outside while Roberta, Addy, and Cassandra head inside for a little R&R, supplies, and treatment for the infection on Cassandra’s leg. It takes no time at all for the community’s head sister-wife, Helen, to start manipulating Addy. She comes across as the ideal person for Addy to work through her problems with, begin healing the trauma she forgot for so long. Actually, Helen just wants another strong woman in her group.
The entire compound runs on the idea that men created the apocalypse. Helen murdered her abusive husband. Scouts from the group venture out to track abused women and bring them into the sister-wife fold. But they don’t just bring the women, oh no. They snag the men and dispense their particular brand of justice—feeding the abusers to a zombie bear without trial. At one point, they take Addy and Roberta along for one of these rescue missions. A motorcycle crew (MC) has two women bound and trapped in their sidecars. The sister-wives stage a broke-down car and wait. The MC guys take the bait, offering to help. They’re outnumbered. It doesn’t take much for the women to disarm and capture them, tying them all together. Then Helen puts her master plan to work, asking Addy to shoot an MC member. She uses Addy’s trauma from the cannibal fiasco to egg her on. Addy pulls the trigger and doesn’t flinch. The MC guys are left to fend for themselves against their newly undead buddy.
Back at the compound, Murphy has his own R&R time with a buxom blonde. On her way back inside the gate, the blonde is held hostage by the surviving MC member. Mack saves the day. But it doesn’t make him feel any better. Why? Addy wants to stay with Helen and the sister-wives. She’s certain if she continues on the mission to California, it’ll be the end of her . . . or Mack. Neither a prospect she can handle with her current mental problems. Should Addy find a safe place to hole up until Murphy’s cure is dispersed? Totally. Should she stay for Helen to use as her personal executioner? No way. Nothing Mack says changes Addy’s mind. He charges the gate to try one last time to convince her to leave. One of the sister-wives shoots him in the shoulder. Roberta tries to save him from himself. Mack pulls a gun on her. Eventually Roberta steps aside. Gunshots ring out. We have no clue what happens to Mack.
Two characters dropped off the mission. It’s not a huge loss considering Addy and Mack weren’t with the crew for several episodes. When they were, Addy’s mental hiccups prevented her from providing much help and Mack spent more time keeping her safe than protecting the asset—Murphy’s miraculous blood. Seems like things are back on track for Mission Save Everyone. Good thing. There’s only two episodes left.
The best survival plan begins long before you and your family comes face-to-gnashing-teeth with danger. Figuring out where you’ll live now that home-sweet-home is covered in zombie drool should be high on the priority list. For some, it’s not ideal to leave their home due to disability, young children and infants, elderly parents, etc. Others already have their evacuation plans in hand with every route mapped out so they hopefully land somewhere z-free with a place to settle down. For the record, we don’t suggest an old prison, it doesn’t seem to end well.
For any location you choose to settle down, there are a few basic things to do which will give you a little more time for fight or flight if the zombies find you.
Cover every single window. Ditto with doors, leaving two with a relatively easy way to exit just in case. We suggest using corrugated metal, 5/8″ exterior grade plywood, or marine plywood. Screwing the boards in place will make them stronger. You may want to pack a battery-powered drill in your supplies cache. If that’s not doable, hammer and long nails will work. Place the boards on the outside of the house—it’ll prevent a horde from using sheer weight to push them free. Don’t forget to secure the garage door! You’ll want the extra safe space, anyway.
Grab anything outside your safe house which can be used as a battering ram and bring it inside—trash cans, barbeque, lawn furniture, gardening equipment, etc. We’re not saying the zombies will be brighter than the dirt on their feet, but one must take into account possible human invasion as well. Particularly people who have grown desperate and angry over failure to secure a place of their own.
Take the time to do a little yardwork. Clearing away grass, shrubs, and trees within a 10-yard radius around the house will prevent accidental fires. The cleared wood (if dry, or set aside to dry) will come in handy, anyway. Plus, if you get rid of the lawn, there’s not much holding you back from finally using that flamethrower you picked up on a whim. I kid. Mostly.
Bring all of your supplies inside the safe house—water, tools, food, clothing lines, wash buckets, firewood, etc. If you cannot secure your vehicle(s) inside a connected garage, drain the gas and bring it inside, as well.
It may not look like much, but it could be home sweet home with the right planning and preparation.
Here are a few health safety tips to remember about your newly secured safe house:
Establish a clean room for cooking and food storage. In another room, create a clean place to tend to medical emergencies. I’d highly suggest using vinegar to clean these rooms, not bleach. With low water supplies, you may not be able to rinse away bleach to safe-to-handle levels. However, keep bleach on-hand to purify washing water.
Do not use a barbecue indoors! If you are without a propane stove, plan to create a secure, well-ventilated patio outside one of your two emergency exit doors. As a bonus, this can act as a staging area if you must evacuate from the safe house.
Keep the generator outside. Carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t pretty. This is the only survival item you must leave outside. Hey, if you build that patio, it can go there, as well.
Do not use kerosene for your indoor lamps. It smells awful and the impurities aren’t good for your lungs. Opt for lamp oil and make sure to read the label to see if the brand is safe for indoor use.
Keep all flames away from the secured windows/doors. If there is a breach, the flame will likely fall over. Don’t make the zombies’ job easier by giving them a way to burn you out of your safe house.
Signs of carbon monoxide poisoning: Nausea, dizziness, weakness, confusion, disorientation, vomiting, and sleepiness.
What do we know about the upcoming season? There’s a metric ton of walkers in the premiere. Greg Nicotero, who directed the episode, says there were over 300 walkers on set to shoot just one scene. In total, there’s rumored to be over 600 walkers in the episode. This we don’t doubt; the walker count in the four-minute SDCC trailer is staggering.
A few new faces will join Rick and company, along with a face from Rick’s past. Lennie James, as Morgan Jones, comes into season 6 as a full cast member. It’s unclear just how much of an opposing force Morgan will be when Rick puts his plans in action. Scott Gimple, TWD showrunner, won’t confirm or deny a conflict outright, admitting they did indeed make it appear so in the trailer. “We sometimes play with the truth in trailers. Rick is faced with challenges to the way he does things and including his people in the way he does things.” Lennie James sees only one outcome, there will be fallout between Rick and Morgan.
New cast members include Ethan Embry (Once Upon a Time) as Carter, Merritt Wever (Nurse Jackie) as Dr. Denise Cloyd, and Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) as Heath. Carter appears a few times in the trailer, set opposite Rick and his plans. Denise is Alexandria’s new primary doctor now that the other’s brain splattered all over the sidewalk. All we know about Heath is he’s a runner for the town. Denise and Heath are characters from the comics. Carter is described as a composite of many comic characters they couldn’t figure out how to introduce in other ways.
There’s not much else to share about season six yet. Gimple did a nice jig to get around questions about the Wolves and their part in the season—they’re still a threat, but not in a way fans can predict, and not as immediate a threat as others.
Everything else we could add is in the trailer. Let it speak for itself.
Poor Theresa didn’t survive the beating at the end of the last episode. Seeing as Sebastian had a knife in his head before the attack, there’s a new killer on the loose. Liv wastes no time digging into Theresa’s snarktastic brain—served on a BLT with not-spicy-enough mustard. The first vision connects the dots for the Scooby Gang; the kids were attacked for the Max Rager flash drive Theresa took from Sebastian’s pocket before they buried him. It explains all the texts about “The stuff” and money flying around during Kimber’s case. Someone from Max Rager wants that information and they’ve resumed killing people to get it back. The lone survivor from the band, Cameron, is missing. When the police finally locate information, it’s from a gas station surveillance camera. Cameron walks in, grabs enough food for two people, and mouths, “Help me.” It’s a good cover story. While he’s dropping breadcrumbs for the cops to follow his “kidnapper,” Cameron meets a Max Rager representative and sells the flash drive. Then they try to blow him up. Terrified, Cameron hops on a bus to Canada . . . and is caught at the border because he didn’t think they’d catch on to his scheme and put out an APB. Moron. Faced with Clive’s not-so-veiled threat to hand Cameron over to Max Rager—who has plans to get their money back if the tracking device in the bag of cash is any indication—Cameron spills everything, including a cloud-stored copy of the flash drive’s contents.
Max Rager’s part in zombie creation is bigger than anticipated. And an accident. Vaughn Du Clark tasked his scientists with creating Super Max, an energy drink which makes the consumer never need sleep again, plus a few other enhancements. The tainted energy drink which went public is likely the test batch of Super Max, sent out in the world to see what’d it do to humans. MR took advantage of the opportunity when Sebastian made his way back to them post-turning. He went to them in good faith. Then went nuts and killed the lead scientist. It’s okay, Du Clark has a spare scientist laying around. Once the guy recovers from the whole, “Zombies are real,” shock, he’s pretty onboard with the Super Max plan. Though that doesn’t stop him from being Creepy Mc Staresalot when Liv and Clive come for yet another friendly chat with Max Rager’s CEO, Du Clark. Despite all the manipulation and murders, the documents they hid came to light. It’s no rain on Du Clark’s parade. He’s got the makings of his own personal undead army. He may not be able to keep that army undead for long. Ravi’s cure is on the fast track to success. Hope 2 (as I call her) is alive and well after taking a low dose of the cure. Unfortunately, with all the zombie-related deaths, Max Rager antics, and Major’s kill-’em-all approach to the undead, Liv’s patience will not last long enough for Ravi to test the long-term effects.
“I don’t care. The man that I wanted to marry has vowed to kill every last zombie and last night my best friend looked at me like I was a monster. Which, incidentally, I am. I want my life back, Ravi. I eat brains. It’s disgusting. I am disgusting. I’ll sign a waiver, just let me do it.”
Ravi talks her off the ledge, begging her to give him time to test and replicate the formula. There’s only one, maybe two doses left after returning Hope 2 to the land of the living. He wants the cure for every zombie Blaine and Max Rager made over the last year. Liv almost doses herself at one point. Then she gets a phone call about Major.
What about Major? For most of the episode, he’s rooming with Blaine. By rooming, I mean Blaine keeps him locked in a freezer at Meat Cute, hoping slow torture will get Major to cough up the location of the astronaut brains he stole.
The stubborn human doesn’t budge. Eventually Dupont and Blaine put the pieces together—Liv has the brains. Blaine’s call, interrupting Liv’s impulsive decision to test the cure on herself, is pretty predictable. She gives him the brains, she gets loverboy back. Only, Blaine can’t let a mere human run around yelling, “The zombies are coming!” He dresses a random dude in Major’s clothes and trades him for the coveted astronaut brains. While he’s away, Major escapes from the freezer, using a lighter from the corpse chilling with him and urine. Hey, whatever works in a pinch. Robo-Counselor retrieves his small arsenal from his car and doubles back to kill every zombie in Meat Cute. Blaine returns, stabs Major. In return, Liv shoots Blaine. Ever the opportunist, Blaine offers to give Liv his entire client list. He justifies his actions, saying he’s the only reason the zombies aren’t attacking the city, turning and killing everyone in their path. It’s a valid point, I’ll give him that. Only, the city wouldn’t be in such dire straits if he hadn’t turned the majority of the people now threatening it if they don’t get their six o’clock dinner delivery.
Then Blaine goes for the sucker punch. All Liv’s work to keep Major from finding out she’s a zombie flies out the window. His dying moments are spent reeling from her betrayal. In return for Blaine taking away something she holds dear—Major’s trust—Liv takes away something Blaine loves more than anything, his zombiehood. He gets one dose of the cure, and it appears to work before he runs away, leaving Liv to deal with Major. Liv does the only thing she can and scratches Major without his permission. Not something he’s likely ever going to forgive, by the way.
She takes him home. Makes him soup, which he doesn’t eat. He’s livid. Unable to process how she lied to him for so long, allowed him to think he was insane. Liv justifies her brain-eating, saying it’s all in the name of helping others. Said aloud, it feels like another excuse, something Blaine might say if his inclinations weren’t so rule-the-world. Unlike Blaine. Liv has a potential fix for at least one problem she’s caused. Major gets the final dose of the cure.
Lt. Suzuki takes it upon himself to clean the mess left at Meat Cute. He stages the scene as a shoot-out, shooting himself in the leg, as well. The next step is to destroy the evidence contrary to the story he wants the other detectives to follow—that means using fire, and a lot of it. Suzuki blows up Meat Cute. Unfortunately Liv’s brother, Evan, arrives for his first shift seconds before. Their mother calls Liv. Together they watch Evan in the ICU, struggling to survive. He needs a blood transfusion desperately. The only match they have at hand is Liv. Was Liv, at least. The episode ends with Liv refusing her mother’s pleas to donate blood. Sure, it’d keep her brother alive, but without the cure, she’d condemn Evan to a half-life. She could only spare one person she loves.
Not a bad ending for season one. Filming for season two is already underway and the premiere is on October 6th. What predictions do you guys have for the sophomore season of iZombie?
Look, the gang’s . . . still not all here. Addy and Mack haven’t returned to the group. That’s okay, because the group isn’t too far behind them. Right? Wrong. More car troubles. If the zombies don’t kill these guys, I’m convinced the vehicles will. They’ve got to be Decepticons, or another sentient creature set to make Murphy’s dwindling escort crew hike across the United States. Otherwise, all these transportations issues have become an incredibly boring, predictable way to cause chaos beyond simple zombie antics.
The truck dies, leaving the crew to walk the forest near The Black Hills, SD. Luck is on their side, for now, and the zunami is far behind them. Unluckily, they’re lost, out of contact with Citizen Z—who’s toying with causing nuclear holocaust in order to destroy the zombies; Dog sets him straight on that matter—and about to stumble into a situation far worse than a broken-down truck. First, they accidentally find Mt. Rushmore. Much like the Liberty Bell, it’s been vandalized. Each President is painted to look like a zombie. Roberta isn’t amused.
While searching for a town to settle in, the crew finds what they think is an empty warehouse. A few glowing zombies later, they realize something isn’t right. Enter Wilbur and Amelia Grady, two-thirds of the remaining survivors in the town down the hill from a failing nuclear reactor. Wilbur worked at the reactor. He’s been trying to get past the zombies to figure out what’s preventing the reactor from cooling itself, but with only his daughter to help, they’ve made it exactly nowhere. The logical solution is to ask a bunch of unprotected civilians to wander into an active nuclear event in order to make a path into the facility. Hey, they’re only exposed to moderate radiation levels for a few minutes. What harm can it do?
Wilbur dies from radiation sickness after they get him inside. The reactor is still in crisis. In two days, it’ll blow, covering the area in radiation. Amelia knows a lot about airplanes and nothing about her father’s vocation. The group’s only hope to stop the meltdown so they can leave South Dakota without glowing like the zombies is to track down Homer Stubbins.
Homer isn’t a fan of people. Or zombies. His property is booby-trapped. Roberta leads the crew in a non-violent takeover. Mostly non-violent. 10k diffuses a stand-off by holding a knife to Homer’s throat. It’s surprisingly easy for them to talk Homer into helping. He even arms the crew from his own stockpile. Before they head inside, Homer asks 10k to be his backup after they bond over a knife which looks similar to the one Homer’s son owned. Sure, one knife makes a kid the logical backup when trapped with radioactive zombies, not the woman who sacrificed her family to be with the National Guard, protecting the masses.
10k gets Homer inside. There’s some technical talk which leads to unveiling a nifty little robot . . . armed with the world’s strongest laser cutter. Robby, the robot, manages to take out a few zombies, but is useless as far as stopping nuclear meltdown. The group reconvenes outside to formulate Plan C.
Plan C puts even more people inside with heavy radiation levels. Cassandra and Doc join Homer and 10k inside the plant, where Homer manually moves the rods preventing the reactor from cooling to safe levels. Roberta stays outside to help Amelia solve a different problem—the plane they’d banked on to get Murphy away from nuclear fallout if the worse happens doesn’t actually have fuel in it. They convert the plane to run on the small lake’s worth of vodka Homer squirreled away. Amelia and Murphy take off, heading toward Wisconsin. But not before Roberta and Murphy say their goodbyes.
Murphy tries to cut the awkward moment off at the pass. “Ah, shit. You’re not going to say goodbye, are you?” Roberta replies, “I was going to say, be grateful for all the sacrifices everyone has made.”
The plane makes it ten miles. Amelia doesn’t survive. Murphy’s alive, kicking, and shouting sarcastic quips at whoever or whatever may be in charge of the universe. Oddly, zombie Amelia emulates Murphy’s every move, even following him the ten miles back to the nuclear reactor.
Inside the reactor, Homer is a hero, dropping the last two rods into the cooling tank. Here’s where the bonding moment comes back for the emotional gut-punch. Homer asks 10k to kill him before he becomes a zombie. 10k killed his father. Obviously he should be able to kill a strange man with only vague fatherly feelings for the kid, right? Wrong. 10k hesitates. Homer takes matters into his own hands and cutting his safety line. Zombie Homer flails around in the cooling pool. We assume 10k does the right thing before leaving.
With no casualties amongst the main crew, it looks like they’re back on the slow road to California. Maybe. Roberta found a battery charger to use on the broke-down truck. It may get them another state closer to the goal. Zombie Amelia isn’t invited along for the ride, though she is left to live out her undead days. Murphy bonded with her during their hike through the woods and defends her right to live by saying, “Maybe it’s time for a different kind of mercy.”
Three episodes left and we still have no clue if there’s anyone waiting in California for Murphy and his miracle cure. A lot can happen between now and the finale. All I’m hoping is they find a car which runs so we’re spared another, “Oops, things happen because we’re forced to find a new ride again.”
The show will air its 90-minute premiere episode on Sunday, August 23rd at 9/8c. The episode was written by executive producer Robert Kirkman and FtWD’s show runner, David Erickson (co-executive producer and writer for Sons of Anarchy).
We’re not jumping into the middle of the zombie apocalypse this time around. We’re witnessing the outbreak as it happens. Watching as the characters learn the hard way how to dispatch the undead. Observing the chaos of a civilization’s dying gasp. Kirkman promises FtWD will show, “…all the insanity of civilization crumbling that Rick Grimes slept through.”
It won’t be an instantaneous change. Producers say the full zombie apocalypse, as shown in TWD, won’t happen until the final episode. However, there is absolutely no overlap between the shows. The characters, locations, and plot are unique. A breath of fresh air for fans feeling TWD has grown stagnant with all the long forest walks and Rictatorship monologues. Alycia Debnam-Carey (Alicia Bennett) says, “You don’t have to have watched the original. It’s coming from a very different place, a very different time, it’s before everything happened, so it’s completely refreshing and different.”
Bringing the action to the beginning of the end will liven things up a bit with the zombies. The makeup design isn’t as heavy-handed as later seasons of TWD, leaving the zombies with more face to show on screen. We still have no clue how these fresher zombies will act, if they’ll move faster or retain more human characteristics. Like most things within the franchise, fans must wait and see. One thing we know for certain, they won’t be telling us how zombies are made.
This show is billed more as a family drama with an undead war brewing on the horizon. Be prepared for the initial tension to be because of family issues—a couple attempting to make their teenaged kids get along before their wedding, ensuring their grades don’t fall, and keeping one kid in particular off drugs.
Fear the Walking Dead stars:
Kim Dickens (Sons of Anarchy) as Madison Bennett
Cliff Curtis (Gang Related) as Travis Manawa
Frank Dillane (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) as Nick Bennett
Alycia Debnam-Carey (The 100) as Alicia Bennett
Lorenzo James Henrie (Star Trek) as Chris Manawa
Elizabeth Rodriguez (Orange is the New Black) as Liza Ortiz
Rubén Blades (Safe House) as Daniel Salazar
Mercedes Mason (Quarantine 2: Terminal) as Ofelia Salazar
To tide you over, here’s a look at the trailer released at SDCC:
Some of you surely think I’m overreacting, that there’s no way the same people who gave us Rick Grimes and company can produce such wholly flawed characters. I’m not talking flawed like Carol’s sociopathy or Daryl’s antisocial nature. We’re talking characters so poorly written, if they were actual people, they’d find it impossible to function in normal society without ending up injuring themselves or others. Madison in particular cannot operate under basic logic. In the beginning of this episode, not much time has passed since we left off in episode 2. So she should still feel the adrenaline rush—or at least the let-down from it—after bashing in Artie’s head with a fire extinguisher. You know, her friend and coworker. The man she risked her life to help despite Tobias’ warnings. At no point does reason say Madison should force her children to wait at the house for Travis and his family when she knows these infected people can and will hurt others. Not to mention, she watched an infected neighbor chow down on the birthday party crew, so she knows danger is at their door.
When they hear a noise at the door, Nick just wanders over to open it, letting in a stray German shepherd. Hold that thought for a second. I have a bone to pick with the writers about that dog. It’s always been a big mystery on TWD: where are the animals? We’ve seen a few, either eaten later on or too feral to re-domesticate. It only makes sense that this show would attempt to show what happened to them. It doesn’t make sense to introduce a gorgeous dog, only to kill it off-screen minutes later. There’s no point in forcing fans to listen to a dog’s whimpering and yelping as its attacked. Matter of fact, that is flat out cruel. Yes, people react when animals die. It’s a lazy way to garner emotions from the audience when they aren’t connecting to the humans in the story. Make us care when people die. Quit using animals to make up for two-dimensional characters.
