Heartland: Review for Z Nation 508

Heartland:
Review for Z Nation 508
by A. Zombie

Watch out for spoilers hiding in the wheat field!

Last week Operation Bitemark mostly struck out. George and Doc failed to save Dante from vigilantes. The others were more successful, but their efforts are little more than a stopgap measure. With the boom in Talker population, the half dozen boxes of bizkits won’t be enough. If the bakery is to get back in business, the team has to figure out what happened to the flour from Heartland.

Preferably before the undead citizens of the colonies get hungrier.

Heartland seems to be composed of almost entirely Talkers. They’re starving, lurking in the streets to beg any passersby for brains to eat.  While they’re not aggressive yet, they’re on the edge. A little push and they’re gonners. There’s no way these poor people can bring in the harvest in this condition. But they’re also beyond listening to a group of strangers.

Luckily Doc and George roll into town around the time when it’s obvious the field workers can’t understand that the group is there to help. The car won’t be enough to keep hungry Talkers away for long, so Addy suggests they head to a farmhouse on the edge of town. It just so happens to be the farm where the flour is processed and stored. The same one the hungry workers should be running instead of starving to death. But just because most of the workforce is gone, doesn’t mean the farmhouse is abandoned. A brave soul named Charlie still mans the fort. Someone else lurks in the home, eventually flushed out by a determined Addy. Determined to check on her boyfriend, that is. Finn and Addy have been working together in their Talker Underground operation. The details of said operation get a tad confused as the story unfolds and sounds more and more like Addy knows everything the others are just now struggling to discover. Why not take them straight to the flour source? I’m not sure if that’s weird writing showing its hand or ham-fisted intrigue to give Addy’s time away more mystery.

While they get settled in the farmhouse, and learn about Charlie’s sacrifice, there’s mischief afoot outside. Pandora rears her masked head once again to cause trouble for George and her plans for a future. With her trusted helper, Pandora riles up the Talkers, sending them toward the farm with promises of nourishment. Which is convenient because the gang needs to round them up anyway so Charlie can give each just enough of his brain to keep from turning feral. Side note: Charlie’s special effects are not that great later in the episode, but the detailed early shots paired with the mere idea of what he’s doing is enough to make the ick factor high for squeamish viewers.

During the roundup, Pandora and her goon are pinned in with the other Talkers. They use the position to their advantage later when everyone thinks the coast is clear. Finn is injured again in the last attack, this time mortally. Addy opts to stay behind to help him adapt, and to help the farm recover.

In the rush to check on Finn, the group separates, leaving Doc to get injured, and 10k is too ill from his infected wound to make it on his own long or save Doc. Here’s hoping the others catch up in time. They’re probably going to need all hands on deck in order to talk to the indigenous group who control the water, therefore controlling if/when the mill at the farm will run again. This really is the longest side quest for a snack ever. It’d be disappointing if the rest of the season is comprised of little missions like this with the bad guys running laps around Operation Bitemark. These aren’t even good bad guys. Pandora is still the most hastily written character in the history of this show. No depth. At all. Our team deserves a better class of villain.


iZombie Prepares Its Final Goodbye

iZombie Prepares Its Final Goodbye
by R.C. Murphy

Seems like just yesterday we sat down to discuss a new show from The CW that surprisingly brought the zombie genre into the rom-com fold with little fuss and quite a bit of laughter. Fast-forward five seasons, suddenly we’re counting down to the final days of cute brain foods and failed ‘ships for Liv.

Filming for iZombie‘s fifth and final season began the first week of August. Series stars Rahul Kohli and Rose McIver continue their longtime tradition of kinda live-tweeting their onset time together. There’s also the ongoing saga over whether Kohli’s new house is haunted or not, as witnessed by co-star/roommate Malcolm Goodwin. Either they’re working too many hours on the show and hallucinating, or someone didn’t ask for the property’s history before moving in and there’s a poltergeist waiting to yank Kohli into a glowing closet. Let’s hope it is more of the former than the latter.

So far it looks like Ravi will spend his usual amount of time dealing with dead bodies in and out of the morgue. Liv’s more human look is nowhere to be seen for this season so far. McIver’s from-set selfies are very much Classic Liv; the one who embraced her zombie features without apology even when the undead still lived under the radar. Which makes sense, Liv only donned the human disguise to perpetuate the Renegade myth easier. With Major installed as the head of the snake the team and Renegade’s people fought last season, there should be no need to sneak around curing sick people, right? Maybe the world will even grow to embrace the undead and not fear them. Though one can understand their hesitation thanks to the zombie army Fillmore-Graves amassed in Seattle.

Peace will be hard to come by, that we know for sure. To help the political side of the city’s plight play out, the production team is finally bringing the city council into the equation. Playing zombie city council member Zed is legendary NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Zed is one of just two council members who remained in Seattle after Fillmore-Graves triggered the outbreak which prompted a quarantine of the city. The second council member is a human and the differing opinions, plus the murder of the mayor, puts even more pressure on Peyton as she fights for all of Seattle’s residents equally.

It’ll be quite some time before we get an airdate for iZombie‘s final season premiere, but we’ll be here to bring you the news as soon as The CW makes its announcement.


Newmerican Hero Inbound

Newmerican Hero Inbound
by R.C. Murphy

There hasn’t been a wealth of information coming from the Z Nation camp while they film this summer. We got a peek at season five when the cast and producers took a break from the set for their SDCC panel, but as always, they kept the juicy bits close to their vest.

Until now, that is.

Looks like the post-apocalyptic world is expanding yet again. We’re finally getting names and faces for the long-teased NewMerica settlement. First up is someone you may recognize from another popular zombie show, Katy O’Brian. After her short stint on AMC’s The Walking Dead, finding footing in a slightly different version of the apocalypse should be a piece of cake. The big difference is, O’Brian is making the leap from an unnamed Savior character to what’s being billed as the hero of this newly found settlement.

O’Brian’s character Georgia (a.k.a George) St. Clair went from starting her first year of college to leading a group of student and teachers from her school all the way to NewMerica in the eight year span of the zom-poc so far. Using that trust, she’s shifted from survival mode to planning mode and is one of the political heads in the settlement who wants to form a new country. Unfortunately, that also puts her on the frontlines while dealing with the new breed of highly intelligent zombies.

I’m not sure what’s worse, dealing with the politics between Alexandria and the Saviors or being the one everyone looks to in order to fight an enemy with far more deadly potential than anything they’ve faced before.

Given how long both shows have been on the air, it’s only a matter of time before more actors like O’Brian make the jump to the SyFy series in order to expand their genre resume. And, hey, we’ll welcome them with open arms.

That’s about it for Z Nation news, save for a few from-set snapshots the cast posted late in August on Instagram. While there are rumors for a season five premiere date, I’ve found nothing official to confirm it just yet, so don’t believe everything you read when googling. That doesn’t mean you can’t hop on one of many streaming services to watch the previous seasons in a glorious, blood-drenched marathon, though.

We’ll be back with more Z Nation news as soon as they drop the premiere date for season five.