This case ties directly into last week’s basketball-loving fest. Harry Cole, the man who murdered a scary debt collector and witnessed Mike Hayden’s murder, is gunned down on the courthouse steps yards from Clive. The killers get away on a motorcycle. Clive tracks their progress toward the water. Assuming they dumped the bike, he orders a dive team to search for it. While awaiting word from the dive team, Clive and Liv interview Roger Thrunk. He’s the “fixer” for Harry’s law firm and the man accused of killing Mike Hayden. Despite appearances, Thrunk isn’t a practicing lawyer. He hasn’t been in the courtroom in nine years, yet has a rather nice office at the firm. They have no solid evidence on the guy with Harry lounging on Ravi’s examination table and Thrunk knows it. He enjoys taunting them about the vague meaning behind his one phone call since arriving at the police station. Who did he ask his associate to take care of?
It doesn’t take long for Harry’s compulsive gambling to take over Liv’s life. All her small wagers lead to a vision which isn’t completely redundant. Enter The Barber, Harry’s bookie.
It’s not just a moniker, the guy actually runs a barbershop. He’s also incredibly quick-witted and intelligent, keeping his lawyer perched on the sidelines in the shop more or less constantly. The lawyer is kind of a nitwit, though. They get nothing of note from The Barber. Liv takes advantage of the proximity to Harry’s obsession and places a bet—the first of many in the episode.
Hitting a dead end, Clive makes the unpopular decision to crash Harry’s funeral to talk to his widow. In attendance is Calvin Owens, a big time basketball star who happened to go to college with Harry. Clive’s fanboy shows big time. Good thing, too. All his gushing prompts another vision: Calvin turning his back on Harry and refusing to pay off any more of his debts.
Thanks to a crime scene tech who plays by the rules, Clive and Liv figure out who Thrunk wanted taken care of—his pet turtle. Only, when Thrunk’s associate realizes the tech is calling a detective, he bolts. The turtle is brought into the station. That’s one happy turtle, man. He has enough cocaine stashed in his ceramic house to—well, I’m not sure what a turtle would do with cocaine, but there was a lot of it. They have enough evidence on Thrunk to put him away. Mike Hayden’s case is finally wrapped up.
But who killed Harry? The final puzzle piece clicks in place when Liv heads back to The Barber to place a bet on a basketball game based on Calvin’s recommendation. Every man in the shop pauses for a moment when she says his name. The Barber alludes to Calvin’s involvement in gambling before. But he’s either really good at it, seeing as he’s living in a mansion still, or he was on the other end of the gambling game. After some digging, Liv realized Calvin shaved points off during the final quarter in most of his college games in order to help Harry. About the same time the dive team coughs up information about the motorcycle. Hey, it just so happens to belong to the sons of Calvin’s former teammate. Turns out, Harry threatened to blackmail Calvin if he didn’t pay his current debt. Tired of hemorrhaging money, Calvin hired hitmen. Case closed.
But there’s so, so much more in this episode.
Liv and Major are sickening sweet together. There’s still that one little catch; they don’t know if they can safely consummate the relationship, even with protection. Ravi tests every condom brand known to man—and makes a condom balloon animal, too. Turns out the zombie virus is so small, condoms are completely ineffective in preventing infection. Damn. They can get creative, right? They may not have long to get creative. Clive and Bozzio are inching closer to officially reopening the Meat Cute case. Not only that, Bozzio is now one-hundred percent totally chasing Major as the person abducting these wealthy businessmen. He adds a notable name to his list at the end of the episode.
Which is where Blaine comes in. Or rather, his father. Papa DeBeers doesn’t take threats lightly. He’s been digging into Blaine’s life, trying to find a way to destroy his son’s little fiefdom. Luck comes when he discovers Blaine’s makeup artist and tortures her for information, including Blaine’s client list. Little DeBeers is now demoted to a gopher, sent to fetch the brain from one of his father’s rivals. Joke’s on Pops. Blaine doesn’t retrieve the brain he asks for. Instead, he pays a visit to Grandpa DeBeers and takes his. There’s a whole mountain of remorse before, during, and after the act. Which is for naught. Angus DeBeers joins the growing list of missing businessmen. Well, he’s not completely missing. Major knows exactly where he put the guy on ice. Literally. Angus is in a freezer with two other men.
There’s trouble in Peyton’s plan to finally bring Mr. Boss to justice. Boss knows. He’s creepy as hell, to boot. Late one night, Boss pays a visit to Peyton’s office. He’s not very subtle; Peyton has two choices, accept a bribe like three district attorneys before her, or vanish like the one who didn’t. It doesn’t take Boss long to figure out who fed Peyton her information, either. There’s a new list growing, a list of people Boss will take care of in order to keep his place in the drug world’s hierarchy.
I’ve got a feeling someone will not make it through this season alive.
Honestly, if Morgan hadn’t been loonier than a cartoon wabbit, the Crazy Nest would have been an ideal place to set up camp for a while and rest. But his lunacy drove everyone away. Then it destroyed his secured safe haven. One night, probably agitated by the surprise visit from his past—Rick— Morgan flies into a rage, yelling and pacing. He knocks over an oil lamp, setting the apartment ablaze.
Heads up! There are spoilers in the following review.
Losing his home doesn’t slow Morgan’s murderous roll one bit. He’s equally dangerous camping in a meadow. Methodically, Morgan clears the walkers from the surrounding forest and burns them in a pyre. The fire attracts more walkers, which he knocks out and adds to the fire. Walkers aren’t his only focus. To Morgan, everyone is a threat. He kills human and walker with the same passion. When the area around his camp is clear, he ventures further out. There’s a gorgeous meadow with purple wildflowers . . . the shot somewhat ruined by a weird visual effect they used to make it clear, Morgan is cray-cray. Yeah, we didn’t need you guys to do wobbly camera tricks. The acting alone shows the truth just fine.
You ready for this? Morgan hears a goat. For once, he’s not hallucinating. There’s actually a goat leashed in front of a cozy stone house. The goat isn’t alone.
Morgan is given ample opportunity to put down his gun and walk into the house like a civil human being. He’s too far gone to realize this strange man is offering food and shelter, at least temporarily. Sensing the threat, the stranger knocks Morgan unconscious. But he apologizes first. Morgan wakes inside a prison cell. Well, a makeshift one, at least. Eastman, his accommodating host, left food for him. It’s not what Morgan wants. He screams at Eastman to kill him. In response, Eastman drops a worn copy of The Art of Peace in the cell, then resumes building an indoor pen for Tabitha, the goat, to keep her safe from walkers. Before Eastman says goodnight, he asks Morgan not to hurt the goat.
Days pass. Morgan observes Eastman; watching him easily kill walkers approaching the house and practicing with his staff. When Morgan seems calmer, Eastman opens up about his background pre-apocalypse. Eastman worked for the state as a forensic psychiatrist. He lived in Atlanta. The men talk. Eastman digs into Morgan’s relentless need to “clear,” as he calls it. “Because that’s why I’m still here,” Morgan explains. He’s called on his BS.
There’s a lot of conversation in this episode delving into PTSD, how humans react not only to losing loved ones, but also being forced to kill—humans aren’t built to handle murder mentally. Eastman wants to help Morgan. In his career, he only met one man beyond saving. Then comes the shocker; Morgan isn’t locked in the cage. Matter of fact, there’s no key to lock the cell; Eastman threw it in the river a while ago. It says so much about Morgan’s state of mind. He never once tries the door, yet uses a zipper pull to pry away the board holding the window bars in place. It’s almost like he made the minor escape attempt to keep himself occupied, but he doesn’t really want to be alone anymore. The subconscious is a tricky beast.
What does Morgan do with this news? He certainly doesn’t leave peacefully or take the offer to crash on the couch. Nope. He attacks Eastman, who knocks Morgan on his ass. In the struggle, a piece of drywall with a child’s drawing on it is broken. For one instant, Eastman forgets himself and his deep respect for life. He stops short of driving his staff into Morgan’s forehead. Yet again he makes the offer: Door or couch. Morgan, petulant to his core, chooses the cell and closes the door. Eastman opens it, only for Morgan to close it again.
They’re at an emotional standoff. Eastman goes about his daily life, preparing to go on a trip to anywhere. While he’s on a supply run. Morgan is charged with Tabitha’s safety. Yeah, you guessed it. Walkers try to eat the goat. For a heat-stopping moment, I thought he’d let them get Tabitha. There was yelling. Saving the goat is the turning point. The respect Eastman shows the deceased walkers is the cincher. Morgan becomes Eastman’s aikido student. Cue many, many training scenes. Too many, really. The episode is pretty solid, but drags with just two men and a goat. Hey, I smell a new sitcom.
But it’s not all training and cheese-making. One night during dinner Morgan finally asks why the heck there’s a prison cell in the living room. It tracks back to the one truly evil man Eastman interviewed for his job. Crighton Dallas Wilton fooled everyone except Eastman with his sociopath mind games. After Eastman was nearly killed by Wilton, he recommended the man never see freedom again. Of course Wilton was livid. He broke out of prison, tracked down Eastman, and killed his family. Moments after, Wilton turned himself in, saying he just wanted to destroy Eastman’s life. Driven mad by the loss, Eastman built the cell intending to abduct Wilton and starve him to death. When he tells the original story, he hedges around confirming or denying if he went through with the plan.
At the episode’s end, we learn he did murder Wilton. It took forty-seven days to starve him to death. There was no magical peace in Eastman’s life after. “I found my peace when I decided to never kill again,” Eastman tells Morgan.
If they’re going to actually make this trip to anywhere, they need a few more things. Just so happens, Morgan left those very things at his camp. While there, Eastman finally asks about Morgan’s family and makes him say their names. It’s a huge healing moment . . . ruined when the man Morgan strangled shambles toward the camp. He freezes, unable to put the walker down. Eastman steps in, but not soon enough. Eastman is bitten.
It’s the last straw. Morgan snaps again. All the guilt he felt from failing to save his family quadruples watching blood blossom across Eastman’s back. He screams for death.
Eastman is ruthless and calm, collecting the walker to bury and leaving Morgan. On the hunt to clear again, Morgan ventures into the forest. It’s easy to find another walker. Two frightened survivors stumble into his path. The woman carefully sets chicken noodle soup and a bullet on the ground before thanking him and walking away.
Morgan snaps out of his mental fog and rushes back to Eastman’s. Tabitha is dead in the front yard. He takes her body to the graveyard behind the house. Despite his injury, Eastman is burying the walker who signed his death certificate. He gives Morgan the house and supplies, but with a warning that security alone isn’t enough. The isolation from living alone isn’t healthy. Before he dies, Eastman calmly walks to the shed to get his gun. It’s unclear who does the job.
So why did we have yet another flashback episode? Morgan has a hair-brained idea to use Eastman’s technique with the Wolf resting in Alexandria’s jail cell. Yeah, that’s not going to work. This guy is hellbent on killing the townsfolk. He found the scouting photos, found the town to be safe, possibly full of supplies he needs to fix the cut on his side, and decided Alexandria should be his. He vows to kill them all, even the children. His cell door is locked.
Yet again, we’ve made little plot progress. A show can only tread water in the same spot for so long before it sinks.
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.
The catch? It’s not as simple as going in, grabbing a few leaves, and dosing the infected. Oh no. Some brain trust used zombie to fertilize the plants in the greenhouse. Not only does the added nutrients add a kick to the Z-Weed, it also allows the greenhouse to create its own zombie breed—Phytozombies.
Essentially the greenhouse is one gigantic organism connected by vines, with Batch 47 as the brain. Did I mention Batch 47 is the supposed zombie cure? Or that it seriously doesn’t like anyone? The thing is so ferocious, Odengard—the man who found the greenhouse and its Z-Weed surprise—suckers hopeful survivors into braving the phytos and fetching seed pods from 47. Needless to say, a few phytos are made in the effort.
Impatient as always, Murphy strolls into Odengard’s lab, introduces himself, and takes over the harvesting mission. By the time he’s done convincing Odengard by leading him safely to 47 to grab a test seed pod, Roberta and the others catch up. They’re so busy plotting how to snag Murphy, they don’t realize they’ve become part of his plan to dodge endless needles by going to holistic route. Any port in a storm, right? They agree to help, spurred by a sick girl who doesn’t want to turn zombie after she dies from an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. Who can say no to a dying girl? Not these suckers.
Into the vines they go. Murphy leads the way, keeping everyone safe. I know, don’t die of shock. They reach 47 with little excitement. Things hit the fan once they start pulling leaves and pods from the plant. 47 uses its buddies to scare the group. Murphy steps up to control the phytos. 47 isn’t having any of it and fights back. The combined strength of the phytos is too much. The group takes what they gathered and leaves—after Murphy ditches them.
Someone has been tracking Murphy. Turns out its dread Dr. Kurian, who didn’t die in the nuclear blast as we thought. He breaks the bad news: Batch 47 won’t work. Matter of fact, Kurian’s stand on Murphy and his not-quite-zombie nature has changed. He thinks Murphy’s kind will rule and he wants in on the ground floor of a new civilization. They don’t get to plot a mad scheme. There’s no time. Kurian’s buddies, the Zeroes cartel, roll onto the scene. He’s not exactly their favorite person.
No one is the Zeroes’ favorite person, least of all Odengard. Escorpion, who we met in the previous episode, is their head bad-ass. He has no time for Odengard’s Batch 47 missions. To prove his point, Escorpion doses Odengard with powdered 47 delivered via a high-powered vape pen. First reaction? Ecstatic energy. Second reaction? Boom! Zombie Odengard. Escorpion gives him mercy, gathers whatever Z-Weed and Batch 47 is harvested, and orders his goons to torch the greenhouse.
Unaware of 47’s epic failure, Murphy attempts to save the plant. 47 untangles itself and chases Murphy through the greenhouse. Just as he’s almost out, the vines snag him. Roberta and Doc attempt to cut him free. Addy and 10k grab a few loose vines and feed them into an industrial fan. Smoothies, anyone? They drag a distraught Murphy to the car. Doc stops to give the dying girl a couple Batch 47 leaves to chew on the off-chance it’ll keep her from turning.
Serena finally finds her baby daddy. The little bundle of joy is just as excited to see Murphy. This is one story line I can’t wait to see through to the end.
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.
The snowball that is the CW’s newest paranormal television offering slowed down a little for iZombie‘s fifth episode. Something didn’t quite click with this episode. Not sure it it’s the almost forced maybe-lationship introduced near the end or if the overall “bad guy” arc for the season is running out of oomph as the show toddles forward and continues to grow. Is this the dreaded warning flag?
This week’s unlucky brain donor is an adventure-seeker turned skydiver kabob Liv knew back in college. Matter of fact, she helped kicked the girl out of their sorority. Guess that’s what it takes to fill Liv’s guilt tank and put her firmly on the case. It’s a little weird to hear Liv talk about owing it to Holly, like eating her brain is a great service instead of a huge invasion of privacy. At this point, it’s like she wants to find trouble. That’s when a show starts to lose interest—the second the main character keeps doing the Dumb Thing, fans walk. Why poke this emotional open wound by prying into Holly’s life and death? Oh, right. To show character growth. Start by having Liv make adult decisions about her love life, writers. It’d be swell if this weren’t another show with a female lead in her mid-twenties who acted like the nincompoops in teen dramas. It’s the CW, they like a certain formula for their female characters.
The case itself isn’t too thrilling until the big twist comes toward the end and Liv finds out she’s got a lot in common with suspect numero uno, Lowell Tracey—a moody rock star locked into a contract with the company who sent the skydivers out to jump as an advertising gimmick. There’s love triangles galore. Two misdirects on the actual bad guy. And in the end, it was a jealous lover who drugged Holly with GHB so she’d botch her landing. Yawn.
Back to the mysterious rock star. Did I mention he’s also a zombie? There’s a lot of that going around lately. Lowell flies under the radar, much like Blaine and his lover, by dying his hair and applying the best spray tan known to man. He knows right away Liv is a zombie. It intrigues him, even makes him a little hot for her. He breaks the truth via a seriously spicy bloody Mary—my kind of dead guy. There’s a date in the future for these two. Will it be as uncomfortably awkward as the rest of the relationship story lines on the show?
It’s gotta be more exciting than the continuation of the Blaine story arc, or rather lack of story. Clive does a little digging—thanks to a guilt trip from Major—at the skate park. More missing people to investigate. Okay, now he knows something is going on. What kind of resolution can this possibly have? Blaine is ruthless. Clive and Liv can’t even make it through one case without bickering over whether or not it’s actually a case. What happens when they’re on his tail? Clive’s bad cop interrogation routine won’t go far on a guy who didn’t flinch after executing his henchmen.
Is Liv going to guilt Blaine into turning over a new leaf? Maybe she can slay him with the new brain food comedy routine she and Ravi cooked up during the opening scene of the episode. Or Major can bruise his knuckles really bad with his face—much like he did with Blaine’s newly defrosted henchman at the skate park. That’ll show him.
Meat this week’s somewhat fresh corpse—a stomped on, fingerless and toothless John Doe. Ravi’s sleuthing narrow things down a little. The guy was in an Asian gang for at least five years, according to the tattoo on his arm. It’s not until Detective Babineaux walks in that the dead guy gets a name—Sammy Wong. Before Clive puts a name to the face, Ravi urges Liv to chow down so she can help with the case, calling it a “working lunch.” Only once they know who Sammy is, Clive calls off his attack psychic. He’s got this one under control. Which makes Liv twitchy as hell. Or maybe it is something she ate. How well can rice, brains, and rooster sauce sit in a zombie’s stomach? I have heartburn thinking about it.
The weird thing about Sammy and Clive is, they were in some shady dealings together. Liv catches glimpses of the two in the midst of watching the Blue Cobra gang torturing and beating anyone they think is a rat. Since Babineaux isn’t feeling too forthcoming, Liv goes digging in his old stomping grounds—vice. His old partner tells Liv, “Let’s just say, the thin blue line can get a lot thinner when you’re working vice.” When paired with the paranoia leaking into Liv’s brain from her lunch, that little tidbit, plus finding out Clive has been suspended from vice before moving to homicide, sends her into a panic. Desperate to find out if her detective pal is a dirty cop, Liv drags Ravi to a video store she saw the name of in her vision where she plays up having a fetish for Asian men. “Her life is like a whorey version of that movie, Momento,” Ravi improvises . . . poorly. Just so happens, the video store is the Blue Cobra’s headquarters and they’re not buying what the two are selling. Luckily reason wins over Liv’s indigestion and they leave. But now she’s on their radar and on Clive’s bad side.
During a confrontation in Liv’s apartment, Clive lets the truth fly—Sammy Wong had been in witness protection. He’d agreed to testify against the former Blue Cobra leader—father to the current leader, AJ—but came back because of a family matter. The gang found him and killed him for being a rat. Which is the same thing they’ll do to Clive’s ex-partner, Ray. The two had been in deep cover together. Clive got out. Ray didn’t. Before Sammy died, he gave Ray up, told the gang he is a cop. The instant Liv sees this in her vision, she has to trust Clive and tell him. They save the day and viewers finally see some depth to Babineaux. We also got to see Liv channeling some sweet martial arts skills from dearly departed Sammy Wong.
Due to the paranoia coursing through her dome, Liv ends up meddling even more in Major’s life—dragging Ravi along for the ride yet again. In order to prevent Major from asking Corinne, the woman he’s been seeing, to rent the recently vacant room, she cons her boss into taking it instead. Or rather, she tells Major that Ravi wants the place without bothering to inform him. Honestly, there are times one wonders how Liv’s family and friends cope with the weird thrown their way. It works out for the best, though. Ravi and Major bond over video games and high-quality televisions. They’ll make great roommates—and give Liv a reason to see Major more than she does already.
Blaine’s little brain-selling company has evolved greatly since Liv shot him down on the brain-harvesting proposal. He’s acquired two not-quite dumb-as-bricks goons to make deliveries. A café owner he turned stores bodies in her freezer and turns them into gourmet meals for his clients. Hell, he’s even got Jackie, a wealthy woman with a private beauty staff who artfully apply spray tan to hide their deathly pallor. The only hitch? Blaine’s goons aren’t happy. They want to break his monopoly on the brain business. Unfortunately they go to Blaine’s number one squeeze as their first potential client. Jackie’s answer comes in the form of two bullets from Blaine’s gun into their skulls. Luckily, he keeps spare goons in the freezer next to tomorrow’s lunch.
How long will it take for Liv to find one of Blaine’s brainless victims on the morgue’s table? I’m gonna guess sooner rather than later.
This case ties directly into last week’s basketball-loving fest. Harry Cole, the man who murdered a scary debt collector and witnessed Mike Hayden’s murder, is gunned down on the courthouse steps yards from Clive. The killers get away on a motorcycle. Clive tracks their progress toward the water. Assuming they dumped the bike, he orders a dive team to search for it. While awaiting word from the dive team, Clive and Liv interview Roger Thrunk. He’s the “fixer” for Harry’s law firm and the man accused of killing Mike Hayden. Despite appearances, Thrunk isn’t a practicing lawyer. He hasn’t been in the courtroom in nine years, yet has a rather nice office at the firm. They have no solid evidence on the guy with Harry lounging on Ravi’s examination table and Thrunk knows it. He enjoys taunting them about the vague meaning behind his one phone call since arriving at the police station. Who did he ask his associate to take care of?
It’s not just a moniker, the guy actually runs a barbershop. He’s also incredibly quick-witted and intelligent, keeping his lawyer perched on the sidelines in the shop more or less constantly. The lawyer is kind of a nitwit, though. They get nothing of note from The Barber. Liv takes advantage of the proximity to Harry’s obsession and places a bet—the first of many in the episode.
Which is where Blaine comes in. Or rather, his father. Papa DeBeers doesn’t take threats lightly. He’s been digging into Blaine’s life, trying to find a way to destroy his son’s little fiefdom. Luck comes when he discovers Blaine’s makeup artist and tortures her for information, including Blaine’s client list. Little DeBeers is now demoted to a gopher, sent to fetch the brain from one of his father’s rivals. Joke’s on Pops. Blaine doesn’t retrieve the brain he asks for. Instead, he pays a visit to Grandpa DeBeers and takes his. There’s a whole mountain of remorse before, during, and after the act. Which is for naught. Angus DeBeers joins the growing list of missing businessmen. Well, he’s not completely missing. Major knows exactly where he put the guy on ice. Literally. Angus is in a freezer with two other men.
