Saturday, September 26, 2015

Z Nation, Season One, Episode Two: White Light


Citizen Z is making his way through the base.  He walks with his gun in front, on high alert for zombies.  Citizen Z is attacked by several zombies and has to take off running.

Murphy and Cassandra are running through the streets and he is being chased by the crew and Vasquez.  Murphy is forced to come to stop when a van comes screaming by. Vasquez shoots the passengers of the truck.   A jeep drives by and all of the passengers point their weapons at Warren and crew.  It's not long before bullets fly and Warren and the crew are forced to hide.   A man wearing a suit holding a bazooka steps out of a 4x4.  He shoots the bazooka at Warren and crew and just barely misses them.  He calmly walks down the street. How can you miss with a weapon that big?

Everyone in town  is armed looking for Murphy.  A group of Murphy bounty hunters huddle and talk about how they are going to hunt down Murphy and take out anyone who gets in their way.  Murphy continues to run and in the background, guns can be heard going off.  Murphy runs into Vasquez and has to take off in the other direction.  Vazquez continues his pursuit and from his movements, he's obviously had some kind of training.  Murphy uses his whispering power to sic some zombies on Vasquez.  Murphy hails down a woman asking for a ride and gets shot in the stomach.  The woman moves forward to tie up Murphy but Cassandra attacks her.

In the meantime, bazooka man is still moving methodically through the town.  Bazooka man takes a shot at 10K, so 10K dives to avoid it and ends up unconscious.  10K opens his eyes long enough to see Murphy run away and Cassandra followinh him.  When 10K opens his eyes again, he finds himself in a huge gun battle but luckily for 10K, Mack drags him safely to cover. The crew is now boxed in and so Warren comes up with a plan to split up and chase after Murphy, instructing the crew to kill zombie hunters as well as zombies.  Warren provides cover fire for everyone before making her own escape. I love how they listen to Warren without question.

Murphy runs and is followed by Cassandra and yet another zombie entourage he managed to pick up. \Murphy runs into the building telling the zombies that them following him is annoying and that he wants some, "me time."  Mack and Addy enter the same building Murphy is hiding in and begin looking for him.  Mack and Addy are forced to hide from bounty hunters.  Addy is attacked by a zombie and she gets a vision of her happy place and she calls out for Mack.  Fortunately for Addy, before she can get bitten, Mack shoots the zombie in the head.

Outside, Vasquez stops for a water break and doesn't know that Warren is behind him.  When Vasquez looks away, Warren takes aim but before she can fire, Vazquez turns back. Warren continues to track Vasquez as he enters a building.  Vazquez sees a zombie dressed in Murphy's clothing and attacks it with an asp.  When the zombie turns, Vasquez realises what Murphy did but before he can react, he is attacked by Cassandra. Cassandra holds her own, even when she is tased by Vasquez. In desperation, Vasquez shoots Cassandra.

Still outside, Warren watches as Cassandra runs by. Inside a building, a bounty hunter catches up with Murphy, forcing Murphy to take off running.  The bounty hunter calls out to Murphy that he will not be hurt, as he walks through the building calmly.  When Murphy doesn't answer, the bounty hunter calls out to his friends that he has located Murphy before walking into a room.  Murphy is hiding in the closet.

Outside, 10k and Doc are pinned down by bounty hunters. It's 10K who realises that they are dealing with a sniper.  Doc is forced to run when the zombie in the car they were hiding behind grabs at him, leaving 10K still pinned down.  After locating the window from witch the sniper is shooting, 10K takes his shot. Now in the building, Doc makes his way up a staircase to the same floor as the sniper while 10K covers him from the outside.  Doc sneaks back into the building and then kicks down the door of the sniper.  Unfortunately for Doc, his gun does not fire, so he is forced to throw his gun at the sniper.  A fight breaks out between Doc and the sniper and I gotta say that Doc is pretty tough for an old guy.  The sniper gets the upper hand and starts to strangle Doc.  Doc struggles to breathe and his soul leaves his body and starts floating upwards.  Doc's soul recognizes that this is the end but notices something on top of the shelf.  Doc's soul calls out to Doc's body about a weapon. Doc reaches for the weapon and stabs the bounty hunter in the neck.  Doc is just catching his breathe when Murphy bursts in but keeps on running.

Citizen Z is still on the run from the zombies and pauses long enough to grab two bags of weapons.  I guess being on a military base has its bonuses.  Citizen Z is forced to drop the weapons when he is attacked by a zombie.  He goes to his happy place which is a child's playground, before shooting the zombie in the head and retrieving his weapons.


Warren now walks through the building with her gun at the ready.  A bounty hunter calls out for Warren to turn back because his men are on the way. The man fires his automatic weapon and Warren fires one shot.  Warren checks her gun to see how many bullets she has left.  The bounty hunter fires another round saying that he has a lot of bullets.  In his moment of bravado, he is shot in the cheek by Warren, causing the bounty hunter to promise to do bad things to Warren before killing her. The bounty hunter manages to sneak up on Warren nearly knocking her out and Warren goes to her happy place which looks like a pool.  The bounty hunter grabs his knife to stab Warren and is attacked from behind by Vasquez.  Vasquez then waves smelling salts under Warren's nose and helps her up.  Because they are both short on ammunition they decide to head outside.

Addy and Mack run from the zombies but end up getting separated.  Mack finds himself in a dark area with a flashlight to guide his way.  Mack walks slowly on hyper alert for zombies and it's not long before he is attacked.  In another area of the building, Vasquez and Warren meet up with 10K and Doc and the group make their way to the roof.  They find Murphy who is clearly upset. Murphy is standing on the ledge and is contemplating jumping. Warren is not sympathetic and tells Murphy that she is not his shrink and that they don't have time for this.  Murphy jumps off the building and goes to his happy place which is of a woman passing him a joint. Murphy lands in what looks  like a deflated pool filled with zombies. A shocked Warren watches as Murphy climbs out of the zombie sludge. The crew then go running down the stairs in search of Murphy.

Mack is cornered by zombies and a locked door stands between him and Addy. Mack frantically screams for Addy as he fights off the zombies.  In desperation, Addy shoots off the lock as Mack screams for her to go.  Mack screams that he doesn't want her to see him turn, as Addy bashes on the door.  Addy gets the door open in time to see zombies feasting on Mack and for his eyes to go dim. Mack's happy place is just a bright light.  Addy watches until Mack turns into a zombie and then she shoots him in the head.

In the Arctic, Citizen Z is going through his weapons when he is attacked by a zombie.  Citizen Z makes short work of beating the zombie's head in with a bat, before picking up his weapons and walking away.

Bazooka man is up on a roof top surveying he violence and death below.  He calmly looks down at his hand which is injured and bleeding. He couldn't have bitten because he would have turned already.

Murphy is now running through the streets and makes his way to his van.  Murphy stops to call Cassandra when he sees her running towards him.  Addy sneaks up on Murphy, pulls him out of the van and proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of him.  Warren has to pull Addy off of Murphy. Warren asks about Mack and all Addy can do is cry and look at Murphy with rage.  10K has his gun pointed at Murphy, as Addy gets in the van.  Doc ties up Murphy's hands, as Vasquez points a gun at Cassandra.  10K motions for Cassandra to get in the van and she complies.  Vasquez says that he cannot go west because the dust storm is kicking up fallout before getting into the van, leaving Warren standing on the street for a moment.  Warren says, "damn", and gets into the van and drives away.

Because this episode was filled with action, we get to see less of Cassandra which frankly is a good thing.  I hope by episode three she has gained as much awareness as Murphy, otherwise her character will be nothing more than a muted Murphy side kick.

Murphy spent much of this episode on the run and in the process caused havoc.  Citizen Z meant well by sending out that broadcast message but he has now made it more difficult for the team to accomplish their mission. I suppose this will lead to some fallout before the end of the season. So we had this big moment with Murphy standing on the roof supposedly contemplating suicide.  This entire scene irked me because Murphy would have seen the zombie sludge beneath and known damn well that he wasn't going to die.  Suicide shouldn't fodder for a show like this.

This episode we lost Mack.  I suppose they're doing the whole anyone can die routine.  I do however hope that Warren has plot armor the way all of the other leaders in dystopians seem to have.  I think they brought Mack and Addy back together so that we would care about his death.  I was slightly moved, I'll admit.

It seems that we have a new member of the team - Vasquez.  Let me tell you, he is not hard on the eyes at all.  I like that Z Nation seems determined to have a interracial cast and have the cast members be meaningful. I do however wonder if Vasquez is being introduced as a love interest for Warren? Girlfriend works hard and should get herself some.  One thing I don't understand is why Vasquez changed and decided to work with the group instead of against them.  I guess we will have to see if he explains that in the next episode.

Also, who the hell is bazooka man and what's his stake in all of this?

Because this episode was basically about chasing Murphy, nothing much happened. Yes, we got to see what each person saw when they perceived death to be near but I don't think it told us anything significant about the characters that we didn't already know.  Was anyone surprised that Murphy's was about smoking pot? Because Z Nation cannot decide whether it is camp, or serious, sometimes it just ends up having no direction and I think that this is what this episode proved.  At best, White Light is filler and a filler episode for the second episode of the season does not bode well at all.