Sunday, December 13, 2015

Z Nation, Season Two, Episode Fourteen: Day One


At this point, the group is closer than they have ever been to their final end goal.  This episode opens with the group being forced to abandon the El Camino's.  Damn it, I liked those cars. Warren quickly determines that they are going to have to walk the rest of the way when the group finds themselves standing in the ruins of Disneyland. This penultimate episode is essentially nothing more than one big flashback which for me was rather irritating.

It begins with Citizen Z, who was in jail and about to face time for some kind of cyber crime. Well that explains a lot because Citizen Z does not look like he is in enough shape to survive basic training, let alone be a part of the military. Citizen Z is approached by the NSA and warned that what he is about to learn is something that he cannot even share with his lawyer.  It seems that the NSA wants to ship Citizen Z to the arctic to work on zombies.

We next move on to Warren, who is commanding a group of the National Guard.  Warren heads outside when she hears the sirens of an ambulance.  Warren heads into the back of the ambulance to help who she thinks is an injured person but is in fact a zombie.  Warren heads back into the outpost to seek help from the soldiers for the injured person and she is attacked.  Warren ends up killing all of the soldiers under her command using amazing head shots. Did anyone else wonder where Garret was? I guess they couldn't get the actor to agree to come back.

With Doc we learn that the nickname actually means something. Pre Z, Doc worked as a therapist specializing in drug addiction. It's hardly a surprise.  Doc at this point has been sober for five years and actually doesn't look half bad all cleaned up. When Doc is attacked by his patient, he figures out pretty quickly that his patient has actually turned into a zombie.  This is the end of Doc's sobriety and he downs a few oxy and escapes out of the building.

Addy was at a hockey game when the zombie apocalypse broke out.  Mack (now dead) was actually on the ice playing the game.  Addy takes off through the stands and Mack fights his way off the ice. The two meet up in a locker area where together they take out a few zombies. Mack asks Addy about pairing up and she quickly agrees, provided he come with her to check on her brother and her mother. We all know how that turned out.


10K was fishing when he came across his first zombie.  10K ran into a zombie ranger who was shot full of arrows. Believing the ranger to be hurt, 10K tries to help only to find himself attacked.  10K takes off running with a zombie horde fast on his heels.  10K runs into a tree and lands in a ditch, so the horde runs past him. When 10K wakes, the zombies have made a u turn and are chasing him again. Luckily for 10K, his father is there to shoot the zombies in the head. 10K grabs a gun from one of the felled zombies and takes off after his father.

On to Vasquez, who is in a funeral home mourning the loss of his wife and daughter. The funeral director bursts in and Vasquez has to defend himself. In a rage, Vasquez bashes in the zombie's head with the butt of his gun, after failing to take out the former funeral director by shooting him in the body several times.  Vasquez barely has time to catch his breathe before his daughter and wife who are now zombies, escape from their coffins and crawl towards him.

Last but not least, we move on to Murphy, who was in jail for mail fraud.  Murphy sees what he thinks is a fight breaking out in the prison ward but it's actually a prisoner turned zombie who has rang the dinner bell.  The attack quickly escalates and Murphy runs out of the yard and slams the gate behind him, trapping several prisoners inside. That's the Murphy we know, always looking out for himself.

Back in the present, Murphy is very concerned about what will happen when he gets to the lab. Murphy tries to beg off, telling Warren that if she is indeed his friend that she will let him go. Warren makes it clear that they are not friends and that everyone is going to hurt at some point. Warren points out that Murphy is the only one who can end all of the pain.

The next day, the group approaches what looks to be a diner.  Warren decides that she and Vasquez will go and check it out and that Addy, Doc and 10K will stay behind to protect Murphy in case there's an issue.  Warren and Vasquez make their way into a diner where they find a woman standing behind the bar. She offers them Earl Grey but has a gun hidden pointed directly at them.

This is pretty much a wasted episode for me.  I suppose they wanted to slow things down after last week but at the same time, the story didn't progress at all.  Yes, the group finally arrived at their destination but then nothing happened.  Let's hope that the season finale has more to offer than this.