Requiem: Z Nation

As the last season of Z Nation reached the finale it was revealed that there won’t be another –I saw the news on Nana’s twitter account. Honestly, part of me is shocked that such a gimmicky show lasted for five seasons – but I’m still going to look back on this surprising sharknado of a series…

The Good

It’s original, it’s new, it’s different. To bring such zaniness, so consistently to a long running zombie show was definitely surprising. It managed to maintain a level of comedy and weirdness that we rarely see. And yeah, sometimes it was annoying, sometimes it was silly, sometimes it really

doesn’t make sense. But still it’s different and I really appreciate that, Addie, Warren and Murphy (the relationship between Warren and Murphy has so especially when backed with a really strong core cast. Especially Warren who I both think made this show and is completely wasted on this show. But 10k, many levels, I really wish the show had continued just to see more of it)

  

The Bad

I think Z Nation has always suffered from something of a tonal dissonance. It is zany and that does make it unique. And equally if it was zany every episode it would become way way way way more annoying and I couldn’t stand it… but this contrasts a lot from other zany shows like, say, The Librarians or even Warehouse 13. Because Z Nation will not only bring the plot occasionally as well, but it will go all out for epic, heart rending angst and deep emotion and deep complex relationships like the one between Warren and binge watch this show as you’d be going along and then Warren will TEAR OUT Murphy and… it’s confusing. I  can’t even imagine what it would be like to

YOUR HEART with utter grief.

And then the next episode we’ll have a giant ball of zombies taking out the liberty bell neither half realises the other half exists. No matter how serious Warehouse 13 or The Librarians got, they always remembered what show they were. It’s like two shows mashed together and

And I’m not saying the serious elements are bad because they’re really really not. Z Nation can bring the acting and pluck the heart strings… but it feels out of place.

The Diversity

Z Nation attracted our attention in the first season when we saw Obvious Designated Protagonist Straight White Male die. It may be the most stunned I’ve ever been watching a show - they killed the protagonist! Already!

And then Warren stepped up and made the show her’s and I didn’t have a second of regret. Warren was such an awesome character for so long, yes strong but still having scenes of grief and vulnerability, inspiring, positive while not being naive, caring and charismatic. Warren has always been excellent.

Of course Warren being excellent meant occasionally it was tempting to look past some of the more problematic portrayals in the series. The sexualised, servile treatment of Cassandra was appalling, their forrays among the Native Americans have been pretty cringeworthy and their jaunt to Mexico was fraught with stereotypes… but then it also has Vasquez and Escorpion, two definite complex, layered characters.

Sun Mei as an Asian stereotype pretty much ticks every trope box but she was a character despite that and the only word of criticism I could ever have for Kaia (and Nana) is there’s not enough of them. The show has always had a number of female characters alongside Warren and Addie, Red, Sun Mei, Kaia, George and that is always good to see in so many male dominated shows… but I do have to note that none of them are constants in her life like Murphy, Doc and 10k are.

LGBTQ wise we have virtually nothing for five seasons. Two recurring bit characters are revealed as possibly gay for pure homophobic comedy reasons and then never seen again. And Addie is bisexual - and if you just blinked and say “wait, she was?!” you may have missed it as this was referred two once in one episode and then never touched on again. Unlike both her male love interests. We’ve mentioned this trope so often - of course it’s not a problem that a bisexual character is in opposite sex relationships but it’s telling how often the only LGBTQ representation on a show will be That One Episode where a bisexual character briefly mentions their bisexuality for it never ever ever to raise again.

Z Nation: Season 5, Episode 13: End of Everything

It is the season finale of Z Nation and, sadly, the utter finale of Z Nation though I have a lot of thoughts on that to digest in the Requiem

Sun Mei died last episode and her brains have been passed on to Red to keep safe. Which she does. All episode. Bye Red, do you want a cushion for that plot box?

George is having one of her moments of struggle and doubt, struggle over what everyone has had to endure for Altura, if what it will achieve will be worth it or even be possible. If they are good enough for Altura and if she can keep going. This is an excellent emotional moment and perfect for George because she’s just endured torture. That should leave a mark - that should leave psychological marks. That should take some time to recover from it. And of course Warren gives her an excellent pep talk

Which… I get because Warren is a leader but at the same time Warren being George’s crutch has happened for far too long.

The bad guys continues being evil with Estes being all paranoid and Pandora using lots of sexiness to fight back. Including in front of Sun Mei’s corpse. Classy.

He has gathered all his militia and all his volunteers to send them to the staging ground identified by George… Pandora is so very very sure that she broke George

She is wrong… there isn’t an army of Talkers there. There’s 10k, Doc, Addie and Murphy all having awesome little character moments earlier. But now there’s Doc with a loud speaker making gun noises drawing them all in. And then 10k looking on, from a distance. Now, what can one sniper, even one as ridiculously good as 10k do against an army?

Weeellll, this is the apocalypse. And the show has belatedly remembered the real enemy out there isn’t Talkers or humans - it’s zombies. And how one human dead turns into a biting infectious zombie and how one sniper taking out 4 or 5 men in a tightly packed group can pretty much kill them all

I would think that this would cause 10k, Doc or George a little consternation? I mean they just caused a not-small massacre: that was Altura’s entire militia and a number of volunteers. That’s got to be a significant percentage of the population killed.

Estes and Pandora have a freak out over their entire army being destroyed when Addie and Murphy arrive with a lot of conscious Talkers… all here and ready to vote. With sympathisers at every gate to to let in more Talkers. See it’s election day and Estes expected all of the Talkers not to be there so the paranoid living humans could then vote for security and his Supreme Leaderness. Except the problem with no real alternative and, at the same time, threat of bombing means most the humans have stayed at home. Curse those low turn outs, scourge of democracies and dictators who are doing dictatorship wrong.

Now with lots of Talkers flooding in they can all cast ballots (because Estes has still left peace justice democracy and a constitution on the ballot?) and the living who were willing to see their loved ones kicked out decided to… just let the Talkers in now? Apparently?

Anyway, this is happening

Meanwhile Estes and Pandora run away chased by the good guys and Cooper is here! Yes, Warren’s sort of love interest from the beginning of the series. He’s here to remind Warren that he loves her and… put a pin in that Cooper, currently saving the world, ‘kay

But for reasons Murphy is going to stay and glare at him so Warren and George can go on to their big confrontation on their own. This involves confronting Estes and he doing the proper supervillain thing and explaining his big bad plan

So he has to kill the Talkers because they eat Lithium to stay “alive” and eventually they will run out (Sun Mei’s quote aside) and eventually they’ll have to kill them all. Which would sort of have a plan except we’ve already seen that zombie brains can feed Talkers, there’s a load of zombies and it take relatively tiny amounts of brains to keep them human. And hey if you have to kill them all you could wait until they’re mindless monsters rather than… well… jump the gun? Also I seriously doubt his estimate of how much lithium there is in the country because… yeah, there’s a lot more than what they’ve found. It’s not that rare.

Perhaps recognising that “kill them now so we don’t have to MAYBE kill them later” is a dubious motivation the writers have a second motivation for him- the planet. See to keep Altura working and being eco-friendly, they need solar power and batteries to work when the sun is down and these batteries need to made from Lithium so we can’t possibly feed them to Talkers - we have to annihilate all the Talkers so we can run a green economy! Yes to granola! No to fragile loved ones!

Um…

Ok, look, I greatly praise Estes desire to make a better, greener future. But the population of the world is pretty much less than a million people at this point? At least as far as we can tell. And they’re not using a whole lot of industry here… global warming is not a pressing issue any more… burn some damn coal. Or set up a wind turbine! The wind still blows at night! We’ve seen the dam already for that matter! This is not a reasonable motivation.

So he explains all this and Warren is recording it and Citizen Z is broadcasting this live to everyone who collectively gasp “ZOMG HE’S EVIL!!!! All of our prejudices are now invalid, let us not murder the Talkers we were rounding up and massacring a few days ago!” Because this is how prejudice works.

Anyway, he is FOILED! And more he’s just said Talkers are like totally totally icky and Pandora heard him! And this sinister characters has just learned that the guy who hates all Talkers hates, her, a Talker. She decides to blow up all the things, as one does.

This has Warren working with Estes to try and not blow everything up while George and Pandora have Blatant Character Moments in case anyone was asleep through all the previous character building. So, simplified: Pandora is evil and hates hates hates herself because she’s a Talker and is ugly underneath that mask and thinks it’s terribad awful. In case you missed that the woman who always wore a mask and denied being a Talker, hates being a Talker. While George refuses to kill her and tries (and fails) to save her… because she’s George and she cares

Except, y’know, about the entire armed forces of Altura who are dead who no-one seems to care about.

Z Nation: Season 5, Episode 11: Hackerville

Time to follow this nonsensical storyline further - they need to bypass Altura’s security so they have gone to Hackersville, an old telephone switching centre which is now occupied with Hackers who have been hacking into Altura’s systems. At one point we even see people using mobile phones

To which I have to ask… how?! Why? For most of this series people have been hard pressed to even find electricity - and a radio mast is something unique and special. The whole power of Citizen Z was that he still had the technology to speak to the world. So where did this all come from?

And why does Altura even have public network? How are the Hackers attacking this? Why does Altura have a network that isn’t self-contained? Given that outposts are pretty self sufficient in this new world, why would it have any kind of open internet which the hackers can access? And why would they connect their CCTV to it? My own firm doesn’t link their CCTV to the internet! Why is Altura? Why can Altura connect to the internet?

But hey let’s not let common sense get in the way of a plot. So they go see the Hackers and shenanigans ensue. There’s a series of geeky clues to get in which is solved by George kicking down the door. The head of the hackers can be a little awkward but Warren keeps pointing a gun at him. Because she has no time for arguments. Also Citizen Z is super protective of Kaya and it’s nice to see the power of their love… but at the same time there’s way too much jealousy about it all

There’s a brief attack by zombies and some nifty drones hunting them down which everyone loves except Warren who has no time for these nonsenses.

Between them they do guide Kaya through Altura and past the security to find Estes’s laptop. There they find about his plan for “The Final Mercy” which has some unpleasant words about elimination. This is not good.

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 10 State of Mine

Time for some more shenanigans. And yes, of course we have shenanigans

We have a bunch of Talkers at a scrap yard digging up things under the watchful eye of humans in haz mat suits and guns treating the Talkers as disposable animals. Until one of those Talkers bites a battery, there’s a puff of white smoke and he comes to his senses. Rallying and feeding more batteries to his fellow Talkers he leads a rebellion

There’s a big dramatic speech about freedom which kind of falls flat. It sounds like an epic anti-slavery rant from an oppressed group who has spent years under the boot of their oppressors - but Talkers haven’t even existed for years. And these words coming from a Black man is just… yeah… we see what you’re doing there Z Nation and think this is an issue.

The man then charges into the mine and is beheaded. There’s something scary down there

This is when Warren, George, 10k and Doc arrive looking for the secret ingredient in Biscuits (yes I know about the daft spelling, no I’m not spelling it that way.) They see the mining and enslaved Talkers and George realises Altura is behind it. They also see the “Hazardous materials” signs but Warren points out that, hey, it’s the apocalypse.

They split up with George pretending to be a Talker, Doc and 10k stalking around and Warren getting stuck in the tunnels

With many shenanigans, they realise that the Altura troops are gathering Lithium, crating it up to take to Altura. They find a semi-coherent Talker who explains lithium takes the edge off and grants clarity but it doesn’t last wrong. They realise this is the secret ingredient for Biscuits - and that Altura is trying to control that because if Estes controls the biscuits they control the Talkers. They can’t have that

There’s more shenanigans with Doc and 10k sneaking around watching the lithium being packed and playing with a crane. Because why wouldn’t you play with a crane? And managing to pass themselves off as Altura operatives by stealing haz mat suits. They all find evidence of people dying in horribly violent and ominous fashion.

While Warren explores the tunnels and discovers the scary force that is mincing people: a giant cyborg Talker. With a buzz saw as a hand. Oh and metal plates that stop him being head-shot and mercied.

Of course we do.

They focus on lithium and arrange various shenanigans to steal the rest of the Lithium and get the rest of talkers to Limbo. Easy enough

Shenanigans ensue, This involves a fight that doesn’t exactly go there way, the convenient appearance of slashy cyborg Talker and the gang all gathered around this giant invulnerable Talker smacking it until they wear it’s battery down. To which Warren reaches out to it as a person so it decides to commit suicide

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 9: Water Keepers

Today Z Nation is taking our merry band of misfits to a Native American tribe

It’s at this point my sense of cringe rises and I look for a way I can pass the episode to Renee and otherwise try to do anything I can to avoid the embarrassing awfulness that has a good chance of following.

I bit the bullet and… it wasn’t that bad? Exactly. Compared to my expectations

So 10k and Doc are captured and we’re introduced to a random captured Talker rambling incoherently about saboteurs. They’re rescued by George and Warren and then there’s arrows and Native American warriors in full war paint. And I’m duly wary that we’re going to go full woo-woo

But while several warriors do wear war paint, this is more something they’ve integrated into their culture as a separate tribe and people but not to become a full on stereotype: these 21st century Navajo (the language referenced) haven’t suddenly stripped back to some Hollywood impressed of what pre-colonisation Navajo.

All of this said from the point of view of a reviewer who is super not informed enough about Native Americans in general or Navajo specifically to say this is good or bad - just that it is much less awful than I anticipated. Because I expected worse

We also have several characters from the much much worse Grand Canyon episode, Kuruk and Ayalla. Ayalla spends lots of time with 10k, getting him a new antler hand with a little bit of woo-woo but mainly Ayalla mocking him for his adorable naivety and how easily she can confuse and trick him by referring to silly woo-woo which he takes seriously despite being ridiculous. It’s a nice send up of Native American stereotypes. And, yes, 10k is just impossibly adorable.

The rest of the gang meets Kuruk and she and Doc kind of circle around some very not there chemistry can we not. But Kuruk lays out the conflict - they are constantly being attacked by zombies and Talker saboteurs are attacking the dam cutting off power and water.

There’s another conflict with Kuruk wanting to leave to save her people while Eddie, her dad, insisting that they should stay with their ancestors (spiritual, Talker and Zombie) and their own homeland. Largely to draw upon lots and lots of references to Native Americans being driven from their lands which is grossly unsubtle but, at the same time, does it need to be? We don’t need to subtly weave in why these Native Americans may be invested in holding onto this land for big historical reasons - there’s no problem with it being overt. There’s a similar ongoing conflict between whether to trust Newmerica because, again, many many many betrayed treaties. When George tries to invoke the agreement between Newmerica and the Native Americans, Kuruk is quick to snap that no way is she to use the word “treaty”. Again, it’s not subtle and equally, subtlety isn’t required.

This links into survival again, though, because Eddie doesn’t just want to stay on their land but thinks they need to work with Newmerica because there’s simply not enough of them to go it alone. Which may be true - but this kind of feels like a lot of handwaving. Like, at the end of the episode Kuruk is totally in to George’s vision and supporting Newmerica which kind of feels like all that unsubtle but necessary references have all been resolved - rather than Kuruk being more “look we need this, we’ll work with you but we’re also totally watching you” which i think would both keep them on side while still preserving these messages of reasonable distrust of agreements and warily guarding their territory.

Z nation: Season 5, Episode 8: Heartland

In what is supposed to be a cute scene but also kind of emphasises how broken their timeline is with George having to have the consitution explained to her last episode, we have 10k and Addie arguing over internet memes.

They arrive in Heartland where the flour with the added brainess comes from and find a farm that looks fairly abandoned, with the farmhands, all talkers and all going very close to zombie. We also learn that this farm also provides most of Newmerica’s grain so it being abandoned is pretty much bad for everyone.

They’re joined by Doc and George and all of them hide in a cottage where Doc helps the adorkable 10k with his stump - which isn’t looking good - treating it with copious amounts of moonshine to make him adorably drunk and disinfected. And we meet Finn, an old friend/flame of Addie’s who has been helping her get Talkers to limbo and safety. He’s also been shoot but Doc is there to patch him up

He lives - because he’s very lucky. As Doc says, he’s a terrible doctor. He and Addie explain a little of their past, do some spiky club flirting. He also doesn’t have much of the additive that goes into making the Biscuits - but says it isn’t brains - they were lost in the attacks, the same attacks that also turned most of his farm hands into Talkers.

Oh and the Biscuits are apparently Bizkits. Yes, I’m not typing that

Someone is trying to shut them down - while George is pretty sure that it can’t be talkers, Warren also points out that starving people are easily manipulated and anyone wanting to take over, Talker or Human could benefit from causing starvation

Speaking of -Pandora and her assistant are lurking round causing trouble, as they do.

We have a naturally silly scene while everyone rounds up the Talker Ranch hands so they can provide them with brains… from Charlie. Charlie is a Talker who apparently volunteered his brain to let the other Talkers live and know. It’s… comedic to begin with. Then becomes darker when it becomes clear neither he nor us are clear whether he actually volunteered for this or whether he’s a vulnerable man being exploited. And then utterly tragic when, his brain nearly gone and reduced to virtually no consciousness, he asks for mercy. And is granted it by Finn

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 7: Stone History

The gang has decided it’s a priority to get more Brain Biscuits before the whole Talker population becomes zombies and this whole conflict between humans and talkers becomes moot and everyone is dead anyway

This leaves Doc and George to head to Altura to rescue Dante or assure he has a fair trial.

Warren, 10k, Addie and Murphy head towards the bakery which makes the biscuits, right on the edge of the no-go zone (which Murphy is not a fan of). There they find a bakery with lots and lots and lots of cracked open skulls which is super indicative that yes there are brains in those biscuits

The bakery looks abandoned and is utterly utterly creepy. Super creepy. More horror films need to be filmed in abandoned bakeries.

The creepiness quickly falls apart when we meet the bakers - a pair of Canadian brothers.

And, thank you Z Nation. My co-blogger Renee is, as everyone knows due to my many references to igloos, polar bear and moose, Canadian. This will give me YEARS of ammunitions, YEARS.

So the two Canadian brothers are… not exactly competent or sensible and are walking comic relief. Addie and 10k easily take down one and then Warren and Murphy take down the far far more competent of the brothers. Duly subdued, the Canadians reveal that their mother came up with the recipe after their little brother was bitten and they became so popular they went into mass production. The problem is that their mother, and another brother, were all bitten and she’s the one with the recipe. In her pocket. They’re all now locked in the office.

Time for some half baked schemes involving a boom box, rock-paper-scissors, the less competent brother and trying to pick pocket mother zombie. It goes as badly as expected and we have the incompetent brother being bitten as well

And a quick wave of zombies that everyone takes down - and 10k seems to be finding his mojo, with some really excellent tag teaming with Addie (they work exceptionally well together). In the aftermath Warren decides it’s time to stop playing, cracks open a zombie skull for the brains which they feed to the zombie family (wait, zombies can eat zombie brains?) restoring them to Talker-dom. To which mother baker can now whip up a batch of original recipe biscuits using the zombie brains they have

But she reveals that she hasn’t been making this recipe for a while and they get “enhanced flour” from the Hartland - and that lack of supply is what lead to the biscuits shortage and the whole family turning to Talkers with the shortage. So this has Warren & co heading to Hartland with Murphy taking the vulnerable Canadian family to Limbo to look after them.

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 6: Limbo

We open with an epic and disgusting zombie fight - because Z Nation always brings the icky. Doc, George and Warren are following the markings of the Talker hiding and it leads them to Limbo

Yes, the same place the blends told Murphy they were waiting. It’s a… club. A casino. And general place of debauchery ranging from the standard table dancers and roulette to chainsaw duels and whack-a-mole.

Murphy runs the place now wearing a ridiculous outfit which honestly he kind of makes work and he’s much beloved by his people (there’s also a moment where he says he’s in a bisexual threesome relationship which would be more noteworthy if it wasn’t a single throwaway line for comic relief and to emphasise the debauchery of Limbo rather than actual representation.)

We have lots of scenes of the general ickiness and it’s notable that there are a huge number of Talkers in Limbo. Murphy claims to be apolitical and not involved in Altura’s issues but Warren notes that his is the only settlement in Newmerica which allows Talkers to move around freely. AND Limbo is marked as a safe place for Talkers - so it seems Murphy is not nearly as apolitical as he claims

They do have a gang of Talkers now, but they’re very very hungry and Murphy isn’t THAT kind - most of the Biscuits in Limbo are used for stakes in gambling. Among the Talkers is Marjorie - Dante’s wife.

He insists that the Talkers are just dropped on his doorstep from a truck and he knows nothing. George changes her opinion of Murphy and hits him with the full weight of her super empathy and gives him one of her awesome speeches

Murphy is impressed - but not buying. Even George’s beautiful idealism runs aground on Murphy’s cynicism. Murphy also remembers Estes from Zona - and thinks he was dispatched on a secret mission not that he left as Estes claimed. There’s also a hairy moment when the near zombie Talkers need to be corralled

They’re interrupted by the arrival of the truck Murphy mentioned - and he has a psychic sense of Lucy. He hurries down, thinking his dead daughter has somehow come back and opens the door to find…

ADDIE

Yes it’s Addie! I called it last episode! That spiky mace had to be Addie! She’s back! She’s back. And… perhaps a little broken. She’s deeply sad about Lucy’s death and she, Murphy and Doc drink to her passing, reminiscing and sounding deeply sad (the least said about the booze they’re drinking, the better). She resists the idea that she’s a saviour for the Talkers despite clearly being so - and angrily backs off when they mention Dante. She thinks there’s absolutely no way he’ll get anything resembling a fair trial and she leaves angrily

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 5: Killing All the Books

Last episode Pacifica was bombed and we have the chaos and the carnage you’d expect afterwards. George, Warren and Doc work there way through the ruins trying to help where they can, save people, fight a massive wave of zombies and do what they can for the new wave of Talkers that arises - especially since they don’t have biscuits

George is grieving and dispirited - she grieves over all the books that have been lost, all the people dead and the humans now scattered all underlying the new hate of Talkers. She sees someone she cares about, Cora, dying and she tries to help her. She can’t help her and when she turns she realises she has no biscuits for her. Warren asks her what she’s going to do… and George says she has to let nature take its course

Which Warren stomps on. Nature? She demands George looks at all the groaning, severely injured wounded and George admits it’s no way to live. They Mercy them…

Ok… I’d like some clarity on what is no way to live. As Talkers? I thought we were arguing about Talkers being equal. As zombies? Sure - but can’t you just restrain them until you have biscuits? As badly injured people? Well again we’re in then highly troublesome zone of declaring disabled people as not having lives worth living which is something we keep skirting on here.

Another thing I’m feeling less comfortable about is George repeatedly losing hope and Warren then picking her up. I like each scene and I love the relationship between these two is excellent. But increasingly Warren is becoming the support character for George. George is repositioned as protagonist while Warren is now becoming a mentor figure. And she’s an awesome mentor figure - but she’s feeling a lot less of a protagonist

Citizen Z is obviously terrified for his family - but Kaia has already called for help, broadcast it and is already hunting for Nana and JZ (who are fine because Nana is a sensible woman who has already got them both to safety). Citizen Z and Kaia get together and carve themselves a path to their loved ones. They have a brief distraction when they help Doc get rid of a zombie with a bomb strapped to his chest… which is also not good.

Examining the dead they discover a lot of the zombies are old zombies: they’re not local and they’re not the recently dead. They shouldn’t be around here

In the horrifying aftermath, many of the survivors are, of course, blaming the Talkers and we have more suspicion and hate from them and more care, trust, hope and sincerity from George. And an ongoing need to find Dante and whoever is doing this… but with an edge suggesting she’s not resistant to the idea they could be the same person. They also see a Talker mercied because they had no biscuits to give her.

In the aftermath help arrives from Altura… they’re here to rescue any humans. No Talkers. No Wounded. They don’t even want the books that are so important to Pacifica. They’re not interested in rebuilding the outpost at all - nor are they concerned that there’s no biscuits left for the Talkers behind

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 4: Pacifica

In Altura, Estes is leading the funeral series for the dead after the attack. They have a fascinating funeral rite of preserving the blood of the dead in a wall for all time so their DNA is kept for all eternity

10k and Red attends the ceremony, but 10k is deeply traumatised by the loss of his hand and the loss of his ability to shoot. He’s withdrawn, angry, snappish and demands impossible things like Sun Mei sewing his preserved hand back on - or that he get a prosthetic - any prosthetic - that will allow him to pull a trigger. Red tries to get him out of his funk but can’t - and 10k won’t even look at the stump of his wrist (which does not seem to be healing well)

Sun Mei is still experimenting on Talkers to isolate what causes them to be Talkers… including one deeply traumatised Talker (which has some uncomfortable messaging about it being better to be dead than living as he is - which is uncomfortable since his injuries have removed his legs: the idea that this kind of disability is not worth living is problematic. Yes he’s grieving for his dead family - which means he has ever reason to wish for death himself - but it does not fit for other people to think someone who is GRIEVING is better off dead). She is still not making any progress - but she is doing some odd experiments on the blood at the wall

She also has a time limit - Estes warns her that if they don’t find a way to deal with the Talkers and synthesise more brains they may run out of Biscuits - and zombies need to be treated like zombies, whether they can talk or not.

I do think someone needs to tell us where these biscuits come from - where are they coming from, how are they made? And why are they not being delivered? Is there a shortage? We need more answers

Ominously, Estes is also speaking to the other outpost leaders - and there are more rumours about other outposts being attacked

Warren & co are heading to Pacifica, another outpost and one where Citizen Z and Kaia have set up there home. It’s a former university campus and has a large library of books. George describes it in extremely glowing terms and when they run into Henry, one of her former professors who also lives there, he adds that it’s a wonderful equality utopia

Warren is more cynical about this. She’s also increasingly doubtful about George’s unerring faith in Dante’s innocence but diplomatically simply points out if the vigilantes find him it won’t matter and they need to get him first - they also find a dead Talker, who has had their brains eaten

When they arrive it seems Warren’s cynicism is right. Initially it looks good with Warren & co meeting Kaia for the first time and Citizen Z and Kaia’s child and seeing there’s a Talker child in the nursery. And Pacifica has a beautiful mural that traces all the people and families of the people who live there - living, dead, zombie and talker.

And then they find out that a town meeting has been called - one that is human only, no Talkers allowed with two factions - those who hate the Talkers and those who value their Talker friends and family. George and Warren go in to speak passionate peace and justice and equality, countwering every argument that the Talkers are dangerous (by the rhetoric in the room, so are the humans) that they can’t be trusted (pretty sure the Talkers don’t trust them either). George leads with a lot of hope - while Warren shoots the ceiling to get some quiet so she can throw her own passionate speech about the kind of country they want to build. I think there’s a definitely difference in tone between the two: George speaks personally about these people, these people she knows, about friends and family and neighbours. While Warren, perhaps aware that friends and family and neighbours can and do turn on you and not knowing these people, speaks less on how good people are and more on what they want to build, what future they want. George is personal and aspirational, Warren more focused on them making something better than what they are