What I Watched Today

(rambling, random thoughts & annoyingly detailed recaps from real time TV watching)

 

Z Nation

Our beloved crew sees a truck in the middle of the road. Roberta says to move in easy; she’ll check it out with Lily. When she opens the cab door, its empty. Doc thinks it’s odd that an awesome truck was left out in the middle of nowhere, and Murphy says everything in the past eight years has been odd. Roberta asks Lucy if she picks up anything where the cargo would be, but there are no signs of life. She says if anyone is in there, they’re not zombies. The truck suddenly starts. Roberta wants to jet, but Murphy says it could be full of snacks. The truck slowly follows them, and stops when they stop, like something out of a Stephen King book.

Roberta tells Lily if anything happens, shoot the tires. She opens the cab again, and there’s a horrific screeching sound. Everyone covers their ears, and then passes out.

Roberta wakes up in a wooden crate. She bangs on the wall and yells, asking if anyone is there. An alarm sounds, the crate opens, and she emerges along with another woman and a man. The woman attacks the man, yelling for Roberta to get the key that’s on the floor. She plunges the crowbar through the guy’s head. When Roberta asks why she killed him, she says they just have one crowbar. Roberta asks what this place is, and the woman says, fresh meat, just her luck. She’s lost track of time, but thinks she’s been there about a month. Roberta tells her about the sound, and the woman tells her you can’t fight it; just do what they want. She tells Roberta to kill anything that moves, and stay out of her way.

They go down a hallway to an elevator, and the woman says they want them to clear it. She tells Roberta to use the key. When she does, we hear the elevator working, but the doors don’t open. The woman uses the crowbar to pry them apart, and a load of zombies tumble out and attack her. Roberta gets in the elevator, pushing the close door button, but forgets to bring the key. She opens the doors again, and kills the zombies. The woman is now one of them, but I guess she must have a thick skull, because the crowbar isn’t good enough. Roberta makes the elevator doors squash her head a few times, which does the trick.

Roberta hears the noise again. She wakes up in a crate, and hears Doc. He asks if she’s okay. She says she’s trapped in a crate, and he tells her that he is too. He thinks they’ve been kidnapped and enslaved for evil purposes – again. He hates when that happens. She asks if he’s seen anyone else, and he tells her only the two ugly guys he woke up with. They were killed on a suicide mission to clear a stairwell of zombies. When he killed the last one, he heard the noise again. Doc tells her they’re moving him again, and he bounces around for a while.

He comes out of the crate, and 10K comes out of another one. They see a huge wrench, a roll of duct tape, and a gas mask on the floor. Doc takes the wrench, and 10K takes the tape and mask. They move forward in the semi-darkness, and come to a room with a lot of pipes that have some kind of green gas leaking from them. They take turns using the mask. 10K uses the wrench on one of the pipes, and a zombie rushes out. He kills it, and Doc uses the tape on another pipe, while 10K dispatches another zombie.

Murphy hears Roberta, and asks her to let him out of the crate he’s in, but she says she’s trapped in a crate too. We see a room with several crates, and Murphy asks who else is there. Lucy and Lily say they are, and a man’s voice tells them to shut up; he’s trying to sleep. He says they need to be quiet, or it will get them killed. Lucy tells them there are a lot of zombies; she feels it. Roberta says it’s not the zombies she’s worried about.

Doc continues to work on the pipes, while 10K continues to kill the zombies who keep interrupting. Doc gets a face full of the gas, and keels over.

Lucy says even the zombies are afraid. Lily asks if she can determine why, but Lucy says there are too many voices and so many reasons. Lily asks if Murphy is picking up anything, but that’s a no. His zombie whispering days are over. He pulls off a piece of his scarred flesh and eats it. Ew.

10K fights off a zombie, and tells Doc to hang on. He puts the mask on Doc, and performs chest compression on him.

Lucy asks Roberta what’s wrong. Roberta says she can’t do this; she doesn’t feel so good. Murphy says she doesn’t sound so good. He tells her, no pressure, but if she goes wobbly, they all die. There’s no freaking allowed in the apocalypse. Lily has experience with PTSD, and tells Roberta she’s having a panic attack. She talks Roberta through it, and explains that she spent nine days in the trunk of a car hiding from her zombie family.

10K keeps working on Doc, and finally revives him. He says he thinks they won. The noise begins again, and everyone passes out. The crates are rearranged, and Doc and 10K are now in a crate together. Murphy asks Doc what happened, and he says they were fixing the leaks in hell’s plumbing. Doc keeps coughing, and 10K explains that he inhaled nerve gas. Roberta says they need to get out or they’ll be killed one by one. Doc asks who’s running this show, and Murphy says it has to be a Zona operation. No one else is so needlessly diabolical. Doc farts, and tells 10K, sorry. Lucy tells him to be quiet; she’s making a friend, a zombie named Carson O’Keefe. She tells him that she wants to get out, and asks if he can open the door.

The door opens, and Lucy talks to Carson. She sees a lot of crates, but no way out. The noise starts. Roberta tells them to fight it, but it’s impossible. They all pass out.

Lily is being dragged into another area. She wakes up, and a guy tells her that she’s safe. A zombie rushes him, and he kills it. He says they’ll live longer if they work as a team. She tells him if they do whatever is wanted, they can get out alive, but he thinks there’s a chance they won’t make it. He shows her that he has a gun, and says he’s looking for some human kindness. She gets the gun from him, and says she’ll blow his head off if he tries it again. He laughs, saying there are no bullets; he ran out of ammo. He comes at her, but she beats the crap out of him, and throws him into the next zombie that comes along. She’s able to get out through another door, and closes it before the zombie can get to her.

She goes up some stairs, and runs through a hallway to another stairwell. She goes into another room, but a zombie tries to follow her. She stumbles, hits her head on a bannister, and gets knocked out.

Murphy and Doc are out of the crates. Murphy says this would be more efficient if they were just told what’s wanted. Doc says the whole point is fear of the unknown. They’re trying to control them with psychological terror and creepy sounds. As they’re walking, zombies keep popping out. Murphy says if they get out of this alive – and that’s a big if – they need to have zombie come to Jesus moment with Roberta. First she gets them lost, and now they’re slaves in the zombie funhouse of death. Doc suggests they get out of there first.

10K and a woman crawl along a ladder near the ceiling that periodically descends closer to a crowd of zombies below. The woman falls, and the noise happens. 10K passes out, but luckily stays put.

Roberta exits her crate, along with a man we don’t know. A crowbar, a screwdriver, and thick electrical cord drop off a conveyor belt. The man says, shall we? and takes the crowbar, while Roberta takes the cord and screwdriver. They enter a room with a gate on the opposite wall, and several zombies that aren’t exactly all in one piece. While the stranger is dealing with a half-zombie, Roberta comes up behind him, and gets him in a chokehold, telling him to drop the crowbar. He does, and she asks how Zona is involved and if this is part of the reset. He claims ignorance, and she tells him to answer or she’ll put the screwdriver through his head. She asks again if this is part of the reset, and if it has to do with the black rainbow. He asks if she’s insane, and says Zona has nothing to do with this. This is bigger than Zona or the apocalypse. I wonder what can be bigger than an apocalypse. He says no one lives long enough to find out exactly what’s going on, but they’re after something in the complex and using them to clear the zombies. He tells her they’ll be zombies too, if they don’t get the gate open.

Roberta presses a button, but the gate is jammed. As the stranger is messing with it, Roberta says there’s a live one, and a half-zombie attacks him. I say, ooh! out loud, because it’s so creepy, wriggling fast across the floor with its spinal cord hanging out. The stranger falls, and the half-zombie jumps on him. Roberta electrocutes it using the cord, and it’s a thrilling moment.

Lily wakes up, and the zombie that was following her is dead. She hears a noise from the top of the stairs. She begins to walk up, and sees daylight. She asks where it came from, and walks toward the source, but the noise happens.

Everyone wakes up in a cage that’s surrounded by zombies, except for Lily, who is still unconscious. Murphy asks what fresh hell this is, and the stranger says it’s feeding time. A giant metal tube unleashes a load of what looks like kibble. The stranger starts eating. I was joking, but Doc eats a piece and says it’s dog food. Chicken with notes of corn; Puppy Chow. 10K loves dog food, and says Puppy Chow is his thing. He and Doc talk about a bag of Gravy Train they found once. Doc says he can taste it now. With water and warmed by the sun, it’s the next best thing to home cooking.

Roberta wonders why the zombies are so blasé, and the stranger says they’re kept well-fed, but step outside, and they’ll attack. She asks what they’re fed, and the stranger says not dog food. Lily comes to, and Doc gives her some kibble. She tells them that she found a bird, and Roberta says if a bird can get in, there’s a way out. Murphy asks to see the bird, and turns his back after Lily gives it to him. Doc asks if he ate it, and he says no, but coughs out a couple of feathers. Roberta says if Lily saw daylight, they have a chance. She asks if Lily could find her way back. Doc remembers seeing an emergency exit, and they make a map using the kibble. Everyone adds whatever landmarks they remember, and they form an escape plan. Roberta tells them to memorize the map, and make their way to the rendezvous point. The noise happens, and Roberta says they have to fight their way to the surface.

Roberta comes out of her crate to a strobe light and Murphy. He tells her they have a rope, a bowling pin, and a blowtorch. This is like a bizarro game of Clue. They walk through what looks like a basement. Roberta and Murphy are mysteriously separated. Murphy’s flashlight starts to die, and a zombie comes up behind him. He knocks it in the head with the bowling pin. He and Roberta are suddenly back together. They walk up a flight of stairs. Doc, 10K, and Lily meet them, and Doc asks if they’re sure this is the right stairwell. Murphy says he doesn’t hear any birds, and a bird poop plops on his shoulder. He says, crap, literally, as he brushes it off.

Murphy asks where Lucy is. Roberta says to keep moving; maybe she’s ahead of them. They get to the roof, and the door opens to a wheat field. They see six crates in the distance, and the noise happens.

I just keep saying what the hell? over and over.

We see a room with a million crates in it. Murphy asks what they do now, and Doc says he’s going to curl up and die. Roberta says nobody is going to die. She may not know much or pretend to understand what she does know, but certain death in this place isn’t their fate. She knows something bad is coming, and she’s supposed to stop it. She doesn’t know why; she just feels it, the way she felt when she first saw Murphy. She didn’t know how why or what was coming next, but knew her job was to get him wherever he was going.

Lucy busts open Murphy’s crate. She’s with Carson, and they get everyone out. She says the zombies won’t hurt them, and Carson knows the way. They start going up some stairs, but the stranger comes busting through the door with a woman. They’re armed, and he tells the group to freeze. He doesn’t want to, but he’s supposed to stop them. He grabs Lucy, and says, everyone back. Roberta tells him that’s not going to happen, and Carson tackles him. His gun goes off, shooting the woman with him. Carson and the woman start feeding on the stranger. Lucy tries to get to Carson, but Murphy pulls her back, saying she can’t help them now.

They get outside to the field, and Roberta tells them to run, now. As they reach the road, Murphy falls, and they realize he’s been bitten. He’s sweaty and shaking, and Doc says he thought Murphy was immune. Roberta tells him not anymore, and asks Murphy if he can walk. He tells her that he can try, and they help him up.

They find the truck, and a car has been left there from the last group of victims. They get in it, and speed off with Roberta driving. Murphy is going in and out of consciousness. Lucy asks Doc to help him, and Doc asks Roberta what to do, but she’s mesmerized by the black rainbow in her mind.

Next time, Frankenzombie experiments.

😵 I’m assuming, since stranger dude said this was bigger than the apocalypse, we’ll revisit what went on in this episode in the future. I swear I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this. It was really that incomprehensible. Lots of thrills, but quite the puzzlement.