On this week's episode, everything jumps ahead 9 days and the military has fenced in the neighborhood; however, the power is only running at certain times of the day. Tension is getting a little high in the household as Travis and Madison argue like everything in the world is perfectly fine. Chris spends time on the roof and thinks someone is alive outside of the neighborhood, even though the military says everyone is dead.
Travis is ordered by the military to go check on his next door neighbor, Doug, who has locked himself in the bathroom. He's not doing the health screenings required by the military. Travis gets him to cooperate. Meanwhile, Nick is stealing painkillers from his dying neighbor. Ofelia is using someone in the military, who has a crush on her, in order to get medicine for her mother.
Doug ends up disappearing one night. Travis heads out to try and find him. Travis finds his car abandoned. The military guy in charge is little to no help. Doug was brought to a military facility for help. Travis mentions the light his son saw and again, the man is no help.
Madison decides to take action into her own hands and heads out to find who is behind the light. She stumbles upon quite a few dead bodies, all shot in the head.
Madison returns and talks to Daniel. Madison tells him about all the dead bodies, which were shot in the head. Daniel explains when he was young, the government came to town and took people away. Daniel found the bodies, all dead, in the river. Daniel says he's going off with his wife to the military run facility so she can get help. Daniel says if he doesn't return, Madison needs to take care of Ofelia.
Madison finds Nick looking for drugs and gives him a good smacking. The military shows up to take Daniel and his wife away. Daniel isn't allowed to go with them though and they're taking Nick instead. Liza chooses to go with the military to help at the facility. Madison sees Liza go and blames her for Nick being taken away.
Solid opening to the show this week. It feels like everything back to normal. We've jumped ahead 9 days, since the military came in and took control of everything. Travis running around the block, with the music playing over everything is a nice way to start everything up.
This episode really looks at both the good side and bad side of the military. Sure, the case could be made that they're more bad than good, but the whole point that seems to be made is that they're trying to maintain order and keep everyone in that area safe. Other areas aren't so lucky, as there's an obvious shoot to kill order going on. More than anything else, you'll be wondering why is that area safe? Why do they get to live while others die?
Having Madison go out into the world reinforced the idea that the military is keeping everyone safe, and it also put the "fear of god" into her and everyone watching the show. There's a large element of mistrust between the people and the military. They seem to be working in this grey area for the greater good, but it's just so hard to place them as the good guys or bad guys here, except for the head military officer Travis talked to. That guy was a complete jerk.
The moment of the episode was Nick being taken away by the military, simply because he's an awful person in the world and an awful character on the show. His story, on the surface, struggling with drug abuse, seems it would work, but it falls flat and becomes merely a frustration for the episode. The execution of Nick's story simply doesn't work and it hasn't worked since the beginning of this series.
The biggest bummer of all of this is learning that this season is only 6 episodes long and that the whole fall of civilization aspect of the show feels glossed over since this episode jumped ahead 9 days, when a lot the area has been cleaned out.
This episode of the show is solid. It's not amazing, but it does build the world up pretty well. We don't need to see zombies to enjoy the show because the show isn't about zombies. Almost everything in the episode works exceptionally well, except for Nick. He's the worst. Overall, the show continues to be surprisingly solid and it's a little bit of a bummer this is only going 6 episodes for the first season.
Questions of the Week:
- Why does Alicia keep going out on her own?
- How long before this quarantined area falls to walkers or people just fed up being trapped there?
- Is Nick the least likable character in the history of television?
- Why is that neighborhood so important that the military isn't shooting everyone?