The gang needs to
find the president to use their thumbs to stop Black Rain from destroying the
world
So to Mount Weather
(and is it me or has this whole season kind of had an almost Game of Thrones
like measure of transportation zooming all over America with relative ease)
where, apparently the President and entire government flee and hold up in the
event of the US facing a terrible disaster like nuclear war or a Trump
re-election.
Lilley confirms this
as she used to get orders from there before everything fell apart even more
than usual.
Of course there are
zombies so there’s some secret service agents to kill - and they find the
President’s husband. This is useful because they need his keycard and eye to
open the secure door.
Doc uses the eye. And
it’s the worst most horrible horrible horrible thing you’ve ever seen on
television. There is not enough ewwww in the world.
Inside Mount Weather
we find the remains of congress and the senate, all zombies now who have to be
killed with lots and lots and lots and lots of political puns.
Of course they do.
Honestly it’s corny
but it works, I smiled - and it was a good balance of the zany and the serious
that Z Nation does so well. We also have Doc’s snark about always having
to have big show downs underground. Poor Doc.
We also have the
department of Cryptozoology which I hope is going to be more than a throwaway
joke. In the fighting we also get a little snark from Lillely about 10ks
superlative accuracy
Until they finally
find some living secret service agents. Agent Johnson and Agent Johnson who are
not that helpful and certainly not thrilled about letting Warren speak to the
President despite her talk of Black Rainbow. She happens to be passing though
(the President is an Asian woman) and insists on listening. It turns out that
the President and her two secret service agents are the only humans left in
Mount Weather, nearly everyone else has already left.
Also she has no thumbs
The Man with the Plan
from Zona got there before them and demanded she give up her thumbs or be
murdered and give up her thumbs. She chose the former and is now thumbless
which is a problem since access to Black Rainbow requires a president’s thumbs
- but The President points out the obvious: She is not the president who was in
power when things like Black Rainbow mattered. Due to a huge death rate and a
very long and complex chain of command, she was actually the assistant to the
Secretary of Labour and basically President because she’s the last politician
standing. So they don’t want her thumbs - they want the thumbs of the president
who was in charge at the time.
But first she shows
them a video - which is a definite Fallout reference - showing Black Rain is.
This was envisaged as a “fourth strike” weapon should the US lose a nuclear war
with the USSR. They reasoned that since the USSR has a lot of territory, they’d
probably have more land that isn’t irradiated so be able to breed and
repopulate the world and colonise the US and ultimately win. So Black Rain,
which uses drones to seed the clouds with flesh-eating bacteria which will then
kill ALL THE THINGS. It’s quite nasty.
So they need the old
president in a near suicide mission. This involves going down to a zombie
infested floor full of the cabinet, various dignitaries and the cast of
Hamilton and examining each zombie one by one to see if it’s the President. They
also keep poking Murphy to see if he can use his re-emerging zombie power to
find the right zombie, he doesn’t.
In the fight Warren
is separated and ends up on “floor omega” where she finds the zombie president
- already tied up. She brings him up to the now empty zombie floor and they’re
ready to stop Black Rainbow
To which the
President says “wait, what?!”
The President does
not want to stop Black Rainbow - she wants Black Rainbow. That’s why Warren is
there - hence her carrying those two cylinders, apparently full of toxins,
she’s here to trigger Black Rainbow. When Warren says nope the Secret Service
Agents and Lilley pull guns on her
Yes, Lilley. Because
she’s a soldier who swore and oath to obey POTUS and refuses to refuse a direct
order from the Commander in Chief.
So Teller wants the
Reset and the President intends to evacuate to Zona - Newmerica is doomed along
with everything else: zombie, ender and “low value human” leaving only the
“right people” left to vote for her
Questions:
- Warren
and Murphy didn’t feel the need to mention that Zona is having “problems”
with their cure. Zona was falling apart when they left.
- Why
did the Man With a Plan cut off the President’s thumbs if she’s on side?
This is when Lilley
changes sides again - because following the President’s orders takes second
place to wiping out all but a chosen few members of humanity. She shoots the
President; insisting a soldier is required to disobey any order that is
manifestly unjust.
The President and
Secret Service Agents rise as Mad Zs and need a ridiculous amount of firepower
(Lilley and 10k and big Machine guns) and Warren destroying the president with
visions and a big metal flag pole
From here the team
heads to DC to continue stopping Black Rainbow
Wait, couldn’t they
just destroy the cylinders? And the President’s thumbs for that matter? I mean
we’ve just learned that Warren is basically the catalyst for Black Rainbow all
she has to do to stop it is Not Turn Up. Head back to Canada. Or Mexico. Or
anywhere but DC.