With Nick dead it’s
time for a roadtrip down memory lane, with Althea asking the three survivors
their story while also giving them chance to stop or back off if they wanted to
since they’re all clearly doing stuff
They all tell the
story of the day when they think everything changed and went terribadly wrong
and how they all ended up where they are now. This is the day when they could
have stopped it all.
So way back when
Madison is still determined to hang around despite the Vultures camping on
their doorstep. The head of the Vultures, Mel (I think) has a cautionary tale
because he and his brother Ennis back in the day also had a nice settlement in
a place surrounded by wildfires. Unfortunately they convinced their fellow
settlers to stay and not run from the fires - and everyone but them die. And lo
we now know how the Vultures started; they know settlements fail so scavenge
from them because their settlement fails. Which… I guess but I think “let’s
just not ignore wildfires” may be the better message
Or maybe people could
possibly try different locations? Wildfires, rotting oil refineries? Trying to
grow crops in a sports pitch - no doubt full of chemicals and heavily pounded
and well used? Or maybe not the South-west? I mean a desert or semi-desert?
With medieval level technology from a load of urbanites who have never grown a
potted plant before? This is perhaps not an ideal place to set up.
Anyways, we flashback
to three teams who went out on this oh-so-ominous day. Nick and Luciana, Victor
and Cole, Naomi and Alicia. All have basically the same theme - the choice
whether to run away or stick with the stadium
Victor and Cole go
scavenging food with Victor warning Cole to keep his distance because if they
get too close he’s such a bad person. All of this comes with the prior
knowledge that Victor is gay and Cole is probably gay and making moves on
Victor but without anyone expressly stating it but I’m hoping after this
episode we can stop allowing subtext and assumption carry this relationship.
Anyway, Cole finds out that Victor has a huge stash of food in case he has to
run away which he shows to Cole with an offer that they can both run off
together with a huge stash of food and never return.
Cole was just trying
to get you to notice him, man, now you want to run off into the sunset
together? Put on the breaks and slow it down, Victor?
Cole decides to go
with no here - mainly because he really doesn’t want to abandon everyone who is
starving in the stadium. But I think also because he may not even know Victor’s
last name and he wants to elope.
Cole goes back to
town and Victor follows with his own stash, not telling everyone he was about
to run and presenting his hoard as something he found
Next group is Naomi
and Alicia who find another failed settlement at a waterpark (it had a fence so
was secure until the fence failed because water parks don’t really have
security against zombie hordes). This involves lots of close calls trying to
climb up slippery slides because slides are slippery and this shouldn’t be a
surprise because they’re slides. It’s kind of what they’re for. If they weren’t
slippery the park would be sued for unpleasant chafing.
They find another
stash of supplies and Naomi almost bails on Alicia. Alicia has a really great
moment with Naomi, discussing how Naomi doesn’t have to tell them all her past
drama - because everyone has past drama - but they do kind of need to rely on
her and not have her bail. She also suggests that maybe Naomi’s certainty is
wrong and maybe she should give them a chance. Which she does.
And lastly we have
Luciana and Nick. And Nick has decided to go to hunt for books because he wants
to build a future with hope and stuff. Which is nice but, y’know, starving?
They find a book of
maps of the southwest of the US and Luciana encourages Nick to flip to a page
and just pick somewhere for them to move to rather than staying put. Which is
not exactly a sensible job of planning for the future, but whatever. Instead
they seize on going for an extra extra long road trip to pick up seeds and
fertiliser to make the the stadium work.
So all of them decide
to stay and this is why they decided this was the bad day - because this was
the day when they could have all decided to abandon the stadium and set up
elsewhere. Because they don’t do this, it led to all the events that eventually
led to Nick’s death
All mournful story
told, it’s time for them to go to bury Nick’s body. Along the way we learn John
Dory used to be a policeman and he’s worried that as soon as they’ve finished
this story arc, then Morgan will abandon them. Which is well found because
Morgan is clear that yes he’ll do just that
Except when they go
to bury Nick they find the guys have been tricking them and they’ve actually
just been after a stash of weapons. Many many weapons. Which they intend to use
on a big revenge assault on the Vultures which Althea and co aren’t super fans
of. But in digging up the stash they also dig up some of Naomi’s old stuff -
turns out she was actually John’s missing beloved Laura. And she’s dead
John is devastated by
this and wants to be left alone - so Morgan, a man whose entire life is all
about being left alone, decides to stay with him while Althea reluctantly goes
along with the others on their revenge crusade
