Welcome back to the best blood-splattering, brain-eating, crazy-scheming show of the apocalypse! This week on Z Nation, we only follow two main characters: Murphy (Keith Allan) and 10K (Nat Zang). We’ll see 10K channel Captain America using a hubcap in place of a shield, and Murphy try his hand at several new pursuits, including palm reading and detective work. We’ll also see 10K put a spin on the tale of Joseph from the Bible to fake his own death!
Seeing Red | We start “Little Red and the WolfZ” with 10K. Having jumped into the roaring river at the end of the previous episode, he comes to in the water. He makes it to the bank, and finds that he has a wound in his side. Murphy’s lackey, Will Chaffin (Aaron Trainor), is still in hot pursuit, so 10K drifts downriver on a piece of wood that he finds floating past. As he passes in and out of consciousness, he dreams of being with Red (Natalie Jongjaroenlarp), and several times, her voice wakes him up. He eventually leaves the river, and steals a motorcycle from a traveler. However, he’s not the only enterprising survivor out there. A man and woman clothesline 10K with a rope, knock him out, steal the motorcycle and the bag of injectors, and chain him to a car. 10K dreams again of Red, and is about to kiss her when he wakes up. Zombies are approaching, and he is weaponless. Despite being injured and chained to a car, he manages to kill quite a few, using a hubcap, a windshield wiper, a comb, and the chain. Just as he is about to collapse, Will finds him and shoos the zombies away. He figures out that 10K has been using Murphy’s booster shots to make himself immune to Murphy, so he and 10K set off to recover the bag of injectors. Several times throughout this episode, we see through the eyes of a pack of creatures that are either zombies, wolves, or zombified wolves. We see them tear through a deer, and decimate the man who stole 10K’s motorcycle.
10K tries a couple times to escape from Will, but as he’s injured, it’s hopeless. Will decides to teach him a lesson about what the world is like without Murphy, and lets a zombie get dangerously close to biting 10K. 10K, army-crawling on the ground with his hands tied, begs Will to shoot the zombie, yelling, “I don’t want to be afraid anymore!” Will thinks 10K has learned his lesson, as he shoots the zombie and unties 10K’s hands. They find 10K’s motorcycle, next to what’s left of the man, but the woman has escaped with the injectors. Will decides they should return to Murphy for backup, but then Red tells 10K to run, so he does. This time, he gets the jump on Will, but stops short at the edge of a small cliff. On the ground beside him is the carcass of the deer who was eaten by the wolves or zombies, and 10K gets an idea. When Will reaches the cliff’s edge, he sees a large area of blood-soaked ground, and 10K’s shirt. Hiding in a hollow at the base of the cliff is 10K, with the deer carcass. 10K thinks he hears 5K (Holden Goyette) crying for help, so he follows them. He sees the wolf-zombies clustered around what he thinks is 5K’s body, so he kills them. He rolls over 5K’s body, only to have it turn into the reanimated corpse of the woman who has his injectors. Once 10K’s head clears a little, he realizes that the wolves are zombified military men, with gas masks of some sort. 10K stumbles onward, and as he reaches the highway, he feels Red touch his arm. He spins and falls to the ground, and sees some injectors spill out of his bag. Hallucinations must be what Merch meant when she told him he’d know when it was time to inject again. 10K sticks himself with one like it’s an epipen, and convulses. At least this means he gets to see some more of Red, who holds his head in her lap while he awakens. 5K comes running up, and for a moment, we can imagine the trio as one big happy family. 5K runs off, and Red asks 10K if he knows that she’s not real. 10K doesn’t care, and almost kisses her again, and then starts to wake up as we hear boots crunching on gravel and see a shadow fall across his prone body.
Brain Food | Murphy has Merch’s (Lisa Coronado) body in a chair in her lab. He tries to figure out why she committed suicide, thinking it had to have been an accident. He finds an injector in her pocket, but thinks that she must have accidentally injected herself with the original vaccine, which made her less zombie-proof. But Murphy slowly comes to realize that she must have done it intentionally. He has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Merch chose death over being part of Murphy’s world. Just as booster shots of the vaccine keep Murphy from turning fully zombie, it also makes Murphy’s blends more human and less zombie. Since Merch is dead, Murphy sets out to make more of the blend vaccine and more booster shots for himself. The only problem? He doesn’t know the slightest thing about chemistry. He eyes Merch’s exposed brain several times, eventually giving in and having a snack. And what’s a more effective way of learning than just consuming the brains of someone who knew what you want to know? The next time we see Murphy, he’s a complete whiz at chemistry. He’s figured out the problem with the vaccine, but is interrupted by Will, who comes in holding 10K’s shirt. Murphy doesn’t believe for a second that 10K is dead, though, since Will didn’t see him die. “That kid has 10 thousand lives,” he tells Will. Murphy knows 10K will find Warren, and they’ll come for him, so Murphy and his people need to start preparing for a battle, a siege, or both!
Who found 10K’s unconscious body? Will we ever see Red and 5K again for real? And what has The Man been up to all this time?!
Tune in to Syfy on Fridays at 9/8c to find out what happens next on Z Nation!
