Tonight’s the night when we finally rejoin our zombie-slaying group of begrudging heroes! In Z Nation: A New Mission, we’ll see if 10K survived the submarine explosion, Citizen Z will get some skin-on-skin action, and an old foe will set off on a new mission.
“Thought that was gonna go a different way.” | Episode 3×03 picks up right where season 2 left off—Warren (Kellita Smith), Addy (Anastasia Baranova), Doc (Russel Hodgkinson), and Hector (Escorpion) (Emilio Rivera) are surrounded by foreign military personnel, who take them captive. They don’t speak English, but our group recognizes the name “Murphy” from their chatter.
We next rejoin Murphy (Keith Allan) and his crew. He’s bitten Dr. Merch (Lisa Coronado), the submarine captain (Robert Shampain), and two other men, and they pilot their escape boat toward the beach. Murphy has the half-zombies unload all their gear from the boat, and then we see 10K (Nat Zang) sit up from the bottom of the boat. Thank goodness! We thought he’d been left behind in the exploding submarine. 10K says that they have to find, Doc, Warren, and Addy, but Murphy tells him that they’re going their own way now. He’s going to start a new world. 10K says he won’t go with Murphy, but sits down on the backseat of the ATV they find anyway.
“Have you seen a kid with black spiky hair and brooding good looks?” | Sun Mei (Sydney Viengluang), the woman in charge of the military force that captured Doc, Warren, Addy, and Hector reveals that she does speak English. She scans their faces with a device that tells her who they are, then takes blood samples. She asks where Murphy is, claiming that his blood is their mission. Just then, they receive a call on their radio in Chinese, from a large airplane flying nearby, and the soldiers haul Warren, Doc, Addy, and Hector to their feet.
Murphy, his zombie slave-army, and 10K, are driving inland when they are ambushed by a group of screaming hillfolk. They kill the submarine captain with a weapon made out of an animal jawbone, and 10K picks them off with his rifle. As the group surveys their losses, they see the plane that the soldiers had contacted fly overhead.
We return to the captive Delta Xray Delta, and see the plane drop several large packages with parachutes. Sun Mei says that they must reach the supply drop before anything or anyone else does, and a race between the military group and more screaming hillfolk begins.
Now, we catch up with Citizen Z (DJ Qualls), who we left frozen solid at the North Pole. He’s in a bed, and as he opens his eyes, he sees a blurry face looking down at him. When he next wakes up, the bearer of the blurry face is in the bed next to him—naked and sound asleep. Citizen Z sees Pup sitting in a corner of the room, drinking water from a bowl.
“I guess they never heard of a kill shot.” | Sun Mei and her prisoners encounter a few zombies. The soldiers apparently don’t know that you only have to kill the brain to kill the zombie, and shoot them full of holes. Then, a larger group of zombies stumbles into view. Instead of firing, the soldiers roll a ball with a green laser into their midst. The laser splits into several lasers, each beam pinpointing a head, then sending a spike through it. Another zombie sneaks up from the side, but Hector and Warren prevent it from reaching Sun Mei, though their hands are tied. This evidently makes Sun trust the group enough to free their hands.
Sun tells them that she is a doctor from Laos, trained in Beijing. Only 200,000 of the residents of Beijing survived, and the best doctors and leaders from all over Asia holed up in the Forbidden City. They have plenty of supplies and resources, but have been unsuccessful in creating a vaccine. That’s why they’re looking for Murphy.
“The age of blends is inevitable—my gift to this cesspool of a world.” | Murphy, 10K, Dr. Merch, and the two soldiers who survived the hillfolk are driving in an ATV when Murphy suddenly stops. 10K jumps off the back and takes off, running confusedly through the forest. He finds himself standing in front of Murphy, back where he started, and demands to know what’s going on. Suddenly, they hear a ruckus, and see trees falling down. A snowball of zombies eating each other rolls into the clearing where they’re parked, leaving a trail of blood behind it. It rolls off over a hill and disappears. Murphy tells Dr. Merch that they’re eating each other because they’re starving, and that this is what will happen to the entire world without him. Merch asks what he’s going to do with her, and Murphy tells her that she’ll help him bring Murphy to the masses. He plans to turn everyone into blends. 10K shoots a couple of zombies, and Murphy notes that he’s stopped counting his kills.
Sun Mei decides to return everyone’s weapons to them. She says that they’ve been watching surveillance of Delta Xray Delta, and learned about them. They’ve designed Addy a new Z Whacker, with a button that electrifies the spikes. Hector gets a pistol with a knife blade attached underneath the barrel, like a bayonet. Warren gets a pistol and her machete, and Doc gets a revolver. More wild hillfolk watch from behind trees.
“Citizen Z, I know. I’m a huge fan. Not in a Kathy-Bates-with-a-sledgehammer kind of way.” | Citizen Z wakes up again, this time alone in the bed. He stands and stretches, then just about leaps out of his skin when he sees the girl sitting in a chair behind him. He hastily covers his front with the sleeping bag from the bed. She introduces herself as Kaya (Ramona Young), and tells him that he was out for 2 days. He asks if it was her in bed with him, and she tells him that he had hypothermia, and that skin-on-skin contact is the best way to warm your core temperature. She says that it was either her or Nana, cause her uncle Kaskae (Cecil Cheeka) wasn’t going to do it. He then turns and sees a woman and a man sitting at a table behind him, with a nice view of his exposed butt. Awkward.
After Citizen Z gets dressed, we see him standing outside with Kaya and Kaskae, looking over the frozen landscape. Kaya tells him that she’s probably his biggest fan, and has been listening to him since Day 1. Citizen Z asks where all the zombies are, and Kaskae says that not many people lived up there, and the zombies can’t survive in the cold.
Sun asks Warren if she’ll help them find Murphy. She needs to get Murphy’s blood back to her lab on their aircraft carrier. They had used all the available fuel in Asia to get to California, and this was their last hope. Warren asks if the cure will be for everyone, and Sun seems offended at the thought that it wouldn’t be.
“Well, put your dancing shoes on. There’s gonna be a party.” | They approach where the supply drop landed. It’s broken through the roof of an abandoned factory. The people following them circle around and run for the factory, and Hector realizes that they’ve had their brains fried by drugs. He calls them “enders.” Our group enters the factory, the soldiers in front. They reach a group of the enders, wielding axes and knives, and a soldier throws the laser-targeted ball. One of the people throws it back, however, and it kills all of the soldiers except for one. The enders attack, and Addy, Hector, Doc, and Warren dispatch them quickly. The one surviving soldier gets bit by a zombie soon after. They finally find the supply drop, only to discover that someone beat them to it, and took everything.
“Does this mean there’s a new mission?” | Sun Mei says that she can’t radio the aircraft carrier for another supply drop, because there are no more supplies to be dropped, and her radio got broken in the fight. She is ready to give up, but Warren says that she’s part of Warren’s mission now. They’re going to find Murphy, and Sun is going to make a vaccine. Just then, Mr. Smurf himself rolls up in the armored vehicle from the supply drop. Doc asks about 10K, and Murphy shakes his head. He refuses to let Sun work on a cure from his blood, saying instead that he’s going to start a new world. He’s borrowing Sun’s ride and her medical equipment for that purpose.
Warren draws her gun and tells Murphy to get out of the vehicle. A warning shot hits the ground next to Warren, and they realize someone is on top of the factory. Doc and Addy think it must be 10K, and they’re right, but they don’t know for sure. Suddenly, a group of enders crest a hill near the factory, so Murphy asks Delta Xray Delta if they want to go with him, and when they refuse, he drives away. 10K picks off any enders who get too close to Warren’s group as they run, then Murphy stops to pick 10K up. As he opens the back door of the vehicle, we see teeth marks from Murphy on the back of 10K’s neck.
Warren, Doc, Addy, Hector, and Sun walk back the way they came. Sun asks if she’s their prisoner now, and Warren says she’s gonna try trusting her, for starters. Doc and Addy discuss 10K, and how it had to have been him making those shots, but Addy says they have to let him go, otherwise they’ll drive themselves crazy. The group reaches Hector’s truck and hop in. Warren announces that they’re going to stop Murphy from creating his blend army.
Citizen Z and his hosts sit outside, watching the northern lights. Kaya tells him that she’s glad he’s there.
We see some familiar sandaled feet stepping over the bodies in the factory. The Man (Joseph Gatt) is back! He pulls out another piece of paper, but this one only has one name: Alvin Bernard Murphy. He walks out of the building and follows the tracks the vehicle left.
Z Nation airs Fridays at 9pm on Syfy.