We are approaching the winter finales for most network shows, and so, death is in the air everywhere, with tensions rising, danger lurking, and fans bracing for their favorite characters to be whacked any moment now. And, with Z Nation’s season one finale just two weeks away, this is even more true. We saw this ever so painfully in last night’s episode where we lost yet another survivor, and quite possibly a second one. On the upside, the episode wasn’t all gloom and doom, with one other character having a particular good day (to say the least!), which quite possibly opened the door to what I see as a huge storyline going towards the season finale and into season 2.

If you are familiar with The Walking Dead, you’ll know one of the biggest arcs in the series is that of the Governor and Woodbury. You have a fortified community, with gardens, homes, people with real jobs, and a very charismatic, soft-spoken leader who claims his Woodbury is one of the last bits of civilization, peace, and humanity. Well, take away all of the men, transform the one-eye Governor into a heavy-set woman, and you pretty much have the setting for last night’s episode.

After Mack (Michael Welch) and Addy (Anastasia Baranova) are reunited with the rest of the group thanks to Citizen Z (DJ Quall), they are on their way when they encounter several Z-children on the highway. We know that seeing a child zombie isn’t all that unusual but seeing several all clustered together like that is alarming, and when they finally see a boy that is actually alive, they decide to pull over. The boy’s name is Sam, and he claims he is on his way to Salt Lake City to see his father.   When questioned further by Warren (Kellita Smith), we discover he’s from a community led by his friend “Helen.” This piques Warren’s interest, and so, she agrees to take Sam all the way to Salt Lake City, if he takes her to this community. Big, big mistake.

On the outside looking in, this place looks like a paradise in a dream. Beautiful gardens, running water, children playing and acting like everything is normal. A snapshot of what the world used to be. But, as we know, looks can be very deceiving, and in this case, that couldn’t be more true. The community’s leader is Helen (Kelly McGillis), a tough-as-nails woman and also a survivor of spousal abuse. Likely because of her own background, she and everyone else in the group banished men a long time ago. What’s more, if they encounter another survivor who has been abused by a man, they take care of the situation with their own unique brand of justice. And, just what does this “justice” entail? It involves tracking the poor guy down and feeding him to their very own pet zombie bear. If that isn’t “cruel and unusual punishment,” I don’t know what is!

Now, some may argue that these men had it coming to them, and there may be some truth to that.   However, this isn’t what made this group bad, in my opinion. The thing about them that made my skin crawl is their method of recruiting new members. It involves Helen casing out women they encounter and looking for the weak ones, the ones who are vulnerable, have emotional problems and who can easily be manipulated. And, when Warren, Cassandra (Pisay Pao) and Addy entered that compound, I already knew who would be Helen’s target.

We know from the episode two weeks ago how damaged Addy is. The realization that she had killed her own mother was major, and from her actions at the beginning of this episode, it doesn’t look like she is dealing with it very well. We should recall that Warren had her moment after Garnett’s (Tom Everett Scott) death, but she quickly got past it and seems just fine now. My gut has been telling me Addy wasn’t going to come back from this.

And, that turned out to be true. Addy was lost, needed guidance, and while she still had Mack, she really needed something more. For the lack of a better word, she needed her Mother back. And, Helen saw this right off the bat, and zoomed in on it. She told Addy exactly what she needed to hear and quickly became the “Mother” that Addy lost so long ago. That took away her pain (at least for the moment), and keeping that feeling and sense of peace became so important that she was willing to give up her friends as well as Mack.

I have been very angry with Mack every since he tried to convince Addy to run off with him and leave the group, but I am glad to say that Mack redeemed himself in my eyes last night. When Addy decides to stay, he keeps his promise to her that he would never leave. He runs back to the compound, and while we don’t know what exactly happened, we hear gunfire, and we can probably assume the worse. To make the moment even more painful, that creepy scene at the end with the little girl holding Addy’s butterfly necklace sent chills down my spine. In all likelihood, Addy wouldn’t take off that necklace — ever. So, if she’s not wearing it, my guess is she’s dead. We can speculate all day long about what happened in those moments we didn’t see, but at the end of the day, I don’t see either of these characters coming back anytime soon. And, that really sucks for a big part of the Z Nation fandom out there.

Okay, this entire storyline has made me completely down in the dumps, and so, let’s dig ourselves out and talk about the bright side of this episode. I interviewed Russell Hodgkinson (“Doc”) a couple of weeks ago, and he teased that we would be very surprised with who gets laid next and that it was “kind of kinky.” Ever since then I have been betting it would be Murphy (Keith Allan), and while I was right, I never would have guessed it would turn out the way it did. The Standout Scene of the night goes to Murphy and his giddy nymphomaniac gal-pal who has a freaky fetish for baked goods. I think the movie American Pie just got toppled for holding the honor of kinkiest sex scene involving a pie. Oh. My. Freaking. God. It’s the zombie apocalypse, and so who could possibly resist a cute buxom blonde girl holding a warm, yummy pie? With the way Murphy looks and girls certainly not lining up for the guy, Murphy definitely couldn’t. A big high-five, dude! You just made it in the zombie apocalypse AND you beat out probably the best-looking guy in the group, 10K (Nat Zang). Something tells me Murphy might have a big head in the next episode.

But, this actually wasn’t the best part. That comes at the very end when we see the girl Murphy banged rubbing her stomach. At that moment, I actually screamed “Oh, crap!!” at the television set. Yeah, folks, it looks like Murphy’s little one-night stand may be preggers. This is huge and likely is being set up as a major storyline going into the season finale or possibly season 2. If she’s pregnant, will the baby be normal? Will he be immune like Murphy? Or will he just turn into a zombie and eat his way out of the poor girl? Very, very interesting and exciting stuff coming our way.

I really liked this episode and for many reasons. First, the end result was very realistic. As much as I liked Addy, the fact is she was broken and it was unlikely she could continue with this group. She needed to find a place where she belonged, and it wasn’t going to be with this group of survivors on a mission to California. In my eyes, this is the only path the Mack and Addy storyline could have taken. Yeah, it was painful as hell, but it made sense and it felt right.  Sorry folks. Now you can throw all the eggs my way.

What’s more, doing this to not one but TWO main characters and in a single episode takes some real balls. It’s never easy to kill of characters — especially main characters — but it’s an apocalypse series, people. It’s going to happen! My admiration for the writing team has actually risen to a whole new level after last night’s episode, and so a big kudos to all of you.

The scary thing is we lost two characters (at least for the time being — they may be back), and we still have two episodes left in the season. Most series reserve big events like this for the penultimate episode or season finale. That said, hold onto to your seat and brace yourselves, folks, because if last night is any indication, we can expect a hell of a ride in these final two episodes of the season.

Z Nation airs on Fridays at 10/9c on Syfy.

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