Z Nation: White Light Recap

Synopsis for 2×02: The bar bounty hunter wasn’t the only one to heed the broadcast about capturing Murphy. What was a dangerous situation becomes an even more deadly free-for-all that not everyone walks away from.

Rating: ★★★★★

After last week’s thawing out, Citizen Z is still scouring what’s left of Camp Northern Lights for his zombified coworkers. Two attack him as he’s wandering in fear, which may become the recurring theme for him this season.

Murphy and Cassandra are running from the bounty hunter, who is also being chased by Warren and the group, when a rival car of bounty hunters drives by. Without hesitation the bounty hunter from the club kills them and continues on, leaving Warren’s group to deal with the fallout. They’re attacked by a mom in a minivan, as well as a man with a rocket launcher as it becomes clear that everyone is out for Murphy after last week’s broadcast.

Another group of hillbilly bounty hunters plan to take Murphy by breaking his kneecaps and bagging his head, which doesn’t bode well for the renegade Murphy. When a group of zombies get near enough to Murphy to give away his locale, he tells them, ‘Shoo! Shoo! Go home!’ and it becomes everyone in a free for all of zombie killing and Murphy catching. When the soccer mom nearly takes him, Cassandra comes out of the woodwork to save him last minute.

But before he can make it too far, 10K tackles him to take Murphy with them, only to be attacked by the man with the rocket launcher  – incapacitating him so he can only watch while Murphy and Cassandra take their exit. Luckily, the rest of the group catches up to him before anything too terrible can happen to him. Oh, I guess except he’s deaf…

Warren makes the leadership decision to kill the bounty hunters and split up into groups to better get to Murphy. Doc and deaf 10K split off first, with Mack and Addy making their own way after an incident involving Maddy and a bullet grazing her face. Mack and Addy end up in a building with other bounty hunters while Doc and 10K struggle to get around quietly. Inside the building, Addy seems to be losing her touch as she narrowly avoids the human enemy while struggling to get rid of the undead one that catches her unaware.

Warren catches up to the original bounty hunter from the bar, but hesitates to kill him and instead ends up once again chasing him as he chases Murphy’s distraction. When he stopped to regroup, he found a zombie to dress up in his clothes and serve as his doppelganger. Cassandra is then able to attack him. Good for Pisay Pao for doing stunts in that outfit. Warren is witness to her chasing him off and then attacked by one of the hillbilly hunters. While running from her he stumbles upon Murphy and makes the genial comment of, ‘Slow down dude!’

Outside, 10K still can’t hear, making it difficult to formulate any kind of plan, even though he quickly figures out where they’re being fired on from. Doc makes a run for the building in an attempt to get close to the guy while 10K distracts him. He breaks into the room to kill the guy, only to find he’s out of bullets. Doing surprisingly well for himself in the fight, he throws his gun at him and then they both hesitate to attack each other before getting into a pretty gruesome fight.

As he almost passes out, Doc hallucinates himself floating up to the ceiling when he sees a nail file at the top of the filing cabinet, hits it, and stabs the man in the neck. Murphy greets him as he runs past, narrowly missing 10K, and they’re off on the hunt again.

Meanwhile, Citizen Z is still on the hunt himself. Why he’s never explored these areas before, I don’t know – likewise, why he hasn’t figured out how to better bottleneck them to keep himself safe is just rookie mistake after rookie mistake. Much like Addy had a flashback to her childhood when her life was threatened, he had the same experience of flashing back to old memories.

In the building with Murphy and the hillbilly hunters, Warren catches up to the leader and they have a stand-off where she manages to shoot him in the face, though he’s still alive. Incapacitated, she has a memory hallucination and passes out as the bar bounty hunter saves her life and then revives her with smelling salts.

Mack and Addy get separated by a horde of zombies, with Mack in the dark. Warren and the bounty hunter catch up with Doc and 10K and head up to the roof – where we last saw Murphy. When Warren gets close to him, he’s pacing the roof morosely. After a brief argument, he throws himself off the roof, only to brace his fall in a pool full of zombies. The group is forced to run back downstairs after him.

Sadly, when Addy reunites with Mack, it’s already too late. She breaks through the lock on the door separating them only to watch him being feasted on by a whole lot of puppies and kittens. She watches sadly until he re-animates and then puts one right between his eyes.

Murphy makes it back to the van in an attempt to make his grand escape, but stops for Cassandra – which gives Addy enough time to catch up to him and beat his ass. The rest of the group makes their way to them and when Warren asks where Mack is, there’s a quiet that settles over them at the realization. All fight out of them, the group ties Murphy up and piles into the van as they figure out their next move.

The man with the rocket launcher survives to patiently wait and we saw none of Pie Girl this week, so there are still plenty of unanswered questions even as we’re emotionally socked in the jaw. Can this be another dream? Can Murphy go back and revive Mack and put him in stripper clothes like Cassandra? But really, can this be another dream?