Z Nation Season Four (2017)

 Warren’s Dream

A two-year time jump and an apocalyptic vision open the fourth season in unexpected surroundings. Instead of the usual scrub and semi desert or empty warehouses and factories we’re in a sterilised, shiny environment amidst well-manicured lawns and impressive houses. This is ZONA and it seems that since the dramatic season three finale in which most of the cast appeared to have been killed Warren has been here in a coma. Director Abram Cox layers on the atmosphere as Roberta’s awakening from her slumber comes with strange visions of flesh melting rain, a black rainbow and long, long road. These keep flashing at us during crucial moments during this and most other episodes this season. Its definitely a change of tone for the series.

The other surprising thing is that Murphy is no longer blue in any way. Now as well turned out as the lawns, the much mooted vaccine seems to have worked meaning he looks normal and is chipper about it. Everywhere he goes people greet him cheerily and he responds like he’s the Mayor. Warren is told this is now the only place were people have survived. On top of that, her former companions are all dead. Well, that’s what they tell her but of course we’ve seen the opening credits and fairly soon we’re back in the wastelands to catch up with the crew. Doc appears to have been on the move for two years and has a Gandalfian beard to show for it, 10K and Red (she still doesn’t seem to have a name) live in a treehouse, Addy and Lucy are fighting the Zs as ever.

Plenty has happened beyond our main characters with posters all over ZONA about The Reset which the episode hints is a plan to wipe out remaining humans so zombies just starve while survivors will go to Newmerica, supposedly a safe haven  in the Arctic. They give away a bit too much in this episode which does undercut some of the later mystery the show tries to instil. In what will become a feature of this season some of the dialogue feels underwritten and perfunctory. However there is a lengthy dinner table sequence where the Founder extols the virtue of his plans and being flattered doesn’t ease Warren’s sense of paranoia. Kellita Smith is excellent as the confused Roberta tries to make some sense of it all while Keith Allan’s Murphy is positively busting with levity. Perhaps it’s just the actor so glad to get out of that blue make up after three years!

Escape from Zoma

Trouble in paradise? Of course there is. In an excellent extended opening scene we initially view the leisurely pace of life in Zona, all slow drives, cocktail glasses, golf clubs and music. Then there is an accident in which a car runs someone over and the reaction of passers by is curiosity followed by rabidly feeding on the victim. It’s an unexpected way to introduce an episode that relies as much on tension as it does action. It could almost be back in the early days of the outbreak. Something in Murphy’s blood has contaminated the vaccine meaning that far from eliminating zombies, the treatment seems to have merely delayed it. This scenario allows the production to playfully include some upper class savagery with golf clubs as Doctor Teller leads Murphy and Roberta to an escape having realised what is happening.

This development does seem to come out of the blue and might have benefitted from an episode in between as they slowly realise something is going on but it’s given an eerie feeling that serves it well. As the increasingly panicky Teller, Frank Boyle plays it with enough light and shade to hide the character’s expositional lines.  Director Abram Cox makes some strong choices to highlight the mood as Roberta keeps having those weird visions.

Equally in the other plotline there is a similar air of mystery with slower panning shots of empty vehicles and flags flying over abandoned places. A mission to find the convoy include Doc and 10K but all they find are empty lorries and are soon pinned down by snipers who happen to be the people who kidnapped Addy and Lucy last episode. There’s no happy reunion though the way things turn out. By the way, how exactly does Addy manage to look through the sites of a rifle with the eye her patch is over?

The big development this episode, which may well be linked to the goings on at Zoma, is a zombie who will not die. The show revels in depicting new ideas for the Zs and in this case despite being blasted multiple times in the head (once is normally enough to slay them) is still on its feet. The opposing sides even play a sort of ping pong with him bullets shot from one side send him in that direciton then vice versa. With a dusty location and sparse vegetation, it has the tone of a bizarre Western shoot out. And when they do get back everyone has gone from the camp they left earlier.

The Vanishing

A superbly calibrated episode proves that using zombies less frequently can pay off. Director Alexander Yellan helms an atmospheric narrative in which a small band of people are trapped by an enemy they can’t see. It’s a scenario that relies on sound as much as visions; an excellent aural soundtrack foregrounds insects, birds, even the movement of tall grasses to cook up an intimidating threat just out of sight. At the same time John Hyams’ script encompasses some callbacks to scenarios the group have been in before, something the character of Doc can easily serve.

Soon after taking off from Zoma, Warren and Murphy are reunited with Doc, Lucy and the two remaining soldiers at the camp; 10K having already gone off to look for Red. The mystery of what happened is enhanced by a series of sequences in which people think they can hear something yet nothing materialises. The best of these occurs when the Lieutenant circles a tree behind which he can hear something but when he looks there is nothing there. Only in those seconds, his sergeant has vanished.

There are hints that this is a psychological drama, that perhaps they are imagining these sounds or that it is somehow connected to Warren’s strange visions. Lucy definitely seems to feel a connection. This is the series at its best with a twist at the end when we discover that the sergeant is the Lieutenant’s daughter and has to pump half an ammunitions dump of bullets into her now zombified father to kill him. The new invincible zombie is certainly a threat that ups the ante considerably and should inspire the writers to come up with inventive new ways to disable them. You might argue there is room for a little more dialogue at times – especially at the end when they decide to go in the opposite direction to the much lauded Newmerica- but this is an episode that relies on instinct and sound as much as talk and action and surely one of the best of the whole series.

A New Mission – Keep Moving

This episode is directed extremely well by Keith Allan who finds some new ways to shoot the action, aided by an unusual setting. Our heroes are being led by Roberta through an area known as the Great Pile, a seemingly endless collection of abandoned vehicles stretching into the horizon. Lurking in here is potential danger; some zombies seem to  have been chained to bombs while there are a couple of ZONA agents around. Yet some of the group’s unease lies in the wisdom of following Warren’s hunch based on her vision.

Keith Allan’s direction impresses from the opening scene giving us a camera’s view of each of the party shooting, hitting or otherwise assaulting one of those indestructible zombies. As the action moves into the never ending car park he often shoots from inside a vehicle or above them or at different distances. Not just director’s flourishes these help generate the sense of tension that abounds in the episode. The script might have been a little more thorough in articulating the group’s concerned thoughts; an `intervention` scene could do with more meat on it. Plus surely after all their endeavours they wouldn’t be so easily overwhelmed by some human enders? However, Allan successfully guides events combining the danger with the mystical.

For all it’s circularity (by the end the group are going in the other direction after all) It feels like an important episode as well with Murphy possibly demonstrating that not all his zombie tendencies have been flushed away, though this is dropped later in the season.

The Unknowns

A sharply edited, claustrophobic episode sees the group trapped in some sort of underground base, each in wooden boxes from which they are periodically released to perform tasks by unseen arbiters. Even by this series’ standard it seems a tad unlikely especially as they are required to guess what they need to do without the help of any mysterious booming voice; surely expected for this type of episode. I say that because this is really a variation on a theme that every action series gets round to sooner or later.

Director JD McKee ups the feeling of being confined almost too well; if you’re in any way claustrophobic this might be an episode to skip or at least partially fast forward. The narrative constantly resets- as soon as the job is completed it participants are rendered unconscious by a piercing sound and wake up later back in their boxes. Which does beg the question – if the unseen masters of this game are able to move their captors around like this then why don’t they just do these tasks themselves? The entire place is littered with zombies- are these previous competitors or specially brought in?  As with the last episode, with all the things these characters have faced over a fictional period of eight years now, why are they so terrified here?

While not answering questions does allow an air of intrigue to things, the sudden way in which the group manage to orientate themselves and find a way out with no particular prior knowledge of where they are doesn’t ring true. Also the invisible antagonists seem to allow their prisoners more leeway some times and none on other occasions. There’s plenty of ideas here but while this is a well staged, atmospheric episode, it doesn’t quite work narratively.

Back From The Undead

“More scientific shenanigans” groans Doc as he wanders around a gruesome lab filled with body parts in jars, ”Why can’t we find a bakery?” In what is more of a pivotal episode than it at first seems, the group arrive at a bio lab which Warren seems to have been drawn to by her apocalyptic images though the priority is to find some medical help for Murphy. His condition is worsening after the zombie bite but it seems that Lucy can assuage the infection albeit at a personal cost to herself.

The group are soon split up leaving Murphy and Lucy near the door. The result is as poignant as series like this- in which death is a regular factor- can get as Lucy ages herself to the end of her life trying to save her father. As a character Lucy has been somewhat irregularly occupied, her abilities waxing and waning as many times as the role has passed from one actor to another. To say the stories will miss her a lot isn’t really true, but it’s a shame that more wasn’t made of her. I thought she would turn out to be the true antidote to the zombie problem rather than her father. Stlll, the scenes of the two characters together in this episode give Lucy a decent enough send off ending with the melancholy strains of a country song harking back to the roots of the character. A neat touch is bringing back Sarah Coates who played Lucy’s mother to now play the older version of Lucy. This adds an extra something when Murphy tells her she looks just like her mother.

Another form of body horror is going on elsewhere in the building showing us the biggest zombie yet, a patchwork Frankenstein’s monster comprised of two people and a lot of zombie appendages. While kept in shadow this looks very menacing but once in the light, some exaggerated features and it’s sheer size don’t really convince that much. In fact the creepiest thing about the episode is when Doc is attacked by a finger that gets through a wound into his stomach. You really do have to look away.

Despite the effort taken to get to this place and the macabre discoveries Warren makes when checking the files, the group appear to leave at the end. I wonder if at the time this was shown anyone picked up on the `Eeerie, Indiana `homage in which the van passes the sign which a black crow was sitting on and under which a bike has bene left, all references to the fun fantasy series from the Nineties.

Warren’s Wedding

Beloved of many a roving adventure series, the strange carnival is always likely to throw up an unusual scenario and this episode proves to be the case. Given how sombre the mood is at the start, this may not have been the best episode in which to address Murphy’s feelings after the loss of Lucy. The result is an uneven and especially poorly paced episode though not without a certain fun factor. The team find a woman trapped to be fed to zombie though it turns out the perpetrators include her own sons. They appear to live exclusively in an old fun house, faces daubed with circus paint and drinking noxious liquids. Given our heroes’ vast experience they are easily captured by this literal incarnation of an insane clown posse and subject to circus themed torture.

Just when you’re thinking this could be a contender for the show’s weakest episode – you can feel the narrative playing for time because its so thin- matters perk up when Warren is forced into a rap battle at which she turns out to be rather good. There’s also a feisty performance from Susanna Burney as Janice, the woman they rescue and who you absolutely know will end up pulling a gun on them. Despite their predicament there is really only one time when the group seem in genuine peril during Doc’s attic chase.

The somewhat clunky purpose of the episode is to allow Murphy to come more to terms with what happened to Lucy but this just doesn’t feel like the right way to do it. Seeing him lecturing Janice and her son while electrocuting them is just bizarre.

Crisis of Faith

Having the group trapped in a church in Canada is a perfect opportunity for some varied zombies so we have them sporting ice hockey gear, Nun’s apparel and at the climax a zombie Archbishop leaps out of a tomb. Its stylishly directed by Jennifer Derwingson who also writes one of the more thoughtful episodes of this season so far. When the group find someone who appears to be a grave robber, he turns out to be after something more sacred- a finger of a saint which is said to cure ailments. Some of the best Z Nation episodes work in contained environments and this one utilises the interior and crypt of a church very well, reminiscent of some of those first and second season episodes in which the main characters are seemingly trapped in an isolated building into which Zs could come from any side.

As if to underline the `faith` theme of the episode the group- and especially Murphy – try to better understand Warren’s apocalyptic visions which he is able to see by some telepathic link as she has some of his blood. We also get the season’s first visit to Camp Northern Light with no sign of Simon but Kaya, her baby and Nana are having to hide from Zona invaders. To be honest I was thinking that the Citizen Z storyline was done with so it will be interesting to see how (or if) it ties in with the ongoing storyline.

The episode’s action is top notch; the director missing no chances to pull shocks as well as having some inventive zombiogrpahy plus it ends with a visual gag that definitely raises a smile. There’s a strong performance too from guest star Drew Highlands as the jittery believer Louis. The only thing still lacking, as it has for much of this season, is sizzling dialogue. This episode is better than some- scenes where Louis, Warren and Murphy talk about faith work well- but there remain noticeable gaps where someone could say something. It looks as if 10K and Lilly in particular are only given a handful of lines per episodes and have to get through on facial gestures alone.

We Interrupt This Program

An usually mounted episode that weaves the team’s current exploration of an abandoned tv station so they can boost their signal to contact Citizen Z with the story of what happened to the people there. It’s done in a manner that at first makes it look like an error as a news scroll from eight years ago appears on the picture of Warren and co now. The first season jumped right in a few years after the Zombie apocalypse happened so when they do these flashbacks it’s quite interesting. Here, we cut back and forth as the group explore and then we see the situation eight years ago unfold.

The news station crew are built up very well as a believable team to the point where they might almost be from an alternative tv series. There’s also something quite sad about the way they are all still there either as corpses or zombies all this time later.

Reine Swart is excellent as the ambitious weather girl Carly McFadden eager to progress her career. There’s also Pat Cashman playing the self absorbed news anchor, Keko Green as the stage manager and Mitchell Shohat as an enthusiastic intern. These four and others manage to bring life to characters so quickly in Dan Merchant’s vividly realised script. When their fates are revealed its quite sad. Of course this does illuminate how the regular characters are not always being given quite the same characterful material.

The storyline manages to pull together the season’s disparate strands as the team manage to contact Citizen Z to discover that ZONA took material relating to something with the code name Black Rainbow.

Frenemies

Sometimes variety comes at a cost as this next episode demonstrates. Its one of the most bizarre of the entire run and not always in a good way. Opening up with the group losing each other in a sort of apocalyptic storm, much of the developments play out inside an old barber shop. In what proves to be a somewhat wearing and repetitive scenario they have to deal with unscrupulous characters out to rob them- and each other- in what appears to be an attempt to recreate a Western within the confines of a small building. Its not that you don’t understand what’s happening, it’s just that it’s not very interesting. This collection of colourful guys includes old comedic adversaries Sketchy and Skeezy, a barber who is really a criminal and feeding customers to a basement Sweeny Todd style except its full of zombies. Too late in the day to make much impact another pair turn up who appear to be pretending to be English or Australian.

Outside, the sequences depicting Warren following someone (or at least thinking she is) are rendered using a vast amount of fluffy foam and green light so you can’t identify anything. Appreciate the attempt to be different but a comedy episode needs to come with some laughs and they are very frugally provided here.  The main cast look by turns as bewildered and bored as the viewer will be. The fact that at one point every character throws up should tell you all you need to know; if you watch the series, skip this episode and save forty five valuable minutes.

Return to Mercy Labs

An episode which shows that the scariest things don’t always have to be zombie attacks, `Return to Mercy Labs` takes us back to the titular location which holds difficult memories for the group. Warren’s vision bring them here and thanks to Jodi Binstock’s atmospheric direction the episode becomes a more thoughtful drama in which the cast are given something more than just banter or few lines. We see the effect coming back here has on them and this place still has some terrifying things to show them.

Looking for a power supply for their radio they come across a child cryogenically frozen- this is the son of Teller and his wife. This grim discovery causes something of a moral quandary. Meanwhile up at Camp Northern Light, Simon and Kaya are delving into Black Rainbow which they discover is an old biological warfare program to wipe out remaining survivors of a nuclear attack- though anyone that saw this seasons’ first episode would probably have guessed that.

The focus is kept on these difficult issues providing a change of pace, punctuated by the occasional outburst of action but given a deeper touch by Jodi Binctick who also pens the episode. From start to finish it’s a classier effort than many of this variable season’s episodes and gives everyone a contribution to make. With a mournful end and a gorgeous sunset, they should have tried episodes like this more often.

Mt Weather

Considering the premise, this episode has a fairly light-hearted air. Seeking the President, they arrive at a supposed safe haven called Mt Weather which is filled with zombie congressmen and officials. Here they meet the latest incumbent, Jane Carlson, who acquired the job because everyone ahead of her in the pecking order is either dead or a zombie. At first she seems helpful until she realises that Warren and co’s aim is to destroy Black Rainbow rather than launch it.

The episode has a tongue in cheek feel with lots of jokes about officialdom and democracy, two secret servicemen both named Johnson and an amusing mock Fifties public information scheme about the project. Its perhaps not as tense as it could be and more could have been made of the bottom level zombies which lacks the sort of atmosphere of the previous episode. A scene where they are trapped in a room and bring in one zombie at a time soon outstays its welcome and there’s two character shifts that aren’t given the proper scope to play out properly but on the whole its enjoyable enough.

The Black Rainbow

There's an argument that this finale flatters what has been an uneven season but you have to credit the production team for putting on a tense and extremely well staged climax. Disregarding the plot itself the episode is packed with stylish moments, especially an excellent opening shot of a zombie having his head shot into pieces in front of the White House. Director Abram Cox ensures similar original angles are used throughout while the overall black and white palette once the group gets inside the building add to the atmosphere.

The problem with the episode though is that it hinges on Warren pressing a lot of buttons on a console and flashbacks of how she was taught to do so by Teller after coming out of her ZONA coma. Nowadays of course a quick glance at IMDB is enough to conform Warren does survive the end of season cliffhangar though at the time I imagine this was enough of a draw to keep people watching.

It is hard to say though where the series goes from here; it feels as if every possible scenario has been covered and the lead cast are not getting the same quality of material they received in the first three seasons. There is one more season though...