Addy and Mack headlined this episode. Unfortunately, that made for one of the weakest hours this show has had. For one we were constrained to only two of our characters. And Mack had the majority of the time even within that. At this point, the characters are best when they are in a group and can play off each other. Mack and Addy were essentially tasked with being compelling enough for an entire hour. However, they weren’t eve given a story that could hold up the tension. Instead Mack had a showdown with a big man zombie who seemed to be Mack’s protagonist the entire episode. It ended up feeling like a filler episode that didn’t progress the plot much.
Mack was literally forced into a position where he was facing these repeated dreams of facing off with a big zombie linger the area they were camping. He’s seen this happen twice before he fesses up to Addy about what he’s been seeing. However when he finally wakes up, he goes through the beats of his dream with Addy by his side and not a single thing he knew to be true in the dream happened. Again and again it happened, desensitizing Mack from the event’s of his dream. it had happened so many times that he was sure that it wasn’t real again.
However as the dreams progressed and we realized that he was fighting through his fears, we came to learn about Mack is first night. The dram he was dealing with was a manifestation of his first. The big zombie was an enemy that both of them had to face. For Addy it was killing her first person, for killing her mother. For the second week in a row we dealt with an episode heavily focused on a fake out. We were led to believe that it was Mack having these dreams. However all along it was Addy as she came to terms with what actually happened that first night. This twist executed much better as I didn’t see the twist coming a mile away. More importantly it gave us some well needed characterization and background for Addy.
On the emotional front was where the story was the best. Addy and Mack have been together for a few years now. After meeting on the first night of the outbreak, they’ve been together since then. They care about each other, but they acknowledge that they don’t really know each other that well. So they declared that they needed to have their first date. Preferably it’d be a date where there was no killing.
What did you think of the episode?
So, I pondered... 
Indeed, what a HUGE emotional first date for the both of them. First time he woke up I was like sure, he just had a nightmare (Which is probably normal after all they’ve been through… Even fans of this show are probably having nightmares about the Z’s… Specially about the zombieBaby we see at the beginning of the episode…) and then after Addys nap they would go back to killing zombies … You know, the usual.
But, I guess not.
The repetitive psychic dream was boring and useless and it seemed like the producers had really no more ideas to bring out in order to explain what really happened on that first night . They didn’t put much or any thoughts in it at all … It’s dissapointing but maybe it means they’re actually working much harder on the next episode ( so they released Die Zombie Die…Again because it’s Saturday and they kind of have to release an episode ?? )
It was really an opportunity to catch up with Mack and Addy after having no contact with them last episode. The concept that they were trying to convey was a weighty emotional one and it worked. It’s just it wasn’t enough for a full hour. They needed more to do or at least another goal in there.
I liked it at first but after half an hour of them I was very bored. When it reached 45 minutes I had a feeling the whole hour was going to be just the two if them. What a waste of a show – thirty minutes tops and then go on to something else preferably with some zombie action. ZN just might have been copying TWD in the episode after they all had to leave the prison and Daryl and Beth were just hanging out in that house and talking a lot. It worked for TWD but not for ZB. Just my opinion.
It did feel very reminiscent of TWD in the way they have episodes focusing on smaller groups of characters. Unfortunately, Z Nation’s strength is when there is a full ensemble.
i was really angry.. it felt like a wasted week. i was so exited for another z-episode, and then THIS?! would’ve been okay for 10 minutes.. we’ve all seen the dream-awake-still.dream thingie ever so often.. but this one booored me to the max.. since i liked all the other eps so much, i felt like a braindead zombie myself this time.
Pingback: Z Nation Season 1 Review | So, I pondered...