Z Nation - Zunami - Review: "Murphy, Don't You Leave Us" + 1.09 Promo

Review Guide:
Episode 1.01 Pilot - Review & Advanced Preview
Episode 1.02 Fracking Zombies - Review
Episode 1.03 Philly Feast - Review
Episode 1.04 Full Metal Zombie - Review
Episode 1.05 Home Sweet Zombie - Review
Episode 1.06 Resurrection Z - Review
Episode 1.07 Welcome to the FU-Bar - Review
Episode 1.08 Zunami - Review
Episode 1.09 Die Zombie Die...Again - Review
Episode 1.10 Going Nuclear Review
Episode 1.11 Sisters of Mercy Review
Episode 1.12 Murphy's Law - Review
Episode 1.13 Doctor of the Dead (Season Finale) - Review


Z Nation - Zunami - Review

Coming off the back of some really good episodes, this episode left much to be desired. The name "Zunami" made me expect a load of action sequences, and countless waves of zombies they would have to fight off. The episode provided us instead with the group hiding in a morgue. What could have been another excellent episode was turned into one of the worst for this show. There is actually so little that happened that there is barely anything for me to talk about.

The group is in Nebraska this time around, dehydrated, and starving. They are trying to survive, but find it very hard when there are no supplies anywhere in sight. Before long there is a massive horde of zombies coming their way, so they have to take shelter in the coroner's office. Ultimately the doors end up breaking, and them having no other choice, but to hide inside the morgue in these lockers. One thing I didn't understand was where was their truck they had from the last episode? They could have easily just got on that and drove off. That would've saved us the painful 42 minutes of watching them do nothing.

We spend the majority of the episode with Murphy and Citizen Z. Murphy, after leaving the group hidden away in the morgue ventures outside where all he really does is walk through the town. He soon finds a family locked away in a building. This was a chilling scene, as not only did he steal their food, he let a zombie (the father) into the building. This was so heartless of Murphy; I couldn't believe what I saw. I really liked his character up to this point; we all knew he was a jerk right from when we first met him, but what he did was an all-time low for him.

What was even worse was that he was planning on leaving our main group, and going to try to survive alone which is why he got the food. You could see he was heavily considering it, and if he did leave them I would want them to shoot him if they came across him again. They have all risked their lives to try to get him to California, people have died for him so the least he can do is to be grateful to them. I wonder why he had a change of heart and went back to them?. Murphy doesn't seem to get attached to anyone; even after all they have done for him. I can easily see him leaving them to die one day.

Now onto Citizen Z, who is called Simon. (Thank you to the reader for pointing it out) The main part of the episode was spent with him at the base. He gets a surprise visitor called Yuri; the only problem is he isn't real. It did start off a little interesting with him, but then once I realised he wasn't real we spent the rest of the episode with him trying to wait for the moment he would come to his senses. The reason he was hallucinating was because of a malfunction with the air filtration. It did though give us some more insight into what life was like at the base, and how he is fully stocked up for decades with food, and supplies.

We spent the encounter with Yuri at first with them two messing around, it was actually nice to see him interact with someone instead of sitting alone talking to the dog. I actually wish Yuri was real, that way Simon can actually do something. They have yet to find anything for Citizen Z to do. While I appreciate they were trying to create an interesting storyline with Citizen Z this episode, it ultimately fell flat and got boring to watch the minute you found out he was hallucinating. Everything about it just didn't work for me, the dialogue exchanges were very poor, and the acting was awful, especially when he was being "strangled". It's actually a real shame his storyline didn't work as he is one of two characters that had anything to do this episode.

The only good point of the episode was the fact Murphy has now been accepted among the group, he is now a friend. He probably wouldn't have been if they knew how he got the food.

Summary
This was not the show's finest hour, in fact; it was probably among the worst episodes of the show. What could have been an interesting episode with the zombie horde coming turned into 40 minutes of watching Citizen Z hallucinate, Murphy roam around town and the group hide away in a morgue. Let's hope for a better episode next episode, when we see Mack and Addy again.



As always , thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments what you thought of the episode!

About the Author - Robert Fruin

Robert is a sixth form student from the United Kingdom, who is currently studying IT, Media and Business Studies. Robert is a huge fan of the ended ABC series LOST, he has seen it many times over and has even visited some of the filming locations for it. Robert mainly watches drama series such as Game Of Thrones and Person of Interest, but has a soft spot for the comedy The Middle. Some other shows he watches are The Walking Dead, Arrow and The 100. Some other interests include cycling, photography and kayaking. Robert will be reviewing Z Nation,The Librarians, Sons Of Anarchy, Intruders, The Fosters and Aquarius. Feel free to connect with him on any of these social media sites.

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