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This week's first plotline is based on the fact that the people of Jericho are dim bulbs. Wait, that's what every plot is about. But this week the lights are going out, for real. Again. Because they've been using their generators to keep every decorative light and television at the bar going for the past few days. The power at the clinic is also flickering, endangering the life of the bubble-baby. If only they could have predicted that this might happen, and planned for it in advance. Jake, Stanley, and Heather make a mad dash to siphon gas from the Texaco station. There's the usual "maybe someone's about to die" fake-out, which is resolved with the usual whimper. The power comes back on, everyone bellies up to the bar, and Eric starts asking for gas donations so that we don't have to go through this again in Episode 8. Our second storyline involves the discovery of a radiation-burn victim named Victor. He's rushed to the clinic, and manages to tell Jake that there's a group of refugees from Denver outside town. Over April's protests, they decide to give Victor an adrenaline shot so that he can give them more information. Hawkins takes a break from teaching his family their cover stories so that he can have a private chat with Victor. We learn that Hawkins and Victor are part of the same secret ambiguous conspiracy, and that there was a traitor in their midst. Oh no! Or, yay! Depending on how you feel about cops from St. Louis. Then Victor dies. Jake lectures the townsfolk into sending a team out to rescue the refugees. Unfortunately, they only find a pile of corpses. Bummer. But it's not all bad news: Emily wasn't in this episode very much. Oh, and Dale brought all of the food from the train back to town and single-handedly restocked Gracie's store. Seriously. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: Boom, eek, pow, etc.
According to the all-knowing captions, it's four days after the bombs, and one day after the fallout has cleared. From Jericho? But there wasn't any fallout. Maybe the captions aren't so smart after all.
Stuttering images show crowds of people running down a street, and a cloud of smoke. Boy, I'll bet a show about whatever's going on there would be pretty interesting. Apparently the people of Jericho feel the same way, since they are, of course, watching these images on the TV sets at Bailey's. Eric thinks that the shots are of Cincinnati, and proposes marking it as a possible site of badness. Hawkins kinda rolls his eyes, heh, and Mary scrawls a question mark over Cincinnati on their map of doom. Which is pinned up over the dart board. I hope that, in future weeks, lots of tiny punctures start to appear on the map. Stanley and Bonnie join Jake at the bar. Stanley wonders why Gray and Shep haven't returned. Maybe they're trying to do Jake one better. "He found a couple of planes on a highway, eh? Well, I'm gonna find us a submarine in a cornfield! That'll show him!" The images cycle through on the TV again, and Stanley says, "Makes you wonder what happened to whoever shot this." Aw, Stanley is like my kindred spirit. That should probably worry me. Hawkins replies, "I think that mighta been the last thing they ever saw." Jake puts his hands over his face like he can't believe what a downer Hawkins is. Then they go back to watching TV for a while. But lest you think that this week's opener is a little dull, that's when the power flickers. Thrilling! And then...it comes back on. Mary tells Eric that the generator's almost out of gas, and that, when it goes, they won't get to watch TV anymore. Well, they could make a trivia game out of it. "Was the man fleeing for his life from the clouds of radioactive smoke carrying a suitcase or a backpack?" Stuff like that. Eric reassures Mary that he'll take care of it. She helpfully reminds him that the gas pumps aren't working. Eric tries to imitate Jake's "I can solve any problem if I'm confident enough" style. So naturally, the power flickers again, and then goes out for good. As everyone groans, Mary tells them that the bar's closed. Stanley whines, "It's only 9:30!" Ha! I don't understand they can't keep drinking in the dark, but I guess that they can do that just as well at home.
Heather runs into Jake as he exits the bar, and asks if the generator's out. Jake says, "No, out of booze!" And they chuckle. For some reason. Jake offers to walk Heather home, and they head down the street. Heather asks, "Is it weird being home after so long?" I admire the townspeople's ability to make inane small talk in the face of disaster. Jake says, "I can't get used to Bailey's without the mechanical bull," and mentions that Stanley held the bull-riding record. Johanna and I agree that that had better be foreshadowing some future episode where the survival of the town depends on Stanley's bull-riding skills. Then Jake grouses that the pizza place is now the "Cyberjolt Cafe," and we get our first hint that the townsfolk might be aware of a magical device called "the internet." Heather and Jake's relentlessly dull flirting is interrupted by the sound of breaking glass, and for a second I wonder if I've actually kicked in my television while in a fugue state. Jake says, "That came from the alley." Guess it wasn't me after all.
Jake and Heather shine their flashlights around the trash-filled alley, and find a broken window. Heather identifies the building as the pharmacy. Jake sends her off to get help, and climbs into a room full of shelves. Jake peers around, and is understandably startled when a body collapses on the floor to him. He shines his flashlight at the body and then recoils in horror. Oh come on, Jake, it's not that bad; this is an 8 PM show. The guy's got some sores and burns on his face, and he's lost most of his hair. He wheezes, "Help." Zombie!
Credit. Allow me to introduce Stephen Granade, an Actual Physicist who has graciously volunteered his fact-checking services. And by "volunteered," I mean, "gave in when I begged."
After the commercials, Heather returns with Stanley, Bonnie, and the cops. Jake asks for help moving the zombie, and one cop says, "Not without gloves or a hazmat suit." The cops are named Bill and Jimmy, but I'm going to call them Good Cop and Bad Cop because then I don't have to try to remember which one is which every week. Bonnie asks if the zombie has radiation sickness, and Stanley immediately asks Heather to get Bonnie out of the room. Jake's all, "So, anyway, a little help here?" Bad Cop says, "No way, uh-uh, not me! He could be contagious." Stanley grunts that the guy isn't contagious, and helps Jake to pick him up, sneering, "What if it was me lying here?" Good Cop joins in the lack-of-heroism, whining that touching the guy might make them sick. Jake and Stanley are correct, the zombie's injuries aren't contagious. On the other hand, there could be radioactive particles on the zombie's skin and clothes. On the third, horribly mutated hand, the solution to that is washing thoroughly once they've gotten the zombie to the clinic. I can certainly believe that people might freak out about touching someone with radiation sickness. It does seem kind of shitty to make the cops the cowards in this situation, though.
At the clinic, April's tending the bubble-baby while Eric whines that he was checking on the TV signal at Bailey's. April harrumphs, "And that took three hours?" Eric says that he was there for an hour. As they pedeconference though the dark clinic, we see a sign reading "Conserve energy -- light to be used in emergency only!!" There are two exclamation points at the end, so you know they're serious. April expositions that one doctor went to Kansas City to search for his daughter, and that the other's been working for twenty-four hours straight. Once again: there was no fallout, so I'm not entirely sure why they've been so overworked. Maybe the people of Jericho are unusually accident-prone. You know, I actually find that very plausible. April complains, "I've got a baby on a ventilator, and the generator's almost out of gas." Eric says, "Well, don't you have a hand-pump?" Heh. April asks who's going to pump it. Well, maybe the baby's disappearing mother? They're interrupted when Jake and Stanley storm in. Jake calls, "I found a zombie in the pharmacy, can I keep him?"
Gracie stands outside her store looking nervous as she hears noises inside the building. She enters, calling, "Helloooo?," and the music shrieks to alert us that another sad cat-scare is approaching. Then Gracie's blinded by a flashlight as Dale pops up behind her. He says that he wanted to surprise her, and shines the flashlight around so that she can see that the shelves are now completely restocked. Johanna and I crack up. And then we laugh even more as Dale explains that he found the train with Gracie's shipment "about five miles outside of town." "And he carried pallets of canned goods back?" Johanna asks. "Five miles each way! And then he put it all on the shelves, too!" I hoot. Maybe Dale should be on Heroes. Gracie's mildly concerned that Dale robbed a train, technically, and points out that not all of this stuff is hers. It'd be funny if Gracie started selling some unusual items as a result of this subplot. Dale argues that the townsfolk took Gracie's food, and she sighs, "Well, it was an emergency." He says this is, too, and adds, "To hell with them."
The entire Green family has come to look over Jake's pet zombie, now resting uncomfortably at the clinic. Eric wonders why the zombie came to Jericho. Stanley suggests that maybe he's related to someone from town. "Then why'd he break into the pharmacy?" Eric asks. Well, maybe he was planning to stop by and feast on the brains of his relations after treating his injuries. Duh. Jake, wearing latex gloves, goes through the zombie's clothes and notes that he doesn't have a wallet or any ID. Oh dear, I hope it's not an illegal immigrant zombie. Eric asks April if the zombie will recover, and April says, "It depends on the dose that he got." Why don't you pour some iodine down his throat, then? Yes, I am still filled with rage about that. As Jake and Stanley finish bagging up the zombie's stuff, Mom advises them to go clean up in case the clothing was contaminated. Oh my lord, that's -- no, wait, that's completely reasonable. Go Mom! April directs the boys to a shower down the hall. Everyone files out, bored with staring at the sleeping zombie. Outside the room, there's a crowd of other people pressing their noses against the picture window, though. A sick person! In the clinic! Wow! April could solve her problem in no time if she charged people a gallon of gas to stare at the zombie.
Eric pulls Dad aside and tells him that Bailey's is dark, and, oh yeah, the hospital is also running out of gasoline. Dad coughs up some more foreshadowing and suggests asking people to siphon the gas from their cars. Eric asks what they should do if any more zombies turn up, since they can barely keep the clinic going as it is. Dad asks, "You saying we oughta turn 'em away?" Eric says no, but clearly that is exactly what he's saying. Dad says that they should focus on stocking up on gas. Yeah, there's a thought.
April tells Mom that some of the nurses are worried about contamination. So we're really going with this idea that our first-responders are the most panicky, uninformed people you can find in the event of an emergency? Just checking. I could sorta go with the cops, but if the nurses are worried, maybe they should look up something about radioactive contamination in one of their medical books. Mom asks how she can help, and April puts her on bubble-baby-sitting duty. Then April frets about running out of power, and Mom says, "We'll do everything we can, until we can't." Ha ha! That's inspiring. I wonder if that's the town motto. Oh no, that's probably, "If you need us, we'll be at the bar."
In his secret bunker, Hawkins finishes some paperwork and pops a flash drive into his laptop. And then the laptop suddenly bursts into flame because he's been so busy with his mysterious schemes to that he missed the recall notice. Oh, fine, the laptop actually displays a menu with these items: Jericho Family, St. Louis, Samuel's School, Allison's School, Samuel's Friends, Allison's Friends. Hawkins types in "Memphis" and then Samuel knocks on the door. Hawkins types "Vacations." Holy cow, I think he blew up half the country so that he could get cheap hotel rates. That's brilliant. Outside the room, Samuel whines that he's thirsty. Hawkins rubs his head and wonders why he didn't teach his children how to open a bottle of water by themselves.
Dad confers with the cowardly cops, confirming that there's been no news from Shep or Gray. Bad Cop says, "Maybe they got captured by those tanks Stanley saw." He worries that the tanks could have been from Al-Qaeda. Bad Cop is a little unclear on what Al-Qaeda is, I think.
Jake grabs a towel just as Heather wanders into the clinic's locker room looking for him. Jake casually wraps the towel around his waist and asks what's going on, but Heather is shocked and just stammers at the sight of a half-naked man. In a locker room. That she just barged into. Without knocking. While Heather gets over this shock, I'll note that Jake is wearing dog tags, which I'll assume are souvenirs he picked up during his circus travels. Heather stares into space and announces that she's got a clever plan to siphon gas from the Texaco station: "It occurred to me that if we can get enough suction, we could get all the gas we wanted!" I don't think these people will have any trouble creating suction. Jake asks if a water pump would work, and Heather nods.
Bonnie watches through the window as the zombie hyperventilates. I'm telling you, these people are starved for entertainment. That's what happens when you cover up the dart board. Jake strolls up in hospital scrubs, and Bonnie says, "This could be my brother. Is this how they die?" Jake reassures her, "Stanley didn't get it this bad." Or, in fact, at all. Bonnie asks if Stanley could get cancer. From the complete lack of fallout? I don't understand. Then Stanley arrives, fresh from his own shower, and tells Bonnie that he'll be fine. Bonnie tells Jake to take care of the zombie. Jake decides not to point out that, although he is wearing scrubs, he isn't actually a doctor.
April enters the zombie's room and announces that she's putting him on a ventilator. Eric says that they should save the remaining power for the baby, who has a better chance of survival. Jake steps in to defend his pet zombie, and Eric suggests that they just try to ease his pain. "Sit back and watch him die?" Jake asks. Er, Jake, you know a ventilator isn't actually going to cure him, right? So either way, you're probably going to watch him die. Jake asks April if the generator will keep going until morning. April shrugs, and Jake says, "Give me till then." At that, the zombie starts moaning, and pulls his oxygen mask down. April asks the zombie his name, and he gasps that he's Victor Miller. Jake tells Victor that he's in a clinic, and that they'll take care of him. Victor is saving his energy, so he doesn't point out that the medical equipment and scrubs were a clue, plus he heard everything they said a minute ago. Instead, he just gasps, "They're coming..." The music gets tense, which can only mean one thing: we're due for another fakeout.
And poof, it's morning. Mom's watching over Victor. Isn't she supposed to be on bubble-baby duty?
Dad and the cops discuss Victor's case. Apparently he's unconscious again, and may not ever wake up. Eric worries about the unspecified They that are, reportedly, coming. "What if we have to have another barbecue? We're all out of sauce! Has Stanley checked the corn?" Good Cop says that it might be the passengers from "one of those planes." They're more likely to be passengers from the plane that didn't smash into pieces, but I like that he's not making any assumptions. Bad Cop harrumphs, "He coulda meant terrorists." Dad tells them to hire some more deputies and work on collecting gas for the clinic. I like the fact that after having a second pointless conversation with these guys, Dad suggests that it's time to hire more deputies. I think he's either planning to fire them, or he's hoping that if they have someone else to talk to they'll stop pestering him all the time.
Remember when Jake said that he just needed till morning to take care of the gas shortage? What he meant was that he needed till morning to get started on it. He and Heather are at the Texaco Station, which is now a "Noraco" Station. I wonder if Texaco objected to getting product placement on this crappy show. Or if they just objected to a storyline implying that, in the event of a catastrophic nuclear attack, they might actually give away gas for free. Jake and Heather are trying to convince the station manager, Mr. Murphy, to let them have the gas. Heather says, "We'll give you an IOU for the five hundred gallons." Heh. Murphy frets, "I could be fired!" Jake asks, "Who's gonna fire you?" I'm all mixed up because Jake said something sensible. The manager finally nods, and unlocks the gas tank as Jake hauls his hose over to it. Murphy ponders, "They're never coming back. District manager, none of them. Are they?" Heather pats his arm reassuringly. Jake says, "No." Murphy needs some real friends, if the loss of his district manager shakes him this much.
Hawkins homestead. Darcy recites her fake backstory: her husband was "transferred" from Memphis to St. Louis. He was transferred to a police department in a totally different state. And if this is his cover story; I'm sure the real one is going to be even funnier. Hawkins quizzes Allison about where they lived in St. Louis. Johanna asks if Jericho is now adding Runaway to its list of source material. Allison passes, and so Hawkins asks Samuel where he went to school. "The Crow School," he says, and Allison huffily corrects him: "The Crow Island School!" Hawkins apparently believes in the power of peer pressure, since he's not letting anyone in the family talk to the townsfolk until Samuel gets his story straight. Allison pitches a fit because Samuel's screwing things up for the rest of them. She recites, "We lived in a two-bedroom house, we drove a green Volvo, we had a stay-at-home mom, which is bull, because she worked all the time, because our dad was never around!" She stomps out before Hawkins can give her a stern lecture about run-ons. Then there's a knock, so Hawkins dismisses the rest of the family and finds Good Cop at the door.
Hawkins steps outside to chat with Good Cop. Then he looks around and gasps, "Thank heavens you came -- someone stole one of my front doors!" Seriously. In the establishing shot before the last scene, the house had double doors with glass panes. Now it doesn't. It's not important, except maybe as evidence that even the people making this show don't seem to care much about it. Good Cop says, "You probably heard: the sheriff's been killed, along with three more of our men." I don't think so, but I'm going to take my cue from the continuity people and just move on. Good Cop explains that he and Bad Cop are now the only police in town, so they're hoping Hawkins might join the force, since he's such an expert at everything. Hawkins declines: "I'm still settling my family." But he was willing to go on an interstate trek last week. Good Cop pleads, "We've had break-ins, kids vandalizing, roaming packs of architects doing impromptu remodeling... " Hawkins finally agrees to join the force, which means that week Good Cop and Bad Cop may be renamed Curly and Moe. As Good Cop departs, Darcy glares at Hawkins from inside the house and thinks, "When did that bastard install these windows?"
In town, Eric tells Gracie that they're asking everyone to donate five gallons of gas. Gracie sniffs, "Sorry, honey; I need my car." For her commute? Eric whines about keeping the clinic going, and Gracie points out that she already donated the contents of her store. Which she promptly marches into, the better to coo over her magically restocked shelves. Maybe nobody's noticed that yet. Eric calls Bad Cop on the radio, who reports that they're "ninety gallons short at the clinic" and complains that people are hoarding what they've got. Eric menaces, "Maybe we can't afford to be so polite." Or maybe Gracie will mention the gas crisis to Dale, and he'll wander off and find a tanker truck.
Gas station. As Jake pops the hose into the gas tank, Stanley drives up with a huge water tank that he's loaded onto the back of his truck. I guess his spider-powers have kicked in. Stanley explains, "I couldn't find an empty pesticide container." Well, yeah, they should save those for when the giant mutated cockroaches turn up. Heather frets that the tank is made of steel: "There's too much risk of static -- one spark, the whole thing could blow sky-high." Jake points out that there's a time crunch (but at least they're well-rested) so Heather huffs, "Well, who's gonna fill it?" Stanley and Jake look at each other for a second, and Stanley asks, "What do you wanna do, draw straws?" Heh. Jake says that Stanley has to take care of Bonnie. I think Jake is confusing Bonnie with the bubble-baby. Stanley argues, "I've been irradiated. I'm doomed!" Sigh. Oh, Stanley. You're not doomed, you're just not very bright. But you are funny, so just let Jake fill the damn tank. Jake says, "We're gonna live to be 100, remember?" Stanley semi-explains that comment by saying, "Our pacts never work out!" They made a pact to live to be 100? Heather says that they should just go ahead and do it "before [they] think about it too much." If they live to be 100, there's still not chance of that happening. I'll let Stephen take this one: "There's a simple way to deal with static electricity: you ground yourself. They couldn't, oh, I don't know, find a set of jumper cables, hold one end to the metal pesticide container, and touch the other to an earthed power line or even a big ol' nail stuck in the ground?" Jake finally makes Stanley hop off the back of the truck, pops the hose in the tank and starts cranking the pump. The manic guitar solo fails to make this any more exciting than it sounds. We cut away so that the guitarist doesn't shred his fingers while Jake pumps five hundred gallons of gas by hand.
Gracie's. I guess word got out that elves came bearing dry goods, because the joint's jumping. Allison's about to pay for her purchase as Dale notes, "You got the last bag of corn chips." Skylar suddenly lunges across the counter and declares, "I'll give you twenty bucks for them!" Wow, she really likes corn chips. Dale says that the chips are Allison's, so Skylar offers her the money, and then wheedles, "I'm having a party -- if you give me the chips, then I'll invite you." Skylar is having a party. I see. Perhaps it's in memory of her parents. Well, then her desperate need for a single bag of corn chips makes complete sense. Allison notes, "I don't even know you." Skylar says that there's nothing else to do. There's a reaction shot of Skylar's nameless friend here. I'm starting to think that they really are having a lesbian affair. And now the friend is like, "Oh my God, now you're hitting on other girls right in front of me!" Allison hands over the chips, and Skylar offers directions to her house.
Bonnie and Mom take turns watching the zombie.
The guitarist tries again to generate excitement as Jake, Heather, and Stanley drive the tank full of gasoline along a road lined with fields. Er...wasn't the gas station in town? Stanley, I know you're concerned about the corn, but you can check it later.
The medical equipment by the zombie's bed beeps an alarm. Mom rushes, listens to the zombie's chest for a second, and then shouts, "The generator's down!" Something about that made it seem like she thinks the generator's in the zombie's chest. That'd be a plot twist.
Stanley's truck races past more fields. Maybe they got lost.
April arrives at the zombie's room, and Mom explains, "He's not breathing." April says that she only has one hand-pump, and that she has to tend the bubble-baby: "You used to be a nurse, Gale. You'll do fine." This based on the fact that, when confronted with a patient who's not breathing, Mom shouted for help instead of maybe doing something about it. To be fair, Mom still could have just as much medical expertise as April's demonstrated. April rushes off, and Mom braces herself for a minute before finally starting CPR on the zombie.
The truck finally arrives at the clinic. Stanley parks right in front of a "Doctor Parking Only" sign. Then the newly-deputized Hawkins arrives and, as part of the new "get tough on crime" policy, opens fire. Stanley dodges because his spider-sense was tingling, so the bullet hits the water tank, and there's this massive explosion that kills everyone, and then George Clooney brings me a mojito. Then I wake up, and April is showing the bubble-mama how to operate the ventilator for her baby. Well, there's an idea.
Outside, Heather starts to open the top of the tank, but then announces that there's a problem: the lid's stuck. Zounds. Stanley starts for the tank, but Heather hauls him back. He says, "Don't feel bad, I'll loosen it up for ya." Ha! Heather gibbers that the gasoline has been "sloshing around in there, building up fumes." She's worried that forcing the cap open will cause a spark, which will cause my fevered dreams to come true. She babbles about static electricity again, and the music gets even more manic, and here's Stephen: "The gas cap is attached to the gas tank, so it wouldn't cause a spark in and of itself. Someone would have to touch the metal for the static electricity to ground itself out, and that's going to happen the moment they touch the closed cap or the tank. Opening it wouldn't magically make sparks." Unless, of course, Stanley were to open it by hopping up onto the truck and popping the cap off with a crowbar. So naturally, that's what he does. At the lack-of-explosion, the music stops, and Stanley looks at Jake and Heather and comments, "That was dumb." Yes. Yes it was. In so many ways.
April joins Mom and helps perform CPR on the zombie.
Heather operates the hand pump, and we join Jake in watching the fuel gauge arrow slowly edge away from the "E" on the dial. Stanley runs inside as Jake flips the switch on the generator. Isn't it a bad idea to run an engine as you're pumping fuel into it? Especially one that's hot because until a couple of minutes ago, it had been running constantly for days? I'm just being silly, obviously. The only thing you have to be concerned about when dealing with flammable liquids is static electricity.
The lights come back on in the clinic. Jake arrives in the zombie's room, presumably leaving Heather to finish pumping all the gasoline by herself. It's only fair, since he did all the work at the station. Jake asks how his pet zombie is doing, and Mom reports, "He was down for about two minutes." April asks Jake to help by turning on the cardiac feed. Jake does. I'm so disappointed that this wasn't presented as another heroic moment, with blaring guitars. Couldn't there have been, like, a pit of snakes between Jake and the equipment, or maybe just a dangerously slick puddle on the floor?
And with that, we cut abruptly to Skylar's party. The house is full of kids having a fine old time. Skylar answers the doorbell and finds Allison there, ready to join the mindless frivolity. I think we have a winner for the coveted "most pointless scene of the episode" award.
Eric rushes into the clinic looking for April. She's busily attaching a finger-clip to the zombie. Jake stares intently at the monitor and mutters, "Come on, come on!" Hee. The monitor beeps obediently, and April and Jake sigh with relief. Then Eric rushes in and announces that he's got seventy-five gallons of gas. April wearily says, "Thanks," not meaning it. She looks at Jake and announces that it's taken care of. We cut away before Eric decides that he can take that fuel to Bailey's and get a more enthusiastic reaction from Mary.
Dale arrives at Skylar's party with a bag of snack food. Skylar's lesbian friend points him out and sneers, "Look who invited himself!" With a casual hand-wave, Skylar tells Dale where to take the food. After depositing the goodies, Dale asks Skylar, "Why are you such a jerk when you're with your friends?" Because she's a two-dimensional character on a crappy TV show, Dale. Now, why do you continue to be surprised by that? The lesbian friend wanders over and asks, "Did I interrupt a lovers' spat?" Skylar says, "Stop it, Lisa!" She has a name! Woohoo. Lisa makes a hurt face and tells Skylar that she's leaving: "I only came here 'cause you begged me to." Skylar tells Dale to go home, too.
The zombie opens his eyes and starts gasping. Jake rushes over and shouts for April as the zombie pulls the tubes out of his throat. Not that we see anything gross, but gah. Also gah: the camera is jiggling around and going for crazy angles. Which just solidifies the impression that this show is based on notes someone took while watching Battlestar Galactica. Presumably it said "nuclear attack, father-son issues, jerky-cam, attractive blonde" and left out "competent scripts." Jake asks the zombie who's supposed to be coming to Jericho. I guess he wants to know if they should plan another barbecue. The zombie -- or "Victor," if you insist -- gasps, "They need help." He finally spits out that there are twenty refugees from Denver at a lake. "Boat dock," he adds, and Jake asks if he knows what road the lake's on. Victor sobs a little and says, "My daughter." Jake looks even more shocked, like he's thinking, "Someone had sex with you? But you're all gross! Oh, wait, from before. I get it." The monitor beeps more rapidly as April finally arrives and puts the oxygen mask over Victor's face.
Hawkins and Good Cop join the party crashers at Skylar's. They must have heard she had corn chips. Good Cop tells Skylar, "We had a complaint that you were using too much power." Where to begin. It's good that they realized that a complaint about all the noise would be ludicrous. But that might have been less ludicrous than this -- the extent of the power usage appears to be a CD player. Which I assumed was running on batteries, but perhaps it's a stereo after all. Good Cop orders the kids to clear out, and everyone goes "Awwww." He asks Skylar, "How much gas you using to run this place?" So she's got her own generator, and gasoline. Fine. But I'm looking around the background of this place and I don't even see any lights on, so I still don't know what the hell they're talking about. Maybe in the script, Skylar's house was supposed to be decked out with tiki lights and a live band using amplifiers. Maybe the writers are trapped somewhere, and they're unable to communicate with the director or the crew. Maybe they're writing these scripts in the hopes that we'll realize that they need rescuing, because nobody could possibly make a show this bad accidentally. Or maybe I'm watching CBS. As the kids head for the doors, Hawkins spots Allison and grabs her by the arm. He grrs, "Just go home." So she does. Then Bad Cop calls in and announces, "We found Shep's truck."
Sure enough, there's Shep's truck, parked to some dumpsters. The driver's-side window is smashed in and bloodstained. As Hawkins and Good Cop arrive, Bad Cop says that there's no sign of Shep, but that he did find Victor Miller's wallet in the truck. Hawkins looks startled, grabs the wallet, stares at the ID, and says, "This is the man you were talking about?" Good Cop asks if Hawkins knows him, and Hawkins stares deeply at the ID and lies, "No."
The cops troop into the clinic and tell April that they need to chat with Victor. April says that he's unconscious. Bad Cop snaps, "I think you need to wake him up!" April whirls and says, "No!" Exit April. Bad Cop is easily cowed.
Bailey's. Eric really did take the gas he collected over to the bar, because the TV's back on. Mary sits down at the bar to Emily, and I curse because I was hoping maybe she'd gone off to find Roger or something. They watch the same loop of disaster shots. Mary says, "What if they come here?" From Cincinnati? This is probably a good spot to mention that there is one thing about this show I find genuinely interesting: the structure. The episodes seem to start with one problem (like the fallout, or the gasoline) which gets solved in Act 3, and then what was the "B" plot in the first half (the convicts, or the refugees) becomes the "A" plot for the last twenty minutes or so. Even if it is mostly a way of making it possible for Jake to be involved in every storyline, it's a clever idea. Now, if any of these plots made sense, they might be on to something.
Eric mopes in a booth. Mary walks up and tells him that the generator's full now: "We can go three more days!" So let's turn all the lights and TVs back on again instead of learning anything from this experience! Whee! I bet they wish they'd kept the mechanical bull, too. Mary insists that everything will be okay, and Eric cheers up for about five seconds, until his radio squawks and Good Cop asks him to come to the clinic.
At the hospital, Jake's arguing that they have to go find the survivors Victor mentioned. The cops are a little more interested in finding out what happened to Shep. Jake says, "We can't just torture a dying man!" Eric says that they aren't going to torture him. Much. Hawkins proposes giving Victor a shot of adrenaline to wake him up. Jake says, "He's dying of third-degree burns; it'd be like waking him up on fire." Bad Cop argues that Shep might be dead already. In which case finding out what happened to him won't do Shep any good, so perhaps Bad Cop should have thought through that argument. Good Cop says that they need to protect themselves, and Jake snaps, "We need to protect ourselves from this!" Hawkins says that Victor's going to die either way, but that the information he has might save other people. Jake falls silent. Eric endorses the plan. Hawkins says, "I'd like to do this myself," which makes me giggle. Jake says no, they're gonna get an actual doctor to do this, or maybe April if they can't find anyone else. Oh wait, no, he just says, "I'm not leaving him." They all seem to understand that Hawkins would naturally know how to administer adrenaline after being a cop in St. Louis.
April stumbles upon the cops standing in the hallway, and spots Jake and Hawkins looming over Victor. Eric explains that they're gonna ask Victor some questions. April protests and heads for the door, but Eric grabs her arm and grunts, "He could be a murderer." April sneers, "And that gives you the power to do anything that you want?" Eric says, "Yes."
Hawkins injects the adrenaline into an IV tube, and a few seconds later, Victor's eyes snap open. Jake leans over and reassures him, "We'll make this quick." Victor spots Hawkins smirking at him, and pants a little more urgently. Hawkins asks where Victor got the car he drove to Jericho. Victor gasps that it was on the side of the road. "It was...running," he wheezes. Hawkins asks if anyone was inside. Victor says no, and Hawkins gives him a suspicious look. Victor says, "I had to help them." It's Jake's turn again, and he asks if Victor remembers anything else about the lake. "Burns," Victor says. Hawkins says that Victor needs morphine now. Jake over-enunciates, "Was your daughter at Bass Lake?" Jake, he's burned, not deaf. Victor just whimpers, and Hawkins repeats that they need morphine. Jake rushes out to get it. So the adrenaline was right there, but the morphine isn't? As soon as Jake's out of the room, Hawkins lunges over and gets in Victor's face as he growls, "We said families only!" Erm, weren't Eric and April and the cops standing right outside a minute ago? Watching through the room's picture window? Just checking. Hawkins asks, "Why did you go back to Denver?" Victor weakly says, "Thought...I left...gas...on." Oh, fine, he says that he couldn't let them die. Hawkins says that was a mistake: "Now we are a man down." At that, Victor announces, "There's a traitor." Hawkins leans even closer and asks if Victor knows who the traitor is. Victor thinks, "Dude, I'm fighting to get out every word. If I knew that Steve was the traitor, don't you think I'd have just said, 'Steve is a traitor,' instead of being vague about it?" The monitor starts beeping rapidly, and Hawkins repeats, "Do you know who it was?" Victor says, "You...know..." And then the monitor shrieks and Jake finally rushes in to find Hawkins looking pensive and Victor looking dead. Oh, and sure enough, everyone's gone from the hallway. Maybe they were busy locking April in a closet.
After the ads, April covers Victor's face with a sheet. Eric tells her, "We had to do it." And then he catches her eye and glances over at Hawkins as if to say, "He told me to!"
Gracie looks up as Dale returns to the store, and tells him, "I thought you were going to a party, hon." Dale doesn't reply, and Gracie sighs, "You're worth ten of her." Dale says that Skylar isn't a bad person. Gracie insists, "We're not like them." Oo, maybe they're both serial killers! She adds, "They can be nice sometimes, but don't be fooled." Dale says that his mom used to tell him the same thing. Well, that's disturbing.
Hawkins homestead. Allison's sitting on the couch as Hawkins returns home. Then they have a heartwarming Andy Griffith Show moment where Hawkins reminisces about how scared he used to feel when he was in trouble as a boy. Then he tells her that she put her family at risk by going to the party, and not to do it again. And then he leaves. Allison stays on the couch, wondering if she'll ever get another line of dialogue. Johanna wonders where Samuel is, and then decides that Hawkins has locked him in the basement until he learns his cover story. "So it's like Runaway meets Desperate Housewives!" she enthuses.
Jake steps into Bailey's and announces that he needs some volunteers to go fetch some refugees "just outside of town." No one seems interested, and one guy calls, "No way, man -- it's too dangerous out there!" It is? Okay, I think Johanna and I have worked this out. There are, of course, zombies. Lots of them. But this isn't a typical horror show -- they aren't going to be all in our face with the zombies. It's psychological horror! Everyone in town knows about the zombies, but nobody wants to talk about it too much, so they mostly stay in the bar because they're all big Shaun Of The Dead fans. Trust me on this. Whenever anyone seems concerned about some unspecified threat outside town, they're talking about the giant zombie encampment. See, now everything makes sense! Anyway, Jake says, "They're at Bass Lake," and then turns off the TVs. Everyone starts whining as Jake lectures that the people may have radiation poisoning, so they need to get to the clinic: "A man just died at the clinic -- our clinic! He was traveling with his daughter and about twenty other people." He says that the same thing could have happened to Shep or Gray: "Are we gonna help 'em? Or are we just gonna sit here watching the same three images over. And over?" Nice Shatner-esque delivery. Does this mean that the title is referring to the walls around our hearts? Because that's awesome in its badness. The townsfolk concentrate on their beer, which answers that question. After a second, Jake turns for the door. Mary calls him back and says that she'll donate gas for his car. Then Emily gets up and says that she'll go along. Jake thanks them both and pointedly asks, "Anybody else? Come on, we've got two cute babes involved now!" A few guys finally stand up and offer to go along.
A very small convoy of police cars and an ambulance drive down the road.
Everyone gets out and starts down a slope to the lake. I tell Johanna, "It'd be funny if they're all dead already." Plaintive music plays as they come to some trees and find...everyone's dead! And it is funny. They're all lying out on on the ground in a little camp of sleeping bags and camping tents. There's even a campfire that's still burning. Jake kneels to pick up a tiny, limp figure. "I wonder if this is Victor's daughter," he thinks. Mary wonders if she should point out that Jake's holding a baby doll, not a person.
Cut to the non-denominational church. Dad's leading a service for the refugees. And also for "Sheriff Daws and Deputy Riley. For Deputy Connor and Deputy Salem." So they're sticking to their guns about the prisoners killing three deputies. All righty. Dad asks for a moment of silence, and then says, "If you've lost a loved one, would you please stand?" Dale, the cops, and a couple of other people stand up. Dad goes on, "If someone you love is missing, would you join those standing?" Pretty much everyone stands up. I'm not sure that "unable to contact" means "missing," but whatever. Dad says, "We stand, because we know that every life matters." Dale sits down again, thinking that there might be an exception for Skylar. Dad says, "The battle ahead isn't just for our survival. It's for our humanity." Poor Gerald McRaney does his best to provide some moral underpinning to all this nonsense. When he's not coughing up foreshadowing. Maybe he and Olmos could have a gravitas-off.
As everyone files out of the church, Emily pulls Jake aside and plants a kiss on his cheek. She adds, "You're a good man for trying to help someone you didn't even know." Then she leaves before Jake can decide if he should make his surprised face or not, and he's forced to settle for walking away smugly.
Hawkins is back at the laptop in his bunker again. I wonder if it'll ever occur to anyone in town to try dragging one of their generators over to the Cyberjolt Cafe. Hawkins types, "We have a traitor. The rally point is no longer secure." Ooh, maybe that drum Hawkins hid is full of Guy Fawkes masks. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Hawkins sends his message, and then unplugs the flash drive and blows out the candles.
Upon exiting his bunker, Hawkins finds Samuel in the basement, coloring a map. Aw, I wonder if he's gonna fill it with pushpins, too. Samuel explains that he couldn't sleep. Hawkins decides that it's time for a pop quiz, and asks Samuel where he went to school. "Crow Island," Samuel says. Hawkins sits down at the table and asks, "Who is your dad?" Samuel says, "You." Like, duh. question: "Who loves you more than anything in the world?" Samuel says "You," again. Hawkins strokes his son's head and asks, "Who is always gonna take care of you?" Still coloring, Samuel says, "Mommy." Heh. Hawkins chuckles, but you just know that he's thinking, "I could just build another wall down here, pop Samuel in, nobody'd notice."