Travis Hearts the Government, and Countless Other Potentially Fatal Errors in Judgment

EPISODE QUATRO

Someone is having a pool party! Is that Nick languishing on a full-size floatie in an unclean swimming pool? Mayhaps. Travis is jogging, because a deadly zombie virus invasion should NEVER get in the way of cardiovascular fitness. Houses are being burned to control the infection. Travis’ son is highly resentful of the military presence, as he sits perched atop a rooftop creating a pretentious little movie.

Thank god this ep is not called “The Baby,” or “The Cute Little Jack Russell Puppy,” because I don’t think I can take any more. Susan the grouchy old Asian neighbor didn’t really get to me, but animals and babies—that’s a different kettle of fish altogether.

MM is pissed. She has to do it all while Travis goes out and hangs with the military. His son is still on the rooftop, communicating with someone in a distant building. Travis thinks he’s fooling around up there, which indeed he was, making his little movies.

Nick is having a pool party for one. He heroically refuses the oxycodone his mom offers him, and soon we will discover the reason behind his newly embraced abstemiousness.

The military is proud to announce that Travis’ neighborhood is now infection free! Yet, people are still unhappy. Negative Nancys! Where’s our food, our electricity, where is everyone else? They are the lucky ones. Complainey Pants!

Daughter Blades is flirting with the men in uniform. Travis does what Travis does and consults with the military, which needs help getting a man to cooperate with the screening process. What’s he hiding? Might he be ill? “Doug” is holed up in his room and has been acting strangely since last night. I’m thinking that maybe Travis is not the right man for this job. Doug is a portly fellow, bearded and round. Doug is at a loss. He can’t step up to the plate on this one. Everything is going to shit, and Doug can’t sugarcoat it for his family. All he has to do is submit to a brief screening.

Alicia roams the neighborhood. Not sure what she’s looking for. Maybe Matt, her boyfriend? His house, however, was in a cooler suburb. I think this is her house, which was already cordoned off. She picks up a few items of memorabilia, and a letter. We can’t read it, of course.

Doug is okay! I think. He finally agrees to be screened.

Nick exits the pool in a hurry to spy on the neighbors.

Travis’ son insists that someone is trying to communicate with him.

Nick is siphoning off morphine from a bedridden neighbor; stay classy, Nick!

Turns out Ruben’s daughter was flirting for a good reason; she is more than friendly with one of the national guardsmen.

What’s this, are Travis and MM having sex in the midst of all this? The proximity of the military must somehow be exciting for Travis, a real aphrodisiac. Travis busts out the hard liquor. MM can’t stop herself. She brings up his son’s movie making discovery. She also complains that nothing good is happening and that the government is not making good on their promises of medical care, electricity, and cell phone towers that work. Travis sez, honey, stop being paranoid.

Uh oh, turns out the gutless wonder Doug has fled in his car. Zombies can’t drive, so we can safely assume that Doug is merely a pussy and not a member of the undead—yet…

So jealous right now of MM! She’s enjoying a cigarette on a rooftop. Wait, that’s a very big cigarette. Right, it’s actually a flashlight, and she’s trying to flash-communicate with the mysterious stranger across the hills. Meanwhile, Travis may have found Doug’s treasured automobile, and all the doors are open. Turns out, however, that the military found Doug first, deemed him a “head case,” and removed him, without telling Mrs. Doug, of course. Travis informs the commando that his son saw something in the hills; guy responds, fuggeda bout it, there’s no one there.

A doctor shows up. Hector the patient from whom Nick was stealing morphine is gone; the government took him? A doctor from the government shows up to speak to Travis’ ex, who has been passing herself off as a nurse. I thought she was one. But hey, times are tough. The doc wants her to keep up the pretense just a bit longer…?

MM is making a run for the fence. Is she in search of the unknown signaler? What she does find are posters of the missing, and a lot of garbage. This may not have been the smartest move. The smell becomes unbearable. There are dead people lying in the streets. A tank rolls through and some men with guns get out. Hiding under a car from the feds, she finds herself face to face with a dead woman,

The doc visits Ruben’s wife, who needs surgical care for her injured foot. Are they innocently suggesting medical care, or is there something sinister behind the doctor’s helpful attitude? They find Nick, who needs methadone, in addition to a bar of soap and running water. Ruben watches them suspiciously from the window, and rightly so. He asks MM what she saw beyond the fences. Ruben recounts an incident from his youth involving the military or the police in his home country. People were taken away, and they came home, but returned dead. He warns MM that he may not return, and if he doesn’t he wants her to take care of his daughter Ophelia. Why can’t Travis be smart like Rubes?

Nick is foraging for drugs in abandoned houses. MM is pretty mad and starts beating him up. Is this really the right time, Nick? Doesn’t mom have enough to deal with? He doesn’t seem to have absorbed the gravity entailing the end of human civilization as we know it (He feels fine.)

Nick has barricaded himself in his room. Alicia tries to reason with him through threats. Nick did indeed deserve the mild beating he sustained. MM consoles her guilt with a cup of…coffee? Ruben’s wife is leaving for the hospital. Ruben accompanies her, but is told to wait. It’s Nick they want. It’s hard to tell what’s going on cause the lights don’t work. Nick is led away and hauled off. The doctor implores Travis’ ex to leave with her, as she is needed at the hospital. She hops in the convoy. MM is left to wonder where the heck Nick is going, and also accuses Travis’ ex Liza for ratting Nick out to the feds. Everyone is left to wallow in his own loneliness as Alicia reads the cryptic letter she recovered.