Buh-bye, Felicia: It’s Not the Rapture

Episode 2, Season 2: “We All Fall Down” ”

Tonight I got a much-needed break from my two children. Boy, did I accomplish a LOT:

·      Smoked two clove cigarettes on the deck

·      Had coffee and donut holes for lunch

·      Ate my body weight in Thai takeout (“make it SPICY, please”)

·      Went to the dog park with the JRT to check out the broken-coated bitches

·      Binge watched a few choice shows on Hulu and Netflix

·      Drank one pale ale; became slightly inebriated; sadly realized I am a lightweight

I also had time to ponder a few of life’s more pressing questions. What is Fred Armisen’s ethnic background? Why is my bra suddenly so tight? How did Prince die? Nobody knows the answer to these puzzles, wrapped in a conundrum, folded into an enigma, and tucked inside a soft taco shell. But I can tell you that another episode of FTWD awaits your viewing ( and reading) pleasure. I’m behind a week, of course, so most of you have already seen it, but what the heck.

Wet walkers emerge from the waves on a beach. OK, maybe those fuckers can indeed swim; terrific. Two children are toting around small colorful buckets in which to collect seashells??? Where are helicopter parents when you need them!? A fence separates the kids from the gnawing walkers. After leaving an offering of shells to the frustrated zombies, the kids run away.

Mad Mom is totes angry with Nick the Reckless Heroin Addict for his impromptu dive off the boat. According to the ship’s log that Nick retrieved, San Diego is toast. Strand, however, has bigger fish to fry (seafaring pun totally intended). Who sank that boat, and are they headed this way? He studies a map and decides, with Travis’s help, on Catrina Island, a place they presumably made up for the show.

Night. The yacht docks at a pier. Strand stays aboard and Travis and Co. go on land. They approach a darkened house. Travis calls out.  A kid runs out the front door. An older bearded man with glasses emerges. Not a friendly sort, but you can’t blame him. Travis says he just needs to get his shizz together for a while, and then they’ll get out of his hair.

Travis tours the man’s house. He peruses his book collection. The man mentions that the government has bombed the coastlines with napalm, and he confirms that San Diego is gone. He tracks how states are doing via ranger stations. All the western states are pretty much…gone.

George's motto: Be prepared. Be very prepared.

 Mad Mom chats with the man’s wife in the kitchen as they do wifely activities. In addition to the two little beachcombing bucket kids, moody teenager in da house. Tells his mom he’s going “out.” Like there’s somewhere to go “out.” Half the country does not exist, but teenagers remain the same. Duly noted.

Chris sulks. Nick plays with the kids’ handheld video game. Chris looks like he wants to set the living room on fire. Henry  the little boy shows Nick his action figures. Apparently, the little boy has used his dolls to re-enact his neighbors and family being shot in the head after being infected with the virus. The future mental health of the country seems bleak.

Travis is nursing a beer and is feeling mellow. He’ll need to be, because Bearded Glasses Man is sharing his survivalist views with him whether he likes it or not. He guesses that Travis is Maori. Nature is correcting itself, he claims. He and his wife are a little creepy, in a hippie-dippie, sorta ominous way.

Travis and Mad Mom share intel on the beach. Felicia (I am so bad with these names!) wraps herself in a blanket and joins Nick on the deck of the yacht, where he’s enjoying a sky full of stars.

Daybreak. Chris is skulking around outside near the beach. He spies the teen of the house, the one who went “out,” as he performs his morning “chores.” He carries a pic axe down to the fence on the beach to brain walkers throught the fence who have washed in with the tides. He offers Chris a go. He’s quite handy with the axe. In a different life, they might have shared a beer. Now it’s just two bros on a beach.

Chris gets his groove back helping with "chores."

 Travis finds them. He can’t be too happy about Chris’ newly embraced skill. There’s just one more walker and Chris makes quick work of him. It doesn’t count if they’re not people, Travis. Travis complains to Survivalist Dead about the pic axe. What kind of chore is that? Bearded Dude comforts him: this is the way it is.

Felicia wanders over to a campground. She has her ear buds in. Not the wisest move, but hey, sometimes you need a soundtrack for your life. Meanwhile, Nick raids the Survivalist medicine cabinets in search of the good stuff. He finds some brightly colored capsules hidden in a small globe. I suspect that they are poison that the survivalists have been saving in case life gets intolerable. First I thought that’s where they keep their choice buds, but no.

Strand and Ruben the Mad Barber (Daniel) are hanging out in the cockpit (is that what you’d call it?) of the yacht. Mad Mom helps Survivalist Mama harvest red hots from the garden, because the post-apocalyptic world is caliente. Mad Mom confronts SM about signaling them from her house the other night with a light. SM wants her little twins to have a better life. Maybe they can go with them? SM has MS (multiple sclerosis). Teen Son and Bearded Dad don’t want to leave and split their family up, soooooooo…Mad Mom begs Travis to comply with SM’s wishes, and of course the English teacher in Travis wants to “talk” to George (that’s bearded dad). This could get ugly.

Strand is on the phone with someone mysterious. They arrange a location at which to meet up. Mexico, according to Ruben Blades, who is rummaging through Strand’s boat papers in his absence.

Nick agrees with me that the capsules he found are not the good stuff. “I think he’s planning to Jonestown his whole family,” Nick confides in Mad Mom and Travis. This bolsters the argument to kidnap the twins, right, cause there’s nothing more convenient during a zombie apocalypse than BEING SADDLED WITH TWO CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF SIX WHOM YOU FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM THEIR PARENTS AND THE ONLY HOME THEY HAVE EVER KNOWN.

Survivalist Mom is getting the kids ready to go. Perhaps she has an inkling, too, that her husband is a mite unstable. Oh crap, George is home. Henry the little boy comes down the stairs. He reports that something is wrong with his sister Willa, who “took her pill.” Willa died, is now a zombie, and attacks her mother as she cradles her daughter’s body. George freaks out and gets in the middle. In the melee, Travis and Co. scoop little Henry up and take him aboard the yacht.

Strand angrily intervenes and makes my argument: dead weight, leave him. Angry Teen Son boards the yacht armed with a rifle to take “Harry” (Jesus, I cannot get these names right) home. He threatens Travis, who assures the teen that his dad wanted them to save Harry. Ruben the Barber also pulled out a gun. Teen Son gets on the deck. His zombie mom staggers toward them at a maddeningly slow pace. What to do? Harry is confused. Teen Son shoots his mom and puts his arm lovingly around his little brother. The yacht speeds away.