‘This is how it works now. There is no more good, no more bad’
When Travis arrived at the gate of the hotel, I thought that the day I had been waiting for since the pilot had finally arrived: the day that Chris dies. Sadly, I wasn’t so lucky. We learn in flashback what happened after Chris shot the farmer he and Travis found while traveling with the three bros. I want to call them The Tylers, because they seem like the male version of Heathers and all of their names should be Tyler. Of course, Chris is friendly with them because they are all collectively the worst.
Sadly, this isn’t a story about Chris’s death, but about Travis losing him. First he can’t convince Chris that killing the farmer was amoral and Chris just stands there drinking beer with chicken grease all over his face like a total jerk. I don’t know if he’s a monster or if he’s just so young that he can’t even adequately assess how his actions affected another person.
Later, in the debate over whether or not to kill James, Chris once again sides with his new friends and literally has to wrestle Travis to the ground so they can get what they want. This is an allegory for what every teenage son does. Just like all of us, Chris needs to learn to make his own mistakes and would rather be with his friends being reckless than with his father being told what to do.
The difference here is that Chris making his own mistakes has already led to one man losing his life and will possibly lead to more death either for Chris (who cares?) or others (that would be sad). Eventually, Chris decides to leave for good and gives the brattiest, most annoying speech I have ever heard on television.
“You won’t do what needs to be done,” he tells Travis. “I’m better off without you. This whole time you had me think I was broken. I wasn’t. I was adapting. I’m good now.”
God, Travis, just let him leave.
Of course, when Brandon and The Other Tyler show up at the hotel gate alone at the end of the episode it means Chris has certainly paid for his bad decision, possibly (hopefully) with his life.
‘No matter where they are it’s the same story with different people’
The big rift between Travis and Chris started long ago, but the deciding blow came when the Tylers came into the picture. When James, who was shot by the farmer but repaired by Travis, takes a turn for the worse, Brandon and The Other Tyler want to kill him so that they can go gallivanting back to San Diego hoping to find the world’s last beer pong tournament. He’s just dead weight and they want to cut him.
Travis won’t let them and eventually Brandon shoots James in the head while he is begging for mercy. What was striking about this is that Travis proposed they leave James with him but they won’t do that. This is really a battle between two philosophies. The Tylers and Chris think only the strong should survive and those who can’t act decisively will be destroyed. Travis is still clinging to the old world and his sense of decency and while it’s nice to think that Travis is altogether right, he will need to make some concessions in order to survive.
But this is really just the classic clash between the young and the old. Travis tells the boys not to eat the chickens but to eat the eggs and keep the chickens so they can be fed for days to come. The boys are impulsive and not thinking about the ramifications of what they’re doing or what effect they’ll have on their future. They want to forge ahead and create something of their own, even if that means destroying everything else. Travis takes a more tempered view, but in a world where extreme reactions are the norm, he’s bound to end up on the losing side.
‘If I hadn’t seen that light, I would never have to tell a soul what I did’
After Madison flicks on the light of the hotel in an attempt to find Nick, a herd of 43 people show up at their gate trying to get into the “castle” they have created. Travis is one of them. Madison lets him in (and Oscar subsequently rescues everyone else). When they first go upstairs, Madison asks Travis if he wants a shower and he says no. Travis, she’s not trying to be nice. She’s trying to find a nice way to let you know that you stink like zombie and you should probably take her up on her offer.
Travis is still gutted that he let Chris slip away from him and thinks the rift between them started years ago. He blames himself for causing this, by divorcing his mother, by not being there, by not taking him to enough ball games or something. But what Travis doesn’t realize is that he and Madison are the same. He’s wallowing so hard in his own self-pity that he can’t realize Madison had to let Nick walk away to save herself. They’ve both done the difficult job of parenting now they both need to do the even more difficult job of letting go.
‘I love you all, but enough’s enough’
Her conversation with Travis reminds Madison that she still has a daughter and that she needs to repair their relationship. St Alicia is in the parking garage helping with all the new refugees the hotel is taking in. Madison tells her what we already knew, that her father committed suicide and she never told the kids because she didn’t think they could handle it. Well, actually, she didn’t think Nick could handle it because they’re so alike.
It did seem a little bit selfish for Madison to unburden herself like this. Now she gets relief but Alicia, along with dealing with the end of the world, has to process all of the emotions that go along with her father killing herself. Let’s just hope that she handles Chris’s death much more easily. Let’s just hope that Chris is finally dead.
