‘Things change so quickly now’
The woman who began this episode wasn’t just talking about her post-apocalyptic world. She went meta: it was hard not to feel like you’d missed something at the start of this season’s second half. Why is Nick waking up in some strange house? Who’s this woman with a son named Juan? Why aren’t we checking in on the others? Why does Nick keep falling asleep when that seems to prompt a baseball bat beating, dog attacks or raids by some sort of paramilitary?
The woman, whom I assume comes from the Abigail compound that met a fiery end last time we hung out in zombie-land, tells Nick that up north there are others who “view the dead as Celia do”, but the road is full of bad men. Nick leaves anyway, for a 100-mile journey to Tijuana that he hopes will take him to a death cult organized around the belief that zombiehood is just a step to the afterlife.
Nick’s changed too. His character arc had been from no-good junkie to an adaptable survivor. Here we see him struggling: unable to eat cactus, drinking his own urine based on what he saw in a movie, and stumbling around in the brush as if his limbs have all fallen asleep. Maybe he’s not so adaptable.
‘Death is not to be feared, but it shouldn’t be pursued’
Nick’s desert trek mirrors his past experience in court-mandated rehab, where he learned that his father died in some kind of accident. In both stories, Nick fends off death by entering a death-like trance. When he learned his father’s fate, he relapsed: alive but not present, always on the brink of self-destruction.
In the present tense, his dance with death is not even that subtle. He covers himself in Walker gore to disguise himself among the Walkers, then injures his leg and shuffles around like them. Finally, after walkers save him from two dogs, he joins in on the feast of innards. He’s become a zombie – just one who also needs food and water. Without that sustenance, he drops to his knees on the road until some serendipitous rain arrives, washing away the blood and guts and leaving Nick alive again, reborn.
‘I want to be where the dead aren’t monsters’
He’s not alone, of course. A group of clean, well-dressed people with guns find our hero. They seem much more altruistic than the mercenaries who met a bad end with some zombies earlier in the episode, and their leader, Luci, lets herself be convinced to bring Nick along. They take him to a doctor, who gives some very good advice.
We leave Nick in a vibrant town, with guards on the perimeter and kids playing soccer in the dust. There are walls and fortifications, the type of settlement we’ve seen flourish now and again in The Walking Dead.
Nick seems to realize his good fortune to be alive – he’d forgotten what it was like. He’s kicked heroin, seems at peace with his father’s death, and discovered that passing as one of the undead is a lot more treacherous than he’d thought. Under Celia’s sway he was obsessed with the dead, but now he can devote himself to the living.
Then again, Nick seems as impressionable as ever. Will Luci be his new master? Is he going to try to find and rescue his family? Will he ever get a good haircut? Plenty of questions remain.
