Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 10 State of Mine

Time for some more shenanigans. And yes, of course we have shenanigans

We have a bunch of Talkers at a scrap yard digging up things under the watchful eye of humans in haz mat suits and guns treating the Talkers as disposable animals. Until one of those Talkers bites a battery, there’s a puff of white smoke and he comes to his senses. Rallying and feeding more batteries to his fellow Talkers he leads a rebellion

There’s a big dramatic speech about freedom which kind of falls flat. It sounds like an epic anti-slavery rant from an oppressed group who has spent years under the boot of their oppressors - but Talkers haven’t even existed for years. And these words coming from a Black man is just… yeah… we see what you’re doing there Z Nation and think this is an issue.

The man then charges into the mine and is beheaded. There’s something scary down there

This is when Warren, George, 10k and Doc arrive looking for the secret ingredient in Biscuits (yes I know about the daft spelling, no I’m not spelling it that way.) They see the mining and enslaved Talkers and George realises Altura is behind it. They also see the “Hazardous materials” signs but Warren points out that, hey, it’s the apocalypse.

They split up with George pretending to be a Talker, Doc and 10k stalking around and Warren getting stuck in the tunnels

With many shenanigans, they realise that the Altura troops are gathering Lithium, crating it up to take to Altura. They find a semi-coherent Talker who explains lithium takes the edge off and grants clarity but it doesn’t last wrong. They realise this is the secret ingredient for Biscuits - and that Altura is trying to control that because if Estes controls the biscuits they control the Talkers. They can’t have that

There’s more shenanigans with Doc and 10k sneaking around watching the lithium being packed and playing with a crane. Because why wouldn’t you play with a crane? And managing to pass themselves off as Altura operatives by stealing haz mat suits. They all find evidence of people dying in horribly violent and ominous fashion.

While Warren explores the tunnels and discovers the scary force that is mincing people: a giant cyborg Talker. With a buzz saw as a hand. Oh and metal plates that stop him being head-shot and mercied.

Of course we do.

They focus on lithium and arrange various shenanigans to steal the rest of the Lithium and get the rest of talkers to Limbo. Easy enough

Shenanigans ensue, This involves a fight that doesn’t exactly go there way, the convenient appearance of slashy cyborg Talker and the gang all gathered around this giant invulnerable Talker smacking it until they wear it’s battery down. To which Warren reaches out to it as a person so it decides to commit suicide

Which…. Ok?

I mean it seems like I’m glossing over a lot here but most of it is just shenanigans - and this giant cyborg did just decide to commit suicide because Warren asked him what he wanted. He didn’t even really depend on Warren’s help here, he did something he was perfectly capable of doing himself.

And how did he turn into a cyborg zombie? The best anyone can manage is he overdosed on lithium. Which causes you to graft saws to your body apparently. Ok, whatever let’s gloss quickly over this clumsy hot mess. At least the cyborg zombie killed all the Altura people so George and Warren didn’t have to make a morally questionable choices on what to do with them

So next step is to hit Altura - but to do that they need to get past this “high tech security”. Luckily George knows some hackers


It’s the post-apocalypse world, how is anyone still a hacker? And when the biggest threat you face are literally mindless why do you need high tech security that a hacker can break? You need a wall. A big thick wall. What is this high tech security?

I think this episode was pretty much thrown together clumsily - but at least it was good to see Warren in charge again