S03.E10: Heart of Darkness

[ottoDbusdriver]

Episode Description:

Warren and the others inspect Murphytown and realize they are going to need a bigger army to extract Murphy.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

So, they bring Vasquez back -- and he's the one pretending to be Escorpion and commanding the Red Hand -- only to have Roberta kill him off.  And Vasquez appears to have killed Hector too -- which is too bad because Hector was growing on me -- except for the fact that Sun Mei injects Hector with the latest version of her vaccine.  It doesn't look good for Hector as Vasquez  stabbed him repeatedly in the chest numerous times, but after the injection Hector didn't turn, so he might still be alive.  Turns out the Red Hand follows a type of "keep what you kill" philosophy, so Roberta is now the leader of the Red Hand.

No Doc or Addie, but Citizen Z and Kaya make a brief appearance and call Murphy in Spokane, and we get to watch use the outhouse.

10K also shows up ever so briefly, and Murphy has him incarcerated.

I still don't get why Vasquez when downhill so quickly after leaving the gang in California and adopted the Escorpion persona.  Plus it hasn't been all that long since they parted ways, so how did he build up his Red Hand army so quickly ?  Or know that Murphy was in Spokane ?

The biggest question -- how did Hector, Roberta and Sun Mei walk from Spokane to Seattle (nearly 300 miles by road) in 3 days ? The Space Needle was lying on it's side in the background in that scene.

Edited November 12, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[Cigale]

I think you missed the end.  We see Hector's eyes open and Doc and Addie found Lucy at a house.  She was playing dolls, I think, with a bunch of zombies. Someone came on the front porch of the house with a shotgun and fired in the direction of Doc and Addie.  

[Cigale]

12 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

10K also shows up ever so briefly, and Murphy has him incarcerated.

At first I read "incinerated' instead of incarcerated.  I was afraid for a moment...  ;0)

Sorry for the double post!

[ottoDbusdriver]

35 minutes ago, sisterspoon said:

I think you missed the end.  We see Hector's eyes open and Doc and Addie found Lucy at a house.  She was playing dolls, I think, with a bunch of zombies. Someone came on the front porch of the house with a shotgun and fired in the direction of Doc and Addie.  

I did miss that. I flipped over to another channel when it went to commercial and forgot to flip back.  Thought I just missed the credits.

[Joimiaroxeu]

They brought him back just to kill him? Nooooooooo! Crap, maybe Vasquez has a twin brother?

Whatever, it now seems pointless that they brought him back unless it was just a ratings stunt. As commented upthread, there are a whole lot of unanswered questions as to why Vasquez went from being a relatively solid special forces kind of guy to a heartless villain apparently in some kind of fugue state.

[ottoDbusdriver]

45 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

They brought him back just to kill him? Nooooooooo! Crap, maybe Vasquez has a twin brother?

Whatever, it now seems pointless that they brought him back unless it was just a ratings stunt. As commented upthread, there are a whole lot of unanswered questions as to why Vasquez went from being a relatively solid special forces kind of guy to a heartless villain apparently in some kind of fugue state.

I rolled back to last year's season finale just to double-check a few things -- Vasquez had a shotgun to Hector's head to try and exact revenge for Hector killing his wife and daughter but couldn't do it and just fired his gun away from Hector and released Hector.  Roberta has a chat with Vasquez to determine that he's not coming with the group, tells him to watch out for puppies and kittens and leaves.  Vasquez ties on the bandana, has one last drink and smashes his glass which attracts the attentions of Zs outside the cabin.  Vasquez exits the cabin with his backpack, shotgun and lacrosse stick, shoots one Z in the head and runs into the woods.

Now how he ended up in charge of a band of marauders called the Red Hand that roamed the West Coast from California to Seattle I have no idea.  And they never really explained why they called themselves the 'Red Hand', or why they did the things they did ?  Like exacting justice on lawbreakers like car thieves, for example.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Finally caught that last end bit which was only about a minute long before the credits rolled.

Roberta, Sun Mei and the Red Hand crew are headed to Spokane -- does Roberta know that while standing on the side of that truck looks badass, she might want to rethink that position since it's 100 miles to Spokane.

Doc and Addie find Lucy -- so nothing else happened between South Dakota and southern Illinois ? -- and she's playing with Zs dressed in a cowboy theme.  That guy that fired at Doc and Addie looks like the husband of the couple that Murphy bit to raise Lucy, and Lucy looks like she's 4-5 years old (due to accelerated zombie growth).

Hector is alive-ish, and he's become something we know not what.  I'm just surprised that Roberta left him there -- he didn't even get a burial -- or did they know he would "wake up" ?

Edited November 12, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[Ohwell]

I had family business so I missed this episode.  However, reading the recaps made me glad I did miss it because I was so pumped to see Vasquez again, but he came back as a bad guy and Roberta had to kill him.  That just sucks.

[GreyBunny]

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 8:49 PM, ottoDbusdriver said:

The biggest question -- how did Hector, Roberta and Sun Mei walk from Spokane to Seattle (nearly 300 miles by road) in 3 days ? The Space Needle was lying on it's side in the background in that scene.

Plus they would have had to walked through desert and over a mountain range to get there.  I couldn't tell they were in Seattle, it sure as hell didn't look like it, including the entrance to the Underground City.  It's like they took the Space Needle, hauled it away, and laid it on its side in some Spokane-like small town. 

[peach]

I am seriously irritated that they showed that spoiler of Vasquez in last week's preview because it killed the suspense and surprise of them finding Escorpion themselves.  At first I thought he was just playing them, mostly for the sake of his identity with his followers, but then it seemed like he really did have some kind of crayzee amnesia?  It didn't really make sense.  I guess Roberta cured him with the machete, which was a disappointment.  But I guess that's how she became the Earl of Red Hand, and now has a bunch of brutal psychos at her disposal. How is this better than Murphy Town? 

I'm not in love with this plotline.  Murphy has the right to self-determination, and if Roberta would attempt parley with him in their weird sorta friendship they might have room to work a solution for alternate vaccines, and he can keep his blend people group.  They're doing better than anyone else atm.  Judging by Hector, and the failed attempts by Zona, it doesn't seem feasible that there is any kind of "cure" cure, just different forms of immunity. 

[peach]

I find Citizen Z's girlfriend annoying, and how exactly does she know how to triangulate positions on a map?  I also didn't understand why Murphy didn't try to make use of Citizen Z's widespread communication ability instead of cutting him off.  Finding the phone in the box was funny though.  My favorite will always be when they used the fast food ordering sign.

[raven]

15 hours ago, peach said:

Murphy has the right to self-determination, and if Roberta would attempt parley with him in their weird sorta friendship they might have room to work a solution for alternate vaccines, and he can keep his blend people group. 

I'm a Roberta fan but I do agree with this.  If the people coming to Murphy want to give up "self" to be part of the group, that's fine, as long as they're not forcing anyone.  It doesn't seem like they are since when the Man was there, the guys in charge told the people they could leave if they didn't want the shot.  I wonder if Roberta assumes he is biting people without giving them a choice, since that's what he's done in the past.  I expect she will give him a chance to talk, I think she was assuming the worst and so wanted a group behind her.   I'm looking forward to their (hopefully, just verbal) confrontation.   I gotta say, I'm not sure where they're going with everything - we can't have kumbaya because then there would be no show. 

I also wondered if Vasquez recognized Roberta earlier than he let on and committed death-by-Roberta so he wouldn't have to face life.   Oh well, it was an interesting way to get Roberta in charge of the Red Hand.

I liked this episode and laughed at the phone in the box.   I like Citizen Z's group but they feel outside of the rest of the story.  

[Paloma]

Despite being driven by his desire to get revenge on Escorpion, Vasquez seemed to have his head screwed on right before he left the group, and he  was not unnecessarily cruel. It's  hard to believe that he suddenly lost both his memory and conscience, to the extent that hanging/torturing a young child (the one in the car with the family of car thieves) would be acceptable.

I don't understand why the Red Hand crew just stood there while Warren attacked their leader, unless Vasquez had previously given them orders to let things play out (seems unlikely). Also, when the drug dealer held up Vasquez's head and the crew took a knee, I thought at first that they were making the drug dealer the new leader. Maybe their rules are whoever kills the leader gets to be the new leader, but if so I hope Warren watches her back. 

I keep giving up on this show and then coming back when I need something mindless to watch on the treadmill. It would be a nice if the writers made at least some effort toward plot consistency.