So Close, Yet So Far
Directed by Adam Davidson
After their encounter with the undead Calvin, Travis, Nick and Madison drive the pickup truck out of the tunnel and begin to drive away.
In the car, Nick listens for any news of the epidemic but only finds banal news stories. Travis suggests that they gather the family and head towards the desert. He asks why no one's doing anything to warn the public, but they're interrupted by Alicia, who has called to tell them that she's gone to Matt's house and found him in a feverish state. Travis tells her not to touch him until they get there.
At the same time, Artie is patrolling the halls of the now-empty high school when he hears a noise and goes to investigate...
When the family arrives at Matt's house, they discover Alicia wiping his brow and trying to stop his fever. Travis tells her to back away from Matt, and goes to examine him. He finds a large bite mark on his chest. Realizing what this means, Matt tells Alicia to go home with her parents, and reassures her that he'll be fine. He shares one last glance with Travis before the latter leaves.
Travis calls his son as they leave the house. On a city bus, Chris sees his father's incoming call and ignores it, then hears a commotion. A man runs onto the bus and says that everyone should see a homeless man who was shot by the police. Chris leaves to investigate.
Back at the Clark home, the family arrives and greets their neighbours, the Cruz family, who are holding a birthday party. Travis also watches as another neighbor, Peter Dawson, hurriedly packs cases of supplies into his truck. Travis decides to get his ex-wife, Liza, and Chris and bring them back to the house.
Nick tells Madison that he will likely face drug withdrawal symptoms soon, and she elects to obtain some drugs from an evidence lockup at the school so that he can stay stable. Before she leaves, she orders Alicia to watch over him.
As Travis drives through the city, he sees heavy traffic and a cop giving him a glance before loading cases of water into his cruiser. Travis calls Liza, who refuses to listen to him due to thinking he wants to talk about their custody agreement.
Chris joins with other people in the downtown core and starts filming a protest going on against the police. As the mob yells at the officers for shooting an unarmed man, Travis arrives at Liza's and tells her about the epidemic. When he calls Chris, he learns that the latter is in a protest and realizes he'll be in danger. Both Travis and Liza elect to drive downtown and pick him up before the situation grows worse.
At the school, Madison breaks into the evidence locker and takes a bottle of Oxycontin. She is surprised by Tobias, who says he came by to find out if he could get his knife back. Madison wordlessly gives him the weapon back. They decide to stock up on canned food as well, but as they are packing it up, they hear growling on the school's radio switchboard. When they make a run for it, they come across Art, who has been bit and turned.
Tobias tells Madison to get back as Artie stalks towards her. When she expresses confusion and tries to talk to Artie, Tobias intervenes and stabs him in the chest to no effect. Artie attacks him and they both fall down the stairs, with the former trying to bite at him. Thinking quickly, she grabs a fire extinguisher and bashes Artie's head in, and they both leave quickly.
At the Clark house, Nick begins to experience withdrawal symptoms. Fed up with the situation, Alicia tries to leave for Matt's house while he pleads with her not to go, telling her that she hasn't seen what the infection makes people do. Just before she's out of earshot, Nick has a seizure and vomits over himself, forcing her back to clean up after him. She tells him that she hates him.
Nick and Liza arrive at the protest and begin searching for Chris. When they find him, Liza glimpses the homeless walker under the sheet, and another walker suddenly appears and distracts the officers. In the confusion, the family flees through a walkway and onto the street, where rioting has intensified.
Thinking fast, they duck into a barbershop. The owner, Daniel Salazar, tries to force them out, but Travis begs for shelter. Seeing what's happening, Daniel's wife, Griselda, allows them to stay. Daniel closes a metal grate across the windows and door and asks what's happening. Travis tells the Salazar family that the dead come back as he looks outside at the rioters.
Madison drops Tobias back at his house and listens as he says that the crisis will never end before leaving. When she arrives back home, she gives Nick two of the pills and has a breakdown in the washroom after thinking about what happened to Art.
She calls Travis and asks if he's alright. After he says that he's waiting out the rioting and urges her to drive out to the desert, the phone lines disconnect.
After she comes out of the washroom, Alicia is looking at something outside. When they go to the window, they see that a walker, a reanimated Peter Dawson, is attacking Mrs. Cruz, who was taking down the party decorations. Madison tells her not to look, and blocks her from going outside to help, even .
At the barbershop, Travis' family and the Salazars light a candle and pray while the rioting continues...
Tropes:
- Black Dude Dies First: Matt is already bitten and feverish when Madison, Alicia, Nick and Travis visit him, and soon after, Artie dies in the school and becomes a walker. It's also implied at the end of the episode that Matt's parents were attacked and killed by him when he became a walker.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The birthday party the Cruz family were holding becomes a liability later on when a lone walker attacks Mrs. Cruz while she's taking down decorations.
- The intercomm Artie used to eavesdrop on the classrooms becomes this when Madison and Tobias realize the former is dead because their can hear him over the speakers.
- Subverted. When Madison returns to the school to get drugs for Nick, Tobias reappears and asks for his knife back. She gives it to him, and later (when they confront walker Artie), he valiantly steps in to protect her... except it's such a weak weapon that all it causes is Artie to become angered and attack him, forcing Madison to dispatch Artie instead.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Crazy-Prepared neighbor gets a closeup of his coughing fit, suggesting he has whatever illness is causing people to go missing. He eventually turns and attacks Mrs. Cruz.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- Tobias tells Madison that he's already figured out how society is going to collapse, and what steps he's undertaking to prepare.
- The family also sees several people stocking up on water and supplies, presumably already making plans to get out of the city.
- Dying Alone: Matt tells Alicia to leave him when she and her family visit his house, having realized that he's been bit and will come back as a walker.
- False Utopia: Much like the previous episode, many of the L.A. residents are ignorant of the epidemic due to government secrecy, and are more concerned with defending civil rights and rioting than protecting themselves against the walker uprising.
- Foreshadowing: As Madison, Travis and Nick are driving away from the canal tunnels at the beginning, the camera lingers on an airplane passing overhead...
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: One of the final shots in the episode is a quick glimpse of Matt's house, with a pair of empty suitcases and car trunk out front and the door left ajar. It is implied that the undead Matt attacked his parents as soon as they returned home.
- From Bad to Worse: Continuing on with society's degradation, several shots show it falling further into disrepair (at one point, an entire electrical grid is seen failing), and the episode ends with a riot breaking out in the city and Madison stopping Alicia from helping Mrs. Cruz when she's attacked by a walker.
- Genre Savvy: Officer Gonzales of the LAPD quickly realises that the woman stumbling towards her ignoring her demands is a walker and puts her down with two shots, as opposed to the standard trope of repeatedly warning the zombie and not shooting it in the head when it doesn't respond to being shot elsewhere.
- Government Conspiracy: In-universe, Nick checks the radio at the beginning of the episode and asks why no one's talking about what's happening, suggesting that there's a cover-up. The fact that a police officer is stockpiling on water clues the viewer that the authorities know way more than the average citizen.
- Idiot Ball: For the second time in two episodes, Madison attempts to talk down a walker. She doesn't even have the excuse of being naive this time, as she now knows what the undead are and saw what happened when Calvin tried to attack her.
- Improvised Weapon: Madison uses a fire extinguisher to bash the undead Artie's head in when he attacks her and Tobias at the school.
- Infinite Supplies: Averted. Multiple people are seen stocking up on food and water, and the acquisition of supplies is made a priority by Madison and Tobias.
- Mauve Shirt:
- The Cruz family (Madison and Travis' neighbours) are introduced near the beginning of the episode inviting them to a party. At the end of the episode, Mrs. Cruz is attacked by a walker, and Madison tells Alicia not to help them.
- The neighbour (Peter Dawson) who was packing his car earlier in the episode appears as a walker near the end chasing Mrs. Cruz.
- Non-Action Guy: Tobias, though he tries his best to avert this trope.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: The detoxing Nick tells Alicia this in order to keep her from visiting Matt's house.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Madison and Travis refuse to let on what's happening to Alicia, nearly costing her life when she tries to go to Matt's house after he's been bit and presumably turned.
- Likewise, Travis doesn't tell his ex-wife what's happening until he gets to her house and reveals the epidemic, by which point his son is in the midst of a dangerous protest (and forcing them to act quickly to rescue him).
- Powder Keg Crowd: The police shooting a homeless man (who most likely turned) and then a young woman (who definitely did) causes one of these to explode into a riot, trapping Travis, Liza and Chris in the Salazars' barbershop.
- Rebellious Spirit: Chris is initially reluctant to leave the protest when his father finds him, telling him it's the kind of initiative he always told him to pursue. Unfortunately, he picked a very bad day to do so.
- Spotting the Thread: Travis realizes something's very wrong when he sees an on-duty cop piling cases of water into his cruiser. Likewise, he also knows that Matt's a goner when he sees his bite.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Their neighbour Peter gets ready to pack up and leave the town, but sadly already has been infected by that stage, dying and turning later and attacking Mrs Cruz while she's taking down the party decorations.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Despite having just seen Nick's friend Calvin come from the undead and attack her, Madison still tries to talk to the walker Artie as he stalks towards her. It's only due to Tobias' intervention that she isn't immediately bitten.
- The female cop, Gonzales, plays it straight at first by first ordering a clearly infected woman to get down on the ground and then shoots her in the shoulder, then averts it by making the second one a headshot.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Nick vomits all over himself just as Alicia leaves for Matt's, forcing her to return and help him.
- Virus-Victim Symptoms: Matt starts burning up with a fever as well as gaining a hacking cough. Peter also displays this cough later on while packing his car to leave town, but succumbs and turns before he can leave.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: The protestors begin arguing with the police about the death of a homeless person (and ask Chris to videotape it), which would be fine and justified in a normal world, but it only exacerbates the situation because it motivates their decision to riot.
- Zombie Infectee: Matt and to a lesser extent, Peter.
