Nick Clark, a heroin addict, awakens one morning from a "junkie communion", alone and in an abandoned church. He hears a scream and goes looking for his friend Gloria. When he interrupts her bent over and feasting on the face of a dead person, she turns around and starts to come after him. She has a large knife in her chest. In an utter state of fear, Nick escapes the church, then runs down the street where he is hit by a car. As the camera pulls out, we see the city of Los Angeles and an otherwise sunny, normal day. Traffic is backed up, people are walking around and there is a plane in the air.
Nick is hospitalized for his injuries, his arms restrained to ensure he doesn't hurt himself or others. While Nick is questioned by police, his mother Madison shows up, along with her fiance Travis and her daughter (Nick's sister) Alicia. An elderly man in respiratory distress is wheeled into the room and placed in the bed next to Nick. Travis takes a call from his ex-wife Liza. This is Travis' weekend to take their son, Chris. After arguing with his father, Chris decides he will stay home this weekend. Madison, although obviously concerned for her son, must get to her job as High School Guidance Counselor. Travis stays to keep Nick company and maybe get him to open up about what happened.
At the school, Madison stops to talk with the school's Principal, Artie. The metal detector goes off when a senior student named Tobias enters. Madison pretends to find small change in Tobias' pocket then hauls him into her office demanding to know why he tried to bring a knife to school. After all, Tobias is an honor student and this would have gotten him expelled with no chance of going to college. She drags the truth out. He has heard stories of incidents of a virus or microbe infecting people and making them kill. He doesn't believe authorities who say these incidents are contained. Madison tells him he needs to stay off the internet.
Alicia meets up with her boyfriend Matt. The conversation centers around her future plans, going to UC Berkeley and her problems at home. The two decide to meet up at the beach later that night.
Meanwhile back at the hospital, Nick wakes up from a nightmare. When Travis asks what he saw, Nick explains everything. But he is confused and unable to separate reality from a drug-induced hallucination. Or there is the possibility he is going insane. Travis decides to check out Nick's story and goes to the church. He finds blood everywhere, but no bodies and no Gloria. It is starting to dawn on him that something is not right.
The next day at school, Madison stops into the Principal's office to see Artie hunched over. He is listening in on teachers, auditing them for review. Artie flicks a switch and we hear Travis say, "Nature always wins" referring to "the dog" during his class on Jack London.
Nick manages to convince the nurse to untie one of his restraints so he can use a bedpan. She leaves him alone for privacy. When the elderly man in the next bed goes into respiratory failure, a code blue is called and the doctor and nurses rush in. The doctor says, "There is so much we don't know" and "Get this gentleman downstairs immediately." Nick puts on the old man's clothes and escapes from the hospital. When Madison finds out her son ran away, she asks Travis to bring her to the church so she can see for herself what happened. Madison sees that something terrible happened. Travis tells her there are no bodies and that bodies don't just get up and walk away. They decide to stop at Calvin's house - an old friend of Nick's, to see if he knows where Nick could be. Calvin doesn't know but offers to make some calls. On their way home, Madison and Travis are redirected off the highway only to be stuck in traffic on the off-ramp. There is some kind of disturbance ahead which they think it is a police chase gone bad. When they hear gunshots, they turn back onto the highway and go home.
Alicia goes to the beach to meet Matt, but he is not there. She texts him saying, "You better be dead."
Video of the incident on the off-ramp from the night before is being played on the news. Travis, Madison, Artie and several other teachers gather around to watch. A man on a stretcher is seen biting a paramedic. He is shot several times in the chest but keeps walking. Finally, he is shot in the head and drops to the ground. School is dismissed "early" for the day due to strange events. Madison sees Tobias on the school bus and he looks back at her.
Nick is on the run and desperate to get in touch with his dealer - his old friend Calvin. He needs to know if the heroin Calvin sold him was laced with something that could have caused hallucinations. Calvin insists it was good, and is more concerned that Nick may have blown things up for him. He asks Nick if he told the police anything, then tells him he can't have Madison coming around asking questions. Calvin then tells Nick things will be okay. He will fix him up. Calvin drives Nick to the reservoir, but when Nick sees Calvin with a gun, the two fight and Calvin is killed.
Nick calls Travis for help. When they meet up, Nick is upset that Madison showed up too. He tells them about killing Calvin and they go to see for themselves. They find Calvin's car, but there isn't a body. Nick is now convinced he is experiencing some kind of break with reality. The three get back into Travis' pickup and start to back-up through the tunnel. Suddenly, Travis sees a hunched over figure shuffling towards the pickup. Travis and Madison get out to see it's Calvin. They go to help him, but Nick yells at them to get back in the truck. Calvin grabs Travis. Nick takes the driver's seat and backs up over Calvin, then forward again. Calvin's body is thrown in the air. Travis, Madison, and Nick look to see Calvin's mangled body move its head toward them.
Madison says, "What the hell's happening?"
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The first thing that strikes me about the premiere is the opening shot of Nick opening his eyes, waking up to confusion. We've seen this mechanism used before. Remember Jack Shepard waking up in the jungle after Oceanic flight 815 crashes on the island in
LOST? Perhaps in a more pertinent scene, (but not the opening scene) there is Rick Grimes waking up in the hospital and finding the apocalypse happened while he was in a coma in
The Walking Dead? It's a scene that draws you immediately into the story, immediately into the character's situation. It also tells you (at least in this episode) we will be introduced to the beginning of the apocalypse through Nick Clark's eyes. Nick's experiences will fill in the gap in events between the emergence of the first infected and when Rick Grimes wakes up.
And Nick Clark the heroin addict is the perfect character for this. He is living on the fringes of society, a place where people often die. In a world where the dead come back to life to eat the living, this is not the place you want to be. There is also another comparison to be made. Nick's physical and mental condition as a heroin addict in withdrawal combined with his injuries make him about as close as a living person can get to being the undead. He has only one thing on his mind - to get a hit of heroin. He walks with a limp, drags his feet, and keeps his arms up close to his waist. Wearing the "old man" clothes only accentuates how close to death he really is. And because of all this, he seems to have a heightened intuitiveness towards the dangers that are about to befall them. It's very close to the dog in Travis' class on Jack London. Even the nurse at the hospital told Nick, "You're the dog."
Another element I found well-played was the use of anticipation. We know what is about to happen to these people and the dangers that await them. The characters just don't see the clues all around them. Even Tobias - who knows there have been incidents covered up by the government, really has no idea just how bad things will eventually get. When the elderly patient is put in the bed next to Nick, we know it is just a matter of time before he dies and turns. I thought it would happen when Nick was still in restraints. Instead, the Doctor says they need to get him downstairs before he dies. This tells us "they" already know, and they know this is not just a virus. They know the dead come back. I am reminded of Rick Grimes encountering row upon row of body bags as he leaves the hospital. And when Madison and Travis were stuck in traffic on the off-ramp, I was on the edge of my seat knowing they had to get out of there. The first thing I thought of was the scene in season 2 with everyone waiting for a herd to pass, by hiding among the long-abandoned, stopped cars on the highway. There are other hints too. Artie hunched over in his chair. Notices of missing people posted on walls. A slow-moving shadow-like image of an Asian man stumbling through the park.
And even with everything that Madison, Travis, and Nick have been through, they are still completely unaware these "infected people" are dead.
Some people have complained this episode moved too slow. The apocalypse didn't happen quick enough. The world didn't come crashing down and Los Angeles hasn't burned. But isn't this how it would happen? A few reports of strange events. People go missing. And from a distance, would we even recognize a zombie from anyone else we see on the street?
Don't worry. It will happen soon enough.
