Season Four begins with a song from my childhood. They don’t use it. It’s in my head, which is a dark and scary place, but everybody knows me there.
The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle
And the hills the greenest green in Seattle
Opening lines to the theme song to “Here Comes the Brides” (1968-70)
Well, that’s how it was.
Four months have passed and Seattle is now a walled city. Between the times the Mayor Baracus announced the existence of Zombies and the wall went up, over 100,000 humans left town, never to return. The Mayor is grateful for those humans who stayed as he notes the US Government would have likely nuked the place if they all had left.
Dear Gallagher, do we have a prop for you!
The wall is patrolled by the armed forces of Fillmore Graves, who appears to be the (martial) law of the city. There is a death penalty for any Zombie who scratches a human. It’s a lovely device that looks like a guillotine, but uses an anvil to crush the head, rather than a blade to cut it off. There is also a midnight curfew, that the local anti-Zombie terrorists, like the Dead Enders, seem to ignore. Many of these gangs spray paint a red “Z” on your front door if you are a Zombie.
Social problems have come forth as well. There are numerous teenage Zombies left homeless by their unenlightened parents. To boot, there is a brain shortage. Zombies are starving. Throw in that people inside the plants that package tubes of brains for Zombies are shorting the tubes and selling them on the Black Market.
Lastly, the Seahawks now play football in Tacoma. No word on the Mariners or the Supersonics.
Zombie paradise it ain’t.
Yummy for your tummy.
Liv and Ravi are still working for the morgue.
In the season finale, Ravi said he found a cure and had Liv scratch him. Although the cure seems to work, Ravi goes in and out of Zombiehood. His flare-ups include a white streak in his hair and the occasional eating of brains.
In this episode, Ravi ate the brain of a scientist, who was also a nudist. Needless to say, they saved a lot of money on the wardrobe budget this episode. (Well…not really.) Liv ate the brain of a Seahawks super fan and dressed like something out of a David Lee Roth video to watch the College Football Draft.
Liv
Blaine is still one of the most interesting characters of the show. He’s having a difficult time with the Fillmore Graves regime. They want to close down The Scratching Post and his upscale restaurant, Romero’s. Romero’s is where we see Blaine taking care of Mayor Baracus, his wife, Peyton and her date. Blaine still has a thing for Peyton.
In order to keep his businesses in business, he has taken to being a snitch to Chase Graves, who doesn’t smile the entire episode. Letting Graves know about various problems, like Black Market brain tubes, Blaine gets extensions on his business operations.
Blaine is not happy.
The people who work for Blaine are not really happy either.
Dino, Blaine’s right-hand man, seems to dislike being told that “he will be whatever he wants him to be” by Blaine. At first, he looks like he’s going to clock Blaine, but then smiles and agrees to do what he wants. More as this line develops.
Major is back in uniform. Chase Graves comes to him about the homeless teen problem and, noting that he has experience in youth counseling, asks him to help some of these teens adjust. They are an angry bunch, especially when they find a vending machine in the hall that dispenses brain tubes. Later, they will find a way to empty the machine. Most will be taken by a young lady, who tells Major that her siblings are starving. Major looks the other way. Chase comes in and asks for possible trainees. It seems that Fillmore Graves’ army is beginning to thin. The young lady and another youth, dubbed Captain Seattle, are asked to join.
The kicker to the whole episode centers around Dino and his revenge on Blaine. Dino drives Blaine to the well where his Father is kept. He manages to pull Angus up from its depths. Angus has changed a little. He looks more like John Brown from the painting by John Steuart Curry than the clean-cut businessman we have come to know and hate.
John Brown
Dino pulls him out and hands him a hammer, telling him to break up the cement galoshes that kept him at the bottom of the well. While Dino’s back is turned, Angus says “Hammer Time” and slugs Dino. Angus, now free, heads for downtown Seattle.
He is talking to himself, spouting philosophy about life. He comes upon a theater that has its own preacher, a human priest, who is trying to speak comfort to his small Zombie audience. Angus, of course, ends up taking the stage and using the brain of the minister to help himself and those around him.
Has Angus found a new calling? Has he become what Stephen King called “The Monster Shouter” in “The Stand”?
Well, now, this is quite a mouthful. But the brains smell like lilacs and taste even better. So, belly up to the buffet and grab a tubeful.
Season 4 begins simply enough, but there looks to be many complicated situations on the horizon. I am looking forward to them.
