Spoilers!!
We open in Los Angeles, an abandoned church now being used for a drug den. Nick (Frank Dillane) wakes to find that a friend, and fellow junkie, Gloria (Lexi Johnson) is eating another junkie. Nick runs for it and runs into the street, where he’s hit by a car and ends up in the Hospital.
Nick’s mother, Madison (Kim Dickens) is a couselor at the local high school, and her boyfriend, Travis (Cliff Curtis) is a teacher. We see the type of person that Madison is as she helps a boy who has just set off the metal detector.. she lies and claims that loose change in his pocket triggered the alarm, when it was actually a knife (to be used against bullies? or for general defense). The boy, Tobias (Lincoln A. Castellanos) tells Madison about rumors of a virus reported in five states, people going crazy and murders.
Nick’s sister, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey – god I hate it when they name a character after the actor/ress) is your typical, cookie cutter, high school girl. If she can just survive living with her drugged up brother and put up with her parents un-coolness, for just one more year..
The family is contacted, informing them that Nick is in the hospital, and they all rush over.. dragging Alicia with them, ya know.. because she’s SO over this.. Long story short, Nick escapes from the hospital, in the clothing belonging to an elderly man in the bed next to his. He rushes to find his (incognito) drug dealer, Calvin (Keith Powers) who everyone thinks his just the greatest guy ever.
While that is going on, Travis drives to the church drug den to check out Nick’s story.. finding evidence of murder.. and immediately calls the police. what? no? no cop involvement? ok..
A video surfaces on the internet, after a traffic jam on an highway off ramp brings police involvement. The video shows an assailant attacking officers and getting up, repeatedly after being shot.. with a head shot finally taking him out.
Madison wants to see the church for her self and Travis takes her to the drug den church looking for Nick, not finding him, but lots of evidence of murder..
Nick meets up with Calvin and explains about Gloria, and the killing.. and wants to know what was in the drugs, was it laced with something? Calvin takes offense at the thought that he would sell dangerous drugs.. laced with something to make them.. more dangerous? And takes Nick to get him a fix to straighten him out. They drive to a secluded storm drain, and Calvin goes into his trunk to get.. drugs? Nope, it’s a gun..
Nick and Calvin struggle for the gun and it goes off, killing Calvin.
Nick gets back with Mom and Travis, explains about Calvin and they drive back to the storm drain, finding Travis’s car.. but no Calvin. As they leave.. Calvin! Travis and Madison get out of the truck to see if Calvin is OK, and he promptly attacks them.. Travis fends him off, and Nick throws the truck in reverse, running over Calvin, killing him instan.. nope, not finished yet.. Calvin gets up, all torn up from being run over and Nick hits him with the truck, again.. sending him flying into the storm drain. Where they all watch in disbelief as Calvin tries to get up again.. The End.
Thoughts!!
OK, this was a lot different than the opening scene of “The Walking Dead”, where we were just thrust into things as Rick wakes in the Hospital 2 months after the zombie outbreak. This was slow, showing how it began. A little too slow for my taste. This was a 90 minute pilot (60 + Commercials), with 80 minutes of character development. Some people (myself included) complain about movies or TV that don’t have enough development, but this was borderline boring. Look, was this a show about zombies? or an after school special about the effects of drug use on a single parent family living in LA?
This was an anti-climatic pilot with no thrills. One problem we’re going to have here is that everyone knows what’s going to happen. I really think that if they were going to do a spin-off, they should have set it in the same time line as the original, but in a different part of the country. Oooo, we can see how it started? But, you’re still not explaining anything. Time will tell how this plays out. I’ll give it a few more episodes.
