We All Fall Down
Directed by Adam Davidson
Melissa: No, we're just biding our time. Biding our time till it's over.
Having learned that an unidentified vessel is closing in on their location, Strand pilots the Abigail away from the area as fast as he can.
On a nearby beach, a pair of children are seen walking along when a walker walks out from the shoreline. The two children sit down and start collecting pieces of something while more walkers emerge and see the pair in the distance. The children carry on obliviously while the walkers get closer and closer, but just when it seems that they'll be attacked, the walkers are impeded by an unseen fence. The children walk up and leave a handful of body parts by the fence before running off and leaving the walkers to snarl in response.
In the yacht's washroom, Madison is calling out Nick for swimming into the sunken ship to retrieve the boat log. Their conversation is cut short when Travis arrives and tells them that he found something in the book that everyone needs to see.
Everyone meets at the command center and Travis tells them that the log indicates that San Diego is completely gone. Although Strand tries to argue that the book could be wrong, Travis points out that the logs were kept currently up to the day before. Strand then tells them that the ship pursuing them is course-correcting and tracking their movements, and they all agree that they need to find a place to hide. After checking a nautical map, the group decides to dock at a nearby island that houses a ranger station, then turn off the engines to shake the trailing ship.
As the Abigail nears the island, Madison looks out the window and sees a light turning on and off several times. Realizing that someone is alive on the island and signaling to them, they hurry and find a dock nearby. Strand tells the group to go on ahead while he drops the anchor, but Daniel and Ofelia elect to stay behind, as he suspects that Strand isn't being truthful with the group.
The family disembarks and walks towards the station. As they get close, one of the children seen previously on the beach runs out and greets them, then runs back inside. A man then exits the house and asks them what their business is. When they tell him they were looking for safe harbor for the night, he reveals that his name is George Geary, and that he lives at the station with his wife and children. After a few tense moments, Travis shakes George's hand and he invites the group in for the night.
Inside, everyone gets acquainted with each other. George shows Travis a map of the coastline and says that the military has either bombed or burned every major city along the coast, including San Diego. He also tells him that the Mexican border is permanently shut down, and that at least half of the ranger stations throughout the country are permanently offline. Meanwhile, Madison drinks wine and discusses her experiences with George's wife, Melissa, while Alicia and Nick play with the family's young children, Harry and Willa. George's oldest son, Seth, comes in and expresses surprise with the group before going back out to do chores. Nick discovers that the children are harboring a disturbing mentality when Harry shows him a set of dolls that all have red marks dotted on their foreheads while talking how everyone gets "sick" and goes away.
Onboard the yacht, Strand and Salazar are sitting in the command center. Although Strand tries to argue that he would never leave the group behind, Daniel accuses him of wanting to cut and run immediately. Strand points out that he has no logical reason for doing so before Daniel goes outside and talks about the state of the world with Ofelia. As Madison and Travis walk back to the boat for the night, she realizes that Melissa was turning the light on and off because she was trying to signal the group, and that it wasn't just a mistake. She wonders aloud why Melissa would do that before everyone retires to bed.
The next morning, Chris walks out to the beach and finds Seth, who invites him to help him with a chore on the beach. They walk down to the perimeter fence and Seth tells him how walkers keep washing onshore, and how he dispatches them through the fence. Seth invites him to try his hand at the task, and Chris proves to be surprisingly adept at killing them efficiently. Travis is also walking and sees what's happening, but Chris rebuffs him and says he's doing fine when the former tries to stop him. Travis leaves in shock.
Afterwards, Travis walks back to the house and finds George, who asks him to help repair a fence on the other side of the island. Travis does so, and George tells him more about his philosophy of survival. Meanwhile, Nick is searching the house for drugs and discovers a stash of cyanide pills stashed in George's study. Before he has a chance to do anything else, Willa interrupts him and pulls him away to help her draw pictures. Nick meets with the rest of the family soon after and tells them about the pills he found, noting that he thinks that George is planning to poison his family and give them a merciful death. They reel in shock at the revelation.
Daniel is deliberately annoying Strand on the Abigail when they hear a noise and check the radar, to discover that the pursuing ship has sailed off. While Strand notes their good fortunes, he gets frustrated with Daniel and walks off, taking the keys with him. After he's gone, Daniel begins to snoop around the command center and discovers a hidden chest under the seats. He uses his switchblade to jimmy open the lock and discovers a hidden cache of supplies, including a fully-loaded MP5 submachinegun. He chuckles out loud after picking it up. At the same time, Strand is seen holding a conversation via satellite phone with an unknown party, and pledges that he will arrive at their intended destination very soon...
Madison finds Melissa tending to her garden and confronts her with the knowledge that she was sending the group a signal. She asks what's going on, and Melissa reveals that she doesn't want her children to grow up on the island with nothing else and thinks they would have a better shot at survival going on the yacht. Madison goes to Travis and tells him that they should take the children, reasoning that George is just biding his time until danger gets close and then he will put his family down.
Melissa brings two small suitcases down and tells them that they need to leave immediately, but they are interrupted by George, who comes into the station's kitchen and asks what's going on. Just when it seems like things will escalate, Harry runs downstairs and tells them that Willa stole one of the pills from the study and is now "sick". Melissa breaks down and cradles Willa's lifeless body, but it's revealed that she has reanimated. The child wakes back up and bites Melissa in the arm, despite Madison's pleas for her to get away. Seeing what's happening, George accepts his fate and tells them both to take Harry and get as far away from the island as they can, before sitting down and waiting for his wife and child to consume him.
The group runs back to the boat, now with Harry in tow. When Strand attempts to tell them that Harry can't stay on the boat, they're interrupted by Seth, who brandishes a rifle and tells them to give Harry to him. A tense standoff occurs between him and Daniel (who is also pointing a gun at him), but they relent and let Harry go back to him.
Harry and Seth both go back onto the dock as the yacht brings its anchor up and starts sailing away. As they watch, Seth tells Harry to look at the group while he takes aim at the undead Melissa and shoots her in the head. He hugs Harry as the yacht sails off down the coast...
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: George correctly surmises that Travis' ethnicity is Maori, just like the actor who plays him, Cliff Curtis.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Nick attempts to steal a stash of drugs that he finds hidden in George's study, but is interrupted by George's daughter Willa, who pulls him away to draw with her. This is also a Call-Back to a similar incident that occurred at the end of "The Dog".
- Chekhov's Gun: The cyanide pills Nick is forced to leave on the table in George's study when Willa pulls him away are later taken and consumed by her, leading her to die, reanimate, and kill her parents.
- Cold Open: The introductory scene with Harry and Willa playing by the beach.
- Continuity Nod:
- George tells Travis that the rise of the undead is nature's way of course-correction, leading Travis to realize one of his previous high school speeches is now true - "Nature always wins."
- Strand's conversation with the unseen person on the other end of the cell phone ends with him staring at a mysterious picture, just as he did when Nick spoke with him about their escape plan in "The Good Man".
- Crazy Survivalist: Although George initially tries to dissuade the family's concerns by pointing out that he's not like the stereotype, they later figure out that he's far more overzealous than originally thought. It is implied that he was planning to give his entire family cyanide pills so they could have a painless death.
- Creepy Child: Geary's children (especially Harry) exhibit shades of this, as they collect body parts and leave them by the fence so the walkers are distracted. Harry also shows off a number of dolls that have "blood" splattered on their foreheads to Nick. It is revealed later that their father had told them a lot about the state of the world, and this has affected their mentality as a result.
- Death of a Child: This marks the first time on either series where see a child not just dead, but reanimate and kill an adult character.
- Despair Event Horizon: The death of his wife and daughter appears to be the final straw for George, as he tells everyone else to run and sits down beside them so they can consume him.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: George points out to Travis that the entire coastline has been napalmed and bombed by the military, the Mexican border is conceivably shut irreversibly, and at least half the country's ranger stations have gone dead.
- Hidden Depths:
- Salazar proves to be very adept at lockpicking, as he uses his switchblade to jimmy open the lock on Strand's safe, discovers an MP5 submachine gun, and expertly loads it.
- Strand is revealed to have an unseen contact who is seen corresponding with via satellite phone, and has been keeping his true motivations secret from the rest of the group.
- Hope Spot: Melissa makes plans to get Harry and Willa to the yacht so the group can protect them and give them a better shot at survival, but these hopes are dashed when Willa takes one of the cyanide pills and kills her parents, leaving Harry and Seth as the only survivors.
- Improvised Weapon: Geary's oldest son uses a pickaxe to take care of walkers amassing by the fence.
- Mexican Standoff: A brief one occurs when Seth points his rifle at the group and tells them to release Harry, and Daniel subsequently points a weapon at him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nick's discovery of the cyanide pills in George's study leads to Willa stealing one and consuming it, thus causing her to die and bite her mother and father.
- Offscreen Teleportation: The undead Melissa somehow makes it down the stairs of Geary's house and all the way across the island to the dock just a couple minutes after the group flees with Harry.
- Pater Familicide: Mounting evidence suggests George was planning this sort of outcome for himself and his family, although none of the Gearys actually admits it outright.
- Self-Made Orphan: A full case with Willa, and a partial case with Seth. Willa takes poison by accident, dies, turns and kills both her mother and father. (Although her father let himself be killed.) Seth also becomes this trope partially as he takes it upon himself to blow his mother's brains out after she gets up from Willa's fatal mauling.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode shares several similarities to the fourth season of the main series, including people dispatching walkers through a fence with an Improvised Weapon, a child character using something to draw walkers to a fence, a character imploring a child to look at a distraction and a character wearing earbuds and being distracted by the reality of a situation.
- Melissa's fate is reminiscent of Helen's in Night of the Living Dead (1968), save that Willa, unlike Karen, attacks with teeth instead of a trowel.
- "We All Fall Down" was the title of an Easter egg song made for Nazi Zombies, and shares several similar themes with the series (a virus beginning to take hold of the world, suspicions about an unseen agenda and menace, and a mysterious benefactor). The line itself is taken from the children's song "Ring A Ring o' Roses".
- Spotting the Thread:
- Madison figures out that George's wife was turning the light on and off because she wanted to flee from the island, despite his statements about it being an accident.
- Nick also figures out that the drugs he found in George's study are cyanide pills, as he later points out that he "knows his pharmaceuticals" to Madison a short while later.
- Took a Level in Badass: Chris begins to learn how to kill walkers effectively with the help of Geary's son Seth, and proves to be surprisingly adept at it. Even his father is surprised by how capable he is.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Madison calls out Nick for swimming into the capsized ship in the previous episode.
