EPISODE 01 ~ Madness Takes Its Toll

We pick up an unspecified number of years in the future.  We reunite with Governor McInnes as a leader of a camp and now dealing with an advanced, degenerative illness referenced in Googies.  Grant is nowhere to be found. Ronni is part of McI’s camp, but has become a dark, cruel version of herself since something very bad happened to Hicks and their baby.  Ken Peters is trying to serve in the role Grant once held, but he and McI don’t get along. It isn’t clear what has driven our heroes to this dark place. The sudden appearance of Doreen Garrison and a few people last seen stuck inside HG World racks up the tension and it seems we’re about to see our heroes try to take each other out.

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Meanwhile, a small group of new survivors are on the run from a dozen fast eaters.  They are the last of a caravan heading for Canada and the few rumored settlements still operating there.  The group fights its way along a road leading up to an old big-box warehouse – HG World.  They are surrounded in the parking lot by fast and slow zombies and prepared to go out fighting when all the zombies stop and sit down in a circle, taking a pose of meditation.  All but one, a female and the body of one of the survivors' team who had turned.  She speaks.  "Hi guys. This is so totally weird.  Please don't shoot me because I have a message for all of you."

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Cut to a dark prison cell.  Todd Rage and Dogberry are prisoners of the Reformed Brotherhood.  Rage is also a prisoner to Dogberry's incessant babbling.  They re-count how each had saved the other's life repeatedly and escaped the Brotherhood until a month earlier.

 

Brother Krut enters and, for the first time in days since arriving at their holding facility, speaks to them.  He's very gentile and almost apologetic.  He explains to Rage and Dogberry that they are being held because they both possess the necessary skills for their master plan.  Todd wonders aloud why the hell Dogberry is there and is reminded that Jerry Dogberry was once an IT dot-com pioneer before the "bubble burst" drove him mad but he was once considered smarter than Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

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After some time confusing the Orthodox Brotherhood with the Reformed Brotherhood, the brother clarifies that the Orthodox followers believe that the dead should consume the Earth whereas the Reformed Brotherhood wishes to coexist with the entity that has been spreading through it, eradicate the early, inferior collectives that kill humans in favor of the advanced forms that have been able to transform humans without killing them.  They want to raise an army of both the living and the dead to eradicate their mutual enemies.  They need Todd Rage's communications skills and Dogberry's tech to complete their plan alongside some loyal acolytes of the movement.

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Back at Camp McInnes, Doreen is taking no shit.  She explains that McInnes was wrong to exile people for expressing dissent about the way McI runs his camp and should bring them back inside.  McInness warns them to clear the main gate or he’ll kill Doreen and the six people with her.  Ken Peters tries to mediate, but he is ordered to muster a platoon of soldiers to march and clear a perimeter around the camp.  Just as Ken is about to disobey and switch sides, a herd of fast and slow zombies emerge from the trees and advance on the gate.

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Back at HG World, the talking eater (called Becky) explains that she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her but that it feels like she’s peeking down from heaven surrounded by the spirits of the dead.  They speak to her and want her to send a message of hope and peace.  The other eaters can be controlled and she demonstrates by having them all stand and do an awkward take on the “Thriller” dance before collapsing them back into their yoga pose.  The survivors are divided on if they should use the moment to mow them all down, but Becky tries to convince the group she is sincere by recounting highlights of their journey together from the Midwest.  As the leaders deliberate, one of their number shoots all the prone zombies and then, as she begs, puts Becky down.  Before they can argue about their member’s actions, the gates of HG World begin to grind open for the first time in years…

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EPISODE 02 ~ Paranoid Eyes

A small group of survivors watches as a giant steel door grinds slowly open, dust billows from the darkness within.  They scatter to one side of the building or the other to avoid being spotted by anything inside.  Fred and Daphne* head around the south side of the building toward the loading docks.  Shaggy, Scraps, and Velma* go around the garden section side with its overgrown ivy and kudzu climbing the steel fences.  Fred and Daphne encounter to emaciated remains of two bodies, still reanimated, spinning gently by a hangman’s noose still cuffed together at the wrists.  At the sound of new visitors they stir just enough to fall apart and drop the fifty feet onto the couple.

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Around the Garden Section, Velma believes she sees someone inside the garden center – someone with a dirty red hoodie darting between rotting palates.  Shaggy keeps an eye and a gun barrel pointed toward the front entrance and Scraps dismisses Velma's observations saying it's just another corpse.  He explains that HG Worlds were set up as relocation centers for refugees years earlier, but all of them failed and turned into tombs.  As “figures” emerge from the front entrance, Velma spots the woman in red, partially obscured by shadow, who points toward the back of the garden center and the rear of the building.  Scraps is about to shoot through the fence at the woman in red, but takes a bullet through his head instead.

 

Fred and Daphne freak out and clear themselves of the bodies.  Fred is injured from the impact, but not bitten.  His shoulder is torqued and he has to use his “bad gun hand.” Daphne notices they are standing on a shallow mound of bodies partially blanketed in dirt and grass, though the remains still poke out in places.  They hear gunfire and retreat toward the back of the building but are stopped by a man and woman who look well fed and kept.  The woman says, “Hey! Welcome to casual Friday.  I’m Kara and this is Gregg…with three G’s if you’re interested.  Please don’t be stupid, I’d like to make it to lunchtime without having to kill you.”

 

At Camp McInnes, Ken Peters opens the gate and orders guards to cover the refugees as they enter.  They get all but two fast eaters, who overwhelm four of the guards before they are put down.  Outraged, McInnes orders Ken arrested not realizing there are no more guards around him to accept his orders.  Surrounded by hostiles, McInnes reverts to a perverse kind of charm.  Doreen introduces Jebediah, David, and Nicholas who were either at HG World or the First Church of Wishwell.  They recap that the four of them were once welcome after “bad things” happened at both locations, the church was razed, and some people “escaped” HG World.  McInnes says that they failed to conform to orders and that’s why they were exiled.  The argument seems to be rooted in the idea that McInnes no longer wants to go anywhere and is content to “wait on orders that won’t come” and is ignorant to the reality that floods have rendered the Algonquin Valley a swamp full of rotters and natural hazards and the summer will only bring terrible diseases, spread by mosquitos and vermin.   McInnes says he won’t leave until “the mission” is finished.  Ken reminds McInnes that the mission failed, that Major Grant is dead and won’t report back.  Jo is gone as are Sarge and Vesta.  “We all needed to contain The Hawk,” McInnes exposits, “but they failed.”  McInnes refuses to accept it is time to move on.

 

In a brief side bar, Ken conveys to Doreen that his illness has gotten to the point that this latest incident may convince the three heavy supporters protecting McInnes to switch sides.  With the bodies being cleaned up, McInnes invites everyone into his camp for a meal and a cold hose-down.

 

Kara Hash leads Fred and Daphne through a fire door down a winding stairwell into a large warehouse.  She orders the two to strip as Gregg uncoils a fire hose from the wall.  They are reluctant, but Kara mentions that they should end a long, brave journey by being modest or stupid, so they comply.  As they strip, Daphne asks what is wrong with Gregg, who looks like he’s stoned or maybe even a zombie like they ones they found outside.  Kara says he’s just a little “brought down” because rats in the basement of the facility nearly tore out his throat and chewed him up pretty bad.  When asked about their other friends, Kara shrugs and says that they’ll be safe so long as “they pass the Stupid Test” and do as they’re told as well.  The scene ends with Gregg turning the hose on Fred and Daphne.

 

Daphne's "cold shock" scream crossfades into another, agonizing cry heard down a long, concrete hallway.  Todd Rage wakes Dogberry who doesn't seem very concerned.  Two muffled voices are heard arguing as they pass the cell door in a rush toward the screams.  After a few indecipherable exchanges and cries that turn to pleas, the outbursts stop altogether.  Dogberry plays it off and rolls over to sleep but Todd approaches the cell door to listen as two voices – both women - converse outside.  There is some vague exchange about waking someone up or keeping them asleep, but someone stops the exchange with a shush just before the observation slot on the cell door snaps open and a southern accent says, "Well, hello, radio man.  Did we wake you up?  Sorry.  Doc and I were just consulting on our patient.  We hope to get y'all together real soon."  A woman's voice with a light southern English/Hindi accent says, "Leave him alone, ya dumb cunt."  Todd tries out a few words before the opening slaps shut again. 

 

Shaggy and Velma turn the corner and around the back of HG World.  They are hiding from light gunfire snapping into the concrete wall and the wet dirt.  They flee to a partially submerged loading doc ramp leading into the lower level of the building with a raised walkway along the truck docks.  They have to wade through knee-deep swamp water to get to the walkway and are attacked by water-logged eaters.  By the time they get to the walkway, gunfire again threatens them and they find themselves at a dead end against a steel fire door.  When the gunfire stops they only hear the gurgles of the eaters scraping and clawing their way up on to the walk way and the sound of marching feet over wet grass.  Suddenly the door opens and Shaggy screams!

 

*Note that some characters still have placeholder names

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EPISODE 03 ~ When You Think the Night Has Seen Your Mind

David, Jebediah, Nicholas, Doreen, Ken, McInnes, Ronni, and two of McI's African Union lieutenants sit around a makeshift lounge and bar.  Servants provide hot food to everyone and McInnes refers to them as his "girlfriends," much to Doreen's disgust.  Ken assures him it's just something he says and not something he does, to which Doreen says that only makes it slightly less perverted.

The tension between Doreen and McInnes stems from his generosity in using his waning resources to protect members of the First Church from a massacre by the Brotherhood two years earlier only to feel betrayed when none of them would participate in their effort to apprehend "The Hawk".  Doreen reminds McI that most of her people were old and infirm to which McI replies, "If they can EAT they can at least be BAIT."  No one responds until the Lieutenants laugh at this.  Then Ronni joins in as we transition.

A heavy metal door opens and Shaggy and Velma spill into a room where Fred and Daphne welcome them.  They note they've been given clean clothes and have been fed.  They catch up on what they know, which is little more than a lot of dark, winding halls and the smell of rotting meat. 

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The door opens and a young woman in a red hoodie enters.  She looks haunted and malnourished but enters into the middle of the room, staring through everyone present.  When the group tries to engage her, she responds with a long "shhhhhhh" like the air leaving a tire.  A strange conversation then takes place with the girl "perking up" and thanking them for making it that far and also apologizing for having to put their friend Scraps down as too much of a risk.  The girl says that she can see the world through a million eyes and knows that bad things are coming.  She needs people to help her prepare for a great battle and hopes what Becky knew of them was true and that they would help her restore the world to peace and harmony.  Fred calls bullshit and says that Scraps was their friend.  In response, the woman in red describes a few horrible things Scraps did on the road, explaining she knows because she saw Scraps actions through Becky's eyes before judging the rest of them.  The group has to admit being relieved that their companion "Scrap-Dog" is dead.

 

When asked if she is in charge, the girl replies that she is but that the girl speaking is merely channeling the thoughts of that leader.  If they are willing to listen, she says, they will hear a story and be offered a chance to save the world.  To demonstrate just how weird this is, the door opens and four rotting corpses enter the room.  They file in and sit down.  The girl speaking is introduced as Molly.  Through Molly the voice instructs the dead to speak.  In turn they introduce themselves as Jack, Ruby, Krantz, and Hank the Pimp.

 

Todd Rage is awakened by a knock on the cell door.  After explaining that he's on the wrong side to do anything to address the rap-tap-tapping, the door unlocks and opens, revealing a beautiful woman in a bathed in moonlight and gossamer threads threaded only by modesty into a nightgown.  Todd, obviously, acknowledges this as a cruel dream and invites her in asking right away how long it will be before her gorgeous face and flowing red hair is replaced with Dogberry's bald, bulbous skull. 

The woman introduces herself as "Jo" and also as a demi-goddess who has been sent from the distant Pleiades to end a cosmic war.  She says she seeks a champion who understands what must be done and help in being released from her prison.  Todd Rage tries to reference the movies he remembers where this might have influenced such a dream but Dogberry chimes in, "YOU HAVE MY SWORD!" revealing that the two men are awake and there's someone or something very strange inside their prison cell.

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Doreen is walking through Camp McInnes, falling away from a loud party in McI's lounge to check in with refugees and reconnecting with people she left behind.  No one is happy and everyone is terrified of increasing "fast eater" attacks.  They say the camp is being stalked.  Between tents, Ronni approaches Doreen asking what she's trying to do.  Doreen explains that she just cares about those people.  Ronni doubts that and suggests she's inspiring some stupid, deadly revolt against the only people who can keep them alive.  Doreen quizzes her on simple things like their names and asks if she's really protecting them or if she's simply hiding behind them.  Doreen seems to know what happened to Hicks and the child they gave birth to shortly after coming to Camp McI.  Ronni is having none of that and retreats into the growing darkness.

 

Doreen tracks Ronni to a corner of the camp where stones are piled up inside a frame of rail ties. A metal sheet on the corner fence post displays the names of the dead in various styles. This is where the ashes of Hicks and the baby were spread along with countless others who fell inside McI's camp.  Doreen finds her glaring at the wall of names, catatonic.  Seeing a knife in Ronni's hands, she tries to help by explaining how she lost her sons and her husband but kept fighting, but when Doreen sees a tear fall and offers a hand of comfort, Ronni stabs her.

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Episode 04 ~ Her Face, At First Just Ghostly…

​Ronni, realizing what she has done to Doreen, panics. The strike, intended for her heart, ended up deep in Doreen's arm but the cut is deep.  The two work together to tend to the wound and a medic arrives to help. Ronni apologizes and said she wasn't even aware she had the knife, but in the chaos and terror of what's happened, Ronni runs off as Doreen passes out from the pain and blood loss.

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Todd Rage, Dogberry, and Jo try to have a polite, normal conversation but the fact that Jo is glowing and surrounded by sparkling "fireflies" makes it awkward.  Dogberry keeps referring to her as Gladriel and Todd keeps insisting he's having a sex dream and Dogberry is a dirty cockblocker.  Jo explains that there is a war coming and she is a prisoner of the Reformed Brotherhood.  Why is she a prisoner?  She is being kept alive to wipe out a rival faction growing nearby.  She doesn't want to because there's another faction her captors refuse to believe still threatens them all. 

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Who is this, they ask.  "The Scourge" led by the diabolical Van Hawkins; a herd of necroambulates 100 thousand strong.  He has learned how to control what is now called "The Lesser Dead" – those generations of necroambulates that occupy rotting flesh and exist only to reproduce into other flesh, never advancing or evolving toward what she and others have become: symbiotic living beings – humans enhanced by the presence of an ancient cosmic collective  Jo begins the story that is then picked up by Jill Woodbine in the next scene…

 

(NOTE: WELCOME TO THE USS INFODUMP!  WE SET SAIL FOR BACKSTORY!)

 

Imagine a human being designed as though every cell was sentient and performed a purpose knowing all that the other cells knew; a skin cell serving its duty covering the flesh but with the same power and knowledge as a brain cell or one in the heart or the liver, capable of retaining bits of memory and perception.  That is "The Collective" that began as an infection of humanity. 

Through the acquisition and application of human imagination they are able to express how they lived on a distant world destroyed by a solar "event" which locked their kind inside rock and ice and sent hurling through space.  Locked into the rock and frozen alive, they could not reproduce and hibernated through their arrival on Earth.  Their memories of infecting humans are more like an exploration of a new world.  When they arrived, they left the rock and entered a human host.  That first expedition killed the host but then more "worlds" were opened to them and their civilization grew, split apart as new collectives spread to thousands of new worlds.  In time they realized they were toxic to these worlds and would eventually destroy them, so some of the collectives worked to understand the ecology and their environments and respect their homes. Other collectives were content to use their homes as vehicles to continue their basic instinct to reproduce and rebuild the population which spread across the Hyades in the billions of trillions.

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At this point, two distinct species of the collective existed.  Brother Savini, the first of the Reformed Brothers, understood that a human was a collective in discord; a collection of cells working together but unequal.  The collective had learned concepts like Agency and Autonomy, Creativity and Independence.  They also learned of Tyranny and Chaos, determining the human brain as the tyrant ruling servant cells.

 

Once the infection spread around the world and thousands of new generations learned to understand not only human physiology but memory and identity, the collectives began to change – mutate toward something more human.  They understood that they were destroying billions of living sentients.  Once they understood the concept of an unequal but interdependent biology, the mutated minority worked from generations beyond Brother Savini to stop the slaughter and try and help humanity.

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(Transition to Jill somewhere around here.)

 

In this body, my name was Jill, the entity said. But that didn't seem right given how many people I hear behind me and around me.  There was talk of "Eve" among the eldest of me and, when I was full of myself, we thought about "Legion" but… I'm the sum of all the people I loved and lived with anyway, so. Just call me Jill.  If that will help you relax, I mean.  This is still pretty weird for me, so I can't imagine how you all feel.

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Fred and the Not-Scooby Gang are confused by this.  Shaggy thinks it would make more sense if they just had some weed and a few beers. 

 

Undead Hank mentions he has some weeds in his contraband bin, but it is buried under a pile of corpses in the sub-sub basement which is sealed off now behind steel and concrete.  Jack and Ruby reveal they have exchanged body parts as a way of always being connected.  They complete each others' sentences and seem to be one person in two bodies.  Krantz, who is also undead, is creeped out by this.  He just enjoys keeping to himself and working on the plumbing.  Now that he's absorbed most of the knowledge and experience of the undead in the "Down Under" he can pretty much keep the facility running so that they can finish their...KARA cuts him off.

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Kara and Gregg, who apparently have been here this whole time, offer that they are among a handful of truly living people left after "a colossal shitshow of failure and fuckitude inside the main warehouse store."  There are about twenty survivors remaining, five of which were the ones sent out the main gate to "corral" the Not-Scoobs into the building and see if there were any human hostiles lurking in the surrounding area.

 

Velma asks where the "real" Jill is to which Molly replies that she is almost ready to be seen. 

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David and Jeb are standing watch over Doreen who is still unconscious.  Blood is in short supply but the entire camp has turned out to donate.  Ken Peters approaches and Jeb gets all frothy and salty with him.  David asks where Ronni got to and Ken has to admit no one knows.  She often leaves camp and doesn't check in with anyone for days.  Since she "snapped" no one wants to deal with her but she is one of the smartest people left in camp and, when lucid, can fix problems no one else can.  McInnes is equally unstable and there are days he sits in his big overstuffed recliner staring into the black mirror of a broken television.   After the Battle of HG World, which they lost, he has no troops so he is no longer an officer. After the failed ride to capture Van Hawkins and losing his inner circle, he lost all direction.  He calls himself a Governor because he has to care for people who are likely just going to die.  McInnes, Ken says, has given up.

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"Battle," Jeb laughs a little too hard. "That's a stupid way of describing a slaughter." 

 

And it looks like we're heading for a flashback next episode.

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Episode 05 ~ The Man Who Sold the World

It is six months after the events of Season Three and about two years before the events of this final season.  A football field at the remains of a local high school.  Neil McInnes, Brother Krut, Jill Woodbine, and The Hawk stand together in the open to discuss the future. There is a truce, but each participant knows the stadium is surrounded by thousands of the dead, some loyal to each of the supernatural participants.  McInnes, not to be outgunned, has armed a "dirty bomb" set to go off as soon as anything hinky happens to him.   

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The Hawk has grown tired of this world and his symbiotic relationship with the entity within him has turned cold.  Hawk's nihilistic view is based on understanding the world will never bounce back and that it must be turned over to the collective completely.  Once the world is free of humans, the collective can become one again and assimilate into the planet's biosphere – a paradise that the "Orthodox" Brotherhood craves.  Consciousness is the disease, he says.  And he wishes to cure his family of it.

Krut and Woodbine, while united in their belief that coexistence is important for the growth of both species, they are at odds over which half of the relationship should be dominant.  Krut believes The Collective should rule while Woodbine believes in the superiority of human creativity and independence to drive civilization.  Nothing can be done to split the "infected" so life can only continue with an agreement to co-exist.

McInnes doesn't much care for any of this.  He wants human purity, an end to the spread of infection.  He doesn't trust ANY of the infected and is present only to hear why that view should change.  The Hawk says he has no case to make because he has the numbers.  The dead may not possess the advanced abilities possessed by Krut and Woodbine's Collectives but he believes that will only result in further schisms in the future.  There are already two major factions of "Reformed" hybrids/symbiotes, he points out.  Krut and Woodbine can't even agree on who gets to drive the meat wagons.  The more independent minded they become it will just mean more "brotherhoods", more borders, more differences, more fighting…death will just come slower and that is abhorrent to the nature of their being.  They are, after all, a collective and have been so for eons. It is how they survived the death of their world and the journey through space.  It is how they spread across the planet and were able to nearly claim it as a new home.  Human deaths weren't a "mistake" because they had to die for the Collective to claim the world.

McInnes begins to see the folly of agreeing to this summit.  He calls up Major Grant for an extraction. Grant responds that a vehicle in on the way.  "All you fucks came to my world.  I'm not about to surrender any more of it.  Leave the north alone.  Leave the outposts be.  Let the living continue that way.  None of you bring your monsters nor your fucking pamphlets promising a better un-life.  Cross those boundaries and none of you get to continue on my planet.  Fuck all'a yas."

--

Ken talks to David and Jeb, explaining the flashback was recounted from his perspective.  McInnes walked away and drew a line.  He could have blown shit-all out of everyone there and spared us this.  He knew his mistake almost as soon as they left the stadium.

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Jeb recounts the first consequence of that mistake.

 

"It was a dark and stormy night," he begins. We return to the night Garrison and Jenny Jo went over the ledge and off the roof of HG World.  Jebediah went over, too and we find him laying on a pile of corpses looking up at the reanimated pair twisting and dangling above him.  Injured but terrified of suddenly being outside and alone, Jeb makes his way through the woods, avoiding the parking lot full of curious eaters.  He knows the woods because he is a local, but it's been so long, and the night is so dark and rainy that he loses his way.  He hears gunshots in the distance in two different directions that echo between Western and Kulshruk Mountains.  It reminds him of his time in the Army touring the Balkans during the war.  He enters fight mode and centers himself.  Jeb picks a direction and moves out, fighting through a small cluster of eaters to reach the main highway at the bottom of the hill on which HGW stands.  He sees the river, swollen with timber and bodies and pieces of the buildings that once made up Wishwell.  He follows the river road as best he can, turning an iron rod into a "Dead Beater" (If this sounds more heroic than it should be, remember it's from Jeb's perspective.)

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He saw hooded figures walking among the dead, trucks full of docile eaters sitting at the base of a hunting trail that cut up into Kulshruk Mountain.  Dozens of men in brown hoods and cloaks, like monks or whatever, filing into the forest as if on a mission.  The gunfire flashed in the darkness far up the distant slope while other shots could be heard atop Western Mountain about where the First Church would be…if it were still there.  Before he could figure out a way to get around the convoy of trucks and weirdos, Jeb was caught by armed monks and marched through a gauntlet of snarling, bite-y eaters.  Despite being free to move about they never moved against him, but they sure wanted to.  He had a hood put over his head and his hands bound before getting thrown into an empty truck.

 

"Ironic," David says in a callback to Season Three.

 

David continued from his perspective.  When Jeb, Jenny, and Garrison went over the wall, things started to fall apart inside the warehouse.  As a constable responsible for keeping the peace, David was tasked with stopping his former partner, Harris, from exposing what just happened with the general population.  The Mayor, Manager Jack, and other constables race after Harris to contain him.  Jack radios for back-up which comes out of an Employee door just as Harris passes by.  He pummels the constables and enters the door.  David, being the most agile of the bunch, is able to catch up and get through the door before it closes.  He and Harris have a stand-off, broken only when the power goes out.

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Programming Note:  You'll notice that until this point, the story shifted to a single-perspective narrative. The plan was to have Doreen, David, Jeb, and other characters narrate their flashbacks.  This was done to streamline production in a way that worked for "Googies."  I stopped my revision here and so the story reverts to that open, character-driven format.

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The First Church of Wishwell has been invaded by the Reformed Brotherhood, led there by “Reg” who was a recon spy who determined most of the people at the church were old or infirm.  About a dozen robed members arrive, armed, and hostile.  They drag people out of the church and demand anyone hiding report or they will set the building ablaze.

 --

 Ronni flees with Aaron.  She knows a hunting blind where she and Hicks have stored supplies and weapons but it is on the far side of a narrow trail that lines drop hundreds of feet below.  They make it across with Aaron noting the number of bodies at the foot of the cliff.  Ronni explains that she and Hicks once teased a herd through the woods and to the cliffs where they all tumbled over trying to get to them.  The ones that survived the fall froze to death that winter.  Once on the far side of the ridge, she tries to signal anyone on the emergency radio but receives no response.

 --

 Van Hawkins, who at that time was still hiding his true nature from most people, protests the Brotherhood’s actions in calling everyone outside.  The mustache-twirling villain-boss arrives.

Brother Arrow, who is somewhere between the insane hybrids Readick, Morrison, etc., is a sadistic bastard.  The human side is very effective in “motivating compliance” among people.  He does this by immediately killing the leader in order to establish dominance over a group.  In this case, he assumes Pastor Dawkins is the leader until he proves to be weak and indecisive.  When Hicks steps up and begins challenging him, Arrow shoots him in the stomach.  With Doreen, Dawkins, and The Hawk tending to Hicks, Arrow is unsure who is really in charge and begins taunting prisoners, shooting one in the head when he doesn’t answer fast enough.  He soon becomes preoccupied with Ronni and Aaron, who Reg says were just there prior to the Brotherhood’s arrival.

 

Hicks is mortally wounded.  Hawkins says he can help him even though the wound is clearly fatal.  Brother Arrow begins shouting for Ronni and Aaron to return or he will begin killing people.

 

(Arrow was written very similar to TWD’s Negan long before he showed up in the comics.  Jay wrote Brother Arrow in 2010.  Negan appeared in 2012.)

 

 Dogberry, recently captured by the Brotherhood, is tossed into the same truck as Jebediah.  They know each other because both were local before Jeb was hired to work security for HG World.  Dogberry an uncharacteristic hatred for Jeb (not surprising, given...it’s Jeb) and Jeb has nothing but contempt for Dogberry, calling him simply “Dog” and referring to him as “you Gollum-looking motherfucker.”  The scene basically turns into a competitive name-calling match between the two “Muscle-headed trout molester” - “crack-jacked shit swimmer” etc.  The scene ends with a sudden explosion and the truck running off the road, tumbling and crashing.

 --

 From the script:

Goooood morning, survivors.  This is Todd Rage broadcasting from a brand-spanking new and still undisclosed location.  Reports of my capture and/or death recently have been greatly exaggerated.  Yesterday, unsolicited spiritual missionaries paid a visit to my humble home on Kulshruk Mountain.  Instead of wanting to talk to me about saving my soul or dropping off some literature, they decided I needed to get on a bus and tag along with them on a journey to Crazytown.  Fortunately for me, my natural instincts toward visitors in brown robes carrying sporting rifles led me to carrying out my egress protocols and I got the fuck outta Dodge.  I’m using the portable transmitter I used to use when covering new shop openings in Wishwell and during those weeks when my wife needed me to stay home in those long weeks before she became my LATE wife.  Not that any of that is important, you’ll have to forgive my digressions and transgressions because I am running on adrenaline instead caffeine and a bit of fear instead of rage.  So, if you’re listening, beware weirdos in robes.  They claim to be carriers of the plague and want to share it with you so you can see the world the way they do.  Do not subscribe to their newsletter.  Shoot them in the face.  Trust me on this, people.  Best I can reckon, the First Church has already seen these people and the main road is clogged with eaters on a leash and trucks full of sunken-eyed, slack-jawed freakshows.  Circle the wagons, folks.  We’re goin’ to war.

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Episode 6 ~ By bloody hands time can't deny

The episode begins with a checklist. Major Grant checks off a status report from five soldiers who acknowledge they are ready and in position.  McInnes is itchy to just go. Grant can be heard loading up an M-60 and says it’s about to rain brass. As the guitar opening of “Welcome to the Jungle”* builds in the background, we hear the engine of a JEEP turn over and growl, then rev.
 

 Major Grant howls to “OPEN THE GATE!”

 

As the song breaks into the second half of the intro, all we hear is a large JEEP tearing across asphalt, smashing into eaters and lighting up distant concrete and glass with machine gun fire.  The M-60 sweeps the streets, sprays into the air and takes out eaters and obstacles as it truly rains brass inside the vehicle.

 

McInnes calls out targets and Grant calls out obstacles.  Around them, we hear more vehicles and more machine gun fire as they carry a coordinated assault on an urban setting.  We hear street names, stores and landmarks as bones crunch and the JEEP comes to a halt, idling hot at an intersection.

 

Grant calls in a recon report.  The herd ahead of them is three blocks deep and two wide with about a thousand head.  Units 2-5 have the herd corralled in that area and they can proceed with Phase 2 on Grant’s order.

 

McInnes turns down the radio and tells Grant to go with Operation: Kill It With Fire at which point Grant tells a story about how he once used a Russian RPG to blow up a vodka factory in the Ukraine and how it burned so bright and big CentCom thought it was an industrial plant for making WMDs.  

 

Suddenly,  Unit 1 reports it is under attack.  Unit 2 confirms Unit 1 was hit from side streets and the adjacent building by a herd recon missed.  Grant tells Unit 2 to attract the heard with small arms fire to keep the rest of them from spilling out toward Unit 1 and the freeway.  McInnes wants to fire, but Grant says it will just drive more of the herd through the gap toward an escape route. They can circle south  and block that route since there’s no way out of town in their direction with the intersections blocked by their trailer cars. McInnes agrees and they scream down a side street, bouncing more strays off their bumpers.  The herd is spilling through a glass boutique that occupies the entire block. They can’t get to Unit 1’s position. Grant begins mowing down eaters as McInnes pushes through a heavy wave of them. As they begin to climb the JEEP, Grant switches over and fires a rocket through the boutique directly at Unit 1’s position, granting them mercy and burning a hole through an entire line of eaters. The boutique goes up like kindling sending the herd back toward the center.  Grant gives the order for the remaining units to rocket the shit out of the herd.

 

McIness and Grant have stalled in the middle. While they are safe and can fire small arms out of portals, they can’t move in any direction. Things look grim.  “Can I use the toy now,” McI asks.

 

“It isn’t tested.”

​“So you’re saying it might kill us if you did it wrong.”

​“Yes.”

​“And you just sent a rocket over there so three soldiers could be burned rather than eaten alive, yeah?”

​“I’m fond of not having to die at all. So…”

​“I’m fond of having a third option but she’s not ready to drop her knickers yet, mate. So…Can I use the toy now?  I’m only asking because we’re gonna live or die together on this.”

​“Pilot is lit, I’m opening the valve now.  The big red button is all yours.”

 

A massive fireball erupts causing a sort of animal shriek from the surrounding eaters and lots of spontaneous ignitions around the JEEP.   

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Grant radios they have tested the Hades Fountain and, while it smells really bad and is very hot where they are, it is driving small groups of eaters N/S along Bridge Street and E/W through Forrestmark Square.  Rooftop units are to engage the stragglers and…

 

FIVE ROCKETS EXPLODE IN THE DISTANCE, shaking the ground and shattering glass around them.  A rain of bricks, steel and glass strike the JEEP and the eaters outside. Some of the debris is heavy, bouncing the JEEP about before subsiding.  FIRE ROLLS AND ROARS up the streets around them as McInnes puts the rig in Drive and floors it. They bounce around in debris punching through stragglers and thanking the inventor of honeycomb tire construction.

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They stop.  The engine idles.  Someone is in the street. Another person steps out.

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It's Sarge.  And Jo.

 

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