Season 2 of Z Nation premieres this
Friday, September 11, at 10 pm on Syfy. 

But before we find out what kind of crazy luck leads to Citizen Z and the gang surviving simultaneous missile launches, let’s catch up on season one! After the season finale, we caught up with the cast and crew at San Diego Comic Con to discuss this upcoming season and we also livetweeted the San Diego Comic Con panel, which led to my favorite hilarious revelation of the show:


Here are the season one highlights before we find out who survived and as what:

  • Murphy survives a zombie attack after being injected with an unknown vaccine that might be the cure to the apocalypse, but sadly Hammond does not. They meet up with Warren and Garnett, as well as Doc, Addy, and Mack, just in time for their camp to get overrun – leaving them no real choice but to help Hammond with his mission. Unfortunately, he’s felled by a zombaby and suddenly they have to get Murphy to California without him.
  • Citizen Z was left behind by the military, but that’s totally fine because that means he survived the plane crash that killed the rest of them. And he finds a dog (the dog that hates DJ Qualls)! After fending off the zombie dog that tagged along, he helps the team get to an oil refinery where they can top up. Cassandra, whom they picked up at the high school where Hammond died, finds someone who remembers her as Sunshine, but leaves him for dead at the refinery. 10k, another straggler from the high school, saves the day with gas cans after Murphy has a panic attack and inadvertently crashes a car into the giant oil tanker, setting the whole thing ablaze.
  • The Cassandra/Sunshine conundrum is quickly answered on the group’s next stop to Philadelphia – she used to be part of a cult that ate people to survive! Unfortunately, they manage to snag Addy for their ‘family’ and begin using her as bait to bring in fresh meat – literally. Though they initially trade Cassandra for Addy, the women insist they go back for her and the group manages to take down the entire operation! Hooray! Also, the Liberty Bell goes flying down the street in this episode, decapitating zombies as it goes.
  • Citizen Z steers the gang to Virginia, where they want to fly a helicopter to the California lab. But nothing is without a catch and they have to contend with insane military members, who don’t go down without a fight. The helicopter is a bust and they almost lose Doc in the process.
  • Somewhere in the midwest, the gang gets a break in Warren’s hometown. It’s all domestic bliss until the ZNADO. Murphy shaves his head and shows the first signs of bonding with the zombies, Addy has an unfulfilling hook-up with Mack (or has her own issues), and Warren nearly dies as she cracks under the stress of her husband being maybe alive maybe dead (spoiler: he’s dead at the end of the episode).
[https://twitter.com/znation]
[https://twitter.com/znation]
  • When Garnett leads the group to an old friend from his National Guard days, they get caught up in a feud between the town and a cult that believes the zombies are their resurrected flock. Unfortunately, the cult is able to infiltrate and sabotage the town – turning many into zombies. Garnett sacrifices his life for Murphy’s when the cult leader holds them at gunpoint and Warren has to give him mercy.
  • Warren takes Garnett’s death hard and drinks herself stupid while 10k and Doc try to win some stuff in a wild west shootout contest. Murphy attacks a man, who doesn’t turn when he dies, hinting to the vaccine at work. And Mack and Addy get separated from the group, even though Mack wants to leave them behind and Addy doesn’t, when a zunami threatens most of the midwest.
  • Citizen Z reminds us all that he still exists as he hallucinates at Russian cosmonaut friend up at Camp Northern Lights with him. Yuri, the hallucination, helps him come to the realization that something broke in the base and he was slowly dying due to lack of oxygen. Meanwhile, the group hides out from the zunami (or zombie haboob) while Murphy wanders free through the town. He takes the supplies from a scared family, reuniting them with their zombie dad in an act of ‘mercy.’ His relationship with the zombies as it develops over the season is one of the most fascinating things to watch happen.
  • Catching up with Mack and Addy, we have an entire episode of Mack and/or Addy repeatedly dying as Addy has nightmares of her first night of the apocalypse where she was forced to kill her mom. Mack tries to comfort her as she sobs and it makes a lot of her weirdness as of late make sense.
  • In South Dakota, the rest of the group stumble upon radioactive zombies and a potential meltdown that would take out anything within 300 miles. With the help of some straggling survivors, none of whom survive, they manage to stop the impending explosion and find a new ride – a golf cart – to continue on their journey to California.
  • After being reunited with Mack and Addy, they find a boy walking on the side of the road and convince him to take them back to his compound, where the Sisters of Mercy welcome them with open arms. Well, the women anyway. The men have to stay outside the compound, though one woman does come out to show Murphy a good time. Addy chooses to stay behind with the Sisters, while Cassandra and Warren are shoved out. But Mack can’t accept this decision from Addy and goes back, presumably getting shot multiple times in the process.
  • The group make it to a golf course, where they’re double-crossed by another group of survivors who want to take Murphy on a mission. They want him to help them raid a pharmaceutical factory with his immunity to the zombies. What really happens is that Murphy learns he can control people through sharing spit, testing it out on first the woman and ultimately having the leader of the group kill himself by using his mind to force him to do it. This worries Warren and the gang, who catch up to him but don’t have to save him from anyone but himself.
  • Ultimately, the team is detoured from California to a lab in Fort Collins, Colorado where things get really weird. They are witness to the aftermath of something awful that took out the rest of the lab workers and are confronted by the good doctor who is responsible for the entire zombie apocalypse! Cassandra, previously left for dead by the group, returns – changed – and helps the group escape on orders from Murphy. Unfortunately, Murphy thinks Citizen Z set the whole thing up and leaves the lab without going through decontamination procedures. This triggers nuclear weapons to fire at the site, as well as Camp Northern Lights where Citizen Z is stationed.
  • With doom raining down on them, we learn Mack and Addy are alive and can see the missiles being launched. We also see a giant skin suit that once belonged to Murphy and the fact that he’s taken the van and abandoned them all – leaving us with one hell of a cliffhanger to pick up on in season two.

Season 2 is going to have two more episodes than season 1, bringing the total to 15, and introduce us to some new characters, as well as finally answer which of our favorites survived the nuclear missiles. At SDCC, the audience was told to look out for many themed episodes this upcoming season – including a nod to Mad Max. We can look forward to more Liberty Bell type craziness as well as a possible re-appearance of Pie Girl (is Murphy going to be a daddy or will we get another zombaby?!). Tune in Friday September 11 at 10 pm to find out!

See full recaps here:
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7
Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13

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