Z Nation | 2.15 “End Times”
There it is. This right here is what wrecks him.
They’ve spent roughly 2 years at this point traveling from New York’s Upstate east coast to southern California, pretty much the longest journey anyone’s made in this terrible apocalypse. They’ve been through several different hells. They’ve persevered, despite all the forces trying to stop them.
Shortly after this, Sun Mei will tell Warren she thinks there is some biological factor to why that was possible, and Warren will tell her Murphy’s strange biology didn’t rub off on them, they rubbed off on Murphy. Through knowing them, he’s become kinder. He’s become softer. When he was first dragged into their life, an abused, cowardly scrap of a person, he wanted nothing to do with saving the world. Here, staring down the end of their mission, Murphy smiles softly and laments that maybe he’ll actually enjoy doing good. He’s come far enough that he wants to do good now. He knows that it is going to involve painful things, that they are going to do testing on him, not unlike the man that captured and tortured him just a few episodes ago. And still he’s going willingly. He’s… actually become a little proud of it!
And that’s what destroys him.
If the Murphy that arrived at the submarine lab had been the Murphy from 1.01, I honestly don’t think the betrayal of Zona would have had all that much of an effect. That Murphy expected them to hurt him. To treat him like garbage. That Murphy couldn’t have raised a hand to defend himself; wouldn’t have. He was still a brat, but he was also a coward with trust issues and no confidence. The salvation of humanity was something bad people wanted to take from his hide.
But that’s not the Murphy that arrives in California 2 years later. That’s not the Murphy we see in 2.15. The Murphy we find in 2.15 is confident. Leery, still, but willing to trust, willing to depend on others, and is even able to be depended upon. This Murphy has started to look forward to being the savior of humanity. Their salvation is a gift he’s giving. He is nervous about it, but he goes willingly and maybe even with a little relief. He is, almost unbelievably considering where he started, at a point where he believes he could genuinely enjoy doing the good thing that was forced upon him.
And the old Murphy wouldn’t have been surprised to find the submarine is full of horrible people. That Murphy already expected it to be full of bad people who want to hurt him, even if they wanted to protect others.
But the new Murphy? The Murphy that has grown and changed alongside of his found family is livid to be betrayed personally, and even more so that the purported “good guys” are betraying him and it’s not even to help the world. This new Murphy had begun to expect there really could be an end, and that at that end, he would be a hero. He had gotten used to the idea that, whether he started off wanting it or not, he was going to be a hero and he had come to like the idea.
And they took that away from him, and the world isn’t saved, and he’s going to disappoint Warren, and the last 3 years of his life - the two with Warren and the one with Hammond before that - have been rendered worthless.
All the suffering. All the pain. All the fear. All the loss.
And that’s why he sets off to create a new world of his own making, because he will not take this kind of painful disappointment ever again if he can help it.
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