'In Rats Alley'Brianna's lonesome journey to find her family continues, while the rest of the Copeland's hit some road bumps as they try to catch up with their daughter.
It was a wise move to separate Brianna from her family. Over these past couple of episodes, Taylor Hickson has more than held her own as the eldest daughter and its an effective way of making her character grow. In this episode her streak of bad luck continues when the car she is in runs out of gas and her ride kills herself. Brianna then comes across a seemingly friendly face, who ends up trying to steal her phone.
Meanwhile, the Copeland family comes across a convoy with the belief there there is strength in numbers. Karen's crazy sister Sally, a nurse, also joins the crew. She is a bit bonkers, which is a nice addition to a somewhat bland family.
Some interesting events unfold with this new group that the family encounters. Matt believes Donald Chang is possessed, but it is later revealed that he is just a schizophrenic. Matt being so obsessed with the belief that Vincent is not human, going so far as killing him, is an interesting turn of events for his character. We really see just how much this end of world scenario they find themselves in has an effect on him.
The same can't be said for the rest of the family. Everyone else seems to be taking everything with stride, like this was bound to happen and now its a matter of survival. With Matt we see someone who is somewhat shocked that all this craziness is happening around him and we see that he is still trying to process everything.
By episodes end we see a freaking flying dragon come out of the sky to grab a horse in its talons right in front of Brianna. That girl can't seem to catch a break.
Overall, Aftermath continues to throw everything but the kitchen sink at us adding dragons to natural disasters and possession and psychopaths, which makes for mildly entertaining television. However, with the exception of badass mama portrayed by the always great Anne Heche, as well as the eldest daughter, many of these characters continue to be quite bland. On top of it all, the show still hasn't shown to viewers what separates this from other post-apocalyptic shows - mashing dragons, demons, and disasters together is cool, but there needs to be a lot more substance.
5/10
