Thought it had escaped, / But it was kitty-cornered: / They must be Persians.

Summary Infomercial of the Dead Part Deux Point Four – Remix:

Those obvious flakes: / Head and Shoulders is key while / On Sabato-cal.

Boring road trip bringing you down? Travel tedium taxing your tolerance for tiring tunes? Or maybe you just need a little extra moaning to help set that moonlit mood? Then restrain your road rage and jazz up your jaunt with Z-Day’s Greatest Hits, chomp-full of songs made famous by the original artists (as reinterpreted by our zombie choir)! Featuring a non-stop mix of mega hits and old favorites, Z-Day’s Greatest Hits is guaranteed* to relieve your road-weary blues with 25 magnificently moaned melodies! Reminisce about the times you almost got mangled with the smooth stylings of Zombie Mark and the Funky Bunch singing such songs as:

Sonny and Cher: I Rot You, Babe

Patsy Cline: I Fall to Pieces (No, Really)

Jay-Z: Can I Get A (Bounce Wit Me) – Shizuka’s theme

Hootie and the Blowfish: Hold My Hand (At Least… I Think It’s Mine)

Billy Joel: We Didn’t Start the Fire (We Just Caught Flame, Honest)

Duran Duran: Union of The Snake – Mr. Shido Mix

Chata: Dango Daikazoku

Jase From Outer Space: Do What You Want (I Didn’t Need That Part Anyway)

Ferry Corsten: Fire – Extended Mix (Still Smoldering!)

Britney Spears: (Hit Me) Baby One More Time – Rei Mix

And many more!!

This ain’t your grandma’s Benedictine Monks CD! This deluxe 2-disc set provides hours of entertainment and is packed with enough bone-rattling bass lines to wake even the dead! Throw it on at your next gathering and watch as the moan drone drives everyone to the dance floor for a little (Zomb)ie-lectric Slide! Don’t miss out on the newest trend in mindless shuffling! It’s catching on faster than the zombie plague! Order today!

Fine Print:
* Unless CD shrink-wrap is removed.

Thirty Second Spot Version:

A military jet surveys the city as Rei and Takashi continue their road trip to the police station. Pausing for a little reflection and a little weapon scavenging, they pull into a gas station to fuel up the motorcycle and are accosted by a thug who is badly in need of a stress ball. After letting the thug paw Rei for ten minutes, Takashi throws his bat to draw the zombies to their location and shoots the man, leaving him to be devoured by the undead. Meanwhile, Shizuka and the girls, and Saya and Saeko, are stuck on the bus in a long line of traffic that is trying to evacuate the city. While this provides Mr. Shido with plenty of opportunities to grope his groupies, the rest of the posse doesn’t get any action as they slowly continue toward the rendezvous point.

Tried his hand at love / But got shot down: he should've / Stuck with self-service.

Reaction:

There were some entertaining moments this time around with the “Shaun” station and Mr. Shido’s creepy Blade of the Immortal homage, but half of the episode was blown on re-cap. It still feels far too early for something like that, and budget can’t be the issue already, so the only reason I can see for recycling so much footage now is to compensate for pacing issues down the road. Hopefully we won’t fall into a Twelve Kingdoms-style groove and get a rehash after every little arc, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have felt like such a waste if there were more scenes with Shizuka and Saeko, but they only got brief appearances outside of their highlight reels. Saya and Kohta had a couple lines between them, but they were still severely underrepresented, and even though Mr. Shido got +1 to his creep factor, he didn’t get much screen time either. Instead we were given an episode based almost entirely on Takashi and Rei, who should just get a room already and work things out.

This episode again showed that Takashi will man up and take care of things, but as usual he’s not real quick on the draw (literally or figuratively). Where Rei and Takashi should be working together to stop making so much damn noise and attracting zombies quickly overcome obstacles, they instead stand around and argue when they aren’t busy fighting something else. Takashi did (mostly) kill another human being to protect “his” woman (in fine caveman fashion) but the way that Rei flinches every time Takashi raises his hand at her doesn’t exactly bode well for their relationship. At least she realizes that all the fighting between them isn’t helpful, but given the way he just stands there and lets her get pawed (similar to the way he let Hisashi get chomped in epidose 1) and the way he brings up Hisashi every five minutes, I can’t blame her for most of it.

And I don’t know what was going through Takashi’s mind when he just tossed the bat like that. I’m the type of RPG player who inevitably spends about as much time on inventory management as I do on questing, and I would never, ever, leave a fine weapon like that by the roadside. It’s not like Rei wasn’t carrying it while they were on the bike anyway, and what is he planning on fighting with when he runs out of bullets? Sure he can pistol-whip the zombies, but that’s not going to do much besides put him in biting range. He and Rei are going to be in serious trouble if they keep dumping resources, so I hope they hook up with the wiser members of the original group sooner rather than later.

It looks like we’re in for some non-recycled action next week, and possibly a new character, so I’m looking forward to that. Until then.