Recap: Day of the Dead Ep. 5 proves zombies can chew through bone and sinew, but not the family ties that bind

Zombies. Can't live with 'em. Can't kill 'em. Easily, that is.

The same can almost be said of family, even if they tend to come in handy during periods of acute crisis — like, say, a cannibal uprising. For as the heroes in Day of the Dead are very much aware, the existing family drama doesn't just disappear when there's a zombie apocalypse. If anything, it adds fuel to the fire.

But one thing about families is that they have a brilliant knack for banding together during tough times. Then again, they can also go for each other's throats as soon as the slightest pressure is applied.

This is all to say that even if the zombies in Episode 5 do have a hand in complicating family dynamics, it's the humans who really know how to make, or break, their own relationships.

**SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers ahead for Day of the Dead Season 1, Episode 5, "'Til The Dead Do Us Part."**

Out in the The Forest of the Damned, an abandoned Luke (Daniel Doheny) is beset on all sides by hungry zombies. He's just about to become their all-they-can-eat buffet when Trey (Christopher Russell) shows up in his truck and starts taking them down like bowling pins.

Tough Conversations

After his car stalls (most vehicles aren't designed to handle that kind of action) Trey hops in Luke's SUV, and the two spend some father and son time making a swift getaway.

Only, remember, Trey is probably not Luke's father — only neither of them knows it. That doesn't stop them from getting deep with each other. Luke disdains his mom for her political opportunism (he's sure she'll twist the zombie uprising to her reelection benefit), and Trey overshares about his troubled marriage: Not only does he confess about his affair with Nicole (Caitlin Stryker), but also about the sex (or lack thereof) with the mayor (Miranda Frigon).

Um...

Speaking of marriages, let's see what's up at Jai (Dejan Loyola) and Amy's (Kristin Dawn Dinsmore) wedding.

The zombies have descended on the whole party, wreaking havoc on the guests and their table settings. Jai's Hippocratic instincts kick in, and he dives into the fray, followed by Herb, Amy, and Sean. Despite the team's best efforts, they're not able to save Amy's mother, Herb's wife, who in a lapse of sanity tried to salvage the wedding cake and ended up becoming dessert for some sugar-toothed zombie.

This Disastrous Wedding Takes the Cake

Amy, who just witnessed the whole gruesome affair, goes into shock, and Jai swoops her up and carries her back to the clubhouse, where the survivors barricade themselves for the time being. In a grandiose display of a terrible sense of timing, Sean uses the opportunity of relative calm to ask Amy for her hand in marriage. Amy hardly has time to even consider the absurdity of the question when a zombie breaks in, and Sean tries to prove his love for Amy by taking on the intruder single-handedly.

In short order, the zombie plucks out Sean's eyes, and then does away with the rest of his body. Worst proposal story ever. The rest of the zombies make their way into the reception hall and surround Jai, Amy, and Herb. For a minute it looks like the three are goners, when luckily Lauren (Natalie Malaika) shows up with a meat cleaver and starts carving up the wedding crashers.

Meanwhile, back at City Hall, Cam (Keenan Tracey) is still in his father's office trying to somehow get in touch with his M.I.A. father. He uses the police hotline to broadcast a heartfelt message to his estranged father, promising that things will be different if only he comes home. How is Cam to know that his dad is currently a guinea pig being subjected to all kinds of experiments at the Cleargenix blacksite?

That's when Trey and Luke show up with news from the frontline. Mayor Bowman and Captain Pike (Marci T. House) are now fully convinced of the crisis that's come to Mawinhaken, and Bowman calls for swift and immediate action. They're going to appropriate the shuttered Paymart discount store, and bivouac there. They send out word to the rest of the surviving residents, arm themselves to the hilt with military-grade guns and ammunition, and it's off to war.

Jai, Herb, Amy, and Lauren have all escaped in the hearse and are en route to anywhere but there when they receive the emergency text alert. Herb wants to flee the mayhem, but Jai is intent on saving as many people as he can — you know, like a doctor should. Looks like this family, if in fact, it will be a family, is going to need some counseling down the road.

As is probably everyone in Mawinhaken after this is over.