Episode Recap: Doctor of the Dead

Four years before the zombie apocalypse, New York City was just recovering from Hurricane Sandy ... and a creepy bald doctor was wandering the streets picking up junkies, giving them mystery injections and stealing brain tissue. Who is this guy?

Meanwhile, back in the present, California is no longer the final destination of the team as they're now headed to Fort Collins, Colorado to meet up with Dr. Merch, the lady doc who originally experimented on Murphy. The Zombie Messiah's been acting super-weird lately, and Cassandra looks to be at death's door.

En route to Fort Collins, the team talks about their plans for the future: Doc plans to buy a boat, Roberta is considering settling down in California and 10K has about six thousand more zombies to kill. When they arrive, Roberta handcuffs Murphy as a precaution - who, in turn, heads toward the entrance as many zombies attack. After letting the team sweat a little, Murphy escorts them through the crowd of the undead and into the lab.

Meanwhile, back in the past, in an Ebola quarantine camp, that same bald doctor shows up to presumably perform the same brain-tissue theft on an Ebola patient. Hmm ...

In the present, 10K and Doc kill a few zombies as the team infiltrates the lab where they believe Dr. Merch is waiting to help Murphy. It turns out all they find are some old computer files suggesting that scientists had been working on a vaccine even before the actual zombie outbreak.

As the team goes further into the facility, they have to get naked to go through the decontamination procedure, after which they discover the results of really insane human experiments that had been going on. Worse, they uncover a new breed of mutant zombie: strong, deformed, ready to kill ... and decidedly unimpressed with the Zombie Messiah. The Zombie Messiah isn't really impressed with them either, as, in a display of sudden brutal strength, he tears off their heads with his bare hands. Murphy, what's up with you, buddy?

As the team continues to explore the facility, Cassandra becomes too weak to go on and the team finds her a safe place to lie down, perhaps to die. When Murphy is alone with her to supposedly say goodbye, Cassandra becomes very uneasy ... but why? We cut away before we see what exactly went down with them.

The team then finds a poor half-melted mutated guy sprawled out in front of a computer who shows them a video of how he got to be this way (it was because of Dr. Merch!), after which they meet the bald doctor we've seen in the flashbacks: Dr. Kurtz, who says he's here to help. Sure.

Citizen Z, who has access to the world's highest caliber facial-recognition software, realizes that Dr. Kurtz is not who he says he is ... he's actually Dr. Walter Kurian, the quack who started the entire zombie apocalypse in the first place. Citizen Z tells the team to kill the doctor and a gunfight ensues .. during which Cassandra bursts in, appearing to be a half-zombie! Also, Doc is shot! And Murphy escapes! And that's where the real trouble starts ...

It turns out that if a contaminated person leaves the grounds, a nuclear bomb is released, headed straight for the facility. And when the nuclear bomb is released, THAT triggers a series of other nuclear missiles, headed for several locations around the world ... including the listening station up north. Nobody is safe, not even Citizen Z, who watches the bomb headed straight for him with a combination of sadness, anger and awe.

What's next? You'll have to wait until next season to find out.