Night of the Zombie King Ep. 2 ‘When Black Roses Bloom’

As the game gets underway, the old friends fall into familiar patterns, Martin’s adventure tests the players’ skills, tension emerges between Jaz and Brian, Hicks exhibits his old-school roleplaying chops, and Jaz attempts to reconnect with Danny, featuring when “When We Closed Our Eyes” by Andrew Ross Gregory.

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[Sorry for the autoplay commercial. That's gonna get annoying real fast. The Watcher]

For those who haven’t yet checked out Episode 1 “From the Shadows,” and our review, can do so here.

So Episode kicks off with– what else?– our team of friends playing an intense game of Goblins and Gold.  The score really added a lot of the needed tension and sense of stakes here, and also goes to show you, music does matter.  Especially when your characters are strategizing and joking in cryptic game talk that we don’t necessarily understand.

Note to the writers: It would help out the audience a lot if the series set up some of the rules of the game for us.  How do you even win Goblins and Gold?   Who’s even winning this game between friends?  Because we jump right into gameplay, there are a lot of in-jokes that are funny to the characters, but not necessarily, to a clueless audience.

Though, you have to admire the dedication of the actors who really buy into their lines and gamer characters.  Jaz is quite believable as a General of sorts, doling out tactics and strategy, leading his team to victory.  Kudos as well to the actor the bringing the gameplay to life with his impassioned campfire story voice.

As with the first episode, the prologue of game-play is long.  We don’t get to the opening credits until at least a minute and a half into the episode.  Then, we get a nice moment of unrequited love tension between Jaz and the one lady player in the kitchen, which is very Everwood– if I did watch Everwood– which I don’t.

It’s sweet and opens the door for us to care about this group of friends, though we still don’t get a good sense of where the story is going.  There is a lot of references to their past history, but not a lot of forward movement to the plot.

We know Jaz has run away from his problems in L.A.  But what does Jaz want from his friends?   Is he looking for redemption?

The filmmakers have hooked me enough that I’m willing to be patient and watch another episode.  But what do you all think?

More Info:

Featuring “Silver Cities” by the amazing Los Angeles band, The Monolators: www.themonolators.com

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written by: David Nett, Rick Robinson & Andrew R. Deutsch
directed by: David Nett
cinematography by: Andrew R. Deutsch
edited by: David Nett & Frederick Snyder
featuring: James Ellis Lane, Jonathan Nail, Maxwell Glick, Stephanie Thorpe, Brian Majestic
production staff & crew: Matthew Arevalo, Jamie Blair, Maria Deutsch, Rob Gokee, Joey Harris, Mike Horton, Ashley F. Miller, Shannon Nelson, Sean Oakley, Ed Robinson, Chad Schnaible, Justin Waggle, James Paul Xavier