Iris starts the series with a nightmare of herself and others as dead. She walks around her very well-established community, greeting everyone in a friendly manner. She’s essentially the mayor. A stowaway pops under the bus which is leaving the community and is greeted by a zombie that hitches onto the bus. She’s rattled but gets lucky. The bus, marked with Nebraska State University, arrives near a graveyard and the passengers pop out but the uninvited guest heads to the graveyard to put flowers on her mother’s grave. Alerted by helicopters, she leaves early. The choppers (marked with the now famous three-circle CRM logo) arrive with the group, greeted first by Felix. The woman who exits the chopper introduces herself, “Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublick of the Civic Republic. He is Felix Carlucci and his friend is Huck.
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The woman reveals she came alone as the government elected not to spare any more helicopters. The Lieutenant Colonel sees the stowaway giving her a middle finger gesture but carries on. The soldiers quickly dispose of some zombies coming by. She maintains a bit of mystery, not revealing exactly where she’s from, but greeting the rest of the civilians who are eager to join forces. Together, everyone heads back to campus. Silas sees the stowaway sneak out of the bus but agrees to keep the secret for her. More helicopters fly over and this girl seems to know something about them.
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Later, Iris and her sister Hope talk about their dad leaving to join CRM. He went off to find a cure. They talk about some drama between them, Iris has to get ready for a graduation and her sister wants her to come to a party.
The next day. Iris goes about the town to Monument Day. It’s 10 years into the apocalypse. “I was a little kid, I can barely remember what it was like the night the sky fell,” she narrates. “Some people think that what we have can’t last.” She has a book filled with messaged from her dad which have been transmitted and printed. The narration is a preparation of her speech.
In a classroom, Iris and others discuss Feast Day and Monument Day. On Feast Day, they celebrate life. On Monument Day, they remember all of those who they lost. Elton is called out in the front of the class. He’s been working on some notes separate from that of the class’s discussion.
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The campus police raided Hope’s room and find an abundant amount of illegal alcohol. Felix is disappointed in her. He asks if she’s heard anything from him and she hasn’t. He quietly talks to her and wonders why she acts the way she does when she has what she has. “Your dad gave me a life,” he explains. Iris shows up to bail out her sister but Felix declares she is not that. Iris declares they are all family and Felix reveals he simply wanted her to think about what she did.
Outside, Elizabeth catches Iris and Hope and praises their father’s work. She knows a lot about them. Hope still lashes out and shows the opposite of interest in talking at all.
Iris goes to visit a therapist, a woman whose health is not in great shape, and has a door which requires extra effort to open as a means to prevent her reanimated self from getting out should she pass away. Iris discusses the day the world fell, recalling the chaos and a plane crashing in her town. It is the night her mother died. They all got separated and Iris carries the guilt of losing her mother.
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In a gymnasium, Huck tries to encourage Hope to be a part of the community and stop acting out. Hope doesn’t blame the “empties” but she blames people for how they act. Huck is more hopeful, though. A flashback shows that Hope’s mom for some reason thought it would be a good idea to journey through the crashed airplane instead of going around it or literally any other way.
Later, Felix and Huck are walking along train tracks when they get a call to come back for a message. They find that their father has been sending messages but they insist on keeping them a secret despite thinking he will need help.
At night, Iris is confronted by Elizabeth. Elizabeth asks why she thinks they’re bad. Iris spills her frustrations, prompting Elizabeth to level with her and say she has a daughter, a soldier in the CRM who is also away from her quite a bit. Elizabeth explains that her father is teaching a class in the Civic Republic city in New York state. She offers a map, stamped with her name on it, which would get her in a lot of trouble if anyone found out she did that.
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The next morning, Iris and Hope are hungover. They have a message from their father, indicating things went bad and he is going to keep his head down. He also instructs them not to tell Felix but… too late. Later, Iris returns to her therapist, but she has died and reanimated. The gated door keeps her back.
Later, Iris finally addressed the campus and gives her speech. She goes off the rails a bit and freestyles to tell “the truth.” She explains that the truth is she doesn’t trust Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth promises that she will one day. “Science is about finding the truth, not just deciding on it,” Iris says. “That’s hard. That’s scary. That means admitting that we don’t have all the answers and we don’t know what we’ll find when we’re looking for them.”
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In the flashback sequence, Hope and her mom try to get in a truck and flee. A woman stops them, shooting Hope’s mom when Hope runs for the truck. She shoots the woman who shot her mother, or maybe she didn’t, the whole sequence is edited really poorly so what happened is totally unclear.
On campus, Silas pitches himself to join the group which is taking the trek to New York. Elton, Iris, Silas, and Hope set out. The next day, Iris decides she wants to kill her first walker.
At the campus, Elizabeth and the CRM soldiers have killed everyone. A soldier reports that Iris is nowhere to be found, which pleases Elizabeth.
