Molly Gemma

Molly as a zombie in 2021

**Molly Gemma** is the secondary protagonist of Rise of the Dead: The Undead Heart. She was in a romantic relationship with Alyssa just before the start of the Apocalypse, and briefly reunited with her old lover eight years later during the events of the film. She was portrayed by both Molly Kelley and Alessandra Le Pera in the film. She is currently a half-zombie and is about 31 years old as of the story's ending in the year 2026.

## Personality

Much like Alyssa, Molly had a very selfless personality. She tried her hardest to prevent Alyssa sacrificing herself in 2013, and when they reunited in 2021 she stopped Alyssa from sacrificing herself all over again. She was also quite resourceful, as seen by the fact that she did everything she could to communicate to Alyssa that it was too late for their relationship while still being under the influence of the zombie plague.

## Background

Molly began dating Alyssa in May 2013, about five weeks before the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. About 18 at the time, they met on Tinder and presumably lived close together. The relationship progressed quickly, while the exact timeline is unknown exclusivity and a declaration of love happened. Once the outbreak occurred, the two girls planned to evacuate their town together. However, the couple were only able to acquire one train ticket out, and Alyssa forced Molly to take the ticket despite Molly's protestations. In the end, Molly did board the train and Alyssa was infected moments later.

Not much is known about what happened to Molly next, but she survived life on the run and had a whole slew of unknown adventures - a life of her own. She was able to survive for about eight years, but was eventually infected. She roamed around and eventually found the Safe house where Alyssa lived in hiding. Alyssa, now immune to the zombie plague haven taken the Zombie Antidote, embraced her old lover. Her touch began to restore some awareness to Molly, leading Alyssa to realize that the antidote had given her the ability to restore some of the humanity of the undead. Alyssa arranged with George Gutter to do a complete blood transfusion with Molly, fully curing her at the expense of Alyssa's own life.

The night before this was to happen, Alyssa unsuccessfully tried to bond with Molly once more. Things simply were not the same. The next day, Molly refused to follow Alyssa to have the procedure done. In order to show that she did not want Alyssa to sacrifice everything for her a second time, Molly returned the same train ticket to Alyssa. After a farewell hug, she left Alyssa behind.

Alyssa and Molly did not stay in touch. She presumably completed her evolution into Half-zombie and became a member of the new society that arose. However, Alyssa never saw her again and her exact whereabouts are unknown.

## Concept and Characterization

The character was created by Jack Hillebrecht for *The Undead Heart* Like many of the characters in the series, she was named after the actor that was cast for the part. Alyssa's backstory and her relationship with Molly were not planned when The Rise of the Dead was made. The choice was made for the character of Molly to cast two different actors in the same film. Molly Kelley played the character at age 18, as she was when she dated Alyssa in 2013. Alessandra Le Pera played the undead version of the character whose canonical age at that point was 26, when she reunited with Alyssa in 2021. The actors bare no resemblance to each other whatsoever. This was done to emphasize how much the character had changed over the course of the 8 years while Alyssa had not (as she was infected for 6 of those years). In other words, Alyssa "sees" a completely different person now compared to the girl she fell in love with eight years ago. The physical difference between the two actors is intended to be somewhat metaphorical, as in how the character of Alyssa sees her, as opposed to an entirely literal physical transformation.