It's How It Is

"**It's How It Is**" is the first episode of Season 3 and the eighteenth episode of the show overall.

## Description

*After being gravely injured, Blake Floyd is saved by a small group of survivors.*

## Plot

A year after Promises: Part Two, Blake Floyd walks the world alone. Snow falls as he walks past a group of infected, barely acknowledging them until he hears a man cry out, begging for help. Blake turns, seeing someone under the pile of the dead. They reach out to him, begging him for his help. Blake calmly takes out the dead, pulling them away from the man, whose lower half has been torn apart. Blake tells him that he doesn't have long left, but he still begs for his life. Blake watches on, uncaring, before slowly taking the man's possessions. He begs him not to, but is soon dead as Blake walks away.

Later, he finds himself in a small city, taking shelter in a shop. There, he dreams about the last night of the school, hearing Joely's last words, and wakes up shivering. The next day, he comes across a trio of bandits in an abandoned market. They stop him, demanding he drops his things else they will kill him. Blake tells them that they don't have to go down this road, but one of them pulls a gun out, pointing it at him. Blake sighs, then when one of the bandits goes to grab him, he uses him as a shield and pulls his own gun out. He shoots the other bandit before he can fire, then throws the one in his arms to the ground. The third rushes him, knocking him to the floor. Blake, however, pulls out his knife and stabs him multiple times. He shoves him to the side, grabbing his gun and going for the second bandit, who has gone for the other gun. They both fire at the same time and while Blake lands a headshot, the bandit still hits him in the side. Blake cries out in pain, but grabs the extra gun and flees just as the dead arrive.

He stumbles away, blood leaking from his stomach and a small group of infected trailing behind him. His vision blurry, he sees a figure at the end of the road, watching him. He calls out Joely's name, trying to reach for her, but the figure runs to the side, disappearing in one of the buildings. He tries to follow, closing the glass doors behind him just as the dead approach. But before he turns around, he collapses to the floor, passing out.

Blake wakes up in a small room, shirtless, with a bandage wrapped around his stomach. He slowly gets up, managing to stumble to the door and out into a hallway. When he reaches the end, he sees a group of people sat in a small living room. They freeze when they see him, and Blake suddenly goes for the door to his right, presumably the exit. He throws himself at the door, but is powerless to stop a man with light blonde hair grabbing him from behind. Blake fights back, but finds himself too weak. He collapses to the floor, falling unconscious again.

Blake wakes again in the room from before, only this time, his ankle is tied to the foot of the bed. A woman next to him calms him down, telling him that they aren't going to hurt him and calling herself Yara. Blake asks why he is tied up, to which she says that it was for their own safety as they do not know him. He then tells her that he would like to leave, but she insists against it, telling him he needs to heal. She then undoes his restraint and invites him for dinner.

Down the same hallway as before, Yara takes Blake to the dining room, where she sits him down at the head of a long table where four more people are sat. There, Carter and Sara introduce themselves, but Pete has to be badgered into it and Nat is introduced by her mother. Blake, however, doesn't offer up his name and the room becomes awkward. When Yara hands him a plate of food, he doesn't take it at first. Pete then tells him that he hasn't "put poison in, or anything, if that's what you're worried about. So just eat it." Reluctantly, Blake takes it and begins eating.

The room grows more tense, and Carter tries asking where Blake comes from. Eventually, he replies "nowhere" and continues eating, but Carter keeps going, saying that "nobody's from nowhere" and trying to keep the conversation light. Blake shakes his head and tells him that he came from Brompton, but elaborates no further. Yara comments that that's quite far, "especially after everything happened." She looks ready to ask more questions, but Pete interrupts, asking how he got shot and how he came by a gun himself. Yara tries to talk him down, but he presses for an answer. Blake then tells him about the bandits he killed, but that he got the gun from a friend. Pete, though somewhat convinced, lets the matter go, but Blake maintains eye contact.

That night, Blake is tied to the bed once more by Yara. She apologises to him about Pete, saying that "he's just cautious". Yara gets up, and Blake tells her his name. She smiles a little, then leaves. Blake remains sat up, staring at the wardrobe in the corner before saying "you can come out, now." Slowly, Nat walks out of the wardrobe and he asks her what she's doing. She then asks what it's like out there. When he doesn't reply, she moves to the window and explains that she has been cooped up in Pete's flat since the beginning and that the day when she saw him in the street was the first time she had been outside in months. She tells him she wants to know what the rest of the world is like, saying that she feels like she's going insane. Blake bluntly tells her that it's the same everywhere, and "it's how it is. It's how it's gonna be for a long while." She probes further, but he brushes her off, telling her that she should go before someone notices she's gone. Looking annoyed, Nat leaves, leaving him alone in the dark.

## Notable Quotes

> "Three guys. They wanted my stuff, but I didn't want to give it up. I gave them the chance...the opportunity to leave me alone. They didn't, so I killed them. All three. Last guy shot me and that was that. As for the gun...it was my friend's. He gave it to me." - Blake on how he ended up injured.
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> "I've been stuck in Pete's flat this whole time. I've been staring out these windows for...almost two years now? I'm going insane. I need to know what it's like out there. That day, when you saw me in the street? That was the first time I'd been outside in months. I'm getting fucking cabin fever, you know?" - Nat when she sneaks into Blake's room.
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> "What do you want me to say? That it's better somewhere else? If you walk far enough you'll find some paradise where the dead are dead and that's it? That's not how it works. It's the same here as it is everywhere else—I've learned that the hard way. It's how it is. It's how it's gonna be for a long time." - Blake on the state of the world.
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## Deaths

* One unnamed man
* Three bandits
* Multiple infected

## Trivia

* First appearance of Yara Watson
* First appearance of Nat Watson
* First appearance of Pete Bradley
* First appearance of Carter Briggs
* First appearance of Sara Poulter