Daybreak – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Ghoulie Crumble

Episode 2 of Daybreak opens with a witty Walking Dead joke before Josh breaks the fourth wall and talks to us about his flashback in the mall. We then find out who Baron Triumph is – Eli, a boy from school. However, it turns out he’s a fraud and the motorcycle even has training wheels. Although he’s not the real Baron, he does have control of the mall. As the real Baron approaches, Eli lets them in but quickly captures Josh and Angelica in a cage. Despite their pleas, Wesley refuses to hit Eli and instead, tells them he’ll talk Eli round to their way of thinking.

Between flashbacks to the mall, we see Josh finally taking the reigns of the operation and he sets out into the recesses of the mall to track down the ghoulie witch after Eli agrees to let them go. With the help of Angelica, they manage to capture the witch who happens to be Ms. Crumble. Meanwhile Wesley and Eli talk, where he tells Wes that he’s certainly not a samurai or on the path of enlightenment after what happened in school. After slapping him numerous times, Eli tries to provoke Wesley but he does well to hide his disdain and not fight back.

Outside, Turbo gathers the tribes who offer up gifts… except for the nerds who try in vain to overthrow Turbo by shooting him. Only, it turns out it’s actually a decoy as Jerry, one of the Golfers, is the one sitting on the throne. The real Turbo jumps in soon after and the geeks are given their punishments.

Back in the mall, Josh reminisces on times gone past while Ms. Crumble continues to succumb to her Part-ghoul persona. However, she enlists Josh’s help to get the keys needed to get away. After snatching the keys up from her stomach, Josh tries to escape but opening the door, he’s attacked immediately by the Ghoul from earlier.

Upstairs, Eli and Wes prepare for the arrival of Baron Triumph but after some convincing, they decide to band together and fight him off as they’re faced with the real Triumph. Ms. Crumble jumps out of nowhere and attacks him which scares him away. As the group contemplate whether they can trust Ms. Crumble in the aftermath of this, Eli is caught out by Wes who shuts the shutters down between them. However, as Wes heads off, Eli tells him he knows his secret and why Wes is a pacifist.

In the bathroom, Josh talks to himself about the apocalypse and it’s here we learn he was bitten by the ghoulie from earlier. As we cut back and see him beaten up by Hoyle, in the present we see him try to cut his arm off to prevent turning into a ghoul. In a strange twist of fate, it turns out the bites don’t actually turn you into one of them. Unfortunately for Josh, he’s one finger too late in finding this out.

While the plot twist at the end is an interesting subversion of expectations, I can’t help but feel it also diminishes the threat of the ghoulies somewhat. If bites don’t turn you, the only danger these pose are simply biting down too hard and ripping flesh. As we saw from Angelica’s arm though, it doesn’t appear like they actually bite that hard, which is odd given the ease in which Terence was killed last time out. 

Still, despite all that Daybreak does well to keep things interesting but whether it can keep this momentum going or not, remains to be seen.