That's how I saw it too. I think the girl was probably told the same story the little boy heard of how the pills would keep the family "together", but didn't necessarily know where they were hidden until Nick gave away the location. Since she was told they would be taking a "trip" on Strand's love boat, I think she didn't want to be separated from the rest of her family, so she took her power pill in hopes of keeping her family together without really knowing the consequences.

 

The "other" plot hole...
Nick said he knew his pills, yeah sure, ok...
Believe me one thing, junkies know what they know but they're not doctors.
Clarity or not I had trouble believing Nick somehow knew these "power pills" were deadly poison.
I was super surprised he didn't just take a few, swallow them down, just to see if they get you high.
Then again some junkies do avoid the unknown factor, they do know the unknown could kill them too.

Still seemed strange, I was like REALLY???
Nick KNEW those were poison, that's why he didn't take them to see if he could get high?
Hmmmm....

I did like the part of the plot where he made the connection, when the kid told him about "power pills"
I didn't link this up until I read this thread, but that part made sense.
It is even possible that Nick made more connections like that one, he does seem rather intuitive, that somehow he figured from what the kid said when showing him his room that those "power pills" might not do much "good."
That is possible, that he figured the pills might contain a dangerously unhealthy substance (as in even for a drug addict).

 

No Kidding!
Terrible leap of Plot we were again required to accept for any of this to make sense at all?

There will be no Cliche untried in this series!

 

I don't know it didn't seem like much of a stretch to me. I freeze framed it and they were generic capsules with no markings. Any prescription pill will either be a stamped pill or be in a capsule with a code on it. These kinds of capsules are for home made stuff like for protein powders, vitamins.

So thinking like a junkie or a drug dealer, there's no point taking your existing pill and transferring it to a generic capsule. If it is a home brew drug then those are usually stamped with a pill press. In his defense he said he "thinks" they are poison. He doesn't know but they don't seem consistent with drug abuse to him.

 

I agree. Homemade hidden pills that keeps the family together when being over ran by the walkers as a last resort = poison. Not a plot hole.

 

I believe they said the mom had MS.

MS = Multiple sclerosis
"autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord)."

I believe you can live a very long time with MS.

 

Since they didn't show what happened to the Father, are we to assume that he let the Wife eat him and that is how she ended up on the pier?

She actually had MS but I agree with the rest of your post.


To the OP, I believe that Nick is indirectly responsible for Willa finding the pills and therefore her death. It will be interesting to see as the show progresses how this affects him.

 

the chain reaction of events set off by Willa finding and swallowing a pill and Willa's death led to her mother being bitten and turning and her father somehow being unable to kill the mother and most likely being bitten and turning himself. Although I suppose the father could still be alive.. somewhere in that house.. maybe hiding in a closet

 

The father sat down on the bed like he was just going to let the mom or the daughter eat him. He didn't look like he had the intention of going anywhere. The mother almost immediately going out on the pier was pretty ridiculous and unlike anything we have seen zombies capable of doing even in the first season of Walking Dead. I suppose it was the sound of the boat that drew her attention but still she would have turned while on the second story of a house. She would have had to fall down the stairs and then walk all the way out there and in a short amount of time. I don't see it.

 

Mom did turn and chow on her hubwich pretty quickly before getting down on that pier.

Nick

 

I think this is a plot point where the writing was too vague. My impression on first viewing was that the dad was slowly poisoning his family. Which would justify Madison wanting to take the kids. But it would be screwed up if the pills were stashed for a last resort family suicide and Willa died because of Nick's meddling.

 

The girl would not have found the pills if she had not seen Nick with the opened globe in his hands trying to change the subject so she didn't notice.
Kids are just like that and too smart for their own good sometimes,this was one of those times!

I would say this makes Nick responsible on some level without question.

We have no way of knowing about the Father and what is left of him as we get no clue at all that I can tell?

I got no feeling at all that the father was already trying to kill his family and it seemed clear to me that the pills were a "Last Resort" safety in case they were being overrun by the DEAD!
Thats what makes this episode double sad to me,he had a plan he was OK with and though our group meant no harm to them their mere presence ends up killing most of them and damning the remaining to a more terrible future than before they arrived?
Way to Go Nick & Co.!

 

When Nick finds the pills you can count 8 pills in the baggie. When they show the open globe and pills later on willa's desk there are 6 pills loose on the desk. Its possible that there is a single pill hidden inside the globe. So at most she took two pills but the way the boy described it she only took one.

I absolutely do not get the impression that the father was slowly poisoning them or that he had ever given them any of the pills. I don't know what the point of that would be. You slowly poison someone to secretly kill them over time so that it isn't detected... or you do so to build up an immunity. Here it was known amongst the adults in the family that these were suicide pills. To the kids they apparently were fascinated with what they had been told about them not knowing they were poison. I definitely got the impression that Willa only found the pills because she saw Nick with them. She snuck in and got them later. Its not hard for kids to get things from high places.

 

Oh I know! That was what I was thinking. I was wondering how in the world Nick knew about Jonestown. Maybe he learned about it in school--assuming he went to school.

 

Upon reflection, it was odd that the boy seemed to not be surprised that the "Power Pill" put his sister down just that she took it... Or at least knew that is what would happen if one was taken. Did this mean that the family was "In the know" about the nature of these pills? He just ran up and yelled "Willa took her power pill!"

 

No he didn't. He looked terrified and said that something was wrong with Willa. The mom and dad ran upstairs and then Nick and them asked what happened and he said she took her pill. The kids absolutely do not know what the pills do or that they are poison. They have just been told by dad about how they have pills that will essentially protect them and keep them all together. The dad was never going to tell the details to the children. He was just going to make everyone take their pill when the situation looked hopeless.

 

BTW, I think the writers having the pills stored inside a globe is meant to have a metaphor meaning that the world is rotten to its core.

 

Nick seems to be the curious type and I'm sure he has heard people say "You have to stop drinking that Kool-Aid," (not necessarily to him), so he'd be curious enough to see where that saying originated.

Nick

 

Or that when the world come apart, take the pill.