iZombie: He Blinded Me… With Science Review

This iZombie review contains spoilers.

iZombie Season 2, Episode 15

iZombie didn’t miss a narrative beat in its first episode back from a mini-hiatus. Witty, emotional, and with a murder-of-the-week tangentially connected to the larger zombie conspiracy, “He Blinded Me… With Science” was one of the best iZombie episodes ever. Like pretty much every CW drama, iZombie was recently renewed for another season. If it continues developing its ever-complex serialized plot and character dynamics like this, it could become one of the best dramas on television…

Major takes out Drake.

Liv’s love life truly is starcrossed. After discovering that Drake is working for Boss, she goes to confront him to find out the truth. Points for giving him an opportunity to explain. No points for first placing a tracker on his cell phone “to gain data.” (I’m beginning to think it’s not the brains Liv is on that make her an occasional stalker, but Liv’s natural personality.)

Unfortunately, before Drake can explain that he is, in fact, an undercover police officer, Major takes him out in the parking lot as part of his mission to fake-kill zombies for Max Rager. Liv is left thinking that Drake stood her up, and Drake may be temporarily removed from the zombie conspiracy altogether. This is bad news for justice, as Drake may be the good guys’ only chance to bring Boss down in a legal sense. (Although, let’s face it, Seattle is pretty much headed for a zombie apocalypse at this point, so this may be a moot point.)

Major tends to give his zombie victims the low down before tucking them in for their nap. Will he give Drake the same courtesy, giving the undercover zombie a chance to argue for his continued consciousness? We’ll see. 

Blaine gets philosophical about undead life.

Fresh off his almost-murder, Blaine gets gloriously philosophical about the nature of undead life. Aware of his impending for-reals death and desperate for a chance to survive, Blaine takes one of Ravi’s potential cures. Hopefully, he doesn’t liquefy from the inside out or whatever. iZombie would be a much, much less delightful show should Blaine not be in it. 

Vaughn Du Clark shows his true colors.

The other antagonist that truly made tonight’s episode worth watching? Vaughn Du Clark. We’ve always known that Du Clark is a despicable human being, but watching him leave his daughter to die in the secret basement was next-level stuff. Du Clark seems to realize this himself, showing a sign of emotion for the first time since we’ve known him as a character. Granted, that emotion didn’t translate into action — i.e. letting Gilda into his office and apologizing — but it did seem genuine.

No doubt the biggest consequence of this event will be Gilda’s potential defection to Team Zombie. We know she will be joining the ranks of the zombie population, given those scratches, but she may very well join forces with Major, Liv, or Blaine, if only to get back at her father. And, you know, if she can convince them to let her join their team. Team Liv isn’t exactly composed of Gilda’s biggest fans.

Our time spent in Max Rager’s secret basement was the scariest zombies have ever been on this show, and it really ups the stakes of this world. Thus far, the biggest threats in iZombie have not been from the unthinking, unfeeling, desperate-for-brains Romero zombies of pop culture, but undead humans with some interest in preserving the status quo. With Max Rager getting ready to start selling Super Max, the zombie apocalypse could be right around the corner, hand-delivered in every grocery store shelf and vending machine by corporate America. I, for one, would love to see iZombie up the stakes in this way.