iZombie: Love and Basketball Review

This iZombie review contains spoilers.

iZombie: Season 2, Episode 5

Tonight’s iZombie may be the closest this show has ever gotten to giving Clive the plotline he deserves and I could not be happier about it. In a show juggling a lot of disparate parts, Detective Babineaux has often gotten the short stick. Since Day One, he has trusted Liv enough to go with her crazy “premonitions” — but she has never once trusted him enough to tell him her secret.

Clive is putting the pieces together on the Meat Cute massacre.

Now, Clive is finally starting to put the pieces of the Meat Cute massacre together and I just hope that, when the dust settles, he’ll be able to forgive Liv for keeping him in the dark this long. Because, yeah, it’s her secret to tell, but zombie-ism is obviously a recurring danger in Seattle and Clive is tasked with protecting residents from that danger. By withholding valuable information, Liv is letting her partner, someone she no doubt considers a friend, spend hours trying to solve this case. She’s letting him walk around in the dark rather than just flipping on the light for him. In many ways, Clive is the Major of this season. He is trying his darndest to solve the case of zombie-ism when several of his closest friends could simply tell him the truth.

Normally, this is a criticism I have of iZombie, but, tonight, the show actually gave Clive some meaty storyline. With the introduction of Detective Denove, Clive has another in-the-dark- character (or so she seems) to bounce things off of. This episode highlighted just how diligently Clive is willing to work on this. It also highlighted how deep Clive’s desire for justice and desire to protect those who cannot protect themselves runs when he took on R.J.’s dad. For all of the hilarious, quippy moments in this episode, Clive was my M.V.P. of the night.

iZombie backpedals on a Major confession.

I’m not gonna lie: I’m pretty bummed that iZombie backpedaled on Major’s confession to Liv. At the end of last week’s episode, it seemed like Major was ready to tell Liv everything. But, much like the aftermath of Lowell’s murder last season, iZombie is teasing us with some compelling, quick-moving plot development, only to fall back into humdrum procedural structures in the follow through.

Not to say this week’s murder-of-the-week element wasn’t entertaining. In fact, this was one of the most consistently entertaining episodes of iZombie in recent memory. (I may never stop laughing at Blaine and Ravi’s awkward morgue fight for the tainted Utopium.) It’s just that the Major/Liv stuff continues to be one of the best parts of this show, and I am more than ready for them to pull the trigger on Liv finding out just what Major has been up to. But maybe I’m in majority?

Are Major and Liv back together?

Though Major might not have confessed all of his crimes to Liv (though he did let her in on his drug addiction), these two did more forward in their relationship. By the end of the episode, Major was confessing to Liv that, regardless of risk, he just wants to be with Liv. And, yes, it’s because he loves her (the way he looked at her during her weird pep talk was adorable — dude is clearly head over heels in love), but it’s also because she makes him a better person. Liv brought him an entire youth basketball team to coach. If that’s not true love, then I don’t know what is.

But Major cannot just ignore his responsibilities to Max Rager — even if he wants to. Gilda is far too smart for Major’s weak attempts at eschewing zombie murder. This is all going to come to a head (probably in the midseason finale), and it’s going to be a total mess. I cannot wait.