iZombie: Whopper Review

This iZombie review contains spoilers.

iZombie Season 2, Episode 13

Talk about sticking the landing. iZombie may have just given us its best episode yet with “Whopper,” in no small part because of its third act — full of game-changing reveals (R.I.P., New Hope), crazy Blaine shenanigans, and — of course — the best use of the Les Miserables soundtrack I’ve seen in a long, long time…

Drake is not a fake-zombie killer.

It’s hard not to compare Major and Drake. Both are hunky blondes/reluctant zombies asked to kill as part of the larger zombie conspiracy, and both have dated Liv. That’s mostly where the similarities end, however, because — while Major has been fake-killing zombies for Max Rager, Drake seemingly for-real killed someone for Mr. Boss. And he didn’t seem too torn up about it. Liv’s choice to date Drake is one of the many, disparate plotlines that iZombie is currently juggling. It’s also one of the weakest (I still don’t totally buy their relationship), but that’s not such a bad thing on a show that is doing so much so well right now.

Thankfully, the recent delving into the backstory of the lackeys of the larger world of zombies and drug trafficking doesn’t stop with Drake. iZombie has been giving more personality to the recurring background characters who play Blaine’s and Mr. Boss’ various thugs. Tonight, we learned about the two dudes who were killed by Mr. Boss for trying to steal tainted utopium. They were former soldiers, best friends, and one left behind a grieving mother. Sure, they made some bad choices, but they were also people with people who loved them. Point well made, iZombie.

Major and Blaine are living on borrowed time.

Bad news zombies. New Hope, aka the zombie rat Ravi has been using as a test subject, breathed her last zombie rat breath. It was actually kind of sad. New Hope has been with us for a long time. Of course the even sadder consequences come with the realization of what New Hope’s death means. After Major and Blaine revert to their zombie form, they will eventually die. That is: unless they get another dose of the cure. This is where the buried bodies of those soldier zombie buddies come in. Now that Team Liv has found them, Ravi will be able to create more of the cure.

This eventuality is only in theory, of course. Something tells me that Clive and Bozzio’s investigation into the Meat Cute murders and the chaos killer (aka both gateways into the larger zombie conspiracy that involve both of our former zombies) will cause some seriuos trouble down the road. This is why you tell your friends things, Liv. Clive and Bozzio now have a rough connection between Major and Blaine. The zombie coinspiracy continues to unravel.

But can we talk a bit more about the Major/Blaine scenes in tonight’s episode? With the plot pace of the second half, you may have forgotten that Blaine discovered that Major is the chaos killer. This could (and maybe should?) have been the A Plot of an entire episode. Instead, iZombie moves to tie these two former zombies together. Major’s reliance on Blaine will no doubt come back to harm him, but he doesn’t have much of a choice at this point. Either way, it’s interesting to see these two so linked in season 2, given that they ended season 1 at such odds.

Blaine really hates his dad.

If iZombieexisted as a show simply to give us a scene in which Blaine chooses to revive his frozen zombie father by putting on old age makeup, pretending he has been frozen for 50 years, and playing the Les Miserables soundtrack for ambiance, then it would be worth it. Blaine has always been one of the chief highlights of this show, but this scene may never be topped. Only iZombie (and David Anders) could make us laugh at this character as he is preparing to torture his (admittedly terrible) father into leaving him his fortune. Never change, Blaine. And iZombie? I could do more with these zombie conspiracy-driven episodes.