This episode of iZombie was packed to the gills, and yet somehow still found time for a (thoroughly unresolved) murder and a Dungeons and Dragons quest with the gang, featuring a surprisingly invested Clive. This was a great episode for taking our many disparate storylines from this season and last and weaving them together, or at least setting them up so they will have to come into conflict soon. The downside is that we had our thinnest murder of the week of the series so far, along with some very thin character work across the board.
Ravi hangs with the Zombie Truthers who catch Don E
Picking up right where we left off, Ravi is undercover as a bizarro version of himself — one that believes in zombies but hates them — with the anti-zombie survivalists. Starting last week, this narrative thread is finally starting to pay some dividends, and it looks like doubly so this week. I love that Ravi basically using himself as a cover story paid off, and he was able to stave off the mass-zombie kidnapping plan and meet a cute elf — er, I mean woman.
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With Blaine back in charge of the Scratching Post, it feels like all is right with the world. It’s just nice seeing Blaine and Don E back together, even if it was only for one scene. Of course, Don E had to turn up his nose at the blue brain and then go ham and OD on it, scaring the bar patrons and then going full-on Romero and landing in the clutches of the zombie-hating version of the Duck Dynasty cast. Not a great side effect for Blaine’s new product, an experimental version of Ravi’s blue memory serum brain. In a way, it’s lucky that he can’t recognize Ravi and that Don E was delivered to someone who won’t actually kill him, but this will certainly require fast thinking from Ravi. I’m more concerned in the longterm about how comfortable the survivalists felt just dropping by the morgue, which is HQ for Liv and friends. Judging by Ravi’s face, I think he agrees with me.
And, of course, Blaine’s elaborate revenge on his father isn’t over. Blaine is drawing it out, to the tune of Blue Oyster Cult. I’m glad to see his musical taste is back to throwback rock instead of lounge singer stylings, but I could really use some OG sarcastic Blaine about now. The downside of iZombie having such a large a cast with this many subplots (even after blowing some people up every so often) is that things get a little crowded, and we can get away from some of the great character work.
Major is still sad, Clive sees with Bozzio, and Liv helps a zombie politician
In the “Ravi is adorable” files, it turns out he’s been hiding his best buddy’s mail in an attempt to keep him from knowing how much everyone hates him. This is both pitch-perfect characterization of Ravi and a great way to remind us that no one wants to hang with the Chaos Killer without making it weird that this has been ignored for a few weeks now. They laid the “Major has the sads” concept on a little thick by having him be there when his friend Justin picks Liv up for their date, playing video games alone, etc. Major can’t go because Chaos Killers are bad press for political hopefuls, not because anyone at Fillmore Graves knows he’s human, because Vivian Stoll presumably died before she could tell anyone. On the intriguing side, one of those letters Ravi hid is from Shawna, who apparently doesn’t think Major killed anyone because something similar happened to her. Is she a psychopath or a zombie? Let’s find out!
I can’t tell if they were trying to be topical, were desperate for a reason to bring back Bozzio, or just ran out of time after that DnD quest. However you slice it, “the Russians” has got to be the laziest wrap-up for an iZombie murder of the week yet, but Clive saying, “ugh, white people,” when they opened the hidden room was pretty hilarious, so that helps. The quest was mostly fun for one liners, more Ravi/Major bromance, and somebody tossing a dwarf version of Clive. I’m not convinced it was actually worth that many minutes of screen time, but sure.
Seeing Clive reunite with Bozzio, on the other hand, was well worth it. First, it was unexpected. Second, it was a great reminder of exactly what Clive has sacrificed for Team Z, just before Chase Graves/Logan Echols confronts Liv about it at the world’s most exciting political fundraiser for a zombie mayoral candidate. For Bozzio, things haven’t changed: Clive deceived her and she doesn’t know why. From her perspective, she has no reason to trust or forgive him. Short of bringing her in on the existence of Team Z, I don’t see that dynamic changing. Still, I was glad to see her, and her appearance made me think there is hope yet.
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They packed a lot of excitement into one political fundraiser. Liv attended with Justin, who I guess is her boyfriend now? I’m still not sure I buy that her relationship with Justin would progress this quickly, or that it would materialize so soon after her meaningful “goodbye” with Major that turned out not to be goodbye. Whatever happened to that talk they were going to have? I understand deciding not to get together, but that seems like something that would warrant a discussion.
I didn’t have much time to analyze that relationship or the conversation (and flirtation?) with the new Fillmore Graves brass because someone started shooting, causing the candidate himself to go full-on Romero. For those keeping track at home, that means two different full-on Romeros in one night. Luckily, Carey Gold (who seems far more reasonable and also has a great food pun name) got the mayoral hopeful’s son out of the way, and Liv helped him control his breathing.
Peyton investigates and Mr. Boss returns
Peyton still has a bee in her bonnet about the confession from the Dominatrix episode, especially after a conversation with a psychiatrist that seems contradictory. A tip from Liv let Peyton know that her boss, a.k.a. the guy running for mayor, was also one of the dominatrix’s clients, which might explain why he’s been giving her the brush off. I’m wondering if any of this will blow back on Liv – I’m intrigued by shows that handle the realistic fallout from conceits like Liv’s zombie visions. I’d love to see how they would handle it if she got something wrong, or even if she were ultimately vindicated, but was simply held up to greater scrutiny.
As if that weren’t enough, Mr. Boss is back in town. If I were to hazard a guess, Peyton and Blaine are probably both on the list of people he wants to kill. Maybe Ravi for a maiming for waiting in the car, but probably just a biting quip about it instead. Can someone please bring the human criminal element into the same storyline as the zombies? Or can we just have a showdown between Mr. Boss and Blaine’s dad to see who can be a worse fancy asshole?
