iZombie Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Spanking the Zombie

This iZombie review contains spoilers.

iZombie Season 3 Episode 5

This week on iZombie Major’s time finally ran out, Liv looks great in black leather, and people finally started calling her out on her weird, zombie-induced behavior.

The murder was really an excuse for Liv to wear an excellent black wardrobe and make men do her bidding, although the show’s concept of a dominatrix did seem closer to magic than BDSM. The most interesting part of this plot, other than seeing Clive dressed like he belongs in a barbershop quartet, is that Liv ate the brain that Ravi had stewing in memory serum, and it definitely had an effect. This is the most we’ve ever seen people call her out for staring blankly while having visions, since the memory serum apparently made them longer and more vivid. Perhaps this means Blaine could still regain his memories?

All of Seattle’s most promising gentlemen were clients of the dead dominatrix, which is good news for us because it means a Rob Thomas reunion in the form of previous iZombie guest stars and Veronica Mars alums Daran Norris and Ken Marino, also known as Cliff McCormack and Vinnie van Lowe. Daran Norris even delivered a pitch-perfect read of the excellent line, “climate change is my safe word.”

Don E’s story took a turn for the optimistic, when he basically decided to make himself a friend by picking someone out to turn into a zombie. Champagne Supernova was a great song choice and not the only one of the night. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty heartbreaking to hear Don E. call the new bouncer “Big Fella.” RIP Chief! Will Don E. really go through with the zombification plan? And how it will affect his dynamic with Blaine’s father?

Over in Fillmore Graves territory, this episode rounded out our trip down memory lane with some downright Mars-ian PI work. The survivalist who believes in zombies turns out to know exactly what he’s talking about, but at least, thanks to a bug in his car, Team Z will know what he’s saying. We also met a new member of the Fillmore Graves executive team, Carey Gold. She’s in charge of everything except the military, and so far seems like a reasonable ally for Liv since she voted against murder.

Major’s military shortcomings are definitely a thing of the past, and his parkouring around during a mission even started to look more like flight. Remember when Major was a social worker? The other little crumb I hope we will follow up on is Major finding a cooler fill of human heads after his op. He says he understands, but seemed perturbed nonetheless. Those tubes of blended brains seem too good to be true, especially given how intense Vivian seems to be. Memories or no, I hope Major finds a way to pull at that thread.

I’m glad the murder of the week was wrapped up a bit early, because it left plenty of time for Liv and Ravi (who was largely absent for most of this episode) to say goodbye to Major. On the bright side, Ravi was the closest to his old, pre-Paine self that we’ve seen in a long time. It was good to see Liv use her medical training on the living (dead) – remember when Liv was a medical student? But even better was the heartfelt goodbye with Major, who finally acknowledged just how silly his name is, and just how much Liv means to him. Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe” perfectly captured the feeling of the moment, especially with lines like, “stay with me,” and, “Meet you on the other side.”

How quickly will Major’s memories fade? Will he be as different as Blaine is, perhaps revisiting his darker side from back before he knew about Team Z? Does anyone wholeheartedly believe that Blaine is even telling the truth about losing his memory? Will Liv’s experience with the blue memory-brain trigger a breakthrough for Ravi?

We can’t know for sure, but in the unlikely event that this really is the end of Major Lilywhite as we know him, I can’t think of a better sendoff.