Hawkeye: Hide and Seek

 "A twenty-two year old vigilante. Shouldn't you be in school?"

Ok, first of all, the Hawkeye LARPing montage was obviously awesome. But we hearing aid wearers find it easier to follow what's going on with tabletop RPGs. Maybe Clint would enjoy that more...

Yet there's so much elseto admire in a series that is settling down quite nively. Clint's frustration at not being with his family at Christmas brings us closer to him. Yet Kate is awesome, too, just like us in a way: wanting to learn from Clint to achieve her dream and make it as a superhero. Anything to escape from the life with the family business that's been planned out for her.

Then there's her new stepfather, Jack... the Swordsman. Charming, evasive... and seemingly at the scene of Armand's murder. Kate has problems, and complications. Not only are she and Clint captured and at the mercy of the, er, Tracksuit Mafia, but the cops want to question her in the morning.

Best of all, though, is the chemistry between the hero worshipping, naive yet resourceful Kate and the gruff and annoyed Clint. The script, and both actors, are superb.

iZombie: Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat

"Now, if you wouldn't mind feeling around my lobsters for a bit..."

So, Liv made a zombie in a boat while in a spot of bother, if you remember. Well, said zombie thug is duly run over by some stoned kids, consumed with guilt in an I Know What You Did Last Summer sort of way. Said kids start turning on each other, murders happen, said zombie is of course not actually dead, and we're getting very close to the finale. Good stuff.

Oh, and "The Ass Hats" is a superb name for a band.

Anyway, Ravi's cured zombie rat dies, which is a bit of a bummer. Peyton and Ravi continue to get on well with, allegedly, lots of sex. Liv, with her stoner brain, er, gets stoned. The case is solved but threads are left unresolved as we're about to start the season finale. Oh, and Blaine has Major, whose sleuthing has got him into trouble. We're nearly done now. This is a superb debut season.

iZombie: Astroburger

""Careful! Don't open yourself up to the classic reverse Sicilian gambit. That's a chess thing, right?"

"Sounds more like something a call girl would make you pay extra for..."

We know iZombie by now; yes, Majoy may be in a mental hospital because Liv thought he'd be safe there, but he isn't: his chess-playing mate gets murdered. Liv duly acquires said delusional brain, complete with chess skills, voices in her head and (we discover) an imaginary friend. Meanwhile Ravi and Peyton start dating, and it seems to be going well.

Major, after this, discharges himself and returns to his obsession, made so much worse by his not knowing the truth. There is ascent in which Liv reveals all to him but this is, rather predictably, a delusion.

Also, Blaine has stick zombie client who wants the brain if someone who has walked on the Moon(!) and Ravi's successful cure for the zombie rat seems to hold out hope.

Another good episode, then, if predictable in places. And it reminds me that a) weed is legal in Washington State and b) I must watch Vertigo again, and blog it.

iZombie: Mr. Berserk

"Liv, you're off the case..."

At last the Max Rager stuff moves centre stage as a journalist investigating the drink's propensity to cause violence is murdered. Liv's ingestion of her brain makes her tenacious and alcoholic, which is not inconvenient. It's more good telly.

In other conspiracy news, Suzuki is covering for Blaine; he knows where his brains are coming from. And the fallout from Lowell's death continues as the truth has to be hidden. That's three separate conspiracies. Paranoid much? You really tend to sympathise with Major.

Especially when Clive comes close to sectioning him. It's a very arc-heavy episode.

Major checks himself into hospital as Liv drinks and investigates. It's clear Max Rager are guilty but it all gets rather dangerous, insidious and exciting as Liv ends up having to go into full-on zombie mode to avoid being murdered. Unfortunately her prospective killer is now a zombie, and Max Rager are still uncaught. 

It's getting exciting and the season finale is still in sight in the least story-of-the-week episode yet, but iZombie is still as awesome as ever.

iZombie: Patriot Brains

"You'll eat human brains to get bigger muscles?"

"I'm open to that as an option!"

Things start rather badly for Liv and Lowell as she informs him that he's been subsisting on the brains of murdersd teenagers, a rather nifty metaphor for the unethical origins of what we all eat. This causes friction, as you imagine, but during the ensuing argument he admits he loves her. Oops.

The racket in said brains, and the linked police corruption, move surprisingly to the forefront here. Meanwhile, Blaine is as big a Nirvana fan as Oam (he references Fecal Matter) and is about to hear stuff that wasn't even on the Outcesticide bootlegs. Bastard. And yes, I realise how old I found to be mentioning bootlegs.

Anyway, we also have a murder of the week, and Liv duly eats the brains of the victim, a sniper and Afghanistan veteran. But the main focus is on the relationship between Liv and Lowell. Their reconciliation is quite heartwarming. Automatically we know that,  any time a couple couple in a TV drama reconcile after a recent row, one of them will die. We know it will be Lowell, him not being the title character, and sure enough- he's killed by Blaine as Liv bottles out of using her sniper skills to kill him.

Major has a bad time this week too, and thinks he's going mad, but the shock of Lowell'sdrath overshadows everything. Yes, iZombie is brilliant, all right.

iZombie: Maternity Liv

"But you should eat something. Possibly. With vegetables, if you so choose."

It had to happen; Liv has eaten the brain of a pregnant woman and is getting all motherly, a mad this is of course played for comic effect. But this helps to lighten a surprisingly dark episode about parental abuse and, in the end, dodgy cover-ups. The central mystery is, as ever, excellent.

Major, meanwhile, is working with a tenacious journalist to find out what happened to those missing kids. And Ravi and Lowell have an excruciating conversation about London football that clearly wasn't written by a Brit.

It's a brilliant conceit that Lowell's apparent standoffishness towards Liv is explained by a gay brain he's eaten, and their relationship is simmering nicely. 

We end with a cover-up, Suzuki suspecting that Liv is a zombie, and Ravi's lab rat becoming a zombie rat...

iZombie: Flight of the Living Dead

"I'll only hover by the phone for the next 72 hours or so. After that I'm on to the next Zombie girl."

It's fascinating to see how the murder mysteries of the week (another good one here, involving the death by parachute of Liv's old uni friend) dovetail with the gradual zombie subplot, slowly showing us, tantalisingly, what the "rules" are. Here, one of the suspects- Lowell, a professional rock musician- has a good alibi in that he's a zombie. Unsurprisingly, being nice, good-looking and not evil like Blaine, he rapidly becomes Liv's love interest.

Also, in other news, kids known to Major- a social worker- are going missing, a new plot thread. Soft drinks manufacturer Max Rager is shown to be a bit dodgy. Oh, and Clive's boss is a zombie. All this is the ideal mix: we're still getting stories of the week, and good ones, but mixed with a strong arc element; the best of both worlds. 

It's becoming clear that this series is very good indeed.

iZombie: Liv and Let Clive

"You got your ass kicked by a girl. Get over it."

This is an episode which needed to come early in the season; any later and we'd know and trust Clive too well to believe he could have dodgy relations with criminals. Instead we get an episode which deepens his character; he spent a year undercover and was deeply affected by it.

We also have more moustache-twirling by Blaine along the usual lines. His extortion victim, Jackie, actually fancies him. Bastard. Blaine is already a superbly written and acted villain.

The plot is, as ever, a superbly crafted mystery and che character development is proving to be first class; it'll be interesting to see what happens now that Major has moved in with Ravi.