IZombie: Eat a Knievel

"I didn't get called here to present a Darwin award..."

An engaging story of the week this time as a Jackass-style prankster gets his just comeuppance in a solid whodunit which, much as though Liv on Jackass brain is overly similar to frat boy brain from a couple of seasons ago, gives us some good character moments for both Ravi and Clive in their contrasting reactions to this kind of "entertainment".

We start with a real shock though, arc-wise, as Vivian Stoll quickly realises that Major is no longer amongst the undead and then, suddenly, is killed in a car crash from right out of left field. His replacement seems rather worrying.

Meanwhile, Blaine's deliciously evil dad comes to realise that Fillmore-Graves is a largely zombie operation, while his now equally evil son is heard listening to "Nearly lost You" by Seattle's own Screaming Trees. Why does the baddie in iZombie have the best taste in music? We also get to see that Liv and Justin are a properly heartwarming couple which means, of course, that Justin is doomed.

We end with Blaine (now seemingly a zombie once again) avenging himself on his dad in a delightfully evil fashion while Liv and Ravi go undercover among the zombie truthers. We end, as we often have of late, on a cliffhanger. The season is really hotting up.

iZombie: Zombie Knows Best

"Well, you look like a black Tony Stark..."

We're back to the usual format here, with a murder mystery and some brain eating to be done, except this time it's done with Clive's full knowledge and with both Liv and Major partaking of the victims' (conveniently there are two, a father and a teenage daughter) brains. What makes this iteration particularly hilarious is that it's Liv who gets to be Embarrassing Dad while Major gets to spend the whole episode as a teenage girl, wherein there is much merriment. Both Rose McIver and Robert Buckley show, once again, how they are both excellent comic actors.

But there's another strand to this episode, a much more tragic one told in flashback, as Clive slowly reveals his connection with the murdered little Wally and his family- and, as a light little bonus, exactly how he got into Game of Thrones. So, while the murder mystery is a good one, with an unexpected twist, Clive's parallel investigation of the family's murder ends up unearthing something truly horrible; conspiracy theorists (already not my favourite people, to put it mildly; they can all bog off and take their alternative facts with them) have message boards and, indeed, an entire online infrastructure for the "outing" of zombies; almost one tenth as evil as Breitbart and 4chan, or whatever the neo-Nazi yoof are logging on to these days.

This is all clearly foreshadowing of "D-Day" and, I'm sure, this season will see the secret slowly seeping out. I suspect it's rather clear which side Clive will be on. Excellent episode.

IZombie: Heaven Just Got a Little Bit Smoother

"You really should tan and dye. We're trying to keep a secret here."

Season three at last; it's been sooooo long. It's good to have the old gang and the old narrative tropes back. But we have a slight change of format after last season's dramatic finale: I'm sure we'll still get lots of murders (and brains) of the week, but the season subplot seems to be the gradual realisation by the people of Seattle that zombies walk among them, and how to manage that. There's an obvious civil rights subtext here, the same one that is used to such powerful metaphorical extent in the X-Men of various media; can humans co-exist among undead brain-munching fellow citizens?

I'm sure it'll all be fine. It's not as though humans have a long history of discrimination and violence based on race and/or sexual orientation, right? Besides, there's an awkwardness in arranging for them to legally eat brains without technically violating the dead. As it is, the episode sort of fudges this issue by dodging it completely when Clive sees Liv and Major munch on cerebellum for the first time.

Things follow directly on from last season's finale, and we learn just a little bit more about the mysterious Vivian Stoll and her league of military zombies, but just what is this "zombie homeland" to which she refers? It all sounds a bit Marcus Garvey, but there's no Zombie Africa. But she has a good point about the likely human reaction to "D-Day". I'm not convinced that her "Zombie Island" in the Puget Sound is a very good solution, but we'll see.

On a more personal note, there are worrying signs that Peyton may have feelings for bad boy Blaine rather than the lovable Ravi because, hey, that's what women in TV dramas do. We're reminded that Major may be dying, and Ravi needs to find a cure pretty sharpish.  Oh, and Don E is casually resurrecting Blaine's dad.

By the end of the episode, though, the secret is slowly circulating, and even Clive has a personal reason to be emotionally invested. Most of all, though, it's so good to have iZombie back.

iZombie: Salivation Army

"This is Seattle, not Sleepy Hollow!"

Where to begin? This is a truly epic finale that changes everything, introduces a new baddie and seems to fire the starting gun on the zombie apocalypse. If it wasn't for the fact that it features the lead singer of the awful Matchbox Twenty as himself it would be truly awesome, but we can't have perfection. It seems Du Clark likes fake grunge crap, which is truly evil. At least Blaine likes the real thing.

The whole episode consists of Liv, Major and Clive in a mission to Max Rager to infiltrate a party while everything goes wrong and wild zombies- I love the way they're referred to as "Romeros"- are let loose. I suspect next season will be very different. 

At last Clive now knows everything and can play a full part in this big episode, full of big things happening. Don E is shot as Me Boss takes over. Drake becomes a Romero, which sucks for Liv but probably bodes well for her and Major. Blaine helps Ravi to save Peyton- his character is clearly being majorly revamped.

We end with Du Clark, after much twirling of his moustache, getting his comeuppance at the hands of a bunch of hungry Romeros as Major lets him doe. And it seems we have a new big bad, with a zombie now in charge of Max Rager...

An awesome episode of an awesome season of an awesome series. iZombie deserves to be much more ubiquitous.

iZombie: Dead Beat

"Juries today- they've seen every episode of CSI!"

Oh dear. Major has been arrested and evidence of him being the Chaos Killer looks pretty damning from the FBI's point of view. Not that it matters; far before that happens he will turn into a zombie in prison and start the apocalypse (although, surely, some random zombie is bound to be strayed and imprisoned at some point anyway; the apocalypse is inevitable). Oh, and Ravi has to explain it all to Liv.

I love the awesome lawyer provided by Max Rager, but this whole episode is adrenaline-fuelled and awesome. We discover that Major's frozen bodies have vanished, presumably because of Max Rager. Du Clark is going to sell the company to a military contractor for loads of money. But through it all is the suspense of whether Major will get his brains in time. It's truly nail-biting.

The real punch-the-air moment, though, is Liv finally telling Clive everything... and dramatically proving to him that she's a zombie. Finally! Clive, being a good bloke with integrity, immediately releases Major- at the horrible cost of his relationship with a furious Dale. We end with a vision of the once frozen zombies in a cage in Du Clark's basement. This is truly addictive telly.

One more to go...