iZombie: Looking for Mr. Goodbrain, Part 1

"It was a grudge boink."

Into the two-part season finale, then. We begin with Ravi admitting to Liv that he's the source for the story with the big front cover photo of her in full-on zombie mode on the cover and getting away lightly. He gets less lenience from his old boss Katty Kupps. That's his last ever such bollocking, though, as Katty is promptly murdered and Liv spends the episode on what turns out to be her rather promiscuous brain. For this late in the season the form of the episode, at least, is closer to story-of-the-week than one might expect.

It's bizarre to see Liv made up to look human, at last worried about her anonymity; she looks so unlike herself. But the investigation proceeds as usual, with a nicely written scene where Ravi discreetly calls out a witness for her racism. Liv's flirtiness is anything but, though, and we're left feeling a little uncomfortable about what this means for her relationship with Justin.

Most tragic, though, is Major's rekindled relationship with a besotted Natalie, who invites him to Italy to live happily ever after. This automatically means that everything has to end in tears, and the episode ends with an explosive finale as the zombie Harley Johns kills everyone at Major's goodbye party except for Justin and Major himself. Dramatic stuff, and there's still the finale to go...

IZombie: Wag the Tongue Slowly

"I will juice you like an orange, my friend."

This episode is, for iZombie, relatively story-of-the-week, but with a show as on fire as this that's no bad thing. It's difficult finding bad things to say about it at the moment so I shan't even try.

For Ravi, unwisely and unkindly having a one night stand with his hated ex-boss while he's supposed to be getting back with Peyton, and getting caught, it's the morning after the night before in a scene played for laughs as it need to be; Ravi's been quite the love rat and yet we still need to like him, so his share of the good lines is even higher than normal, even when paired with the razor-sharp Blaine.

But the episode soon moves to the inevitable murder as the body of an office gossip is found by two bad actresses (Hah! I found something bad to say!) and a splendidly clever plot, very Agatha Christie for a forty minute episode, ensues, with a nattily directed denouement where Clive gets to be Hercule Poirot as he explains that They All Did It. And Liv as office gossip is both hilarious and disturbingly useful to the investigation.

Meanwhile Ravi and an increasingly sick Major further deepen their unlikely but convincing friendship as Major cleverly furthers the plot and ultimately finds out where Natalie (remember her?) is being held. The relationship between Peyton and Blaine continues to develop post-cure as he is relieved to find his memories of being a baddie not returning. Blaine is a bit of a walking philosophical treatise on redemption; if he can no longer remember his bad deeds, and is no longer capable of repeating them, to what extent should he be held accountable?

We end with Liv and Clive following up clues from that anti-zombie message board and coming up an ominous, very racist and extremely nasty dead end. The secret is out and it's not going to be pretty.

iZombie: Cape Town

"I make time for justice!"

More than a little influenced by Kick-Ass, this episode deals with the humiliating death of a real life "superhero" and, as the last episode before the mid-season break, ends with a rather neat parallel as Liv's own excesses of vigilantism lead to her apparent downfall, with Clive no longer willing to work with her.

It's cleverly done, not only in terms of the thematic parallels but in having s light-hearted episode turn dark at the very end. What will Liv do now? Has superhero brain cost her purpose in life? Before then, though, there's much to enjoy. I love Ravi's enthusiastic attitude to the Fog, Mr Boss being all sinister again, and Major's character-building (and info-dumpy) chat with a zombie lady, formerly a high class call girl who enjoyed life, now being forced to have sex with Blaine's clients in return for brains. She wants Major to kill her, and takes a lot of convincing to be frozen instead. Her story is devastating, and a reminder of how the very structures of our patriarchal society can be so horribly misogynistic with a real human cost.

We end not only with Liv no longer working with Clive but with the apparently cured rat returned to zombie-ism. Is there no hope? An extraordinary episode.