iZombie: The Scratchmaker

”Let’s face it- we’ve all got a little monster in us.”

It finally happened; a Blaine episode, after his near-absence from the opening episodes. Following his downfall last week we now follow Blaine as he adjusts to his new reality- and survives, as he always does. Oh, there’s a perfunctory murder of the week with a matchmaker being murdered and Liv on match maker brain. But all this happens in the background. Other characters get their moments- now that Dale is off on maternity leave (I know they have shit working conditions in America- do they have that?) it’s fun to see Clive getting to sit in the big chair.

But this is about Blaine, stuck in a cell, forced to answer questions and, worse, his entertainment options limited to the TV edit of Snakes on a Plane in endless loop. He’s an evil, amoral, annoyingly witty man who we all live to hate, and this is probably the right moment to praise David Anderson to the skies for inhabiting this gloriously witty sociopath. iZombie without Blaine is a terrifying thought.

There’s a rather big change to the status quo here as it turns out Al is the niece of none other than Stacey Boss, who is behind all of this and planning to takeover Blaine’s brain business wholesale- successfully, although not without some cleverness from Major forcing him and his new sidekick Don E to lower the price. Interestingly,Blaine is left to think that the brain business has gone elsewhere, effectively coupled by Don E and his shadowy benefactor. I’m sure he’ll take it very well when he finds out.

All this and Major, who is on fire somewhat, has a bit of a mini-showdown with Durkins. Another splendid episode, then, and a final season which is coming along very nicely.

IZombie: Chivalry Is Dead

“What the Hell is a TARDIS?”

iZombie has done tabletop role-playing; now it’s time for LARP. It’s all very fun, and Rose McIver is as awesome as ever. Mind you, I may be a latent tabletop guy myself but I suspect that LARPers in real life probably speak in a less annoying way.

It’s all good fun, though, and another good episode that harks back to seasons of yore. I love RVi’s indulging of Peyton’s knight in armour fetish, and the dialogue just sings. Interesting, too, that we find the killer (nice whodunit, incidentally) but not a confession, and a conviction seems unlikely. Where’s Columbo when we need him?

It’s onteresting to see Blaine and his duped dad working for Stacey Boss (him again!) in attacking a prison bus to find a large widget of money- money which has in fact been found by Peyton and given to Liv for railroad purposes. Peyton is now involved, and taking one hell of a risk.

The big twist comes at the end though- Liv scratches the latest terminally ill arrival only to find that, cruelly, it doesn’t work. Does this mean some people are immune to zombies in? And why does it have to be that poor girl? It’s quite the twist and a rather good episode.

iZombie: Return of the Dead Guy

"So, you know, discipline me!"

I know I've been away a bit; I moved house last Tuesday. But last night I binge watched three iZombies and it's Doctor Who tonight. I'm back, even if we are all surrounded by boxes. Myself, Mrs Llamastrangler and Little Miss Llamastrangler are all loving the new house, even if our conveyancer has been an absolute tit throughout.

Anyway, iZombie is already moving away from the stories of the week as the finale approaches. The zombie truthers have Don E, whom they plan to starve into Romero state while torturing him, all live over the Internet. Meanwhile, Ravi is trapped while Major spends the entire episode having sex with the somewhat odd Shawna. In other news, Blaine speaks fluent Bengali(!) and we get an interestingly kinky scene between Liv and Peyton. But the whole episode is about the zombie truthers and what Liv discovers from eating the brain of the dominatrix killer; it seems it was indeed him after all, but the hanging was murder and not suicide.

We discover that Clive likes Dark Side of the Moon and, it seems, does not share my opinion that, after The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Syd Barrett's solo career was far more interesting than that of Pink Floyd, who became cold and impenetrable when then abandoned their whimsical English psychedelia phase. Ooh, controversial.

The return of Mr Boss, and Blaine nonchalantly turning the tables, is fun. And the end, with Liv and Blaine going full on zombie mode to rescue Don E, promises more fun to come.

This was good. More than usually good.

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: He Blinded Me... with Science

"You Americans and your violence!"

This week's murder victim is a research scientist who ends up burned to a crisp; cue Liv acquiring scientist brain. We also get some rather dramatic arc stuff to remind us that the season finale is not far off.

Ravi learns that Blaine is a zombie again, and Blaine learns that his days are therefore numbered. While Liv and Clive navigate a good if a little perfunctory murder mystery involving a pair of twins and Max Rager being used as a red herring, Major calmly explains to Vaughn do Clark that he slept with his daughter and Liv rather naughtily does some undercover work behind Clive's back- will this come back to bite her? And what of the captive full-on zombie in Max Rager's basement that Liv sees clearly in a vision?

This is, perhaps, a rare example of the murder mystery plot feeling like an afterthought with all the arc stuff going on; iZombie is usually perfect in judging this balance. But it's an exciting and entertaining episode, especially the (admittedly predictable) ending where Liv, suspecting Drake to be a bit dodgy, arranges to confront him... and he doesn't turn up because Major kidnaps him. Ouch.

But even that doesn't beat the unexpected moment where Rita is scratched by the Max Rager captive zombie, and is imprisoned by her increasingly pantomime villain-sequel father...

iZombie: Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind

"Your lips are moving, but it's the system working!"

Another excellent murder mystery this week, with a coffee shop (how very Seattle), positivity brain and  boyfriend who pretends to be French, complete with outrageous accent. 

We also have Ravi's attempt at a cure for zombieism not going well, much like his attempt to chat up a girl who, shock horror, doesn't get his Star Wars references. She is, naturally, the killer. All right-minded people know Star Wars.

We end with Blaine being kidnapped by Mr Boss and cronies while singing A Whiter Shade of Pale, having his throat cut and being buried in a shallow grave. It hardly takes a genius to realise that at the end of the episode he will rise as a zombie, but it's an entertaining sequence. As is Liv finding out that "Gilda" was the Rita who was sleeping with Major, punching and evicting get.

This is very good stuff and the finale is getting awfully close...

iZombie: The Whopper

"I invented the orgasm, Clive."

It had to happen: Liv eats the brain (via the usual brilliant food montage) of a congenital liar. What also had to happen was Clive noticing Liv adopting personality traits of the victims for her visions. It would have stretched credibility for him not to have noticed something by now; how soon until he discovers the whole truth?

Meanwhile it's all happy families as Blaine's apparently dead zombie dad leaves him sod all in his will while leaving everything to his abusive old nanny- nice bit of character background there for our poor little rich kid. 

Things don't end there, of course; Blaine soon kidnaps Major, discovers the truth, gets his dad back to be tortured into another will, and insists on deciding which targets on his list Major gets rid of yet. Meanwhile, there are still signs that Drake is something of a dodgy choice of boyfriend for Liv, and the death of the zombie rat indicates that neither Blaine nor Major will live long after reverting to zombiedom. Ouch. That's a bit of a bombshell. 

For the second episode in a row there isn't really a murder mystery as opposed to the arc plot, but it's a bloody good episode, climaxing with our heroes finally discovering the tainted utopium..

iZombie: Physician, Heal Thy Selfie

"You're a disgrace to your country's proud history of functional lushes!"

Liv is getting on well, if you know what I mean, with zombie Drake, while Peyton and Ravi continue go get on very well for exes, getting sloshed together on a regular basis. But this week's murder starts off with three corpses... and no heads. Oh dear.

However, Liv still gets to eat a brain, via one of those delightful culinary montages that have become a real highlight of the show, that of a true social media obsessive. Cue everything being tweeted and Facebooked.

Peyton's boss, Mr Baracus, is apparently dead; he most certainly ain't going on no plane. Major spends much of the episode squirming over the fact that he stated that Baracus was not a zombie, yet he so clearly is; this allows Du Clark to look suitably menacing to whet our appetites for what is no doubt coming later in the season. Meanwhile, Liv checks out the background to Drake; is he boyfriend material? 

Also notable is the meeting between Blaine and a delightfully menacing Me Boss, who clearly established himself as the alpha male, and Peyton's failed attempt to resign over buggering up Blaine so badly. Baracus ends up in Major's freezer. It's an odd episode, all arc, arc, arc with only a superficial murder mystery, but a good episode nonetheless.

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.

iZombie: Max Wager

"Aren't Brits supposed to be repressed? What would Judi Dench say?"

Liv and Major are now publically a couple again, and the episode pretty much revolves around the question of whether they can have any kind of sex which doesn't end in Major acquiring a sudden taste for brains. There's also a murder mystery, of course, and a brain that turns Luv into an inveterate gambler. It's also an episode that gave me great difficulty in choosing the opening quote: "That is the sound of a man's sphincter shrinking" came a close second. Just so you know.

There's a scene where Peyton is visited by the hitherto mysterious but very menacing Mr Boss. I love that they've cast a short actor to play him as a jovial and superficially nice guy who is clearly deeply terrifying underneath it all. I also love the strip poker; the sexual tension between Liv and Major is really quite palpable.

There's a nice resolution, much as its a bit soon after the basketball episode: the murder was ordered by Clive's basketball hero. Less nice is Blaine killing and eating his vegetable of a grandfather, but it's interesting to end with Blaine's zombie father being kidnapped by Major as another one for the freezer..

Yep. More good stuff.