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: 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...

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: Fifty Shades of Grey Matter

"Think of something gross, like Margaret Thatcher."

Another good murder mystery here, centred around an erotic novel, a sexless marriage and puritanical snobbery. The murder mysteries are consistently good in iZombie. But we also get some interesting flirting between Liv and zombie Drake, plus loads more arc stuff.

I don't like Dale any more; she hates tea. What sort of person hates lovely, divine tea? She and Clive seem to be on Major's heels but he manages to escape their clutches... at the cost of having to give up poor Minor.

Blaine is still helping Peyton with taking down Mr Boss, and they're getting on well. Very well. Intimately well. Very appropriate for an episode all about sexual temptation. Liv resists the charms of Drake... just. Peyton (who likes a drink) doesn't. She ends the episode horrified to find out, from both Dale and Liv, what a monster Blaine is. This is a turning point.

A good episode, managing to link the arc stuff and murder mystery by theme and make neither seem rushed. That's good plotting.

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.