iZombie: All's Well That Ends Well

"This is why the time of patty cake is over..."

Last night Mrs Llamastrangler and I bit the bullet. We’d been delaying seeing the last ever iZombie, because then it would be over. And we weren’t disappointed, although there was a lot to cram in. It’s not the creators’ fault, but would it really be too much to extend the running time beyond a paltry forty-two minutes...?

Anyway, we begin with half an hour of narrative in which all the plot threads are concluded and, although there’s a lot of dramatic tension (I love the moment where Liv, Clive and Ravi are caught on the plane- only to find the police officer to be on their side) and drama but things end as happily as the title implies. I love the way both Blaine and Don E end up down the well with Blaine’s sad for all eternity, rushed though the sequence inevitably is, and how we think for w while that Peyton may be dead after her fatal shooting although, of course, that pervert Blaine scratches her. We also have time to see Clive become a dad (aaah!) and Major’s heroic sacrifice to prove in live telly that the cure works; it’s not his fault that Ravi made damn sure he survived. And as for Enzo, his fate is poetic; the ultimate zombie racist dies human. It’s a pity that Durkins seems to survive.

But we then end with the coda, ten years later- a brave choice but one that pretty much works and gives happy endings for our heroes, perhaps a little trite but not unearned. Zombieism can be cured now so zombies are not a threat- is it that simple? At least Liv and Major are together. That kiss...!

Yes, it’s rushed. But within its forty-two minute constraints the episode works well. And I salute the firm decision, heralded by the title, not to go grimdark and have a defiantly happy ending. Wonderful,  and a fitting end to a series I will very much miss.

iZombie: Bye, Zombies

"We are in the South now. You don't put stolen jewellery in a black man's pocket."

The penultimate episode. Nearly there.

Confession time; this is a heist episode (it's too close to the end for murders of the week), and the pop culture references centre around Mission Impossible and Ocean's 11, neither of which I happen to have seen. Still, I'll do my best.

So Ravi sent the tainted Utopium to a scientist at the CDC in the hop of a zombie cure... and the money-grabbing bastard has realised there's more money in palliatives rather than cures. This is why state health services should always be allowed to veto this kind of evil. Anyway, the point is we have a pretext for Liv, Ravi and- after some persuading- a Clive who is touchingly emotional, to carry out said heist in a clever, entertaining and ultimately successful fashion with the help of some appropriate brains from the restaurant of a grieving Don E. It's splendid stuff.

It's the penultimate episode, though, so other arc threads are gently nudged towards their respective conclusions. After all, we have racist extremists for both humankind and zombiekind respectively trying to start a war. The nuclear bomb of Damocles still metaphorically hangs over the city. But not all is bad; Ravi gets to rub in Blaine's face that Peyton is his girl ("That was genuine cockiness!") which is cool and, I think, just on the right side of not being misogynistic.

Blaine reminds us, however, that, despite being the witty villain we love to hate, he is in fact an absolute ***, making Peyton genuinely afraid as he kills one of the Freylich kids and threatens the rest. I predict he's going to die. We also get the most touching grave robbing scene ever as Liv and Major remind each other that they like each other and kiss. Awww. Except... this is near the end and anyone could die. Could they...? Would they...?

While the heist is successful the episode ends on a grim note; Major is alone, a fugitive, in a New Seattle where he's been usurped by Enzo and the extremists are merrily warmongering. And he has to get some Max Rager from Fillmore Graves...

What an episode. What a season. What a series. One more to go...

iZombie: Killer Queen

”Jenkins, find me all the Chers."

It's the pen-penultimate episode of iZombie, ever, and by Jove this is bloody good. So much happens, it all drives along the arc splendidly, the characters are a joy- yet this week's murder mystery, this time centring around drag queens, is as splendid as ever, and drag queen brain Liv is naturally enormous fun; the episode finds time for this even though it has so much to do. I'll miss this programme.

But we begin with Liv and Ravi finding out what Martin is up to, a massive blow for her; at this point, it seems as though Liv's dad is going to be the Big Bad. But Ravi now has some original boat party Utopium, a possible source for a cure- and news of the recent murder of a cured zombie proves a cure is out there. We get a splendid little comic sub-plot, too, as Ravi and Major, that great double act, get to be heroes and rescue all Blaine’s Freylich kids. I suspect this will be the last fun sub-plot before the finale so possibly, gulp, ever.

But things soon get intense as Martin’s conspiracy leads to four “sisters” Liv helps out of Seattle turn out to be sleeper agents setting up shop in a Nevada brothel to infect people- and Enzo shows more hardline tendencies. So much so, in fact, that he exposes the operation by killing a hostage and allows Liv to learn the truth. This all feels real and character-led, complex though the plot is, a sign of good writing. The same can be said for the desperate Skype call between Liv and her dad- ultimately leading leading to Enzo shooting him dead. Yes; he’s the Big Bad. And he has the most outrageous French accent since Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And that’s not all- Blaine finds out Don E is still running brains for Major and, even worse for him, Darcy suddenly dies in her wedding dress shortly before the wedding. Ouch. That was a superb bit of telly.

iZombie: Night and the Zombie City

"This is so noir!"

This episode is exactly as per the quote- Liv is on Sam Spade brain, the whole thing is shot and lit like a film noir, and fourth wall-breaking is apace anywhere you care to look. Ravi.in particular, knows exactly what genre he's in.

And yet, at heart, this episode shows perfectly just how much iZombie has perfected its formula just as it's about to end. Again we have an episode with a solid murder mystery plus related genre; great characterisation; and of course the ever-present arc plot. Here we have Liv learning her father is Beanpole Bob, inventor of Utopium, and thus creator of all zombies. Peyton comes to terms with no longer being mayor and returns to drinking magnificently. And, gloriously, Hi Zombie does actually seem to (just) prevent Seattle from getting nuked, meaning she didn't sacrifice her job for nothing.

We also, sweetly, have Don E proposing to Darcy (she's going to die soon, right?) - and learn that a zombie cure exists, which Liv and Clive just miss out on. We end with Liv and Ravi searching Martin's house, finding drug labs, notes possibly on the tainted Utopium- and cages full of Max Ragered Romeros. I genuinely have no idea where this is going in the last three episodes ever(!) but I'm loving iZombie more than ever.

iZombie: The Fresh Princess

"It's like calling a pine cone 'your majesty'..."

This season, now we’re just a few episodes from the end, is slowly coalescing into the best ever. It’s successfully using the non-diagetic but very present fact that this is the final season to suggest that Seattle society, with its fragile truce between humans and zombies, is on the edge of collapse. But that’s in the background; meanwhile it’s developing all the characters superbly while juggling lots of different arc strands including lots of surprises (although it’s pretty much been obvious for ages that Liv’s dad was Beanpole Bob), and still managing to function as the whodunit its always been.

Liv on ‘90s beauty queen brain is hilarious, although somewhat alienating for me. The ‘90s were my decade, the time of my adolescence. But I’m afraid the pop culture references we see here don’t reflect my personal ‘90s of Grunge, wondering why everyone thought Oasis were so great, Ren and Stimpy, waiting for the Major government to fall and naively assuring I’d never see a worse one, loads of rock festivals, beer, cigarettes (and, er, smoking other things), trying to talk to girls, and Doctor Who novels the New Adventures which I generally read to a soundtrack of Sonic Youth or the Butthole Surfers.

So I’m afraid all the ‘90s stuff passed me by, but Liv as thick beauty queen is still funny, and the murder mystery is fun. So is Peyton and Ravi's double act as they track down Beanpole Bob, and the revelation that Peyyon's selling the Space Needle has caught up with her and she's been sacked.

But the fact that Durkins has some kidnapped zombies who she's starved into becoming Romeros, and has them massacring people on telly is probably not something that bodes well. Worse, one of the Romeros is our nuke-happy general's daughter, and Major has to shoot her...

iZombie is one of the best things on telly and I can't believe it's ending.

iZombie: Death of a Car Salesman

”Herbie wasn’t evil. He was the Love Bug.”

I can’t believe how close we are to the end; previous seasons have drifted off the format a bit but this episode gives us a wanker of a murdered car salesman with both Liv and Ravi having some of his brain, and it’s all perfect. The fact that we’ve known these characters for so long just adds to it- Clive’s reaction to the two of them is hilarious but would not have been possible seasons ago.

We also have flashbacks with Martin, Liv’s dad, with Blaine, Don E and Scott E (remember him?) and seem to see that Martin is not only “Beanpole Bob” but was the original creator of that tainted utopium that causes the original zombie outbreak on that boat. Meanwhile, in the present, Liv tries to connect with her dad but is exasperated with her co tinging addiction. At the end, though, it’s clear that he fully realised that his daughter is Renegade...

Blaine, meanwhile, has a new business kidnapping teenage kids with Freylich’s Syndrome, walking zombie cures. I prefer Blaine as gangster to Blaine the tycoon; he’s in his element. And one result is the comedy pairing of, er, Don E and the teenage Darcy, who kiss. Urgh. Isn’t she about seventeen?

Still, four episodes to go. And iZombie has never been better.

iZombie: Filleted to Rest

"She fired people for existing wrong."

Another superb episode that, as this season is continuously doing with admirable skill, manages to pull off a genuinely impressive whodunit while still having lots of jaw-dropping arc stuff happen against a steadily deteriorating background of human vs zombie tension. And we end with quite the cliffhanger. Halfway through this final season...

The murder/brain of the week, a delightfully rude chef, is a particularly good one, and Liv on chef brain is a real treat. The murder of the week, to be fair, takes up a lot of screen time, and deserves to. It's too easy to forget that iZombie's basic format, still fundamentally there in spite of everything, is a bloody good one. Burgling as a murder alibi is a bloody good one.

And yet...a load of Fillmore Graves troops are killed in a terrorist attack, and after a far bit of intrigue Major gains proof that Justin- who is, let us not forget, a former boyfriend of Liv- is a traitor, shooting his recently former close friend while trying to escape. Ouch. Liv has a massive row with her mum, who we haven't seen for, well, seasons, but it's finally time to start tying up the loose ends.

There's a heartwarming scene where Michelle tells Clive that, no, he probably isn't the father... but she thinks he's a decent man and kind of wishes he was. Aw. Ravi's relationship with Dr Charlie Collier (and her twin sister!) develops a little, which makes me think they are going to share a more blatant sub-plot about a zombie cure.

But that cliffhanger, that this new player who is de-thawing zombies and appears to be Durkins' zombie mirror image is probably Liv's dad... wow.

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: Death Moves Pretty Fast

"Can a thing that's known for doing a thing do that very thing?"

As if it were possible for this season of iZombie to ramp things up, well, that's exactly what seems to have happened. There's also a pretty good murder of the week too, although it's a shame the use of Blaine as a suspect doesn't last, and (SPOILERS!) only at the end do we realise that we're getting a prankster killed by his resentful sidekick... again. But there's a lot more going on than that, although I'm a little confused at Clive's injury? He seemed fine last week.

Anyway, the Dead Enders continue to be a menace, this time sneaking Alzheimer's brains into the tubes- and this leads to the culmination of the conflict between Major and Enzo, the hardliner with the outrageous French accent. The zombie cure leaks out, and Ravi is devastated because it's his fault that sufferers of the disease in question now all have targets on their backs. But the main focus of the episode, cleverly done, is how Al slowly uncovers the full truth about Blaine's murderous past, and we see him exposed, turned from hero to public enemy number one... and the supply of brains stops. Worse, Peyon is shown to be either stupid or complicit, her earlier relationship with Blaine revealed. Peyton's position is now imperilled, just when New Seattle needs her to persuade DC not to nuke the place... again. And where are the brains going to come from?

Suddenly things look very worrying indeed for our fragile civilisation in the city, and that's before Major learns, once Enzo is on ice, that a full seventeen people have been thawed out... cut to a cage full of Romeros and suddenly we're reminded this is the final season. Could everything end with an actual zombie apocalypse? Another superb bit of telly, although I do worry about this over-the-top comedy treatment of Vampire Steve.

iZombie: Dot Zom

“The future will be obnoxious..."

Another clever episode, at its heart another whodunit of the week, but one through which the arc and its themes are rather interestingly explored- and where a new player unexpectedly emerges. This season so far is going splendidly.

The brain of the week is that of a Steve Jobs/ Mark Zuckerberg/ Elon Musk type dot com "genius", at once deeply fashionable and, while professing noble aims and sinking loads of money into a "bunker" to save a selected few from a vaguely upcoming armageddon, morally blink and unwittingly fomenting genocide. Rose McIver is, of course, superb as ever, but the moral is very much that such people are pretentious wankers.

There's a nice switch at the end; the zombie-hating racist is not, in fact the killer, but the spurned zombie ex-lover. Yet it is the red herring who is unmistakably the most evil, wishing to exterminate all zombies. And Liv's wider aims are thus not in sync with her sleuthing, a nicely made point.

Meanwhile, after a few hiccups, Peyton's and Ravi's sitcom is making progress, and Blaine (where has he been?) seems to have success in pulling a journalist, Al, who is interviewing him in a subplot which serves to illustrate the ongoing danger of the Dead Enders, who are gradually doxxing zombies to a world which hats and fears them. And there's an odd new baddie, in league with French Bloke, who has nebulous aims- and a mole in the camp of "Renegade". A surprising amount of arc stuff is being set up here. And, while yet again we have a top notch episode, it's all very ominous.

iZombie: Five, Six, Seven, Ate

“Nobody puts Ravi in a corner!”

Another bloody strong episode here that continues to set up plot threads for the final season while still managing to function as the season’s first murder of the week.

Said murder is fairly banal if seen simply as a whodunnit, perhaps, but it’s based on a competitive samba dancing telly programme and has Liv on dancer brain. Even better, it has Liv and Ravi going undercover as new contestants on the show, at one point spending a lot of time on a rather hilarious sequence as Ravi very slowly learns to dance by the most efficient means possible- montage. It’s an utterly hilarious sequence and one which both highlights how great Rahul Kohli is at physical comedy and shows how the programme still knows how to balance humour with the darkness.

And darkness there is- Dolly Durkins May not appear but her baleful attempt continues as a school identifies and isolates its zombie pupils, causing yet more intra-community friction, and threatening to drive a wedge between Peyton and Major. On a more personal note we learn that not only is Dale pregnant with Clive’s baby but Michelle, whom he dumped last season, is also pregnant with a baby who may be his.

We end on a note of hope, though, as Liv, as Renegade, agrees to adopt the late Jordan’s two orphaned brothers, and they start to learn that humans among the gang can be wonderful people. Unlike last week’s very dark episode this one is full of humour, and ends positively. But I still think this season will take a turn for the Hobbesian.

iZombie: Dead Lift

”You ever feel like you’re an unwitting tool of the prison industrial complex?”

It’s still all about the arc as we start the episode with last week’s supposed murder victim instead having a druggy affair with “Glenn from accounting”, the three kids being smuggled dodge arrest, and Major continues to receive flak for his hearts and minds approach from hardliners at Chase Graves. But he has a point- they NEED humans to be on side or New Seattle will collapse into anarchy. And, this being the final season, that happening is a very real possibility.

Of course, there’s a lighter sign. Liv on fitness guru brain gives us a splendid example of the usual humour, and if anything the script is even wittier than usual. But there’s a very real sense of doom as Dolly Durkins’ Dead Enders foment outrage for immigrants... er, zombies among the human majority. It turns out that her lot have fakes the viral video of the woman being murdered by zombies but, after a drive-by shooting in a Dead Ender hangout by zombies affiliated by Chase Graves, Major allows fake footage of their “execution” to go viral. Both sides are using fake news already. This feels very much like Trump’s America, complete with the moral dilemmas on how hard to punch a fascist, whether one should act with integrity when the enemy has none.

Peyton is trying to run Seattle in spite of bureaucratic inertia but Ravi provides not only great sex but also a great idea: an online comedy called “Hi, Zombie” to try and improve relations. It’s such a good idea that Peyton commits fraud in order to fund it, something which again muddies the waters and will in no way come back to haunt her. You can see not only the threads but the themes developing.

Of course, all this pales in awesomeness next to the sublime D&D scene. But this season has got off to a very strong start.

iZombie: Thug Death

"This is the spot where lazy murderers who don't want to fight traffic dump their victims.""

So it's the fifth and final season and we're a few months into the new status quo- Peyton is, effectively mayor and Major is the new commander of Fillmore Graves. But lonely is the head that wears a crown and Major is already feeling the tension between his principles and what is likely to help him maintain his position. Meanwhile Liv and Ravi are doing the same job as ever while Liv continues to moonlight as Renegade, and "real" brains are becoming scarce- for all except Blaine, who is incredibly rich from the brain business and has a fridge full of the bloody things.

This episode has two main strands. The first is that this time it's Ravi, not Liv, who's on the brain of a thug, and bloody hilarious, showing us that Rahul Kohli is every bit as good at this sort of thing. But the other strand is, of course, that the zombies of New Seattle rely entirely on the goodwill of humans, and things are precarious beneath the surface. One viral video of a woman being ripped the shreds by a zombie has led to the end of the brain supply and, while Blaine can solve this problem with threats, the potential remains. Worse, we have a new anti-zombie demagogue, Dolly Durkins(!), who is also running an anti-zombie suicide bomber network which is sure to keep Major stressed. And, as we find out, her first volunteer is the eviscerated woman's husband.

Elsewhere we have Clive being as deadpan witty as ever, a new scientist character in Dr Collier who, to Ravi's relief, turns out to have ethics, and three abused ill kids who Liv's network are trying to smuggle in. Already there are a lot of balls in the air and the fact that this is the final season suggests to me that this feeling of precariousness will grow and grow. But this pisode on its own is as fun and witty as ever. More please.

iZombie: And He Shall be a Good Man

"I'll let you spank me from time to time."

THIS IS THE SEASON FINALE. HERE BE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Well, that was very good indeed. It was obvious, i think, that Zevon and Chase Graves were going to die; Graves because he's committed too many unforgiveable acts to be allowed to live and Zevon because we already knew he was to be executed first and television drama law dictates that Liv be saved only in the nick of time.

But Peyton surviving was unexpected, especially after all that deliberate foreshadowing in the last few episodes. Certainly the opening scene continues this foreshadowing, with Ravi hearing about Washington pulling the plug on brains coming into a suddenly unsafe Seattle, and firmly insisting that she stay where she is. So back she comes, they kiss, and the next time we see them they look quite post-coital. Er, less than ten minutes later.

But we're left in no doubt that the whole episode is about saving Liv from judicial killing. Oh, and Zevon, if people fancy it; we all know the poor chap's going to die.

The plot's a little complicated- both Jordan and Comedy French Bloke are acting as double agents but, given the stakes, the tension never relents. Johnny Frost is back. Clive and Dale are rudely interrupted before they have sex which, given what later happens, is probably just as well.

The minutes before the execution are incredibly tense. For Liv, that isl Levon's certain death is, I'm sure Levon's death has already been factored in by every single viewer at this point. And then chaos ensues as Major, in full-on zombie mode, leads a crowd of humans and zombies through the doors. Said chaos is superbly depicted in the directorial choice to show a series of short scenes fading to black, until Liv has guillotined Graves and we all punch the air.

So life goes on, Major now runs Fillmore-Graves and thus, sort of, the city. Meanwhile reality catches up with the quixotic Angus, leading his followers in a Waco-like last stand as manipulated by the son he at last disowns again. It's a dramatic but cruelly pointless end.

Liv is, of course. devastated to lose another boyfriend in yet another brutal way. o she resolves to eat Isobel's brain, the last cure. But there is at least a bit of happiness with an ad hoc wedding between Dale and Clive, and Liv is able go give Clive a rather nice wedding gift by making children a possibility. Er, do we know that Dale even wants kids...?

We end, after Liv's devastating yet inevitable bereavement, with Liv seemingly still Renegade, this time with friendly leadership of a New Seattle that, increasingly, sees itself as an independent city state...

IZombie: You’ve Got to Hide Your Liv Away

“Enjoy handcuffs, Whitey!”

Is it the penultimate episode already?

I think it’s been enough superb episodes in a row now to come out and say this season has recovered amazingly from a very poor start; possibly the biggest comeback in television history, as it really was a very poor start.

The whole thing hinges on a simply evil ultimatum by Chase Graves- Curtis is to be judicially killed unless "Renegade" hands herself in. Naturally, it's obvious that Liv is going to do this so, equally naturally, Major (having finally retrieved his head from Graves' smelly arse) kidnaps her, relocates them both to a house in Oregon and feeds them both a dose of 1950s domestic bliss brain. As you do. Still, at least Liv got a last night with Levon, claiming to have flown to Majorca via Barcelona, as apparently Palma doesn't have an airport. Hmm.

So this week's murder- a self-centred, narcissistic valley girl- must be investigated by Clive with Ravi (it's that time of the month) on narcissist brain, hence scenes reminding us yet again how bloody good Rahul Kohli is.

Meanwhile, we discover that the comedy French bloke at Fillmore Graves has sympathies with Brother love, and Blaine convinces his father that God wants him to send zombies out beyond Seattle by means of, er, brain rain. I suspect that the spread of zombieism beyond Seattle is for next season, as there are only so many minutes of this one.

It's a dramatic last few scenes for this incident-fuelled and rather superb episode; we end with both Liv and Levon in the hands of Graves, who plans to murder them next episode. Oh, and Isobel's brain may have given Ravi an actual cure for zombieism. Has any iZombie season finale been more hotly awaited...?

iZombie: Insane in the Germ Brain

"I love you guys..."

SPOILERS ABOUND. BIG ONES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Ouch. That his Mrs Llamastranger and myself hard, you evil writers you. We both suspected that Isobel being so extremely likeable and cool was because she was going to die, and crush our hearts in the process. Damn you, Rob Thomas and co. This is the most evil thing since Joss Whedon killed Tara in Buffy. It's that bad..

Other interesting things involve Ravi meeting Peyton's parents, and seemingly earning her Dad's respect by telling him not to be a dick. On that note, though, both her parents and Ravi don't want her to return from Washington DC after her visit, as there are plans afoot in said city to perhaps nuke Seattle, which would be bad. But the parting scene where Peyton says goodbye to Ravi and Liv is suspiciously scripted; she's going to die there, isn't she?

Oh, and there's a murder, which is pretty ho-hum, including the germaphobe brain that Liv eats. But it's interesting that the killer proves to be a zombie accomplice of Blaine and Don E- who, incidentally, is great on director brain while directing a sermon of Angus'. And Dale accidentally overhears Clive's chat to Liv last episode about how he can have kids with Michelle, but not her. So she dumps him, and is kind enough to lie about seeing someone else. But he's still heartbroken. Michelle likes him a lot, but is he really happy with her?

We also have Major's mission coming to a successful conclusion, and a celebration- but one of Major's two proteges ends up shot by Chase Graves, leading to a mini-shootout in which both proteges are shot dead and Graves injured. Surely now he has to get what's coming to him?

But the episode is all about Isobel, her awesomeness, and how much it hurts that she's gone. Damn you, writers, and thank you Izabela Vidovic for making us love your character so much. Outstanding episode, obviously.

iZombie: Yipee Ki Brain, Motherscratcher!

"The show ran out of money, so everything cool happens off-screen and the characters just talk about it afterwards."

This season as been pants-to-average most of the way through. So how come this is the second sublime episode in a row? We really seem to have hit a hot spot.

We start by establishing that Isobel is staying, in desperate hope for a cure, but she's so cool and adorable that I fear we have to die. Dale is investigating Baracus' murder and has a fair idea where to look, and Liv is on don't-play-by-the-rules cop brain and, for once, doesn't feel like cooking..

But life goes on between the coyotes, who are expanding and bonding; there's even a montage to replace the usual culinary one. There are some cool action movie puns. And an awful lot of stuff happens as it becomes clear that the end of the season is not too far away. Angus declares himself just "the Baptist John" and is really pushing for Blaine to be the zombie Jesus, silly though that sounds. Clive wants kid and is brooding over dumping Dale for Michelle and her fully functioning womb.

Te big moment is the cliffhanger, though, with Major finally clicking what Liv is up to. What happens now? It's very notable, though, that this episode is all arc, arc, arc and nevertheless manages to excel. I hope the rest of the season is as good.

IZombie: Mac-Liv-Moore

“Maybe you should just lie back in your chair and do the Mr Burns thing with your hands."

Brilliant. This is a very arc episode, with very little happening with the rapper-themed murder of the week and Liv's rapper brain turning out to be less amusing than usual. It's all the things I've been criticising this season for. And yet, through excellent wit and character development from a sparking script of the kind that used to be typical iZombie but has been as rare as rocking horse dung this season, we have an episode that's a real joy. This knocks every other episode of the season so far into a cocked hat.

The young girl who has the unfortunate combination of being young, dying and immune to zombie scratches is called Isobel, and she's brave and awesome. We end the episode with her being caught by Ravi, Peyton finally admitting to him what she and Liv have been up to, and we're left to wonder, like Ravi himself, why he wasn't told earlier. It's wonderful to see how eager Isobel is to be used as a guinea pig for a zombie cure so her brief life will have meaning.

Meanwhile, Zombie Killer Cain is on the loose and manages to get at Chase Graves, shooting and nearly killing him until Chase's increasingly dependable right hand man Major (who else?) saves him. And then Chase shows what a hypocrite he is by ordering Major to scratch the zombie-hating Cain. The sooner Chase faces justice the better, and Major isn't making himself very likeable these days; he and Liv have another row here. A thought occurs to me, though; could Major have a secret agenda?

In other news, I still love the French bloke with the outrageous accent. And Blaine is devilishly clever here, plotting to turn all of America into zombies purely so he can make a lot of money from property. It's all good fun as he makes Don E. eat computer genius brain in order to make sure they can't be traced as they upload on YouTube some footage of Mayor Baracus being turned back into a human... and then shot by the unseen hand of Blaine. We end with this murder being investigated and, bizarrely, Peyton is now Deputy Mayor.

That's not the coolest thing, though. The coolest thing is the D&D game with Ravi and the geeks at the police station, DM'd by Clive, seguing neatly into a kiss between Clive and that girl he fancies. Where is this going...? So many plot threads now and I'm beginning to enjoy it.

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: Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Brain

“You’re printing fake news...”

Another good episode, this, reminiscent of earlier seasons in its humour and fun, but also showing us how very, very wrong things are in New Seattle under Chase Graves’ tyranny. And tyranny it is; that's made clear by his shutting down, with violence, of a local newspaper for criticising his "judicial" murder of the good Mama. So far, so appalling but expected, and we duly hope for justice and for Graves to get his comeuppance.

However, what's truly disturbing is just how complicit Major is becoming; he seems to enjoy his violent exercising of authority and ends the episode as Graves' right hand man. This is how tyranny happens,of course- a genuine problem, in this case a shortage of brains exacerbated by the black market, leads to universal rights and liberties seeming inconvenient to those in power. Suddenly they are no longer universal, and therefore no longer exist. But it's doubly shocking to see a character we know and like dipping his hands in the blood. It it bitterness, his break-up with Liv, having to put up with all those accusations of being the Chaos Killer, as the dialogue implies? Either way, he seems to be an analogue, for this liberal American  show, of those friends and families of the crew and viewers who have voted for Trump and for the apparent normalisation of behaviour that used to be shocking so very recently.

In other, less tangential plot threads, Liv is throwing herself into her role as the new Mama with gusto and acquiring a new, more ethical boyfriend into the bargain. Clive is having difficulty adjusting to an open relationship, unable to hide his situation from any prospective date. Eventually he resorts to visiting an escort (illegal use of a prostitute in America, I believe; Clive is potentially open to kompromat). Only after this do we get the cruel twist that Dale has never gone as far as sleeping with anyone and it is he who has fully made the relationship an open one. Ouch, but clever writing. At least Ravi and Peyton continue to be a sweet couple.

Anyway, the plot; this week's murder victim is one of those loathsome pick-up artists, Rose McIver is brilliant as ever as Liv with douchebag brain, and a poisoned condom is an inspired murder weapon. All this combines to make an episode sufficiently fine that it could even have graced an earlier season. Finally!