iZombie Show & Comic Overview plus Season 1 Full Review

iZOMBIE INTRODUCTION

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Warning: This is the one and only warning that this project contains spoilers for the show, iZombie, and comic book series of the same name. iZombie is a horror, comedy, crime show rated TV-MA so please take that into consideration for the nature and type of content that will be covered.

Going back to the start—iZombie is a comic book series written by Chris Roberson and drawn by Michael Allred that was first published in 2010 by DC Comics’ Vertigo. Following a character completely different from Liv Moore in the TV version, Gwen Dylan is a gravedigger living in Eugene, Oregon a town in part famous for the University of Oregon campus. Although she can blend in as a hipster-alternative young adult in town her appearance is due to being a zombie who must eat a human brain once a month at minimum or risk becoming a dumber, more aggressive full-on zombie version of herself. Her job as a gravedigger is to provide access to a place to live and find fresh brains to eat. She’s befriended a ghost named Ellie, a teen girl who died in the 60s before she could see the world, now stuck in Eugene and a quote-unquote “were-terrier” named Scott, a werewolf that transforms into a Scottish terrier during full moons.

The series opens on Halloween night with the three heading to their favorite diner in town, able to walk around normally in the guise of wearing costumes. Shortly in the series a cast of other supernatural characters are introduced like vampires, mummy-like body hoppers, more ghosts, and supernatural fighting agents from 2 separate entities. Like Gwen, Liv needs to eat brains to stay more human than zombie and acquires memories from those brains, but the similarities between the show and book stop there. The concept of a young, attractive zombie was just the new and exciting thing that the Warner Bros. Head of Development, Susan Rovner, was looking for. Rovner sought to create a new CW show with a female lead and a writer who could adapt the source material, the iZombie comic books, into something that would thrive on their network.

That writer ended up being show creator and producer Rob Thomas, who previously created hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars, both of which appealed to a similar demographic type that this new show would target. Prior to Rovner approaching Thomas he’d developed a zombie show, having it as a personal goal, only to cancel that project when The Walking Dead premiered in 2010 and became an instant success that re-defined the genre for modern times. Despite this seeming bad it opened up Thomas to adapting iZombie for The CW and selfishly I am thankful for that. Thomas isn’t the only person that deserves recognition for creating the show however, as Diane Ruggiero-Wright is credited as both a co-writer and co-creator.

Both Ruggiero-Wright and Thomas adapted the iZombie concept into the show of the same title that premiered as a weekly show on St. Patrick’s Day 2015. The concept had been adapted and much of the comic book story was left there on the pages, a completely different direction taken for characters, story, setting; literally everything is different except that it is about attractive zombies and the memory absorption from brain consumption. The show expands on that and zombies also acquire personality traits, skills, interests, and knowledge from the brains they eat—making for comedic set ups like Major on teen girl brain while Liv is on stern dad brain or live-action-role-playing Medieval brain Liv eats. Most of the episodes in the series are directed by Michael Fields and Jason Bloom, 2 of the many that help bring the adaptation to life and create a new, comedic universe of supernatural craziness.

One of the most widely spread promos is for season 1 when Liv is at a grocery store purchasing self-bronzer and Night of the Living Dead on DVD, a nice nod to the genre creator. Liv is a former medical student who had to find a new career path once she became a zombie at a boat party. She gets a job as an assistant Medical Examiner with the Seattle Police Department; this ensures she’ll have consistent access to fresh brains without having to murder someone or grave rob.

The same trailer reveals that Ravi Chakrabarti, played by Rahul Kohli, is Liv’s boss and within his first few scenes is confronting Liv about being a zombie. The former CDC employee who’d been fired for his warnings of a probably zombie virus outbreak makes her believe he’s left the office but catches her eating brains. Quickly in the first episode its also established that Liv sees visions of memories that the deceased experienced (like Gwen), typically recent ones surrounding their deaths and final days. This is obviously very handy in solving crimes, especially homicides with very few clues and Liv is unable to stop herself from providing key details to Clive Babineaux, played by Malcom Goodwin, a new detective who visits the morgue to check on his case. Clive thinks they are messing with him due to his bad reputation with the office post-transfer from DEA undercover work. Ravi explains away Liv’s knowledge of information on the unidentified murder victim by saying that she is a psychic which seems to assuage Clive for the time being.

The trailer’s tagline, “Dead is the New Living” harkens to a satirical tone about womanhood posed like an inside joke to the show’s target audience…a member of which I had been at the time. I absolutely hated that, the name and tagline made me tune out from the rather interesting details in the trailer that set up the key details of the show. Multiple examples of full-on zombie mode are also shown in the trailer, bringing things back to a horror level with a completely different zombie-look consisting of red, bloodshot eyes that glow in a blank stare, purple veins spreading over the face and dark shadows around the eyes. This is accompanied by uncontrollable rage, hissing, growling, and super strength; displayed by Liv hanging onto the car of an assailant attempting to flee while he shoots through the roof, getting her in the shoulder.

Aside from the week to week cases that Liv works with Clive on, becoming unofficial partners after episode one when Liv feels fulfilled and a newfound sense of purpose when helping solve the case, she has an ex-fiancé who she abruptly left when she became a zombie. For fear that she’d infect or eat Major Lillywhite, played by Robert Buckley, she breaks up with him and moves out following him encouraging her to go to the boat party that causes her to become a zombie. She moves out and starts living with Peyton Charles, her best friend and former sorority sister from college played by Aly Michalka who often confronts her about her odd and strange behavior coupled with her abrupt life changes. Although not so present in the first episode the only other known zombie at the start of the series is the one that turned Liv at the party, Blaine DeBeers played by David Anders, who shows up at the morgue to introduce himself to Liv and inquire about her brain supply.

The cast of main characters stays consistent throughout the 5 series and is truly one of the selling points of this show. All of them have chemistry coupled with comedic timing; they have it in pairs, groups, and as a whole. The characters traverse the show’s weekly format together which starts with a murder or related crime being reported to the SPD and Clive being assigned it. The case usually seems to have few clues or leads which causes Liv to decide to eat that brain that week, usually having multiple to choose from at the morgue with various causes of death. Shortly after eating the brain she starts experiencing visions that give her clues that her and Clive investigate which typically causes more triggers/clues. Using the vision they interrogate witnesses and suspects to get to the truth of the matter and usually solve the murder with this method. In the background or at the tail ends of the episode the group is going through some overarching plot or plots that carry throughout the season—the typically weekly format for a show.

Although the problems change each season the comic book artist created intro slides stay mostly the same with only 1 or 2 being removed entirely and a handful being added during latter seasons. The song is one to jam out to while the intro cards cover the basics of the story like, “New Job,” or, “The Visions,” and the essential characters of that season. Season 1 doesn’t include Peyton for example as she wasn’t a main character technically but rather recurring and then by season 2 there is a roommate slide. Each big-bad that the group faces makes sense for where the series is at at that time and builds the characters in directions to enjoy rather than despair about.

SECTION ONE: SEASON 1

Premiering in 2015, season 1 of the show was officially picked up by CW the year prior in 2014. Most of what was described in the introduction that set the stage for the show happens in episode one of the first season including Liv’s backstory, her setup with Clive and Ravi, and her 2 closest outside work people, Major and Peyton. In addition her mother Eva and brother Evan are introduced, played by Nick Purcha and Molly Hagan, who are also concerned about her recent abrupt changes, going as far as to stage an intervention for her.

By the end of episode 1 we have built a world around Liv Moore, the young attractive zombie, and created an overarching problem for her and her friends to address—Blaine DeBeers. As mentioned he’s the zombie that transforms Liv into a zombie at the boat party on Lake Washington that kicks off the show. Everyone except Ravi, Liv’s boss who is developing a cure, Blaine, and Liv are unaware of the zombie virus outbreak as far as we know. Blaine quickly changes that however when he murders the Seattle drug henchmen above him and then infects a woman he meets at a bar. The victims in episode 1 and 2 provide beneficial or funny personality traits for Liv but the brain in the 3rd episode belongs to a hitman who happened to be a sociopath and we are shown a huge downside to this ability.

Liv begins to do things out of character like talking smack about Clive’s abilities as an investigator and Peyton’s as an Assistant District Attorney. While dealing with the weekly case Liv and Ravi find a photo on a message board that 2 teens took of a zombie trapped at a ship yard. The zombie ends up being Marcy, Liv’s friend who invited her to the party, and she is full-on Romero zombie. At this point how the virus works is still being discovered so they hope that a zombie can be reverted back to the human-zombie version by feeding them brains. Unfortunately we learn that this is impossible, once someone goes full Romero they are gone and might as well be dead. Meanwhile Blaine is on a killing spree in the city in order to procure brains, even killing someone who Major knows by the end of episode 3.

The case in episode 4 calls Clive into question when Liv gets visions of him beating a gang member while undercover and she worries he’s actually a dirty cop that the other cops had been right about. In the background Major and Ravi begin their iconic friendship when Liv offers Ravi up as a potential roommate for Major under the guise of feeling responsible for leaving Major paying full rent when she moved out abruptly. In actuality, Liv had been hopeful up to this point that she could be cured one day and that her and Major could possibly be together again. He’s still unaware of the zombie situation and believes she just suddenly changed and dipped but he’s starting to spend a lot of time with a new girl, Corine, which really bothers Liv. This is the reason she offers up Ravi, though she is honest with Ravi about the situation and suggests that it would be useful to keep an eye on Major and protect him.

In the same episode Blaine uses his drug dealing experience to set up a brain selling operation for wealthy zombies that he has created. Two of his henchmen, also zombies he’s created, consider setting up their own operation to compete with him and steal his client list but we’re shown Blaine means business when he takes both out without a second thought. Him and his chef, Cissi, played by Tanja Dixon-Warren, just snack on a new brain recipe after he kills them and then it’s revealed he is keeping zombies frozen on standby for his criminal organization that he’s controlling with the threat of re-freezing. At the end of the episode that Jerome is one of Blaine’s victims and is having his brain removed on the kitchen slab. Blaine’s new muscle asks if he can take Jerome’s distinctive American flag shoes which comes into play later on in the season.

By the next episode another of Liv’s acquaintances becomes the victim in a case, Holly White, her and Peyton’s sorority sister who died skydiving. One of the people that survived the skydiving accident, Lowell Tracy, played by Bradley James, is a musician who becomes a suspect along with the other witnesses when it’s revealed they tampered with evidence. The skydiving incident officially introduces Max Rager, the energy drink company who sponsored the boat party at the start of the show. There are hints and mentions of a possible connection in the first few episodes like Easter Eggs but up until episode 5 we don’t really dive into it.

All of the skydiving witnesses had connections to or worked at Max Rager (MR) and have a vested interest in protecting the company. Despite the case not originally being a homicide Liv requests to investigate and ends up seeing a vision that helps her get Clive to open the case as one. Later on at Holly’s Liv and Lowell end up talking and he makes them extra spicy cocktails and reveals he’s a zombie also. They discover that Holly had wanted to forward an internal email that MR can induce psychosis in 1 out of 1,000 cases and that at least one person has died as a result. One coworker found out and didn’t want to loose his cushy job so he informs others on the team of her plan to out MR and they decide to take her out.

After the case is solved we see hints that the police chief, Suzuki played by Hiro Kanagawa, is a zombie and when Clive brings up to him that almost 60 kids are missing from high risk groups and instead of alarm the chief is upset that Clive is looking into any case without a body. Clive is told to leave the missing cases to a different department and we get confirmation he’s a zombie when he dumps hot sauce in his coffee. Across town Major is investigating the missing kid’s he’s worked with as a social worker since he feels SPD won’t do anything despite him being the reason Clive went to Suzuki. Major sees Julian, Blaine’s muscle, wearing Jerome’s sneakers and confronts him only for Julian to go full on zombie mode and kick his ass. The episode ends with Major on the ground messed up as kids skate around him, one even shouting something rude to him as he writhes in pain.

The start of episode 6 is a fake out of Major lying on a morgue slab with his face badly beaten, implying that he died and might be the weekly case that week. Thankfully he opens his eyes and Ravi is actually just giving him some off the books stitches post beatdown. Major goes to his job at the youth homeless shelter with his face messed up and when he offers advice to one of the kids about controlling their anger it’s extremely awkward, warranting his boss telling him he’s sending the wrong message showing up like he did. One of the other teens in the group tells him he needs a reality check and that Jerome and Eddie, the 2 teens Major has been looking for from the shelter, are dead.

Episode 6 is also a great example of the show exploring mental health when Liv eats the brain of a recluse, agoraphobic online gamer who’s body rotted in his basement for an extended period of time before being found. After eating his brain she has to starts working remotely, video calling Clive and even having a panic attack begin when she tries to go into the office. She essentially absorbs the mental illness that the deceased had and struggles with the symptoms. Due to this Lowell comes over to her place for them to get together and he explains how he became a zombie and that he can no longer perform because he goes full on zombie due to the adrenaline rush. Lowell gets his brains from morticians he pays to look the other way. Despite seeming to hit it off Liv denies a kiss from him.

While that happens one of Major’s stitches has ruptured and he tells Ravi he’s going to have Liv fix it but Ravi informs him she’s not alone to which he mournfully accepts. Elsewhere Clive goes to Meat Cute, Blaine’s business front, because it’s one of the only places in Seattle that sells the contents found in a homicide victim’s stomach. Blaine is seemingly accommodating to the drop in and aiding the authorities until it’s revealed Clive narrowly escaped being attacked by Cissi who’d been waiting behind the kitchen door. Liv unintentionally saves Clive by calling him after realizing the key to their current case. The online gamer was sent a peanut infused card, knowing he had an allergy, because the gamer ruined the man’s sister’s life by messing with her online.

In the larger story Blaine drills into the head of the wealthy zombie woman he created and had been seeing because she killed one of the Meat Cute delivery boys; which is the homicide case that Clive was investigating at Meat Cute. The episode ends with Liv going after Lowell and wants to try to have something together since they can be together, both zombies. Major, having been reviewing Jerome’s YouTube videos finds proof that Jerome owned the shoes Julian had been wearing and texts the photo to Ravi. He recognizes Blaine in the background of the photo and informs Liv who connects that the missing teens Major is looking for have something to do with Blaine’s brain business.

During Episode 7 Ravi posits that the reaction between Utopium, the new street drug that Blaine used to sell, and an unlisted Max Rager ingredient created zombies and is testing combinations of those 2 things with rats. His goal is to create a zombie rat that is the same as Liv and then work on the cure from that information and subsequent zombie rats. Clive is put on blast in a Seattle newspaper because Major had a journalist on his call with Clive when Clive was honest with him about SPD not looking into the cases. He busts into the morgue when Ravi, Liv, and Lowell are in there and confronts her for making the introduction between him and Major. Clive has been put on desk duty and blames Liv for this despite him blabbing SPD business to random people.

Eva, Liv’s mom, and her get on her little brother’s case about being responsible with finances, encouraging him to get a job because Liv is on maternal brain. With the new perspectives, like with this brain, Liv experiences she’s able to relate more to the people in her life, even her mother who she has been at odds with for most of the season up to this point. Unfortunately for everyone Eva hands Evan a stack of resumes which includes Meat Cute and sets up the situation that permanently ruins Liv’s relationship with her family.

Later on Liv is hanging out with Lowell having drinks when he rejects her advance, stating he’s on gay brain—which is another nod at brain science and the belief that sexuality is something unchangeable about us, a part of us that would linger even in the next iteration of us. That night they decide to get drunk instead and have a girls night which results in an adorable montage of Liv teaching Lowell to dance. The case takes them to a dog catcher who was on a property, the Shepherd house, that Liv and Clive investigated earlier in the episode that is married to a man that Liv saw in a vision clue of the victim in captivity.

Major is still doing recon and investigating the brain operation so breaks into Julian’s car when he’s at the gym. He finds hair dye and a yellow delivery cooler that happens to include a human brain in Tupperware. Major is the worst criminal ever and the cops roll up, catching him in the act. Julian tells the cops that the brain is just cow brain and tell Julian to make a police report, arresting Major and hauling him off. Clive and Liv’s case then escalates which causes the entire force to come out to the house they are staking out. A really cute moment between Liv and Clive shows that her increased maternal care while on mom-brain has boosted Clive’s confidence and strengthened their relationship.

Inside the Shepherd house Suzuki is shot and goes full-on zombie mode; he rips the fridge door off and uses it as a shield while the man inside shoots at him. After killing the man he kills the woman accomplice, his wife, by shooting her point blank and emptying the clip into her. Outside Liv finds other girls in bunkbeds and they lock down the property to investigate the Shepherd couple. The case is considered closed and resolved with the Shepherds being blamed for the missing teens in the city along with the pregnant women they’d abducted. SPD tells the public that the couple had been into human sacrifices to explain the number of missing teens found on the property.

The father of the baby is a real piece of work but he says one of the funniest lines to Liv when he confronts her, “Look Beetlejuice, I don’t remember saying your name three times.” She gives a diss back to him and Clive and Ravi back her up, further solidifying the squad up against any challenge both big and small. In jail Major is placed in a cell with biker gang members and an officer thanks him for the article and leaves him in the tank. In an ominous tone to the midseason finale we see that a zombie rat was made but it has ripped through all 4 rat cages and eaten the non-zombie rats.

Despite the foreshadow in the previous episode we open with a sex misdirect, Liv moaning due to a foot massage from Lowell rather than mid-act. On her way to work she listens to a sex talk show and hears a crazy caller with a southern accent threaten to murder her husband’s mistress. Ravi is at the jail where Major is being held, repeatedly checkin in with the front desk and doing a kid’s brain teaser to pass the time. Peyton then comes in and he sees her be a boss, demanding they let her client go because his paperwork has been filed incorrectly without an admission time, which the lady offers to fix and Peyton asks if she is offering to commit a felony crime by forging the document. This gets the wheels of justice moving again and severely impresses Ravi who has watched Peyton dominate.

Peyton joins Ravi in the waiting room and Major comes out completely brutalized but with a smile on his face. She hadn’t realized that Ravi was also waiting for Major and the they are officially introduced while Major explains the local police had set him up due to the article portraying them as not caring for the lower class in the city. Since Major had been in lockup he missed the breaking news about the case that the missing teens had been found at the Shepherd property. Major mournfully remarks that he had a feeling in his gut that the teens were dead and that he has quote-unquote “seen things” and knows that the Shepherd’s aren’t responsible. He warns Peyton and Ravi to not trust anything from the Seattle PD because things are not over.

Back in traffic Liv hears things going crazy at the radio studio before the show cuts out; this ends up being the crime that Liv and Ravi are sent to. Someone spliced wires at the studio to cause the host to be electrocuted. Liv volunteers to listen to over 30 hours of the radio show to investigate the strange caller who said the host’s license plate during her call and the call had come from the Seattle area despite the accent. The radio host brain makes Liv overstep boundaries and give terrible advice to Ravi while also discounting that he could date someone perfect like Peyton. Ravi and Liv go to check on the zombie rats and it hisses at Liv, uninterested, but wants to eat Ravi.

Major is having issues with his new girlfriend, Corrine, who confronts him about missing their lunch date and he is fully honest with her, as Major would be. She isn’t down and tells him she didn’t sign up for all of what he has going on—she tells Major that he is hot, funny, and has good hygiene which makes him a catch but that he needs some help.

It’s confirmed that Blaine made the lieutenant plant the bodies at the Shepherd house to get suspicion off of them. Suzuki informs Blaine about Liv being a zombie but Blaine lets him know she has a role to play as an extremely obvious zombie as opposed to the rest of them being strict with tanning their pale skin and dyeing their white hair. Speaking of Liv she starts analyzing everything and being very nit picky on radio host brain which causes a tiff between her and Ravi. Liv goes to see Major after work and realizes she didn’t answer his call when she was with Lowell and that he’d called from jail. She tells Major he’s crazy when he explains his theory and she tells him he’s just struggling with the losses.

Liv also tries to tell Ravi about himself, basically saying he isn’t good enough for Peyton and he rightfully claps back that she has no idea what she’s talking about and that the brain she’s on is an ass. The victim was in fact an ass who black balled her producer while also having an affair with her husband and that producer killed her. Ravi ends up just calling Peyton and asking her out, which she accepts right as Ravi is bit by a zombie rat he’s handling in the morgue.

Major on the other hand is purchasing weapons out of a trunk in a dark alley right after Liv had advised him to go back to being sweet Major. In an attempt to live in the moment at the end of the episode Liv eats brain eggs at Lowell’s apartment on her way out in the morning. She sees Blaine with one of his yellow coolers coming into the building and has a vision of Jerome kicking from the inside of a closed trunk and then Blaine opening the trunk and saying the name, Jerome, that confirms who’s brain she has eaten.

The next episode, nine, opens where eight leaves off and Liv has another vision when she sees Julian of Jerome almost escaping but being meat-hooked in the head by Blaine. Ravi is monitoring himself post rat bite and taking notes on any symptoms; this turns out proving that the virus can’t be passed between species. Due to having eaten Jerome’s brains at Lowell’s Liv decides she is done with him, convinced there’s zero chance he didn’t know where the brains were coming from. She’s now thinking about Major and feels guilty that she made him believe he was paranoid but justifies that she is only doing it to protect him. She learns quickly though that Major is still just as convinced as ever about his accurate theory from Ravi who also tells her Major hasn’t left his room and has been watching weapons YouTubers.

Liv asks Ravi to keep an eye on Major and later on he goes to Major with game controllers, hoping to get him out of the investigation and Ravi sees a human brain on Major’s computer screen. Major explains that he just needs to find a reason for Julian to have had the human brains which is only worrying until Major explains he believes the brains are used for gym gains. Major ends up trying to find out information about Julian by asking around about brains at his gym, which Julian sees. Lowell informs Liv he’s in love with her when she confronts him about the teenage brains and swears he only had a few violent visions. Lowell explains that a few days after he became a zombie he was really hungry and Blaine approached him, offering to provide brains.

The case for the episode is a war veteran with severe PTSD being killed during paintball by his exes new husband but his brain provides Liv with sniping abilities. Her and Lowell set up Blaine on Lowell’s apartment balcony with Liv on a nearby rooftop ready to shoot Blaine. She can’t go through with it however and Blaine shoots Lowell when Lowell tries to kill Blaine himself with a barbecue utensil. Due to this Blaine kills Lowell and while that is happening Julian has broken into Major’s apartment and is waiting for him when he comes inside. Major fights back and manages to get to his gun and shoot Julian when he comes in after him, believing him to be dead. Major runs out of the room and ends up calling Clive who finds nothing except some damage to a wall; since Julian is a zombie he got up and just walked out.

At the start of episode 10 Liv is a suspect in Lowell’s murder since she called it in and she has a really awful alibi. Clive assigns Ravi to talk Major off the ledge, him believing that Major is having a break with reality and not investigating the real zombies and brain operation in Seattle. Clive goes to deal with the Liv and Lowell situation at the station. Suzuki comes into the room Liv is being interrogated in and tells the officers the case is a straight forward suicide that will be closed once the ME signs off and he apologizes to Liv for her loss. Although Ravi isn’t honest with Major about zombies he does listen to him explain the red eyed Julian that walked away from 3 shots and that Major doesn’t get why no one else sees it.

In my opinion this is when Ravi or Liv needed to tell Major about zombies and confirm he isn’t crazy. His face is smashed up, he almost got killed in his own home, and now an SPD detective thinks he is having a psychotic break. At first it made sense to hide it when the stakes were low and risks high but Major’s risk continues to increase while the reasons to not tell him wane. It makes sense for the plot but it does piss me off that neither of them was a better friend to Major—which is a trend at times in the show.

Ravi informs Liv that Suzuki came down to the morgue and made him list the death as a suicide despite it being homicide and tells her that he’s worried about how much control Blaine has over SPD. The episode 10 victim is an alcoholic journalist that interrupted a robbery and fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. She also happens to be the reporter that reported the story on the missing teens with the quote from Clive and Ravi warns her that her spinal fluid came out with a high blood alcohol content and was deep in addiction. Liv acknowledges what will happen if she eats Rebecca’s brain and accepts it, especially in light of Lowell’s death and coverup.

Clive looks into Major’s attack by visiting Julian’s gym, looking for him. They chat and Julian convinces him that Major is actually the one who is stalking Julian and that Major attacked him because of his shoes. Ravi ends up recommending they rule Lowell’s death as a suicide in part due to him being a zombie and that Blaine is a dangerous person to mess with. They decide to destroy Lowell’s body and Liv and Clive set out to investigate the journalist’s death. Rebecca’s notes are shorthand so they hope to be able to use clues to crack her code and find out what her last story was, believing it to be related to why she died. Clive comes in when Liv is cooking her brain meal and comments on how good the food smells…awkward.

They go to talk to Rebecca’s boss who informs them she’d been doing a story on Jason Frye and in her notes they see a Mr. Berserk that her boss doesn’t know about. They go to talk to a Fisher they know is connected and they are informed Jason was struggling for the first time ever and suggest he could have snapped. Ryan’s girlfriend shows up and Liv sees that Rebecca had seen her before when she’d been at the same building and she latches onto the story so she can avoid dealing with Lowell’s death.

Clive goes to tell Major that he thinks he’s losing it and show him that Julian is fine so obviously couldn’t have been shot. Clive also warns him that he could be placed under involuntary psych hold and suggests he get help before Major is forced to. Major is relieved that someone is being honest with him and not placating him like Liv and Ravi had been and he ends up being referred to a specialist in psych disorders and checks himself into a hospital. Meanwhile Liv is drinking out of a paper bag, waiting outside the Fisher apartment building from earlier. She then taunts his girlfriend when she leaves at 3 am alone after a hook up, pointing out the guy isn’t so great.

When Major tells Ravi the updates on his hospital situation Ravi tries to deter him and convince him he just needs to take a vacation. Major however sticks to his guns that his symptoms match psychosis despite them actually being his friends lying to him. Liv ends up sleeping at the morgue and the girlfriend comes in seeking immunity for testimony against Ryan. She tells them that Ryan and the guys from their group took Jason to a cabin and got him extremely drunk to the point of passing out. She put make up on to look bruised and bloodied and the brothers trick Jason that he killed her but they promise to keep the secret. A few days after this incident Jason snapped and Ryan made everyone involved promise to never tell.

Clive and Liv go to talk to Jason and they tell him he didn’t kill Connie, the girlfriend. They learn that he’d been a Max Rager addict, so known for his consumption that a friend included a can of the energy drink when he dressed up as Jason for Halloween. Liv realizes that the MR in the notes isn’t Mr. like they’d thought but rather that it stands for “Max Rager” and she remembers the internal memo from the skydiving case that included proof MR can induce psychosis. Clive however doesn’t want to ruffle feathers and believes they need more solid evidence than that coincidental connection.

Back in the morgue Ravi tries to reason with Liv to confront the situation with Major and tell him the truth but in her avoidant state she tells him no and is more worried about what Major will think about her being a zombie than his mental health. She argues that if Major finds out about the brain eating he’ll be broken and believes he’s safe because he’s not checking into the hospital yet. In the meantime she goes to get drunk at the bar, downing 10 shots worth of vodka and then being forced to call someone to come get her by the bartender. I shit you not, she calls Major Lillywhite to come get her from the bar on the eve of his mental hospital admission. This feels very accurate for someone deep in addiction, to be selfish, but it really pissed me off. He takes her home and tucks her into bed and she asks him to rub her back. Major assures Liv that his stay won’t be for long and that everything will be okay.

The next day Liv awakes and Major isn’t there so she goes into the morgue to check on Ravi. Clive comes in and tells them that there are more cases that match Rebecca’s notes and all of the assailants had a history of heavy Max Rager consumption before they killed people. Liv is then able to connect the “LW” in Rebecca’s notes to Lake Washington, the site of the MR party that started zombies. Clive decides to take the case to his higher ups and wants Liv to hang tight until he hears back but on journalist brain she doesn’t listen. She bursts into the Max Rager CEO’s office, Vaughn Du Clark whom she questions. She ends up being kicked out of MR and Clive calls Liv out for being drunk and he says he should’ve said something since he had smelt it on her. They decide she came back too quickly after Lowell’s death and she says she’ll go home but goes to the bar instead.

At the bar a man comes up and claims to be Rebecca’s source inside MR and that he worked for Vaughn for a long time and witnessed many bad acts. The man tells her that he has another connect inside MR who can leak them information but she can’t figure out who it is and goes to a pilates gym on a lead from Rebecca’s notes. There she finds the woman who is the inside source and she tries to get her to proceed with the story but she tells Liv it isn’t her problem anymore. Liv believes she’ll be safe once the story is released and tells her that she can be protected. She ends up slipping out of the window and evading Liv but when Liv goes out to the parking lot she’s knocked out by the bar guy.

Liv wakes up on the floor of a boat on Lake Washington, the source is lying across from her but looks dead and her own head is cracked open and bleeding. The man thanks her for leading him to the whistleblower and tells her that he keeps leverage on Vaughn on a flash drive with the memo that had been planned to be leaked into his wallet. He dumps the other woman’s body off the side of the boat with a cylinder attached to her ankled, like the one attached to Liv’s ankle. Like a weirdo the killer lies on the boat floor with Liv and touches the blood on her forehead then licks his finger. She bashes his head then and hits him into the water and then chops him with the engine’s blades as she speeds away, leaving the water bloody.

The episode ends with Major talking about his zombie “delusions” during a therapy session and Scott E., a fellow patient, tells him he has seen what Major is talking about and that zombies are real. Episode 11 picks up where that leaves off but Scott E is found dead in his room, seemingly by suicide. Ravi quickly realizes he had to have been dead when his wrists were cut due to the levels of blood in the water, or lack thereof, to cover up murdering him. Major is honest with Liv about Scott E’s claims to have seen zombies at the boat party but Liv plays this off and continues convincing Major he’s crazy.

Liv eats Scott E’s brain and Ravi warns that she should be careful due to his mental health struggles. That night Major shows up to Peyton and Liv’s place while looking for Ravi so he can get into their apartment. They’d been having a movie night and invite Major but it’s awkward quickly and Liv begins hallucinating the devil on her hot chips is talking to her. Liv then hallucinates that Major comes back and requests to sleep on the couch that night to feel safe but at the time she’s unaware it’s a hallucination.

At Meat Cute Suzuki and Blaine are talking for the first time in a while the brain operation goes on in the background with more than 5 workers. Blaine is informed about Lowell and Liv’s connection and Suzuki suggests that she could be involved in a plan to attack him but Blaine is salty that the information isn’t that fresh anymore. At the hospital Liv finds out that Blaine had visited Scott E via the visitor logs and his alias John Deaux is noted. Later Blaine ends up back at the morgue talking to Liv and she comments on his tan and he pretends to be interested in a cure. They run some tests on him and ask about his connection to Scott E and the case.

Throughout the episode Liv hallucinates TV weatherman Johnny Frost and believes he’s working in tandem with her to investigate Scott E’s murder due to him being Frost’s drug dealer. They break into Scott’s place to find a video Scott supposedly has of the Lake Washington massacre and thus zombies. His place has already been ransacked however and Liv luckily finds his laptop hidden in his speakers. Major is also sneaking into the place but doesn’t find the laptop since Liv took it already and she missed him since he broke in through the back. Blaine and Julian arrive then and end up lighting the place on fire while Major sneaks into their trunk only to come out when they are back at Meat Cute.

The case is closed when they discover that the person who stole Scott E’s phone is an orderly who stole drugs and that Scott’s doctor had been writing prescriptions illegally. Liv is hallucinating Major and also hallucinates her telling him the truth and then hugging it out after the case is closed. At Meat Cute a delivery of brains has been stolen from a truck outside and Blaine stabs the guy on watch in the neck, falling against the car bleeding. Blaine tells him to get up because they have work to do while Ravi discovers the zombie rat is now a human rat, meaning he has a template for a zombie cure.

Meanwhile Liv is trying to break into Scott’s phone still and realizes her delusion of Frost is a delusion and that it is trying to tell her the phone’s passcode through the temperature forecast. She watches the video and finds out it is her eating brains on the beach right after her transformation. Major comes over then and asks to come in only to show her yellow cooler bags that he’s stolen from Meat Cute to prove to Liv he wasn’t crazy and that they are selling human brains to zombies. He proclaims he will kill all of the zombies.

Episode 12 starts with the MR hired murderer crawling out of Lake Washington and making it towards the road only to be hit by a car. The teens in the car get out and are freaked out in an I Know What You Did Last Summer way and the driver exclaims that he came out of nowhere. The group of 4 drag the body into the forest and bury him in a shallow grave, promising to never tell anyone about this night. The zombie hand pops out of the grave and he ends up smashing one of the girl’s heads with a rock and snapping her neck. Two weeks later that girls body is found by a man and his dog in the woods and due to the body missing it’s brain they connect it to zombies. Liv told Major she’d test the brains despite already knowing about them and tells Ravi that that should buy them some time to come up with a plan.

Some of the brains stolen by Major were that of the astronaut they killed, intending to sell it for a high price. Major records a video message in anticipation of his plans, stating if it’s found he’s already dead. Kimber, the girl in the woods, had enough brains for Liv to make Mexican hot chocolate which turns her into a preppier and more positive version of herself. One of the boys from the group is killed in a storage unit that his band practiced in and with few clues Liv must now eat that brain to continue investigating. Later in the episode Clive comes into the morgue and sees pizza that Liv made with the brains and starts to eat a slice until Liv snatches it out of his hands. Ravi and Major have a really cute back and forth then when Ravi shows him suits he plans to wear on a date weekend with Peyton.

Major cases Meat Cute under the guise of being a health inspector, which actually works. He also buys more weapons out of the trunk and when he’s offered a grenade he seems interested. Later he listens to motivational tapes about overcoming fear while he stakes out Meat Cute. At the station another of the friend group came in to talk to the police, in fear that 2 of their friends from that night are now dead. When the sketch artist, not willing to work with Liv due to how critical and intense she’d been on artist brains earlier in the season, finishes the sketch Liv gets a texted image of it and realizes that it’s the MR murder for hire. She realizes she made another zombie and when she gets home he has broken in and has Peyton held hostage, passed out. He is pissed he’s a zombie and explains he killed his Aunt in a rage when she cut her head open on the freezer.

Liv taunts him that she’s never eaten someone she didn’t want to and they get into a fight, Liv smashes a jar on his head and using the knife he stabbed in her hand that is still stuck in her hand she stabs him in the head. Peyton witnesses this and Liv in full on zombie mode which leaves Liv stunned and trying to quickly explain that this is the reason for her behavior the last few months. Liv goes to get the first aid kit for Peyton but she is gone when Liv comes back. Clive reassures Liv that her killing the murderer was self defense and that her dying would’ve been the actual tragedy. Liv tells Ravi about what happened with Peyton and he goes to find her, promising everything will work out. Major has been captured at Meat Cute and is being tortured by Blaine using the walk in freezer as his prison cell. Up front Evan, Liv’s brother, drops off his application and Blaine gives him the job, asking how soon he can start after Blaine sees that Liv is Evan’s emergency contact.

The episode ends with Teresa, one of two from the surviving group of teens, being beaten to death in a hotel room, dialing 9-1-1 but not connecting. The season finale, episode 13, opens at Meat Cute with Blaine and Julian looking for the astronaut brains. Blaine believes that the missing brains is proof of Major’s theft and Major tells them to kiss his ass, making them proceed with keeping Major in the freezer. Liv eats Teresa’s brain and becomes snarky plus sassy. Ravi has been able to re-create a zombie rat and turn it human again after the last rat, Hope, died and they name this rate New Hope. Liv explains that she’s desperate to be cured and hates eating brains, noting that it’s disgusting and Ravi assures her that he is dedicated to curing her and the zombie virus in general.

Vaughn has hired a new MR head of research after the previous doctor’s head was smashed in by the murder for hire guy. Dr. Holland, the new head, seems super down in light of this information to research. Liv and Clive are then at MR interviewing Vaughn and Holland about the murder for hire who Vaughn claims was let go years ago. Vaughn reveals that his overarching goal at MR is to make sleep obsolete and that Holland’s job is to find the ingredient in Super Max that makes consumers turn into zombies and remove that. They intend to eliminate all zombies in the meantime because they are evidence of MR’s mess up and subsequent cover up.

At Meat Cute Blaine reaches a peak villain moment that I personally don’t think he can come back from when he tricks Major into eating soup with Jerome’s brains in it, wheeling his body in to show the empty head cavity. Cameron, the last kid from the group who is alive, meets with Vaughn’s assistant at a diner who warns him that her employer doesn’t mess around. He accepts money to skip town but is stopped at Canadian customs when a cop matches him to his description which causes him to be arrested. Back at the station Liv and Clive question Cameron and threaten to leave him to the wolves and he spills the tea with no deal. He explains he got the thumb drive everyone has been after from Teresa when he thought she’d been ratting their group out to police. They realize MR’s plan to launch Super Max which is the more potent, zombie causing version of the drink.

Major receives a text from Liv that the samples came back money brains and Blaine reads this and calls Liv just as she is about to use one of the cures Ravi is working on. She demands he doesn’t hurt Major and he threatens to eat Major’s brain, saying they will be closer than ever then. Major is able to find a lighter in a pocket while Liv goes to trade for him with Blaine, only to have been given another guy with his mouth duct taped. The most bad ass sequence plays out at this point, starting with the henchmen sitting and grubbing at Meat Cute while they listen to 80s music that gets turned up as the scene starts.

Major starts a fire in the freezer but the guy who Blaine stabbed earlier is the one who goes to check on things and can’t scream for help. He slips in the freezer and Blaine smacks him with frozen meat and locks him inside. Major then goes outside and arms up with the weapons he’s been purchasing on the black market. He starts his attack by shooting a buck shot through the front window directly at the henchmen sitting inside and then shoots one guy directly in the dome. They cover the door but he knows the layout and comes around behind them, killing another with a headshot which they show by panning to the wall and then showing blood splatter. Cissi then pretends she wants to live and pleads with Major only to run at him with a knife and then she’s sliced by the meat slicer off screen. Through the freezer door Major shoots the guy he locked in there and Julian arrives only to be locked in the freezer and Major throws the grenade into it, crouching below the door’s window as it goes off, killing Julian.

When Major turns around Blaine is there and stabs him in the abdomen and says, “Look what you did man! Just what we need, a noise complaint. You got the slow and agonizing thing under control right? Good. Hope it hurts,” and walks off. When he goes to turn the music off Liv shoots him and asks about Major. Blaine explains he needs to be kept alive because otherwise Seattle’s zombies, unknown to them, will go unfed and start the apocalypse. Major calls out, bleeding out in the back, and Blaine explains that Major is Seattle’s preeminent zombie hunter but calls out that he didn’t notice all the major changes with Liv.

Blaine says he’ll blame everything on Major but then Liv stabs him with the cure and she tells him to make more now and he tells her that if there’s an apocalypse she should assume that he did it. Suzuki then comes into Meat Cute after Liv scratches Major to make him a zombie and therefore save his life and the lieutenant calls in that it’s all clear there. Major is understandably pissed that he is a zombie and that they’d all lied to him. Liv suggest that they could be together now but Major isn’t having it after her recent betrayals of trust. He tells her that if she thought he’d want this then she didn’t know him at all.

At Meat Cute Suzuki double taps every zombie and then shoots himself in the leg and writes in blood on the wall. He turns on all the furnaces and lights the place up with him inside. Liv’s brother is coming up just as the shop explodes; which is some wild CGI for CW. In the paper a headline is there about the internal memo that proves the violent side effects to Max Rager and Vaughn is given the news while meditates, less than pleased but says they are just getting started. Suzuki wrote Blaine DeBeers on the wall and Clive is tipped off by Julian’s shoes and orders a gun test for Major. Blaine is being stitched up in a veterinary’s office while he eats a burrito, now facing human life again.

As mentioned earlier Liv’s family becomes estranged after Liv refuses to donate blood to Evan in the hospital. Obviously we know the reason is she is a zombie and he would also become a zombie but without that detail her family assumes she’s heartless and selfish. The season ends with Liv’s mom excitedly running up to her that Liv can donate and Liv saying no as she realizes the predicament she’s in.

CONCLUSION

With an average run time of 42 minutes per episode the series lasted for 5 seasons and ended with a completion for the storylines going on in the final season. During and after the first season critics had positive things to say about the script, cast, and concept. By the second season a fan base chimed in on Twitter and other social media platforms and the plot thickened as zombies became more and more prevalent in fictional Seattle.

The change of character in the weekly format give McIver the chance to play a plethora of characters in a plethora of costumes with an assortment of skills which she excels at. The brains she is on coupled with the circumstances that each group member gets themselves in build the bond between the core five characters even when they are on opposite sides of issues. Peyton goes up against Seattle’s criminal organization that’s infiltrated the DA’s office, Ravi continues developing a cure for the zombie virus, Liv becomes a leader in the new world, and Major becomes a solider and cause leader in his own right.

Throughout the 71 episodes so many details are worth covering and detailing but at the end of the day the best recommendation I can make is to watch the show yourself and experience this group of characters and the new Seattle that they exist in. The creativity from the writers when it comes to cases, even having Liv and Clive investigate a murder on a zombie show set which took things in a satirical direction. I love all of these characters dearly, including Dale Bozzio, that joins in season 2 and becomes Clive’s no shit taking partner. Countless other characters have story arcs that are enjoyable, hilarious, heartbreaking, and moving. It is just as deep as it can be corny, and I love that about it.

Unfortunately the show is no longer available on Netflix where it previously existed but I’ve been able to find season DVDs at my local library, which I will always recommend as a resource. I’m hoping and checking to see if it gets added to any other streaming platforms but so far it’s silent.

This project is my last planned one that I’ve been currently working on. I am planning to do one-off reviews of movies when inspired this year but dedicating more time to writing. My website is up at www.redrosehorror.com and I’ll likely post written format content before video content.