iZombie: “Pour Some Sugar, Zombie” Review

In tonight’s iZombie, Liv eats the brain of Cassidy – a stripper. And, thus, this episode could’ve been devoted to cheap gags and sex. But it was absolutely brilliant – the entire episode, I was caught halfway between laughing my head off and having a heart attack.

Blaine’s damaged mental capabilities are a shock. I know Blaine is a murderer and a terrible person, but when he asked Liv “Do you know me?”, I actually felt bad for him. (It really says something that iZombie can make us feel bad for its villains.) Also, I thought Blaine would either drop dead or be fine; side effects never crossed my mind, and it only makes Blaine’s arc more fascinating.

It was amazing seeing the core four – Liv, Peyton, Major, and Ravi – just hanging out like normal people… not, you know, zombies and friends. The dialogue was gold – the girls ask the boys to rent the apartment across the hall so that they “can be like the friends from Friends!” And I nearly spit out my coke when Peyton gets called by Cassidy, and Major says: “Booty call! … or family emergency! … butt dial?!” Their dialogue was witty, heartwarming, and even normal.

Ah, but what giveth also taketh away. Just when we thought our four friends would be together forever, Ravi begins to learn the truth about Major’s night-time activities as he recognizes Minor in the newspaper. It’s a shockingly quick descent for Ravi, as he goes from suspicious to crouched over Major’s safe, hastily typing in possible combinations to open it (sidenote: Wasn’t that cool how he used that special light to see what numbers were part of the safe’s code?) In the final scene, Ravi is so intense – we’ve never seen him like this before. Now we know Ravi as a character all the better; not only does he not like being lied to, he also is willing to inject Major with his own horse-tranquilizer. That’s cold, man.

One of my favorite moments – though mundane – was Liv weighing the pros and cons of what brain to eat (stripper or hiker?). With any TV show that has a set of rules – whether it be how vampires are begotten or how zombies stay alive – it’s important to fully explore those rules and how they work with the characters they apply to. If I ate brains, I’d try to eat the best ones, too! (Can I eat a brain of a Luddite, who never goes on the internet? It’d do me good.)

 

The case of the week was only mildly interesting, but its blandness worked well with the episode; there were so many things going on, we didn’t need any distractions. (Although, I was shocked when Destiny was the murderer.) 90% of this episode’s content was pushing the season’s plot forward — and, honestly, that’s when iZombie shines the most.

 

• Rita’s break-in to steal brains from Liv left us with more questions than answers – there’s another person taking out zombies? (Or is Major just outsourcing his work?) Either way, I really hope Rita doesn’t die.
• Peyton telling Liv to eat the stripper brain and asking Liv to have visions (“Close your eyes and focus on the phrase ‘stash house’!”) were hilarious.
• Liv gave a reluctant Peyton a lap dance.
• Clive dressed in the pizza delivery uniform was absolutely hilarious. And it was nice to see Clive applying his intelligence on-the-go.
• It’s great seeing Johnny Frost again! Also, they gave him great character continuity – remember that he was sleeping with the prostitute in the pilot?
• I never before cared about Drake and Liv, but Drake’s mother sobbing over him was heartbreaking… as was Liv’s realization that he was an undercover cop.