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Introducing Olivia (Liv) awesome medical resident who
just saves someone’s life and earns the snarky respect of fellow resident, Marcy
and her really enthusiastic fiancé. The perfect night ends with a party on a
boat
A boat that then burns while being attacked by zombies.
Personally, I blame the fiancé, he said “what’s the worst that can happen?” He’s
lucky Nazis with lasers riding velociraptors didn’t attack.
Liv wakes up in a body bag with a sudden hunger for
brains. And the surprise of the EMT
Move forward 5 months and a much much paler Liv buys a
whole lot of bronzer and Night of the Living Dead. And her mother, her little
brother, her room mate, her now ex-fiance and others are staging an
intervention over the whole dumping her fiancé, quitting her job and working in
a morgue turn her life has taken. They think she has PTSD after the party gone
wrong and she needs help
Liv opts for no. Though she admits she has change, and
not just because she’s a zombie – she is also very very jaded.
To work, her chatty colleague (possibly boss) Dr. Ravi and
a dead Jane Doe; he gives her a quick run down before being called out. We have
a monologue about how she’s lost all her ambition drive and planning and is now
hungry – as she prepares and eats some brains.
It manages not to be quite as disgusting as it sounds. But only because
it sounds so very very disgusting. Except she’s not nearly as alone as she
thinks – Ravi has been watching her and knows she’s a zombie
Thankfully he’s more curious than anything
He was the medical examiner for the party massacre she
survived and after discovering she had removed a brain he started checking up
on other autopsies she finished finding lots of missing brains. He’s rather
hilariously amused, eager and generally excited about the zombie to examine
while poor Liv tries to grasp his complete lack of fear, revulsion or even
shock.
She recites her experience and adds why she needs brains –
she tries to keep it to minimum but if she doesn’t eat brains she becomes less
intelligent and more mean suggesting that a hungry Liv may be a
zombie-apocalypse Liv. Also she likes hot sauce because her sense of taste is
fried.
Curiosity is interrupted by police detective Clive who wants an ID on Jane Doe – Ravi has nothing but when Clive shows some handcuffs (non standard issue) found by the body, Liv has a memory flash of the victim’s and announces that the victim was arrested for shop lifting in Canada in 2008. Something Ravi confirms. Of course Clive would like an explanation for this – so Ravi goes with her being psychic which Clive, naturally, doesn’t believe
Liv gets visions when eating someone’s brains. Ravi is
just even more enthusiastic now.
Her worried family have dragged Liv into helping run a
haunted house despite her endless apathy. There’s also more pushing her at her
ex-fiance, Major, but she’s avoiding him, refusing to give him “zombie”. But
she goes have another vision flash – of a weather man, Johnny Frost, menacing
the victim.
Ravi insists she tells Clive “you ate the girl’s temporal
lobe, it’s the least you can do.” So off she goes where Clive I getting grilled
by his boss (Liv has also developed a need to steal red things). But Clive isn’t
a big fan of Liv at the moment because the name her vision led to is Lady Gaga’s
real name. Oops. Jane Doe gave the name to the police when she was arrested.
Following up with an accusation against the weatherman doesn’t help. He insists
on dragging her along
And they strike gold, his instant, poorly concealed guilt
and reaction to the “here’s Johnny” line from the vision is clear. He calls the
woman Tatiana but he does have an excellent alibi but they do learn she’s a sex
worker and she has a friend/co-worker called Tess
Back to the morgue where Liv reflects that being part of
a horde would suck, she thinks she’s the only one and a late arriving Clive
explains how awesome and deadly he’d be in a zombie apocalypse which isn’t very
reassuring. Clive is fully on board with psychicness now so wants to keep
dragging Liv along to the investigation to get more psychic flashes
And this mean seeing Tess, with some excellent snark between
Liv and Clive and Liv surprising Tess and Clive by speaking Romanian (and
skewering Tess’s mockery of American monoglots). Tess is devastated by Tatiana’s
death but does give them information enough to find Tatiana’s very nice flat
Which has been ransacked. But while searching we learn that Tatiana was a kleptomaniac – and that, along with the ability to speak Romanian – has transferred over to Liv. She gets a vision of Tatiana dying – being thrown off the balcony by a man demanding his ring back. Seeing the death finally lights some passion and anger in Liv
Brief Ravi interlude (who is great fun) and him working
to try and cure Liv. The possibility raises hope for Liv – which makes her reconsider
keeping Major away from her. She debates getting back with Major while torn
over getting back together only for a vague hope in some distant future. She
finds major playing a computer game with a woman (killing zombies). I think the
implication is that he’s clearly with someone else.
This leads to a whole lot of angst and another frustrated
attempt by her room mate to try and get through to Liv.
Clive is being side-lined on the case by his lieutenant
but Liv is back on the case all passionate and energised again and they put
together some clues to realise Pratt, the detective who took over the case from
Clive, is probably involved.
Cut to Pratt having tied up Tess and Monica (another sex-worker friend of Tatiana’s) and demanding his wedding ring back, along with a lot of misogynist rage against his wife.
Clive and Liv also arrive on the scene and we have a
moment which may make me love this show forever. He tells her to stay in the
car and she is bemused at the idea she’d do anything else. Clive chases Pratt
through the house and he manages to escape down the scaffolding; Liv tries to
block him in with her car so he can’t drive away and Pratt shoots her, pulls
her body from the car and drives off
Clive sees Liv get shot. Of course, when he gets to body
she’s gone. She’s clinging to the roof of Pratt’s car and causing it to crash.
Pratt is unconscious and Liv… is a bit more zombie-y.
A very very hungry, zombie Liv who smells brains. She
manages to get herself under control as Clive arrives and claim Pratt missed
her. They go back to awesome snark (“how did you solve crime before me?”)
Back to Ravi who removes the bullet embedded in Liv and
give her an awesome pep talk.
A newly enthused Liv goes to the haunted house as a zombie and with a new level of enthusiasm much to the happiness of her family. Her voice over explains her change of heart- the fact she a purpose, a new reason to live and a new way to help people
Of course as she sleeps she has another vision – of a
victim apparently killed by a zombie.
Ok I kind of loved that on many levels.
I liked Liv. She has some excellent snark and she has a
great balance of questioning and angst with sufficient self reflection to
develop it. Her angst isn’t just sitting in a corner moping, it has a
progression, it has reason and it has development. Yes it’s told through cheesy
voice over, but it works it gives her angst purpose beyond empty character
development. I like her
It also works with her friends and family, it would have
been easy to make these frustrating elements, caricatures causing lots of chaos
and problems and, yes there’s elements of that. But they care, they genuinely
care and they’re trying even if they’re inept, even if they’re not helping,
even if they don’t understand and even if they’re making things harder for Liv
than they have to be. This in particular makes it an excellent parallel for
disability – and not just parallel. As we saw, her 5 months of apathy were not
an inherent part of zombieness but rather more “conventional” depression as her
life has fallen apart after a deeply traumatic experience. They care, they want
to help but aren’t necessarily achieving that which is very close to how family
members of someone with mental illness do flail around often hindering more
than harming despite caring.
Ravi is awesome and fun. Very fun. Great fun. I love him
all ready. In fact I think Liv bounces really well off Ravi and Clive (and I’m
glad that Clive was quick to join the team rather than be a long, drawn out,
hostile element to work with) though I do hope we see something to counter Liv’s
“how did you solve crime before me” snark (even if it was hilarious). His
situation made him trusting her and being a little desperate natural and feed
into his rapid acceptance of her abilities.
Of course, we also have to note that Ravi is south Asian,
Clive Black and the briefly appearing Lieutenant who is Clive’s boss is
east-Asian. This is a good beginning, I want to see where this develops
Can we have a poke at the idea that Major and a woman
playing a computer game together means he’s moved on? Because men and women can
actually be friends and play computer games without being romantically
involved. We also had a whole lot of sex worker as victim but at the same time
the sex workers were not demonised nor were they particularly reduced even if
they weren’t developed.
I have to go back to Liv staying in the car, even if she
still did get involved, I loved her quick acquiescence. No, it didn’t weaken
her or make her seem helpless it was the very sensible actions of a CIVILIAN in
dangerous police situation (yes, even if she didn’t stick to it). With legions
of plucky amateurs leaping into dangerous shoot outs in this genre, I liked it.
Yes she got into the action anyway but I liked that her initial reaction wasn’t
“how very dare you tell me to stay in the car!?”
Of course, it’s not the White
Trash Zombie series, (alas, very little is) but it’s pretty awesome
besides
