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A group of teens by a camp fire get a surprise visit – a pregnant
woman in a night gown who staggers to the group and then collapses.
That’ll ruin most parties.
She dies which creates something of a media frenzy (her
baby survives) but one reporter is very on point – why does this
upper-middle-class dead white lady get so much resources and attention when the
poor, possibly living and largely POC kids that Blaine has been eating are not
worth police time and resources. Clive’s boss, Lt Suzuki quickly moves on from
the question and cuts eyes at Clive.
At the morgue the dead woman, Emily Sparrow, is formally
identified by her parents. They blame Emily’s boyfriend, Dylan. Though there’s
absolutely no evidence – brain snack time. And to the autopsy (after nagging
the security company about the complete lack of security in the morgue to try
and keep Blaine out). And Liv is overcome by the new brain’s maternal instincts
which Ravi snarks, of course he does (and she leaves, thankfully, rather than
make Ravi a sandwich out of worry he hasn’t eaten. Ravi’s facial expressions
are worth a show on their own).
Liv goes to visit her mother in the maternity hospital –
well visit Emily’s baby, much to her mother’s disappointment. Though she
recovers quickly to remind Liv how she wants her to do anything else in life
than what she is doing. This sets off a flashback to Emma’s parents locking her
up and assaulting her boyfriend.
To Clive to tell him that she thinks Emily’s parents
locked her up for 8 months when they found out she was pregnant. But Clive is a
member of a task force and not the lead investigator so he doesn’t really get
to pick and choose how he investigates this crime. And what Suzuki has chosen
him to do is join in the interrogation of Dylan who is not feeling very cheery
since everyone has basically accused him from the very beginning. He tells them
that Emily hitch-hiked and about some loudly barking dogs which may have been relevant
- and his intention to claim custody of his child (Liv has a horrified face).
She expresses her horror to Clive who points out that he
is actually the father of the child; Liv is not impressed by this counter.
Clive’s day gets worse when Major calls about the missing kids – because he’s
working with Rebecca Hinson the journalist with the pointed questions earlier.
And now she’s just heard him say something unwise on speakerphone because he
thought he was talking to Major – and, seriously Major, who puts their phone on
speaker without telling the other caller? Clive is, naturally, furious – but he
unfairly applies that anger to Liv.
Liv is indulging her new instincts with Ravi’s test rats
and Lowell visits where he and Ravi, both Londoners, bond over football clubs
before Ravi tests him for zombie stuff. And Lowell has eaten a scientists so is
spouting lots of scientific terminology. Liv is also upset that their kiss
goodbye was lacking in any kind of passion or chemistry.
Liv’s angst over her new motherly instincts drives her to
visit her mother and brother, greeting them with lots of hugs. Alas for poor
brother, the new maternal-minded Liv supports their mother in the argument over
whether he has to get a job or not.
Clive has lots of pointless paperwork dumped on him, but
among it he finds a property the Sparrow family owns (through a somewhat
dubious chain) which he and Liv go investigate, going down into the basement
(with somewhat dubious legal authority). Inside which they find an ornately
carved cot which they take to lend credence to the idea Emily was locked up for
8 months. They also hear lots of dogs barking, like Dylan reported.
And Liv has a vision of a crying Emily looking through slats at a smoking bearded man. And they get caught – the dogs belong to Emily’s father who has them trapped. So Clive gets to question the father about the cot the parents also tearfully describe how meeting Dylan changed their daughter
Clive is not convinced they’re responsible for kidnapping
and killing Emily. Liv also tells him her vision – calling it an animal control
truck.
So time to talk to the Animal control officer asking to see their records – she’s horrendously chipper and greets them as officers “ebony and ivory.” She fully deserves the look she gets. The lead seems to go nowhere
Back to Liv’s personal life – Lowell is felling no
chemistry because he ate the brain of a gay man and has to deal with no
attraction for Liv until he eats some “ludicrously straight brain” as soon as
possible. So drinking, partying and dancing until then.
Liv also keeps getting drawn back to Emily’s son in the
maternity ward and has another vision – involving 2 women saying “she’s going
to catch you.” This, combined with more of Clive’s research leads back to the
Animal Control Officer and her husband
Time for a stake out (and Clive’s excellent advice based
on his previous experiences). He also advises patience but the people inside
shooting at the cuts all that boring waiting time. Police and back up arrive
and go in while Liv spots a tree house where she thinks the other girls are
being held.
Lt Suzuki goes in first, alone, demanding everyone else
wait until he signals them. He gets shot – and goes full-on zombie. Yes the
hint of last week is definitely confirmed. He rips off the door of the fridge
and uses it as a shield to hide behind as he guns down the man. He goes to the
woman, the animal control officer and holds her at gun point. She puts her
hands behind her head – and he shoots her.
At the tree house, Liv takes a bullet to the leg which
gives her the impetus for her own full-on zombie moment, easily ripping the
chained door off and rescuing the two women inside. Afterwards she and Suzuki
share slightly suspicious looks.
In the aftermath, the police keep their word and make it
clear that Dylan, Emily’s boyfriend, wasn’t involved and did help them. There
were also a lot of corpses found at the house – Suzuki claims they were involved
in human sacrifice (and since they’re dead they can’t really protest
otherwise).
Over to Major and Rebecca and Major decides to break into
Blaine’s goon’s car (finding hot sauce and hair dye, zombie signifiers and a
signed receipt – he has the guy’s name Julian Dupont. He also finds a brain in
a Tupperware box. He also gets himself arrested for breaking into someone’s
car. Major tries to protest “look a brain!” but Julian points out he works in a
super fancy delicatessen and calf brains are considered a delicacy.
Of course, the revelation of the human sacrifice murder
couple and the many bodies on their property means they’re also set up to be
perfect scapegoats for all the missing teenagers (uh-huh, a cult recruiting and
killing “sister-wives” is unlikely to kidnap teenaged boys. I call dubious on
this cover up).
Dylan’s still a pretty terrible person and is already
preparing his own reality show. Liv is incensed. She (verbally) rips him a new
one. She goes to see the baby one last time – and sees that she’s shamed Dylan
into giving up the child to his grandparents.
Major is in prison – and it’s not going to be great since he pissed off the police. And Liv has a renewed drive to spend time with her family
Also one of the rats Ravi was testing has turned into
evil zombie rat.
I kind of like how casually everyone just accepts “oh it’s
someone I ate” as an explanation for just about any personality quirk. I also
love how it isn’t just used (entirely) as an thing-of-the-week trope, each new
experience, each new headspace that Liv occupies allows her a new perspective
on her life. While there’s always the quirky and the fun connected with her
brain eating personality shifts, at the end of the episode she usually takes
something from them, she learns something, she adapts and grows as a person
with new appreciation for the life she lives. In some ways this is more of a
super power than the super strength of full-on zombie mode.
That said, there are still Unfortunate Implications. I
know that we usually only get one segment of a person’s personality flowing
with the brains, but the fact that Emily’s entire personality was reduced to “mother”
is an issue and one that dogs a lot of mothers who are expected to remove
personhood and basically replace it with “mother.” Especially since the
depiction was shallow, cliché and didn’t make much sense (Emily hadn’t even
given birth and if she had I find new mothers are generally less concerned by
smudges on people’s faces than they are the rising tides of shit and vomit,
endless screaming and no sleep ever ever ever again).
I’m also not all that much of a fan of Lowell eating the
gay brain. Yes they could have been way way way more offensive than they were
and many shows certainly would have been. But this
is now the
third time iZombie has teased a
gay or bi issue or representation, skimmed close and then backed away while
continuing to have no non-ambiguous/doubtful LGBT characters.
Major was completely out of line (and rather bizarre in
his voicemail choice to say the least) though it is also worth noting that
Clive is facing heat because he told the truth. The police do not want unsolved
murder cases they have to work on, especially from a group considered so easily
ignored and expendable. Keeping the missing kids off the murder board is an apparent
goal. It is worth critiquing and I like that they keep remembering this.
And I still love this show. I think it may be my
favourite of any I’m watching at the moment.
