This week’s brain is a dominatrix. And already that makes
me cringe because there are so many ways this can go wrong and perpetuate the
negative ideas people have around fetish and kink
One of the main issues is how simplistic iZombie can be about brains
personalities – especially this season. So when Liv eats the brain of Roxeanne –we
get dominatrix Liv. Roxeanne was a woman – dominatrix was a profession and,
presumably a sexual kink of Roxeanne’s. The idea that this would dominate her
entire personality – that this would be her mind in every situation, that she
can’t actually have conversations without trying to dominate or intimidate
people is not exactly a healthy, realistic or non-shaming depiction of kink
The flip side is Liv, with her dominatrix brain, is very
resistant to Clive shaming anything to do with kinky sex, with excellent lines resisting
the idea that people who see a dominatrix are broken or sick and when he
questions the idea of someone eating in the dungeon she points out she eats most
her of her meals in a morgue.
There’s also the clients – now while we have a return of
Johnny Frost the weatherman now anchorman who recurs in the show as a bit
skeevy – neither the mayor nor the lawyer are particularly presented that way
(hey and the lawyer’s actually competent by the standards of TV cop shows.
Points to “Any more questions you’d like me to expertly evade” I may steal that).
On the negative, there’s a lot of playing things for humour of course, being iZombie, as well as both the problem of
Liv-dominatrix brain and absolutely no-one having much compunction about
blackmailing these men over their sex lives. Also, Liv going all Dom brain on
the forensic artist is played for laughs but that’s work place sexual
harassment. Also deciding to “intimidate” a suspect who was previously
institutionalised for mental health issued by calling him “crazy”? Is not ok.
It could certainly have been worse, but there were issues,
definite issues.
Also they got this case from another detective, it wasn’t a cold case but it was certainly lukewarm – and this detective completely missed the hidden camera Clive found in 5 minutes? Damn that detective was phoning it in.
Roxeanne’s brain was also the one that Ravi was
experimenting on with his memory cure (which failed) – which makes the visions
extra long and extra potent. Also Clive makes a Game of Thrones reference which
is geekily appreciated.
Other plots lines – we have the police detective telling
Liv and Clive to stay away from the zombie murder case –but they’re now even
more suspicious of John Harley who they already questioned. So they recruit
Fillmore-Graves to try and question him with added money. One of their soldiers
just wants to kill him, but even the Fillmore-Graves staff are less thrilled at
just murdering people
They offer him $10,000 to help with his brother’s funeral costs and try to talk to him about zombies. To which he talks about how zombies are dangerous, how to find zombies by checking their slower pulse rates and how it’s “us or them”. However they try to back him away from that he’s clear – zombie apocalypse is coming, zombies need to die. They bug his car – and learn he also plans to hunt down and kill all the victims of the Chaos Killer he, rightly, thinks are zombies. That escalated.
Side plot line: we have Donny the inept setting up his
zombie brains with brains from a poverty stricken hospital in Bangladesh which
really needs to be addressed. He’s recruited a new sidekick and this is going
to go badly.
Now to Major
Major has just gone on a mercenary mission using he and
his fellow cohorts zombie powers to kill several men and win the day so they
can now return home with several human heads
Ok, this is entirely unexamined here beyond a brief and
vague “kidnapping Americans” and “team good guys”. Yeaaaaah, no. By all
accounts this is a private military contractor going to countries that are most
certainly not America and killing people and harvesting their heads – there is
absolutely no more analysis than that. Just a vague assertion of being “good
guys” for going somewhere and shooting people – and harvesting their brains.
This is not very different from Donny and Blaine’s dad harvesting brains from a
desperately poor hospital (and a mercenary company declaring themselves “good
guys” does not make this true or morally defensible). You can’t just cover this
with “we said we’re good”.
Back in the US, Major’s health issues continue to
escalate until he collapses – but he can’t use the memory loss cure as it will
turn him human and he has been repeatedly stabbed. He needs his zombie healing
to survive. In comes Liv
Hey remember Liv was an awesome medical student who had
saved lives before? Go Liv.
Of course a temporary fix doesn’t mean Major is out of
danger – it’s just a delay until he heals. And when he does it’s time for the
memory loss serum
We get a lot of beautiful scenes with Ravi and Liv saying
goodbye to him and promising to preserve his memories. It’s poignant, moving
and very emotional including a reminder of Liv and Major being a couple once –
and perhaps again – with him talking of falling in love with her and them
having sex
They’re clear they will stick by him and remind him of
who he is (though he also wants Liv to give him a less silly name) and it’s all
an excellent depiction of loss and grieving of what he is losing and what they’re
losing. It’s the highlight of this episode.
