We have a lot of
sporadic plot lines here - but a lot of them are powerful with death being a
heady theme.
Peyton plans on
leaving town to go to DC on a zombie mission of good will to try and get New
Seattle seen less as a threat. Before she goes, she and Ravi have dinner with
her parents - including her zombie hating not very nice father. Who Ravi puts
in his place and it is GLORIOUS, all hail Ravi, the master of how to eviscerate
someone politely over the dinner table
But between the
sparring there’s another more earnest plea - they beg Peyton to stay in DC
where it’s safe, before violence between zombies and humans flares to all out
war.
One of the main
people in that war will be Chase Graves who is finally working with Major to
shut down the brain smuggling -since they’re losing a massive 40% of their
supply. Making Russ think that new security measures are coming in and that
Major will be in charge of them, Russ is quick to take Major to see the big
boss AJ who is in charge of the brain smuggling. They feed him tortured mobster
brain that forces him to tell the truth - giving us a couple of jokey moments (one
a gay joke about attraction to Chase because this is iZombie, and this
is how close they get to actual representation) and saying his team of four has
3 good members. But that team launches an ambush because Major has swallowed a
tracker. And with that the brain smugglers have been shut down: Major is the
golden boy and everyone gathers at the Scratching post for a celebration, with
Chase singing Major’s praises. Until he hears that Russ has escaped. He stole
one of Major’s squads guns and then escaped
Chase is enraged despite every attempt by Major to calm him and demands to know whose gun: Major insists he can handle it but Chase won’t stop yelling: and Jordan admits it was her gun. And Chase shoots her repeatedly in the chest - Captain Seattle shoots back, injuring Chase. And Chase shoots him in the head murdering him
All of the Fillmore
Grave soldiers watches with due horror. Is this enough for Major to finally
realise how broken Chase is or if he’ll keep loyally serving.
Another increasingly
disturbing storyline is Angus, his church is ratcheting up the anti-human
rhetoric. Humans are nothing but good. Fillmore graves is the enemy and he’s
getting more and more violent. While Don E (for no doubt sinister reasons of
Blaine’s) has used a director brains to record a sermon from Angus and
broadcast it across New Seattle, perhaps the country.
The rhetoric inflames
more zombie human tension - and it’s definitely going to make Paige’s job of
reconciliation much much harder
It also swells the
numbers in his church to vast levels, so much so that a human friend of
Tucker’s - the anti-zombie human who was turned into a zombie - tries to kill
Angus. He fails because Tucker saves Angus’s life: and then asks him what his
human friend means to him. He says “he’s food.” And joins the crowd in eating
him.
More death and
ominous foreshadowing of doom to come
And we have Isobel,
sweet, funny Isobel who has taken to teasing the others by pretending to be a
dead - an especially morbid coping mechanism for her own impending death. She
remains bright and funny but we also see heartbreaking moments of her
underlying fear and dread of what is coming as well and a creeping
consciousness that she doesn’t have much time left.
There’s lots of
beautiful bonding moments, some of which are tragic (she wants liv to eat her
brain so her memories can live on after she dies)… and they even manage to
smuggle her mother in for a lovely reunion (with Liv having to imitate Peyton
to make it work) and it’s all looking wonderful… until one of those imitations
isn’t an imitation and Isobel dies. For a character who was only on the show
for a few episodes, it’s extremely tragic.
More fallout and pain
elsewhere: Dale watches a video of Liv and Clive together and hears Clive’s
insecurities from the last episode: how he wants to be a dad and how his
relationship with Dale can never bring him that. Her face just falls
She calls Clive and
calls off their relationship, claiming she’s met someone else (a clear lie and
it’s equally clear she’s struggling through so much pain to do this) so he is
free… and he turns to Michelle.
I’m both leery about
how quickly he turned to Michelle and how much it makes Michelle feel like
second choice - but here’s hoping they can build something strong on those
foundations
For a show that is
normally all about whackiness and odd twists (like Blaine’s goon, Crybaby Carl
actually being the murderer in this episode, provoked by a misogynist insulting
his wife), this episode was surprisingly dark. And it managed to pull it off -
it made the darkness work
