Everything’s pretty
grim - and going to get grimmer because the anti-zombie faction of congress has
decided to send no more brains to New Seattle. Which is going to be troublesome
Ravi, in an extremely
moving scene, was super upset and called Peyton urging her to stay in DC where
she’ll be safe, while he hears the news of Levorn and Liv about to be killed
and things are bleak. Ravi excellently displays his shock and horror here which
really sets the tone of the whole episode. Except that Peyton shows up on his
door step and their love is super passionate and kind of wonderful.
And after that he
remembers he needs to tell her about all the bad stuff going on.
After this it’s time
to call Dale and Clive who are still planning to get married and have sex and
turn Clive into a zombie… but maybe not quite yet. And that’s all shelved when
they’re told about Liv and Levorn
In case anyone missed
it: everyone is team Liv here. While Chase Graves is kind of missing this and
decides to have Liv tortured - which doesn’t lead her to give up her network.
Instead Chase decides to give her mere seconds to say goodbye to her friends -
unless she want to buy more time by giving up names. She opts out of that and
instead gives them all her instructions to rally the troops: except Peyton. She
and Peyton are completely overwhelmed by emotion.
Specifically she asks
them to release the documentary Levorn has been preparing of their work to help
people. They do check with Ravi to ask if he wants his face blurred - but no,
he refuses. And, yes, Ravi is killing it this episode. Everyone is killing it
this episode: so much emotion and grief from everyone.
The released
documentary goes massively viral and raises huge amount of sympathy for Liv and
co. Also it’s narrated by Paul Rudd. It’s watched by pretty much everyone and
they’re not happy about her being executed. Even Chase realises a public
execution may be problematic. Or Captain Hobb does pointing out that a) they’re
going to be massively outnumbered and b) they don’t even know how their
soldiers will react to an angry crowd and shooting randomly into the crowd is
probably not going to go down so well. Chase is all moody about his lack of
public execution but listens to Hobb when he suggests moving the time and the
location to somewhere more private.
But Major has someone
on the inside: Jordan has gone back to Chase Grave pretending to be on his side
in exchange for extra brains for her family (her siblings are starving zombies
getting every more desperate) but it does mean she gets to pass one more inside
info to Major. Including the moving time
When Levorn and Liv
are taking to their execution, even their guards have watched the viral video
and been moved by Liv’s story. One of them is Justin with all his history with
Liv.
When Major & co
here the time of the execution has been moved they panic - and Peyton almost
despairs. But she’s also Peyton and the acting Mayor so she interrupts a live
television programme to rally the city to the new location
They arrive in force,
led by Major and Chase gives the orders to his soldiers to shoot anyone who
gets into the warehouse… and they bring Levorn out for execution.
And they kill him
Party of me is
unsurprised because he was very clearly a placeholder love interest for Liv and
was unlikely to have any real long term staying power. But at the same time
this whole episode is so powerful and is so excellently well acted that I was
actually shocked when he died.
Major and the mob
breaks through before Liv can be executed - and the Fillmore Grave soldiers
don’t fire on the mob: if that video didn’t get them then Chase generally being
an arsehole and Major leading the charge full on zombie does it… there’s a
struggle: Liv, Chase and Major fighting around the guillotine. And Chase ends
up squished
Which makes Major the
new leader of Fillmore Graves. Because if you kill the general then you become
one apparently? At least they all insist he step up because there’s another
crisis coming up: Angus and Blaine
They’re not the only
ones with a plot - Blaine and Angus have decided that now is the time to launch
their attack - they’re helped by Enzo (hey the French detective finally has a
name!) telling them the most vulnerable point on the wall (and even returning
the crying bodyguard to them). While the whole city is being transfixed by
Liv’s execution after watching her viral video, the army of the faithful will
make their escape.
Except… maybe not so
much. It seems Enzo is another very crafty mole - hey Chase may not be a
complete fool - and he’s not a true believer. But he’s used his position of
trust to lead Angus’s forces into a horrendous ambush. That ambush has machine
guns, land mines, tanks and Enzo there assuring the humans that Fillmore Graves
is even willing to sacrifice thousands of zombies if it means maintaining the
peace between the US and New Seattle… which may help the PR?
Blaine, meanwhile,
wants to live and decides he and Angus should stay somewhere safe while the
army charges in. Angus decides they should lead from the front like warriors of
god and Blaine is…. Not into that because… death. Instead he reveals that the
big holy sign Angus had was actually faked. Angus is duly enraged, shames
Blaine and storms out into battle. Blaine decides to stay in safety and
consumed with daddy issues.
This is when Major,
new head of Fillmore Graves, hears of Angus plans and acts decisively to send
more troops to the gate
In the aftermath the
US military walks among the bodies of the zombies - a whole lot of bodies, over
a thousand - shooting them in the head. Including Angus.
Well I guess that may
reduce the population challenge
In the aftermath Liv
is done. She wakes with Ravi watching over her, thoroughly traumatised,
grieving over Levorn and Isobel and blaming herself for the deaths - which is
when Ravi tells her about the cure. She wants it. Ravi gives her slightly judgy
face and she snaps back at that
And it’s perfect.
Even while every part of me screams no, Liv angrily declaring she’s done
enough, Liv angrily rejecting the idea she owes ANYONE ANYTHING at this point.
Yes Liv, you deserve this, all praise to this scene. She’s not even guilty
about it and she never ever should feel guilty for not being forced to
sacrifice herself again.
Ravi wants to talk
about how hundreds of unarmed people were willing to charge into bullets and
she is the inspirational leader they need to bring humans and zombies together
in peace for her but she’s clear - she still saved herself not the crowd and
she is done.
Major as new head of
Fillmore Graves wants to tell Liv he’s totally on side and she is free to bring
in more people and turn them he’ll even encourage it. But she’s still retiring.
Also Levorn is dead because Major kidnapped her and she’s not forgiving that
Let us mark this as
another awesome moment in the episode. Yes Major led the rescue, he was still
an arse and the arse is not removed because of some belated side changing. Liv
still thinks he’s a good person (“I know who he is even if he forgets”) but is
still angry
And still taking the cure. And to be clear the cure means eating all of Isobel’s brain so only one zombie can be cured… shouldn’t Ravi look at trying to duplicate this rather than just using it?
The cure is delayed
because they have something more important - Dale and Clive’s wedding. Which is
sweet, involves Ravi as best man and Liv as maid of honour (and Clive teases
Ravi) and big dramatic personalised wedding vows (which everyone is duly grim
about which is just hilarious - best wedding ever) all about how Clive is
completely willing to give up being a dad because he loves her more
And, yes, we all know
where this is going. Of course Liv gives the cure to Dale.
While I think poor
Michelle has been really really screwed, disposed off and barely regarded as
more than a plot device in this whole romance. She deserved better than this.
Liv still goes to the
motel to have a pity party. But everyone else, like half of the whole city,
turns up to say how awesome she is. Looks like Liv is back in the game - but at
least she’s being appreciated.
This is the season
finale - and it was a perfect cap to the season. The acting of this episode was
really good and really carried a whole lot of heavy emotion. I loved it.
I still think that
someone really really needs to sit down and think about the brain situation.
Yes Blaine is now smuggling brains for Major for cash and respectability but
there’s still a difficulty in supply, still starving zombies as we saw with
Jordan’s family (and I hope Jordan remains a regular character)
Plot wise Liv’s
brains, again, kind of felt like a distraction than an asset or useful part of
the plot but because we had so much else going on, especially after the first
half of the season, I think it worked - because we didn’t focus on it. We may
have had utterly terrible episodes like the hockey player and the medieval
re-enactor but they weren’t the point of the episode.
I think Peyton got
more showing this episode which was very necessary given how Liv tends to move
in very male circles (and, let’s not twist too far - she still does). I still
think more could have been done with her but she and Isobel and Dale were all
very welcome.
While I think Liv was
sidelined this season, I think Clive felt more backseat this season - but he
did have his own storyline and more than a few fun moments as well as
continuing to. And Ravi is love. If you don’t love Ravi there’s something
fundamentally wrong with you on a soul deep level,
But I do think both
Mama Leone and Michelle were very poorly treated and ill used - both characters
deserved more and were reduced to plot devices.
It’s season 4 and we
still have pretty much erasure of LGBTQ people which is beyond poor.
Next season is the
last season of iZombie which I’m kind of disappointed about but I also
understand. In some ways I think it was a mistake to make zombies public and
numerous. I actually think it was a mistake to introduce a whole army of
zombies with Fillmore Graves in the first place as it irreparably changed the
feel and tone of the whole show - and they’re not faced with bringing it to a
conclusion or radically changing the show
