iZombie - Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat

Tonight never happened.

I have to admit I always enjoy when these horror-oriented series incorporating the I Know What You Did Last Summer main plot line of “we hit somebody with a vehicle and now must vow to conceal our crime”. iZombie joins the party with a funny opening to Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat when they hit zombie, Sebastian Meyer (Matthew MacCaull), freshly turned by Liv in self defense when he attempted to kill her in the previous episode.

Hope’s dead.

This show sure does know how to turn a phrase. When a test brown rat, named by Ravi as Hope, is found dead and Liv says, “Hope is dead,” it could very well mean her hope for a cure is doomed.

I’m trying to get inside the head of a teenager.

Don’t be so method.

McIver’s embodiment of characters of different personalities has reached easily my favorite of the first season: her feeding from the brain juice of a bubble-headed cheerleader killed by Sebastian and left in the woods to rot. Her head caved in by Sebastian for the brains while the other three members of a party with the cheerleader flee for safer environs. Just Liv’s bubbly persona when Clive is interrogating a friend of the cheerleader’s, how McIver goes all in and perfects all of the mannerisms and wordspeak, had me nearly howling. She’s just brilliant, here.

Excuse me, Cheech. I’m afraid I have some bad news.

McIver goes from the bubbly cheerleader to her stoner boyfriend, Nate, and like putting on a new suit, she once again exchanges characters with ease. God, this girl is so talented. I consider her flexibility as an actress to be a priceless commodity the show thrives on. With lollipop, a bag of cheetos, and a “woah, dude” persona, Liv has now adopted two sets of personalities in order to find a killer. Pulling serious double duty, McIver must feel such freedom to alternate as she can into so many characterizations.

There are zombies in the world, Peyton. And I’m one of them.

There is that point in the season where you see a lot of pivotal character and plot “gasps” where dangers and revelations start to shake the core, raising our awareness that things may never be the same. Like Liv having to combat Sebastian while Peyton appears unconscious on the floor. Peyton awakens to find Liv in full zombie mode, stabbing Sebastian through the skull. Peyton can’t get out of that house fast enough. Peyton was supposed to go to San Francisco with Ravi and have a spa trip with Liv. None of that happens as Liv is under the influence of brains and eventually having to defend her abode from Sebastian. Because Major can’t help but pursue his mission of justice for those killed for their brains by Blaine, he winds up kidnapped, held in the back of Blaine’s restaurant, and at the mercy of both him and Candyman. Major has the astronaut’s brains and Blaine’s million dollar payday counts on getting them back in his possession. And to top it all off Liv’s brother puts in an application at Blaine’s restaurant! It just got serious.