iZombie - Even Cowgirls Get the Black and Blues

*** / ****

Not to be outdone, Blaine returns in Even Cowgirls Get the Black and Blues and gets right back to despicable behavior. Du Clark has employed Major to take out zombies of affluence, and these victims are Blaine’s clientele. Blaine laments the loss of income and goes out with his zombie minions to find the person with knowledge on the formula for Utopium, recently a converted Christian minister. Torturing this Man of God, Blaine decides to turn him into a zombie since he won’t give up the formula. Promising this poor soul a cure for the zombie virus he administered to him, Blaine sends out the minister to suffer until he will cop up the formula! Blaine rarely appears on this show when he isn’t stirring up trouble, making lives miserable, contributing to Seattle’s drug problem, or seeking to orchestrate some grab for control over those of influence. Still, Blaine is a troublemaker. He’s the villain that is always responsible for something that works its sharp claws throughout the city, eventually affecting the show’s lead characters.

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Major is in dire straits. He has been sleeping with Gilda and feeling guilt for it. He’s embattled with torment in what Du Clark “requests” of him. The Utopium addiction is overwhelming him. When he goes to score some dope, Major runs into kids he was once a counselor to. This is a wakeup call. When Liv visits him, finally deciding it is time to let him go, free and clear and move on, Major is in a bad way. Forced to murder, fucking a cold-hearted sociopath, and lost to addiction, Major losing Liv would perhaps be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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Liv  eats the brains of a “transplant from Texas” who was severely strangled in her own home. It is believed that perhaps her recently-released (from Walla-Walla) ex might be responsible because he ended up in prison due to assault. During the investigation Clive and Liv visit the victim’s manager and she has a vision of him trying to “feel up” Lacy Cantrell (the victim). Richard (Sbarge), the manager, has a pregnant wife who gets pissed at him for his “hands on” ways, attempting to implicate him, but Clive sees through it. Eventually an armed robbery shooting and Cantrell’s murder (and kids finding the gun involved) come together, with Liv and Clive recognizing that crime often is very much of the “wrong place, wrong time” variety. The episodic case isn’t quite as inspired as the seasonal threads of the characters on the show. Liv adopts the Texan lingo and phraseology, applying zingers to case developments with Clive reacting in bewilderment. She even adopts Cantrell’s songwriting, guitar playing, and Country singing, performing on stage a musical number about love lost and hearts accepting that what’s done is done. This song, and how during the performance of it Liv felt the need to confront Major and finally settle the tension that has kvetched them, finally breaks the awkward gnawing within them every time their eyes meet.

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I like a new development and hope it has legs to it. Clive is introduced to FBI agent, Dale Bozzio (Jessica Harmon), arriving at the precinct in charge of the rash of “men of affluence” (those killed by Major for Du Clark…it all comes circling around, doesn’t it?). Dale is a dynamo. She has a wit and sharp sense of humor. Dale almost immediately hits it off with Clive, talking it up with him, making the effort to banter with him. Clive has always felt somewhat excluded within his precinct and Dale, being from the outside, arrives with no connections to any of the cops / detectives. Harmon and Goodwin have really good chemistry, too. He has to get a rain check on a proposed “go around the corner and get a bite to eat” with Dale, but the look on his face after this surprise development he wasn’t anticipating speaks volumes. This might could be something special and unexpected. I have been wondering when iZombie Creative would provide Babineaux with a love interest. Perhaps this Dale is it!

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Liv and Major hugging and kissing at the end could be just a tease. Although Liv does tell Major it is over, when he comes to her door asking for help that decision fizzles almost instantly. She willingly embraces him as if her previous words were but toilet paper dissolving in water. With Major and Liv supposedly back together, where does that leave Gilda?

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Ravi has been involved with a lady named Stephanie (Debs Howard) since Peyton left. Instead of telling Ravi, Peyton walks in when Stephanie is over informing him that Major said she could temporarily crash at their place! Ravi’s expression at this was priceless. Steph, though, is reasonable and really cool about all of it. Peyton and Liv hugging and rekindling their friendship, relieved that the zombie situation will not interfere with how they feel about each other seems to put to rest their conflict. But Blaine serving as an informant for Peyton—in charge of a taskforce responsible for shaking down Mr. Boss and his Utopium drug trade—and their budding chemistry is that “oh no” plot development introduced by the writer’s room to once again rattle our cage. Surely Peyton won’t become romantically involved with such a piece of vile scum, will she?!?!

I like that Liv finally gets to speak up for herself in regards to her condition as a zombie. That all of what has happened to her wasn’t her fault and that her being on that boat was Major convincing her to go. That Liv eats brains because she woke up on a shore with the zombie urge that wasn’t of her own volition. The aftermath of her zombie condition and how it ruined a life and career with great promise came out of a “wrong place, wrong time” situation, much like Cantrell’s. Pretty much, Liv’s life is a zombie Country song, besought with tragedy and disappointment.