iZombie - Are You Ready For Some Zombies?

*** / ****

Blaine describes the Seattle of season four as “New Seattle” when Clive and Rose investigate a pretentious Shakespearian actor in his restaurant. Blaine dismisses them from the premises, realizing his snitching has earned him brownie points with Chase Graves (Jason Dohring; Veronica Mars), head of a zombie military (conditioned to make sure their own “kind” behave among the human population). Blaine’s father (left in a well to rot, with his son visiting him from time to time to torment him) is let out of the well by Blaine’s body guard, hoping to get some cash for this! But Angus is a raving madman, busting a hammer in his possession (to break apart concrete used on his feet as weights) over the body guard’s head, loose to endanger the public at large (well Seattle anyway, quarantined from the rest of the country…and seemingly world, a wall concealing the city). Angus eventually winds up at a sermon in a movie theater, undermining the human reverend trying to “save” zombies in attendance afraid of hell! Angus, instead, claims he speaks to and hears from God, attacking the reverend with his hammer, eating (and urging all those zombies among him) his brains!

The investigation of the episode involved a big Seahawks fan at a brain-mulching factory (an assembly plant which crushes brains, with a vat used to grind them into a liquid drink in tubes for consumption) killed and dumped in a vat, his remains badly askew. Liv takes a delightful feast from his brains, inundated by his fan personality. Being an impossible Seahawks fan gets her plenty of strange reactions, especially from the victim’s nemesis from San Francisco (a Niners fan) who he had a sour relationship. The zombie prejudice is quite noticeable as the victim was a racist against zombies, blaming them for ruining his dream job working at the stadium of his favorite team. Visits to his wife and son eventually unearth a twist that explain why he was killed, significantly tied to his racism.

The episode further hints at Clive and his boss, Dale Bozzio, having romantic interest in each other. She is briefly involved in the episode, hearing how Clive and Liv’s case is going. Liv, in full makeup and fan regalia (complete with colored wig) leaves her practically unrecognizable. Peyton certainly worries about her after returning from Blaine’s restaurant with her lawyer boyfriend. Not only does she come home to Liv off-kilter, Ravi (after eating from the brains of a physicist) surprises her buck naked…it seems the brilliant dead physicist was a nudist! So Ravi might not return to a zombie through his serum, but the urge of eating brains (which includes certain side effects including change in hair color!) remains. And the effects of eating brains still causes Ravi issues with the owner of the “food”, attaining their personality.
 

Aly Michalka, as Peyton, is often complemented in dialogue on the show for her attractiveness, and I couldn’t agree more. As an attorney, Peyton has tried to serve the city, but she's also a much-admired woman in more ways that one. While Blaine eyes Peyton, clearly desiring her, he lays a few little asides at her beau at the restaurant. This is clearly an ongoing angle that won’t see its finality anytime soon.

And Major, serving on the military for Graves, is asked to help him civilize teenagers discarded by their parents for being zombie, eventually requested to recruit the best among them due to the decreasing numbers in the city. The military, it is learned, have vending machines and accesses to a much larger brain supply. Clearly Graves is showing signs of frustration and fatigue, and Major realizes the power in this city that he has.