iZombie - All's Well That Ends Well

If I had one disappointment of “All’s Well That Ends Well” is that Dolly doesn’t get her just desserts. Enzo, the conniving dick, does, and Blaine and Don E deserve to spend their years of deteriorating in “papa’s well” with each other. I guess some might think Don E might not have necessarily deserved to fall into the well with Blaine, but he continued to associate himself with the worst of human scum and villainy. Blaine does scratch Peyton, and iZombie fans get their first chance to see her as a zombie (and, of course, she’s really hot with that streak and difference in palor; in fact, she has this sort of goth rock star attitude about her that was so fetch), which is kind of surreal. This entire series, and it is the final episode, as Peyton fires at Blaine’s gunman and him in order for her Freylich teens to escape, that we see her as the zombie. There is a good bit of tragic pause, a nice overhead camera shot of Peyton laying on the ground, not moving, a positioned bullet wound in the wrong spot. Peyton even receives a vision, and it is convenient as the brain for which she ate was of the henchman that was there when Blaine smothered Darcy with a pillow. So Don E pushes Blaine in the well, not anticipating the arrival of Liv; a well thrown stone sends Don E down the well to be with the man he’s been loyal to the entire series.

Ravi getting to be the hero in more ways than one is such a thrilling choice by Rob and his creative team. Not only will Ravi be the scientist responsible for the cure of zombieism, but he proves to the world when Major is tricked into believing he is to suffer gun violence from Enzo to show the cure exists that it works. Enzo is the one injected with the cure, and Graham, getting his revenge for the death of his lover, makes sure he doesn’t spend too long as a mortal again. Ravi getting to create the cure and prove it works—the scientist who brought an end to the civil war in Seattle—allows him to gloat in a virtual talk show while Peyton rolls her eyes and ribs him while Clive tells the host that he and Bozzio went to San Francisco to be Captains on the Police Force. All of them, Ravi to be head of CDC, Peyton an attorney, and Clive a Police Captain, left Seattle for lives elsewhere. And Liv was considered dead due to the police station explosion, allowing this to continue, spending life with Major (who also allowed the legend of her death to continue unabated) “off the grid”. Mention of “zombie island” at the end by Liv to her friends does indicate they are living the life they want now, no longer obligated to try and maintain zombie and human relations. In fact, it is acknowledged that many chose to remain zombies, deciding the human life was no longer necessary or desired.

But Dolly Durkins and her hit squad, with cards representing Filmore-Graves officers left stapled to each one they kill, not answering for their terrorism (well it appears she doesn’t as news reports indicate otherwise) bothered me. I wish she would have paid for her crimes. But you can’t get everything happily ending.

Major infiltrating Filmore-Graves with help from his only remaining supporter within the organization, Joyce, and getting even with Ames for betraying him, taking some Max Rager, after Enzo planned to have him rot in prison until he was no longer functionally capable to make his own decisions, coincides with Liv, Ravi, and Clive on the plane back, trying to avoid detection. Liv is next to a passenger who knows her face while the stewardess eventually reveals her connection to “Renegade”, a familial tie that is a convenient plot rescue milked for the first portion of the episode. Liv and Ravi having to covertly spike the passenger’s mimosa  in order to shut her up through sleep medication provided (unbeknownst to him as he was asleep) by a businessman sitting next to Clive. The likes of Michelle (killed by the Dead-Enders explosion of the police station) and Joyce (shot and killed by Enzo) exiting the series tragically made sense...not everyone makes it out alive when there is such violence. Collateral damage.

The series really knew how set up a terrifying scenario, bait through some nefarious act or explosive violence, impending potential doom or considered action to inflame a city on the verge of collapse, and diffuse each one, as the main cast serves to work against any serious outbreak of death and deterioration of significant degree. Once Blaine and Enzo were eventually upended, the heroes moved on from Seattle. I think that is reasonable. Seattle could rebuild and restructure since our heroes did their part.

The “ten years later” time jump was a bit jarring, I must admit. But we still get to see how the series’ principles had made new lives for themselves, no longer dealing with zombie/human strife. 4/5

I really felt the final season was indeed an improvement over season four, and although the ratings for the series on CW never truly materialized to its first season popularity the final episodes turned it up a notch for me. I still have the second and third seasons to go for the blog, but all in all iZombie did get to complete its arc despite declining ratings and only its loyal fanbase still around. Still Netflix brought this to my attention so it could very well live on.