iZombie - Night and the Zombie City

“Night and the Zombie City” is marching the final season to its major defining potential Armageddon in Seattle. Liv learns that her father was “Beanpole Bob”, the father of the zombie and creator of Utopium. Of course, Martin will play coy with Liv and Ravi about how to duplicate the Utopium formula so it can play a hand in developing a cure. Max Rager is in supply with Filmore-Graves and with that Martin soon learns from Ravi that the drink “sparked something” in rats. Martin rounds off some chemical components to Ravi—made me snicker because he pretends to have no true memory of the exact formula—and when he is able to get some of the Max Rager (before a plant masquerading as a janitor is caught by Major and throws his forehead into a coat rack hook), he learns that he can order deteriorating zombies to do as he commands! The episode has that just as a small subplot among a ton of other developments and nary a time did I feel frustrated with the show as I sometimes do. The noir homage—lovingly recalling the great detective genre of Old Hollywood, with Liv in certain poses and postures, given the language and vernacular of Raymond Chandler stylized crime melodrama—just felt like a friendly hug to me. I love those movies, like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Detour, and Out of the Past, so Rose McIver getting to sink her teeth into a Bogart tough-guy archetype (at one point, she even smacks Blaine across the face with a slap jack in the interrogation room, much to Clive’s dismay) must have been a lot of fun.

Peyton is still reeling from her failure to achieve any real success as mayor (although the zombie/human relations comedy, Hi Zombie, continues to be a surprise hit), wanting to get lost in margaritas and belt out a tune on Karaoke night at Don E’s. While she desires to abandon responsibility of any kind, the detective brain of Frank Chisel provokes Liv to action, unyielding in its focus to find his own killer but ultimately the one responsible for the death of a hooker named Bunny, popular at Don E’s (and once Blaine’s) bar. A suspect, Jane Harland, soon confronts Blaine with a gun, her motive for threatening him (before he takes the gun from her) is a mystery until he eats her brain; Crybaby, Blaine’s henchman, cracks her across the skull with his baseball bat. This baseball bat would come back to haunt Crybaby when Blaine needs to escape arrest, and accuses him of the crime so he doesn’t get implicated. Jane, Bunny, and Frank were all involved in the confiscation and use of a cure. Liv and Blaine both even have a major altercation in a room of Don E’s bar for possession of the cure if they can find it afterward. This fight is a long-time coming and Liv actually bettering Blaine is a thrilling and exciting sequence of events only interrupted by Crybaby when he gets involved. Blaine and Liv had encountered each other earlier at Frank Chisel’s PI office, both breaking in without a warrant. That is a thru-line all the way from beginning to the end of this episode: the race for the cure, both wanting it either for the wrong or right reasons. Blaine had even met with a member of his network, insisting they find him teens with the brain disease, even encouraging kidnapping as an alternative.

Major and his team are realizing that security and protection of Filmore-Graves is flawed and vulnerable. They don’t think Enzo is a strategist or leader, prefiguring that there is someone else calling the shots. Martin, confronted by Liv for keeping his secrets regarding Utopium, sees his plans in motion, sure that soon Seattle will not be the only city containing zombies, that soon they will spread further and nothing will stop them.

The dialogue of “Frank Chisel”, and how Liv seems to emote sincerely with her own wordspeak alien to the likes of Ravi, Clive, and Don E, who all respond quizzically , and how director Tuan Quoc Le is able to get the camera off to emphasize her in the foreground, the early goings shot in lovely black-and-white, while the other cast seem somewhat distanced from her; this is all just right up my *nightmare alley*. Eventually the episode returns to color and different camerawork, but when Liv was deeply influenced by Frank’s brain, the noirish lighting, composition, lensing, and sensibilities are at their peak…this is bravura work from all involved. I think those following the entire season will consider this quite unique, very peculiar, just a different looking, different feeling episode…for me, a cut above the rest. And this just isn’t some stand-alone diversion…it moves the series story arc forward as the committee to determine if Seattle should be nuked or saved decide (six-to-five in favor) not to act irrationally, considering that zombies aren’t monsters unless certain factors antagonize an extreme, violent response. So Seattle remains intact for the time being. 5/5