iZombie - Abra Cadaver ***

Meat of the Central case:

Assistant, Angel, a cute and chatty blond who tells Clive and Liv that Syd was providing all the secrets of his fellow magicians on YouTube, gives them something to work with. Liv, with Syd’s brain has my favorite line of the series up to this point: Twitter, a vast collection of humanity’s impetuous thought-vomitings. One of Syd’s rivals, Houdina, has a trick where her card can slice apart celery in the mouth of volunteers…perking up Clive in his chair. When a vision gives Liv info on Houdina regarding her near-marriage (complete in wedding dress) to Syd, throwing her wedding ring at him, it gives Clive something else to pursue. Laying it out, Houdina gives a motive for her being a suspect by telling Clive and Liv that Syd’s goth act gradually split them apart, hurting him to the point that he was willing to expose her trick, update it, and use it for his own act. The other suspect, an old mentor with Magnificent as his introductory name, wasn’t too fond of Syd’s comment on his “decaying” magic, a “carcass”, when asked to give him a foreword in his upcoming magic book. He was, of course, entertaining a fan with “bountiful bosom and auburn hair” when that murder took place. A running joke is Syd’s magician rivals not believing his dead despite Liv reassuring them that he is quite. Smoak and Meers, a comedy duo (one of whom seems to be mirroring Tell from Penn and Tell) with social media words with Syd (lots of hashtags, as Ravi even gets on Liv’s nerves when he can’t help but use one for his own joke) are the next suspects to question. Smoak and Meers, performing everything in front of the camera for a premium cable show, divert Clive and Liv back to Houdina who happened to use her disappearing act and never return for her curtsey bow. But Houdina gives them a pointer they need: she was the waitress, not “vanished” and gone from the room. And the grand finale is a hoot: Liv gets to out Smoak and Meers, as Irina, the maid, and Meers were one and the same, her handwriting on the whiteboard giving her away! Liv outing their “magic” and proving Syd’s killer was them as Clive questioned her need to perform for the Smoak and Meers’ camera crew was the final close of the case that couldn’t have concluded any better. I still think the series was at its very best in the early seasons. 3.5/5