iZombie: Liv and Let Clive
April 8, 2015 6:56 AM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe

When Clive identifies a John Doe in the morgue as one of his former criminal contacts from his days on the vice squad, Liv is surprised that Clive is so quick to refuse her help in solving the murder. Liv and Ravi investigate on their own which puts them in a precarious situation. Liv’s problems continue to mount when Major begins searching for a roommate and she believes he’s considering a cute co-ed.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich (14 comments total)
 
Maybe the Blaine narrative will intersect with Liv's narrative sometime in the next ten years. I'm beginning to wonder. Not that I don't enjoy David Anders, because I do. This week's mystery was very meh for me, but then they all are. I want some serialized character development and plot, dammit. We're getting it in drips and drabs, but the rest is so formulaic, I'm getting impatient.

Which reminds me of how much I hate this broadcast TV exposition. Like, half the dialogue is people unnecessarily explaining and/or repeating things they already know and narrating their own actions, simply for the benefit of an audience who, I suppose, was late walking back from the kitchen during the commercial break and/or wasn't paying attention because they were texting someone. I watched Person of Interest last night, too, and it's always very guilty of this spoonfeeding.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:03 AM on April 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
posted by Naberius at 6:23 AM on April 9, 2015


Yep yep.

I'll still keep watching, but this is getting less and less interesting each week. Also what was the point of Liv's brother staying with her? Also how old is he? He seems like a creepy weirdo, but like they were trying to spin it off as cute.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 6:44 AM on April 9, 2015


Yeah, that wasn't funny, it was creepy.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:26 AM on April 9, 2015


Why did she dump her boyfriend instead of telling him she was a zombie?
posted by yonega at 7:30 PM on April 9, 2015


Yeah I wondered that as well yonega. I'm hoping that eventually instead of pining after him she'll either a) rekindle their relationship except actually communicate about things or b) realize that if she couldn't even talk to him they shouldn't be together and it's better that they are over.

The personal relationships between everyone in the show (minus Liv and Rafi) seem kind of wonky. Rafi is my favorite character I think. I hope he gets a little more development.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 6:50 AM on April 10, 2015


Since Major is a... well, major continuing character, they have to be angling toward eventually revealing the truth and probably getting them back together. Otherwise, why is he even there? Why is he in every damn episode, yet not really doing anything? Why is Liv making Rafi move in with him? In a more realistic world, he'd be in a couple episodes and then fade out. He wouldn't be getting a fraction of the story attention and screen time.

I'm willing to give this some more episodes to get on with it because I do find the characters likable, and it's not a bad procedural show per se, But I don't really need another procedural with a gimmick show. If it's got something else to show me, it needs to do that.

And I'm starting to get a mild version of a The Village vibe here, where the story is working hard to lay pipe for some big payoff that ultimately just doesn't pay off because it was painfully obvious from the beginning. And so you spend the whole thing going "no, no, they aren't to just do that. They're faking us out and they'll come up with something better." But then they just do what you've been dreading for the whole story and it kind of lies there flopping like a dying trout.
posted by Naberius at 7:52 AM on April 10, 2015


Liv dumped Major for several reasons all linked to her becoming a zombie. She didn't know she wasn't the only zombie until 2 episodes ago. I mean it's one thing to reveal that you're zombie when zombies are an actually established phenomena, but if you're the only one? Most likely you're going to get put away. In addition, in one of the first episodes she talks about how she dumped him because she was didn't know if she could accidentally infect him with....zombieness sexually. When the show opens 1. Liv thinks no one knows about her condition 2 Liv thinks no one else is a zombie 3 Liv thinks this is a permanent state 4. she was/is still discovering aspects of her zombie existence.

tldr: she broke up with him to protect him and her secret
posted by miss-lapin at 1:05 PM on April 10, 2015


I think that maybe you *can* spread zombie-ism through sex, because isn't that how Blaine made his sugar momma into a zombie? By hooking up with her?
posted by rue72 at 2:18 PM on April 11, 2015


But Liv doesn't know that.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:50 PM on April 11, 2015


I have to admit I LOLed at "I know Kung Fu!"
posted by mon-ma-tron at 4:39 PM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


There were definitely some problematic elements to this episode (because, sure, we can totally have a plot involving Asian gangs without it being offensive!), but this is what struck me the most: So Live has to douse her brains in sriracha and order double jalapenos on her pizza just to come close to tasting anything, but Zombie Sark can appreciate the nuance of gourmet cerebral cuisine?

(Also, having grown up in a culture that eats brains--stop reaching for that shotgun, I'm a southerner, not a zombie--that entire bit was just hilarious to me.)
posted by rhiannonstone at 12:15 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Re: spreading the big Z through sex, I thought Liv specifically mentioned in an earlier episode, if offhandedly, that she didn't want to risk scratching him during sex? Because my assumption has always been it's not that Zombie is a sexually-transmitted disease, but that the risk of a scratch or bite that will transmit the virus (or whatever) is too high to take.
posted by rhiannonstone at 12:17 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


i didn't get the sense it spread through sex, no - just that bad zombie dude got rich-soon to be zombie-lady in a precarious position, making it easy for him to infect her. i mean, it was a fairly glancing blow that infected liv originally.
posted by nadawi at 7:45 AM on October 8, 2015


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