iZombie: Maternity Liv

April 29, 2015 6:54 PM - Season 1, Episode 7

A group of teens get a scare when a disheveled young pregnant woman approaches them muttering for help. Unfortunately, the woman doesn’t survive but her baby does. Liv and Clive begin questioning suspects in her murder, and after consuming the victim’s brain, a fierce maternal instinct kicks in for Liv. Meanwhile, Major makes a shocking discovery.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich (12 comments total)

Did I miss something during this episode? Liv described a vision to Clive which I didn't remember actually seeing? Was it cut for time?

Or maybe I'm just not paying enough attention because I don't remember seeing some of the Previouslies during the previous episode either.
posted by Justinian at 8:30 PM on April 29, 2015

What description did you have in mind?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:45 PM on April 29, 2015

Hmmm it was the vision where she described seeing a man in profile to Clive while walking away from a house they had just exited.
posted by Justinian at 8:51 PM on April 29, 2015

Yeah, I remember them showing it. I believe he lit a cigarette and was wearing a hat. It was very brief and I think the vision was hazy/obscured by something between the woman and the kidnapper.
posted by humans are superior! at 9:55 PM on April 29, 2015

If you are going to try to zombify rats, shouldn't you invest in sturdier cages?
posted by bibliowench at 10:06 PM on April 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

I like this show a lot but I wish they would at least try to address the whole "eating human brains is horrifying" elephant in the room. I'm not looking for Walking Dead level angst but, well, something would be nice.

I thought they had a great start along those lines very early in the show when her friend whose name I cannot recall was trapped in an oubliette of some sort, hadn't had access to brains, and was permanently uglified and ravening. But then they just kinda dropped the whole maybe-there-is-a-downside-to-this-situation storyline.

Dude, you eat the brains of innocent people. With mothers, fathers, siblings, and sometimes children. It's horrifying. Let's acknowledge that a little even if this is a dramedy.
posted by Justinian at 11:46 PM on April 29, 2015

I mean, it's a gross violation of personal integrity in exactly the same way that it would be if she were a necrophiliac and... abusing... the bodies. Maybe worse.

But perhaps I'm taking it too seriously.
posted by Justinian at 11:47 PM on April 29, 2015

I can see that could be horrifying at first, but the show starts out after she has been a Z for a while. I would think some or most of that horror would have been blunted by this point.

But there is so much potential for this show that I just don't feel the episodic format is really allowing to develop. The absorption of personality traits has the potential for some interesting dynamics and challenges, if they lasted for longer than 40 minutes. Lowell's temporary homosexuality and their evening of hanging out as buds was sweet. But occasionally I wish the brain effects lingered a bit longer so the consequences of picking up these traits had a bit more weight and significance to the characters.
posted by insert.witticism.here at 2:23 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

She goes out of her way to not be horrifying and to be as respectful as possible to the people whose brains she eats though - the families involved expect autopsy marks and brain removal.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:53 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Another thing that bugs me is that the number of zombies is now growing large enough that I don't believe there is any way this many human brains could be consumed on a regular basis while remaining secret.

One zombie? Okay. Two zombies? Ok I'll suspend my disbelief. A dozen or more zombies in a city of 150,000? Impossible to conceal.

I should repeat to myself it's just a show, I should really just relax.
posted by Justinian at 2:14 PM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]

Who cuts the crusts off sandwiches? That's the best part.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 5:51 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have to say that Lowell's gay scientist brain made for a fun, interesting, albeit not smoochy date night. That was cute. I'm less into the idea of "oh noes, now I'll never have a baby", but I did appreciate how Liv and everyone else was horrified at that baby daddy getting custody.

I was also reminded of Veronica Mars, a lot, and was kind of expecting that Liv would pull a Donut Run to save the baby at the end.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:49 PM on May 18, 2015