iZombie: Zombie Bro
October 15, 2015 11:03 AM - Season 2, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Liv eats the brains of a murdered frat boy and promptly begins "bro'ing out" in pursuit of his mascot-suited killer, to the dismay of anyone and everyone around her. Blaine advances his newest circuitous plot for taking over the lucrative organized crime networks of the greater Seattle area. Ravi enlists Major's help in researching the zombie cure.

A very perfunctory murder mystery this week, where the main fun of it is watching Liv filter the mind of a stereotypical frat brother through her decidedly non-bro person. Major's storyline gets even more depressing as he's now a zombie-killer and drug user (I hope he doesn't just spiral for the whole season). And Blaine has familial issues -- but also appears to be capable of love, at least toward someone who's already dead.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish (15 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
1. i totally need a gif of that fratboy saying DAAAAAAAAAMN immediately. i haven't been able to find one yet.

2. more ravi on drugs please.
posted by kerning at 1:28 PM on October 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


On the balance, really liked it.

Random thoughts:
* Liv was great. I realize the bro jokes were kinda low hanging fruit, but they killed me anyway. Of particular note: I'm glad she was broactive, the morgue really does need a foosball table (foosball rocks), and yes, they needed the furry pictures.

* Blaine continues to be awesome. I love that he's just faking zombie-ism and proceeding with his plans uninterrupted. The scene with his dad was also pretty great.

* Gilda's great. "I'm not drinking anything I didn't pour myself, and I'm not *not* drinking, so... I'll be back." As evil spying roommates go, a person could do worse.

* I am in favor of Major's continued slide into darkness, but Ravi wanting to try Utopium himself felt pretty contrived. (Ravi's always the voice of reason, like, *always*. That took me outta events a bit.)
posted by mordax at 3:20 PM on October 15, 2015


I dunno. Anybody that would go around murdering random people because they are being nebulously blackmailed has serious issues both moral and practical. And Major is a decent guy. The excuse is apparently that they're, you know, zombies and not actual people. But they've already established with Liv and so on that zombies are actual people at least until they go long enough without sustenance and start ravening.

It's obviously not remotely enough to put me off the show but I don't buy it at all. I wouldn't go on a murder spree because someone threatened someone I care about and I don't think the vast, vast, vast majority of people would either.
posted by Justinian at 10:54 PM on October 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I feel like Major is a decent guy who is under an enormous amount of pressure that is short circuiting his decision making process. The end of last season, he snapped, and killing became his only way to resolve the issue that cost him everything including a stint in a mental asylum. Things have not gotten better for him, so I'm okay with the idea of a broken dude getting convinced the only thing left in his life is worth killing for. Especially since the consequences are overwhelming guilt that he can't handle. He knows it's wrong and that he is doing evil, but his screwed up state of mind isn't showing him a way out.
posted by humans are superior! at 12:17 AM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yes, and that's a possible character arc, but if I were telling this story, I don't think I'd choose to commit to that arc for this character in this show,

How do they get Major back from this? I don't see a way. Everything he did last season was - even if misguided - at least understandable, forgivable, sometimes even necessary. But with this one he's pretty much crossed the line. I don't see a way to ever get him back to a place where he can just be a guy who's part of the cast. And just damning him to hell doesn't feel right for this show.
posted by Naberius at 7:00 AM on October 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I guess I don't see him as ever being part of the group the way Ravi and Clive are part of the group. I felt his arc last season and this are its own thing, by and large, much closer to how Blaine's storylines work on the show.

And maybe it will turn out he didn't kill the guy or they come up with a dumb forgiveness plot line that no one buys, but I'd argue this story has always been part of the tone and nature of the show, it has escalated, like Blaine's plans.
posted by humans are superior! at 9:30 AM on October 16, 2015


Exactly what I fear. We better not be expected to overlook the whole murdering innocent people thing at any point in the future.
posted by Justinian at 12:18 PM on October 16, 2015


The excuse is apparently that they're, you know, zombies and not actual people. But they've already established with Liv and so on that zombies are actual people at least until they go long enough without sustenance and start ravening.

I think the situation is somewhat more complex than that. Major's exposure to zombies has been exactly two groups:

A) Liv, who is relatively benign, and he's giving a pass. Her food source is ethical, even helpful, but it's too limited to sustain more than a handful of zombies.

Also, she still turned Major against his will, after a laundry list of horrifying betrayals, (most of which were not justifiable). That's gotta leave some deep scars. Past that, she demonstrated just what an efficient disease zombie-ism is: the fact we don't have an apocalypse going on is a bit of a plot hole, given that all they have to do is scratch you.

B) A bunch of ghouls who were systematically killing and eating people he cared about without any kind of remorse. I mean... the notion that Julien Dupont was a human being and deserved a fair trial is a hard sell. (Major *did* let the chef go, only to have her try to knife him. Not winning any reprieve for zombie-kind there.)

He hasn't really seen them from the perspective of the audience. It seems to me that he isn't sparing Liv because she's a person so much as he can't let her go. He loved her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her, and that's a big thing to drop, even without her still mostly looking and sounding like 'live'-Liv.

For my money, the only thing he's doing wrong here is not trying to get the CDC involved instead of letting Max Rager call the shots. Maybe he, too, saw The Strain and realized it would be hopeless.
posted by mordax at 8:42 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also - before I take a break and let someone else talk:

Despite disagreeing with you guys, I am actually happy this is a thing people are talking about with iZombie. A lot of genre shows seem to embrace the notion that only taking human lives matters - vampires, demons and whatnot are fair game simply because they're supernatural baddies. That really, really put me off on Buffy, for instance.

Despite falling on the 'argh, destroy or contain them' side of the divide, I really love that both the characters on the show and at least some of the audience are leaping to 'it's murder because they're sapient.' (I mostly lean that way due to how wicked virulent they are, and the fact that they literally cannot feed without human death, unlike most versions of vampires and so on.)
posted by mordax at 8:55 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


At the party, Liv proclaims "Are you not entertained?!" which I believe is from the movie Gladiator. Those freshmen were about 3 years old when that movie came out.
posted by Pong74LS at 10:01 PM on October 17, 2015


I wondered about that too, but the meme has apparently thrived.
posted by mordax at 4:43 PM on October 18, 2015


I'm catching up...from a bad lag. I enjoyed this episode quite a bit, though it seemed Liv appeared to be influenced by her Frat brain a bit more than she might have other brains. It's okay, though, still entertaining!

Perhaps my one hang up, which is about as nit picky as one can get, was the decision by the writers to let Chad (the victim to be) quote Mark Antony from Julius Caesar before being stabbed to death. I suppose it was enough that he was quoting THAT play, but...um, yeah. Rarr!

I'm kinda disappointed in Blaine hitting up the drugs. I suppose it's better than him pursuing something else, like extreme wing gliding or something, but I always tend to feel drug dependency on a television show like this smells like an easy out to dealing with a character's problems. "Let's have him start using drugs!" Eh...
posted by Atreides at 7:16 AM on November 2, 2015


"I got your deets from a Jamaican dude at the morgue."
posted by ODiV at 7:10 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm not quite buying why Ravi is getting a pass from Major about ALSO totally lying to him, allowing him to think he's crazy, totally participating actively in covering for Liv, etc etc etc.

Sure, a betrayal from your fiancee is deeper than your pal, but still. He and Ravi are only friends because of Liv. It seems weird that the only fallout was "minor weirdness" for a short time then forgotten.
posted by desuetude at 9:48 PM on April 2, 2016


I might be bean plating, but this is the place for it eh?

- Liv's "anything but clothes" dress was crime scene tape, symbolic of how she thinks her body is dangerous
-Gilda's "anything but clothes" dress was a garbage bag, symbolic of her critical self image.
posted by LegallyBread at 6:51 AM on June 1, 2018


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