iZombie: Real Dead Housewife of Seattle

October 21, 2015 4:09 PM - Season 2, Episode 3

Liv eats the brains of a recently murdered trophy wife who was pushed to her death from the balcony of her stunning architectural home in the hills by a hired hit man. A Pinot Grigio-sipping, suddenly fashion obsessed Liv and Detective Babineaux begin questioning suspects in their search for the original brains behind this murder. Meanwhile, Liv and Ravi are surprised to learn that Peyton has returned to Seattle.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich (10 comments total)

Steven Weber as "Vaughn" is pretty great, isn't he? I especially enjoyed his deft dodge of the water Liv attempted to throw in his face and his insouciance afterwards. Oh, and him jauntily waving "hello" when Liv and Major looked their way while they were talking.

Personally, I think every adopted personality of LIv's is far more annoying than funny. What bothers me is that the stereotypes are both so broad and also feel very tired to me. Like, 90s or something. It's not as if I know any thirty-year-old trophy wives in Seattle, but I just have this strong impression that this isn't actually a caricature that resonates. A number of the cultural references in this show feel sort of like 90s relics, to me. I mean, hey, I'm 51, but sometimes when I watch this show, I wonder if actual twentysomethings look at these characters and assume they were written by people my age.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:25 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Liv was hilarious in this episode as her trophy wife-affected self.

I can't help but notice that her cop partner routinely weathers the worst parts of her brain-added episodes. I have no idea how he can stand her.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:20 PM on October 21, 2015

I find that I'm increasingly annoyed that they're continuing to run with the thing of him being comically befuddled by her personality changes when, at this point, it's absurd that he hasn't understood that it's that she temporarily picks up the personality of their crime victims.

And maybe he has -- sometimes he looks more annoyed and nonplussed than befuddled. So maybe he has made the connection. But, even so, the show hasn't clarified that for the audience. And so these beats with him responding to her antics are now like almost breaking the fourth wall for me -- like they should be accompanied by a rim shot and mugging for the camera.

They don't need to be hesitant about this because, as I think we discussed last season, it doesn't necessarily give anything away about the zombie stuff. He thinks Liv is a psychic and she's never really explained how the psychic stuff all works to him. Maybe the visions come with some personality transfer -- maybe it's like the ghost's spirit temporarily infects her, which is why she experiences some of the memories. Who knows? You could hand-wave some psychic stuff away that approximates very closely what's happening with the brain eating, and then Clive can continue to react to Liv being different and weird without it also making it seem like he's an idiot who brings a psychotic person along with him to crime scenes.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:04 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

We use to be friends .....

@wimper@

Great episode for Steven Weber. I think he did a good job of becoming as credible a threat as Blaine.
posted by humans are superior! at 10:37 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think Babineaux just assumes it's part of the "psychic link" Liv claims to have with the victims. But I hope he finds out the truth about Liv soon, I think he would be a great ally for Liv.
posted by Pendragon at 3:11 AM on October 22, 2015

Maybe it's too much to hope for in terms of writing quality, Ivan, but I have a theory that's part of a plan. I'm hoping that the show is gradually setting up that her cop partner is icy and DGAF. I mean, look at his terse blowoffs ("Can't. Busy."), his insistence on targeting Major. I have this suspicion that him not acknowledging her personality swings is part of a larger pattern of him seeing her as strictly a distasteful means to an end.

I think it would make the show immeasurably better and more interesting if he just hated her and willfully exploited her. It would give another level of conflict for Liv to struggle against, dramatically speaking.

More likely, it is just sloppy writing and her cop ally is just a surly buddy-in-development with his head in his ass.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on October 22, 2015

I think letting Clive in on the secret would make him function too much like Ravi as a character, who is already being underused.

I think it would make the show immeasurably better and more interesting if he just hated her and willfully exploited her. It would give another level of conflict for Liv to struggle against, dramatically speaking.

Yeah, it makes more sense to set Clive up as an unintentional antagonist. But they've got to do something with him soon. Even early in season 1 it didn't make sense that he's a detective who for some reason has no questions about the coroner's unexplained psychic powers and bizarre behavior.
posted by zixyer at 1:45 PM on October 22, 2015

We use to be friends .....

I had to pause the episode and explain to Mrs. Fish why I cracked up at that line.

And yeah, Weber was really good here. There was no David Anders and I barely even missed him!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:05 PM on October 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I kinda think the adopting personalities thing would be more bearable if it only happened to Liv for some reason. I don't know why it's this particular point for me, but having a bunch of zombies including Blaine all going off the deep end like this every time they eat is what breaks my immersion. Yeah, I have no idea either, I guess I'm just weird.
posted by ODiV at 5:54 PM on February 28, 2016

The personality thing is annoying because everybody she eats turns out to be a one dimensional caricature. Most people are boring and unremarkable 90% of the time, with a few weird character quirks. Liv is pure quirk.

Not really enjoying the season too much. Major's sad feels about having to commit murder for hire on a regular basis is just not working for me. This particular murder was boring as heck, I could barely follow the plot because I wasn't interested enough not to be surfing while watching. It just feels like one or two minutes of advancing the plot in the beginning of each episode, 35 minutes of repetitive police procedural, and then another two or three minutes of advancing the pot. Hopefully it picks up later in the season like they did last time.
posted by skewed at 12:12 AM on July 27, 2017