iZombie Review: "Max Wager"

The main lesson to learn from "Max Wager" is to never lose faith in the writing of Rob Thomas and his staff. Major has been going down a dark path pretty much since he lost his job as a social worker, and it was nice to see just how quickly the writers could redeem so many of those dark aspects of his life in this episode. The major reveal (seriously, no pun intended) came at the end of the episode where it is revealed that Major has only been putting his zombie targets in frozen hibernation, and not killing them. Ever since his first "killing" I thought Major's methods left a lot of room for doubt, but the guilt that he was consumed by was so convincing that I went along with the idea that Major had turned into a killer despite any evidence to the contrary. Yet again, the writers should be praised for how believable they made it all seem.

Showing that Major wasn't a monster capable of killing innocent people was the only logical way to redeem his character, but the show still got some nice mileage off of the concept of how far Major would go to protect Liv. The best part of this episode, however, was being able to see Major resemble his old self a little more. The scene where Peyton and Ravi find out Liv and Major are back together was hilarious. Major's "suffer bitch" line was easily the funniest moment on television all week. Robert Buckley handles comedy well, and so do the show's writers. It was nice to see that utilized where it hasn't been in so long.

Things did happen outside of Major, though. The case of the week was dud, but the show has long since moved past that being the main focus. It did give Liv a mildly entertaining, if not narratively unnecessary personality to play with this week. Blaine had a very morbid, and sure to be emotionally disturbing in the future, plot line involving his serious daddy issues. Lastly Peyton ran into a threat that is sure to come back around in the future. Overall it was decent episode for most characters, but Major's redemption made this episode a bright spot in a slightly dark season.