iZombie Review: "Dead Beat" and "Salivation Army"

Last night's two episode iZombie season finale was a perfect ending to a show that has never been anything less than good, and is often really great. For all of the plots the show had developed over the course of this season, it gave most of them very satisfying conclusions, and kept the rest open in ways that give the show's writers plenty of fun ideas to work with next season. Being two episodes, there's a lot to dig into here, so let's get started.

"Dead Beat" was centered around the cliffhanger from last week's episode, where Dale arrested Major for being the Chaos Killer. I admire the efficiency with which this episode dealt with all of the issues that have plagued Major this season. The episode allowed Liv to be completely caught off guard by the accusations Dale and Clive made against Major, but once Ravi let her in on Major's secret, it didn't dwell on it. Ravi already had that big emotional moment a couple episodes ago, so the show didn't need to recreate that with Liv. By the end of the episode, Major thankfully was done dealing with all of the crimes he had or hadn't committed, and while those things might come back, it was the right narrative move to wrap all of that up before the final episode.

The real story of "Dead Beat," however, was Clive finally being let in on Liv's zombie secret. I understand why the show waited until now to let Clive in on the secret. He had to be built up as a character worthy of knowing the secret. In season one, Clive was more plot device than character, and season two has done an excellent job of slowly building his friendship with Liv. This felt earned, and immediately Clive feels like a much more important character just for knowing. It also meant that Dale had to exit the show, but the story could only support her character for so long. The scene where Dale confronts Clive about sabotaging the cases against Major, gave Malcolm Goodwin the chance to do his best dramatic acting on the show to date.

"Dead Beat" was necessary for the story, but "Salivation Army" was like a pure rush of adrenaline. Almost every character got in on the action in this episode, and it allowed each character to show just how great they can be. Blaine got to show off his heroic side by taking out Boss's henchmen to save Peyton, much to the consternation of Ravi, who felt like he had failed Peyton right after he had just started to rebuild his relationship with her. In Ravi's defense, he had just risked his life saving Liv in "Dead Beat," and Rahoul Kohli displayed some great acting chops in the aftermath of that scene. The finale used Blaine as an ally to Live and friends for most of both episodes, but the show has still left it up in the air as to how much Blaine remembers of his old life, and whether or not hell stay an ally long-term. That works for Blaine though, as he is a character best not tied down too much by any one narrative. My guess is he'll stay "good" just long enough to cause trouble between Ravi and Peyton.

The highlight of the episode, was the zombie outbreak at the Max Rager party. This was the most ambitious episode the show has ever tried, and it worked wonderfully. The episode is an ode to the zombie genre's history, with some really great twists. Liv and Major being on trained killer brain, allowed them to have the perfect skills to fight a zombie outbreak, which made for a lot of the episode's more fun action heavy moments. Major finally was able to rid himself of Voughn and Rita in a way that was satisfying, given all of the things they put Major through this season. The show's writers clearly have a sense of poetic justice, having Vaughn die in an elevator at the hands of his daughter.

From a technical standpoint, everything about the zombie outbreak scenes was impressive, and from a storytelling standpoint, it reaffirmed how great Liv is a character while highlighting the strong choices the writers have made about Major and Clive this season. Seeing Clive fight off zombies, was the most interesting and fun his character has been so far. Comic book shows often struggle with the idea of when to let characters in on secrets, and Clive is just further proof that it is always better to let characters in on the secret.

Major was the big surprise for me. In past reviews I said I didn't think Major would work as a full time zombie, but these last few episodes have proven me wrong. Major's time as the Chaos Killer has changed him as a character, and seeing that change manifest itself in how he has handled turning back into a zombie has been on of the more interesting recent plot developments. The fact that Major is living (or not living?) on borrowed time went largely unaddressed in the finale, so he'll still have that to deal with next season.

Given how many different plots the show had running at any given time this season, the writers did a remarkable job of paring everything down for a fun finale that paid homage to the zombie genre, while also taking advantage of all of the show's best qualities.

Other thoughts:

• On top of everything else in the finale, Liv was forced to kill a zombified Drake. I don't think the moment had the impact the writers intended, because the episode had so many other things going on, but I expect to see the topic revisited next season. 
• A lot of times celebrity cameos on shows are not great. Everything about the Rob Thomas cameo in "Salivation Army" was perfect. Liv's, "this is how a skull breaks" line was great. 
• Major brought up the zombie call girl way too much at the end of the episode for me to think that we won't hear more about her, seeing as she was unaccounted for at the end of the episode. Maybe I'm wrong, but we'll hear about her in season three. 
• Ravi's work on the cure didn't really get addressed in the two episodes, which is fine, cause that's a storyline the show will obviously keep having to revisit. 
• Peyton was around for both episodes of the finale and personally, I think it's about time they make her a regular character instead of just a frequent guest star. She has proved herself as a valuable member of the team, and Liv is currently the show's only regular female character. 
• The big issue heading into season three will be Liv's proposition by Max Rager's new owner, Vivian, to join her in making Seattle the zombie capital of the world. Could the show be setting up an X-Men situation where zombies have to take sides with or against the humans? Time will tell, but that could be an interesting premise for next season. The show just needs to be careful that they don't do too much world expanding too quickly. 
• When I made my top ten shows of 2015 list, I ranked iZombie as the fourth best show of the year. While rankings are fairly arbitrary, the very strong second half of this season has made the show a very strong contender for a high spot on my 2016 list. 

iZombie Review: "Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be"

With a show like iZombie, which balances procedural murder-of-the-week stories with a multitude of season (or even series) long serialized stories, there's always the risk of relying too much on the serialized part of the show. This week's episode, "Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be," fell into that trap more than any other episode has this season. That's not to say that it was a bad episode, just not one that did a particularly good job of standing on its own.

The episode starts with Major finally letting someone, in this case Ravi, in on his secret identity as the Chaos Killer. On the one hand, this story arc has resulted in some great character development on Major's part, and given the show a sense of danger. Voughn and his Max Eager cohorts have always been a more menacing threat than Boss or Blaine, and the show deserves credit for exploring that. On the other hand, the comic book trope of keeping secrets to "protect" people has been done to death (especially on The CW's DC Comics shows), and in most cases hurts shows more than it helps them. I'd say the show has done a fair job of rewarding the audience for this frustrating plot, and that's due to the show's very strong writing. Even the most annoying plot devices can be overlooked when the character development and writing are as strong as they are on a show like this.

All of this of course resulted in that final scene where it appears Major is about to go into full on zombie mode on Dale and the FBI team she brought with her. The show has done a great job of ending these last few episodes with explosive moments, but the events leading up to this week's cliffhanger seemed like a bit of a stretch. Dale didn't have the authority to override a local DA when she was trying to put Blaine away for outstanding crimes, but she has no problem getting a team of FBI agents to hunt down Major based on a woman saying she recognized his dog? That one's a bit of a stretch. That being said, having Dale figure out that Major is a zombie was a necessary plot move heading into next week's finale.

The rest of the episode focused mostly on the case and the drug war, both of which tied together, but neither of which proved to be particularly entertaining. I'm glad that the show found room to fit Enrico Colantoni in, but I wish his part weren't so directly tied to the least interesting part of the show. It's pretty clear this isn't the last we'll be seeing of his character, so hopefully the writers will have better luck with future endeavors.

Next week is an extended finale, and it will be interesting to see how all of the show's many plot lines play out.

Other thoughts:

• Two murders in one school year? Someone needs to shut that school down. 
• It will be interesting to see what the show plans to do with Gilda, now that we know she's alive.
• Dale encouraging Clive to apply for the FBI job is a waste of time, cause obviously Clive is an essential part of the show. 
• While the drug war is the least interesting part of the show, the writers deserve a lot of credit for making it relevant to real issues. 

iZombie Review: "Pour Some Sugar, Zombie"

This week's iZombie didn't quite live up to last week's episode, which left a lot of questions unanswered, but it did end with a bang and provide some pretty entertaining moments. The case of the week/brain of the week ended being one of the better recent ones. Liv's natural personality is fairly calm and reserved, so it was nice to see her stuck with a take charge personality that is always ready for a fight and a witty comment. Sure, it was a lot like the time Liv was on desperate housewife brain, but it was definitely more fun. The episode also proved to be a nice showcase for Peyton.

Peyton almost completely stays out of Liv's zombie affairs, so it was fun to see her react to Liv's bizarre behavior, especially given how professional Peyton is about her job. The case itself was more complex than most of the recent cases have been (and by that I mean that the murderer wasn't the most obvious suspect), and that's nice to see from the show every now and then. These cases stopped being the driving force in the show a long time ago, but if the writers never present a complex or interesting one, then they will eventually just become an annoyance to the audience.

Answering some other questions from last week, Gilda indeed became a zombie, but we didn't get to see much of that since she was promptly abducted by Voughn's henchman Janko. It's either a very good sign or a very bad sign for Gilda that her father chose to use Janko instead of Major to abduct her. On the one hand, Voughn might have plans to help her (pause for laughter), or he might want to discreetly eliminate his daughter. Either way, the show is keeping that to itself for now.

Live also gained some answers to the questions she had regarding Drake in last week's episode. After being visited by a detective from the Vice squad, and asked about Drake's whereabouts, Liv finally visited Drake's mom to find answers. During that encounter, Liv learned what we have known for a few episodes now, that Drake was an undercover cop working for Boss. She's still in the dark about Major abducting him though.

The major question that this episode answered, was what affect the emergency cure had on Blaine. As I suspected after last week's episode, there had to be a significant side effect to this cure, and it turns out that the side effect is memory loss that became increasingly worse over the course of the episode. I can't imagine this will be a permanent change, but for now, Blaine has traded being human for the memory of who he was.

The highlight of the episode was Ravi confronting Major after discovering that he is the Chaos Killer. There were plenty of hints in the episode that hinted at Major turning back into a zombie, but the scene was still very effective, especially as a vehicle for Rahoul Kohli to show off his acting chops. Kohli is often given more comedic material on the show. so it's nice when the writers let him showcase his dramatic side.