I’m not saying being a stalker or a crazy jealous girlfriend is a good thing in real life, but, story-wise, it’s good for Liv to be a bit suspicious of Major as last night’s iZombie episode “The Hurt Stalker” proved.
Spoilers...
Instead of either a massive episode focusing on one of the season-long plotlines or a small case of the week episode, “The Hurt Stalker” was all about the relationships of the characters.
A wedding planner with a slight penchant for stalking turns up dead, and all the evidence points to Clive Babineaux. She was the lady delivering a package to Dale, and it wasn’t zombie related. Nice fake out, show. It contains a photoshopped version of Clive and the victim’s possible life together—you know, a wedding they didn’t have, vacations they didn’t go on, and so forth.
With Clive on suspension, Liv and Ravi are investigating solo, and Liv is having a hell of a time on the stalker brain. It leads her to go through Major’s phone, where she finds are the sexy texts that Gilda/Rita sent him when they were having “help me deal with all my murders” sex. Sadly, there are no “Hey, who u murder 2day?” texts from Vaughn Du Clark on Major’s phone, which would have made my day.
Sadly, Liv doesn’t figure out that “Rita”from Max Rager is also “Gilda” her roommate and, you know, a Max Rager spy. A little more stalking would probably be a good idea, just in this case.
Back in the murder plot, the victim had a nasty tendency to go after cops and, once dumped, send the new significant other one of those creepy photo albums. Outside of Babineaux, there’s the owner of a laundry and her cop husband. Also the new chief of police. Rooting around in his car gets Liv caught, and she ends up spending some time in lock-up. This is bad for her zombie side, and she almost eats an annoying cellmate before Ravi gets her a brain shake.
I’ll commend the show for not making the new chief the murderer, which I fully expected, especially once he stole evidence and tossed Liv in jail. It’s the dry-cleaning wife, who wanted to scare the victim into leaving her alone, and also to get her grandmother’s engagement ring back, which the victim stole. Yeah, everyone involved in this particular plot is an asshole.
One dimension I loved about this story was the recognition that Ravi and Liv don’t actually know that much about Clive. He’s their partner, but not their real friend. Dale, who just showed up, knows tons more than they do—he cooks and is a huge Game of Thrones fan, for example. I liked seeing Ravi poke at Clive’s nerd side for a reaction, and then Clive bringing them food and hanging out. He should know more! Granted, that’s going to make Liv’s zombie betrayal even worse, but still.
In related news, Max Rager’s latest drink “Super Max” is also a key ingredient in creating super-zombies, which seems like a horrible plan. Also, Du Clark then volunteers to try the drink, which is also a horrible plan, because itmakes him even more violent and unstable. No way this becomes everyone’s problem.
Photo credits: Diyah Pera/The CW.
Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.