Look, a lot of important things happened on “Zombie Bro,” but the best part of the episode was the truly epic alibi for murder one couple had. I love it and this show. Everyone should be watching iZombie.
Spoilers ahead.
At some point, this show is going to run out of stereotypes for Liv to eat the brains of. And, at some point, I’m going to get tired of the joke of Liv acting like someone else. And, very, very soon Babineaux’s lack of curiosity over Liv’s mood swings is going to be a problem. (This week he said she was like “that box of chocolates from Forrest Gump: You never know what you’re going to get.” All I need is one line from Liv that is just “My visions come with a weird bit of personality transfer” and I’ll be good with this.)
But all of that is in the future. Last night we had frat bro Liv and I loved it so much. It was stupid, but I’m such an easy mark. Like, I wish I hadn’t laughed at this:
But I’m actually crying just looking at it.
The mystery of the week is the murder of a frat brother, who it turns out was accidentally killed because he had a name similar to the hit-and-run driver who killed the murderer’s father. The way they put the pieces together is actually fairly well plotted. But the best bit is that Liv and Babineaux use surveillance footage to figure out that the killer is a man in a blue furry monster costume.
And when they haul in the couple that rented it, their alibi? Is that they’re furries. Which, no judgment. It’s actually brilliant. Babineaux is singularly uninterested in any details about what they were doing. Liv demands information and pictures, and Babineaux shuts her down. And by the time they get the costume back for DNA analysis, it’s already been laundered. It even almost works!
Plus, on rewatch you can see the girl’s face is less “admitting to a kink I know I’ll be mocked for” and more “suddenly blurting out the only defense I can think of.” It’s really good.
iZombie brought the comedy hard this week. The other major (pun not intended, I swear) plot line was Ravi deciding that he needed to take Utopia so he knew more about the drug he was dealing with. Ravi takes Major with him, and their interactions are the best that Major ever is. He tells Ravi that he’ll be calling his make-up beardo “Princess Sparkles” from now on. Their exchange trying to find a drug dealer is excellent. Ravi points out that, last season, Major bought a grenade out of a trunk. Major responds, “You want a bazooka? If you want a bazooka I can get you a bazooka in 15 minutes. At cost!”
It’s a shame these genuinely good Major interactios are paired with the worst possible development for the character. At the end of the episode, he’s getting high to deal with his ruined relationship with Liv, his being blackmailed into murdering people, and his ex-zombie status. Major was a drag on the plot of all of last season, and this plotline seems to determined to make him one again. Oh god do I not care about sudden-drug-addict Major.
In other news, Blaine has daddy issues. Because of course he does. Blaine is basically a walking stereotype of a villain at this point. And, in order to keep his power structure alive, he’s having a make-up artist paint his face in zombie drag. David Anders is a treasure in this role, delivering lines like “More milky Tilda Swinton, less Casper’s ass” with ease. A mostly comedic episode like this one really lets the cast shine, and they are great.
Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.