Major gets to watch the children of the zombie he
murdered tearfully appeal for any information about their poor dad. Have ALL
THE GUILT WEASELS!
Now to as frat party involving drinks and fancy dress
(see, I did do a lot of drinking at university and not all of it was
particularly well clothed but is this fancy dress drinking an American
university thing like those plastic cups and beer with virtually no alcohol in
it?) One of the partiers, Chad, gets stabbed. I’m assuming this isn’t normal
party behaviour (though an understandable response to being offered American
beer)
Liv and Ravi show up for some nice snark and
investigation – and possible utopian (zombie drug) link with more snark and
Clive appealing for Liv’s psychicness. And by psychicness we mean brain eating
visions and getting in the head of a frat boy
There follows interviews with far too many “bros”. Liv is
enjoying herself a lot – Chad has a lot of friends but also pulled far too many
pranks. We do get a vision about one guy who isn’t so happy – because he made
the guy streak; unknowingly past a primary school which got him arrested and
labelled a sex offender. That’s pretty much a career killer, he’s still in the
frat for the connections to have some future. Ouch.
They do identify the costume the killer was wearing and
poor Clive has finally begun to comment on how random Liv is due to her diet
adjusted personality
A personality that also pushes her to prank Ravi while he’s
asleep – poor Ravi (the make up can be removed, the “fart” written on his head
less so). This leads to a vision identifying another potential suspect
Meanwhile Ravi is giving Major a post-cure check up and
explaining why his beard has glitter in it – and how Ravi is having trouble
working on the cure. He tries to convince Major to help his research by taking
drugs and/or watching Ravi take drugs and isn’t above blatant guilt tripping to
make it work (these two are so much fun together. But then everyone is fun on
this show). Him being there means he runs into Liv for an awkward we’re-not-ready-for-a-reunion-reunion
which isn’t exactly helped by Liv’s casual mention of being on frat boy brains –
Major tries to make a thing of it but Liv very rightly says “it’s a fact of my
life.”
It doesn’t end well.
A few steps later and Liv and her spy-room-mate Gilda go to a
no-clothes frat party in Chad’s name. Of course. Liv instantly falls to
partying and having immense fun before discovering one of the more misogynist
events the frat partakes in – the “dog fight” where they invite ugly girls to
party
While Ravi and Major go through with Ravi’s plan to buy
drugs – except they’re both ridiculous inept at it. They do manage, almost
despite themselves, and Ravi takes the drug and logs his feelings while on it.
Then Major takes it as well. Of course.
This ends up with Major passing out in a toilet and Liv
being called to collect him and Ravi – still dressed in police tape. Major
throws away Liv’s phone making a vague comment about “them always listening”
which likely refers to Max Rager.
Liv plays doctor (which she is, we recall (to poor Major
and he even asks her to stay. And cuddles with her (d’aaaawwww). He also
promises not to let anything happen to her (extra d’aawww).
The next day they follow up on the “dog fight” lead and a
new suspect, though Liv is rightly upset that telling the woman why she was
invited would be pretty crushing to her.
Blaine is still running his funeral home as a cover for
drug dealing – and muscling in on the Utopian trade (with a more intense
product) to take down “Mr. Boss.” He also shows one of his new human minions
that zombies exist. He dispatches his minion, Speedy
Ravi finds writing up his notes difficult given the state
of his voice notes (or the state of him when making his voice notes) when they
bring in the guy who sold him drugs – dead after torture. We have a brief cut
to dear Speedy panicking to Blaine who quickly cuts him off. Looks like Mr.
Boss is unthrilled with someone trying to muscle in on his business.
Blaine decides to respond by going to the DA (a contact
because he is a zombie) and enlisting his help to bring down Mr. Boss – though he’s
so very powerful that the DA doesn’t think he can do it – but Blaine has
craftily forced him into it.
Blaine also visits his dad, Angus, a very wealthy man who
he has turned into a zombie (yes, he turned his dad). Yes his dad is pretty
much an awful person which is no surprise.
Back to the crime – in a twist – Liv and Clive finally
get the real killer when they realise the killer made a terrible mistake and
actually killed the wrong Chad (yes there are two Chads which is a very
depressing thing), drawing on clues that were there for a while but I missed. Nicely
done iZombie. The killer is pretty devastated to realise he killed the wrong
man
Liv makes another attempt to connect with Major after
their night with him lying on her lap – but he refuses to see her. He is in his
room, taking Utopia.
Major and Liv I actually quite like – it would have been
easy to have Major get over his angst over Liv pretty quickly – but it’s more
real to have him continue to be struggling. He isn’t over it and can’t just
swallow the idea of Liv eating brains because – well, who would? Realistically
that’s a lot to swallow. At the same time I quite like Liv’s response – he’s
now in on the big secret, she doesn’t have to lie to him, in fact her lying to
him was part of the rift between them. So when he comments on her altered
behaviour she tells him the truth – because how else do you explain Liv’s
personality swings? And if they are going to move on and have any kind of
relationship then, yes, he needs to understand that Liv needs to eat brains and
they won’t be moving on if he sinks into denial.
I find the way they represented the “dog fight” also
interesting – it would have been predictable to just use it to point out how
much of an arsehole Chad was, but instead I think the prime concern for Liv and
how the show presented it was how it hurt someone.
Blaine’s plotting is both Machiavellian and excellent
social commentary. He deliberately set up a situation where the crime boss
would kill his dealers – affluent, white, attractive men. It’s a pointed note –
especially along with the zombie victims last season (homeless, often POC,
poor) – about which deaths matter, which will be ignored and who society
actually cares about. “Protecting rich white kids is your job.”
