iZombie “Flight of the Living Dead” Recap
This week Liv found one of her own college friends impaled by a large tree branch. She’d always been known for being reckless, but skydiving without a parachute seemed like too much even for her. But as we already saw in the opening sequence, she had been diving out a plane as a publicity stunt for an energy drink called “Max Rager. ” Toxicity tests showed the drug GHB (a roofie) fresh in her system at the time of impact. Now, thanks to her death, all the company workers who were in that plane are suspects.
Though the death of Holly made her sad, there was only one way Liv could help her, and that was to eat her. So did we get Reckless Skydiving Liv as a result? Not so much. The effects of Holly’s brain only amounted to Liv developing a zest to ride her bike around town and little more, but I understand why she can’t be overwhelmed by personality traits every single week. It’d get tired.
Liv’s roommate knew Holly too and she struck up a conversation with Liv about her, which led to them watching an internet video Holly was in, which in turn led to Liv getting Vision #1: Lowell Casey, a man Liv saw near the crime scene (played by Ryan Hansen in a smooth accent), yelling at Holly on the plane. I would say it’s never the first suspect, but iZombie already broke that cliche once, and Hansen was skeevy Dick Casablancas on Veronica Mars.
So they bring Lowell in for questioning, and he gets the distinction of being the very first person to get the pun in Liv’s name (“Live More?”) They ask him about the events surrounding the fatality, then try to check the footage from the helmet cams the jumpers were wearing to verify his story. It turns out they can’t because the company deleted all the video. Obviously, somebody working for “Max Rager” has something to hide.
They bring in two more who were present that day: Lowell’s friend Carson and Carson’s girlfriend Eliza. They claim “nah, that’s totally not suspicious, we had to wipe the footage for policy reasons,” but Liv doesn’t buy it, especially when another vision casts more suspicion on Carson.
Snooping in Carson’s room during Holly’s memorial, Liv finds a notepad with all the pages pre-signed by a doctor. It smells like the perfect way to score some GHB under the radar, and she’s certain she found a smoking gun. Unfortunately Lowell walks into the room at that moment. Fortunately, he’s more interested in Liv herself and starts pouring on the charm — and some drinks, which he adds some peppers and hot sauce to. Wait a minute…..to both? How would he know unless…..unless he…..
LOWELL’S A ZOMBIE! He explains to Liv the reason he acted so weird on the plane was because the anxiety of skydiving was turning him “full zombie” and he had to leap out before he changed completely. Liv doesn’t suspect Lowell anymore, and in fact, he’s starting to turn her on.
Clive and Liv call Carson back into interrogation, but he claims innocence when confronted with the pad. He says it’s Eliza who must have written the GHB prescription as she didn’t like Holly and had several reasons to get rid of her. Clive orders Carson to stay in the room while they check out that story — which turns out to be 100% legit, as Eliza bolts the moment the police arrive, leaving her dinner cooking in the oven. Another case solved by zombies.
Clive was repeatedly hassled this episode by one of those stock, by-the-book “you’re out of control, main character, I’ll have your badge!” police chiefs that every cop show inevitably has. “Well, here we go again,” I thought, and then in his last scene, when no one was looking, Chief discreetly poured some hot sauce into his coffee. HAH!
This all raises the question of how many zombies there really are in Seattle, which Liv herself has wondered on more than one occasion. If it’s even close to the number of Wesen in Portland, the place must be a brain-eating shamblefest.
Major had his own subplot, continuing from the previous episodes. We didn’t see Blaine this time, but we did see the effects of his operation. By now, Eddie and Jerome have been absent from the halfway house for a noticeable period of time, and their friends and family are starting to worry. Major decides to conduct his own detective work to find out what’s going on. His search leads him right to the skate park, where he discovers a LOT of people have been disappearing. It makes you wonder why they would hang around there at all once the missing persons posters started seriously wallpapering that board.
He runs right into one of the thug zombies now working for Blaine, and notices he’s now wearing Jerome’s shoes. It’s obvious to Major that guy has to know something, and when his questions get shrugged off, he becomes furious. Major tries to pick a fight, but he’s way outclassed by the thug, especially when Thug goes half-zombie and knocks him halfway across the area.
The last time we see Major he is unconscious and bleeding, laying on the blacktop of a crime-infested skate park while unfeeling jackasses skate around him and ignore him. One minute later we’re at the morgue and they bring a body in, and I thought “NO….THEY DIDN’T.”
Liv opened the bag, and there was an immediate cut to her riding the bike through the Seattle metropolis while narrating about how fulfilled she felt, and then the episode ended. So I take it that wasn’t Major.
Line Of Interest: As soon as Liv is shocked out of her first vision, her oblivious roommate nonchalantly replies from offscreen, “Don’t you think it’s freaky that Facebook knows when you’re thinking about buying boots and reducing body fat?”