iZombie “Astroburger” Recap
Well. I can say, as of now, iZombie is one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had all season. And if you ask me why, I’ll tell you: no other show has given me a talking CGI devil on a chips bag. Not even Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Remember the weird grinning guy who came up to Major at the end of last week’s episode and flat out told him he’d been at the Lake Washington boat party, he was one of the few to get away, and that he knew zombies existed? This week he started the episode out dead. Suicide at first glance, but not to anyone with the least bit of coroner’s experience: it was obvious somebody poisoned the guy, stuffed him in a tub and then slit his wrists, which barely turned the water pink.
To gather intel on exactly who could have done it, Liv and Clive have to visit Scott E’s closest contact….um, Major. This marks Liv and Major’s first SOBER meeting since their breakup. Major didn’t really see Scott as a close contact; more like they played a lot of chess and he wouldn’t leave Major alone. At one point in this scene a nurse says Major’s full name, and I’m going to reserve my thoughts on that for an annotation at the end of this recap, because I think the show just accidentally gave me a giant spoiler.
Scott was a schizophrenic and, lately, had been seeing and hearing the devil everywhere. Now, so is Liv…anytime she runs across a bag of Hellfire Cheesy Puffs, the red man with horns on the package starts growling wisecracks in a gravelly voice. This is best executed when Liv runs across a vending machine filled with them, who start singing “WE KNOW WHO THE KILLER IIIIS!” This episode was so good that I almost didn’t write about this part — from typing everything else, I was over the word limit already.
As Liv learns from her first brain-induced vision, Scott had been having a secret affair with someone in that institution…but since she was only visible from the legs up, it could be anyone. Then Major takes Liv aside and tells her privately what Scott told him. Liv gets the strangest look on her face — how does she play this, will she laugh or lie or….before she can pick a choice, Major also tells her Scott recorded the whole incident on his phone and before he croaked was going to show that video not just to Major, but to a friend “in the media.” Yipes!
Unfortunately Scott’s phone was stolen from his room and will be hard to track down. But Liv gets help. Scott’s media friend is weatherman Johnny Frost, who agrees to help Liv search for the missing phone. They eventually find Scott’s laptop, and the tracking software reveals an assistant working at the institution was swiping medicine and valuables to sell on the black market. Was he also the murderer?
It turns out no, it wasn’t him…it was Dr. Maddie Larson, who worked at the institution and was whooping it up with Scott. Once she became pregnant, Scott threatened her with blackmail, leading her to slip him the wrong pills and stage his suicide.
Liv has the phone, but it’s not over yet…she can’t access anything without a password. While she’s been trying to figure all this out, Major has left the institution and been staying at her apartment. He seems surprisingly open, and grows ever closer to Liv as the episode goes by. At one point he says to her “Why did we ever break up?” Liv also, very visibly, missed Major, and wonders if this is the time….
Then, in front of Major and to my surprise, Liv spilled everything: the truth about zombies, her condition, and why she had to abandon him. How about his stay in the booby hatch, which Liv could have stopped at any time by telling him earlier? Surely he’s a bit sore about that? ….Nope, he’s thrilled that she was finally honest (he’d pieced together most of it already, after all) and gives her a warm hug. Boy, that escalated quickly….maybe too quickly?
Blaine doesn’t want the cell phone video discovered either, but he has his own ways of dealing with it. He and his posse break into the convicted assistant’s apartment and start throwing kerosene around, not knowing the phone is gone. Unfortunately, guess who creeped into the same apartment one minute earlier, on his own investigation? None other than Major, and if they catch him here, it’s all over. He manages to slip out the window, and barely fools Blaine into believing that window had just been left open by the pothead Scott.
Major gets an idea. He hops into Blaine’s trunk, and they unknowingly bring him to headquarters. He sees Meat Cute, he sees Candyman inside, and he connects all the dots. The next day Blaine and company are heading to their van to deliver today’s shipments, when they discover they’ve all been stolen by someone.
Liv heads back home, where oddly, weatherman Johnny Frost is still there, throwing out arrogant one-liners and badly predicting the weather. That’s when Liv turns on the TV and sees…..Johnny Frost giving the weather forecast live. But if he’s THERE…..then THAT means…..
Yes, the Johnny Frost that’s been following Liv around the entire time was a hallucination, brought on by Scott’s schizo brain. Liv conducted the entire investigation herself, and broke into the apartment alone. And that inaccurate forecast he kept repeating? It was Scott’s way of giving her the password. She entered the numbers into the phone and was immediately greeted with footage of herself gorging on her first brain by the side of the river. Good thing she got to this first….
That’s when there’s a knock on her apartment door and Major comes in, carrying four tote bags full of brains. He announces that he swiped them from a certain car, and he really seems quite different from the mellow, Liv-loving man we’ve seen over the past half-hour. Then the light bulb goes on…..Oh Rob Thomas, you sneaky bastard!!
Liv and Major were only getting back together in her mind. The thought of Liv standing there hugging and kissing air is pretty humorous, but the real Major was convinced zombies exist through his own investigation, and we close out with his telling a horrified Liv that he’s going to “find and kill them all.”
Now for the admission: I have no idea why this episode is called “Astroburger.” Twice there’s a scene where the news reports an astronaut has gone missing, but where’s the “burger” part? If Blaine caught and cooked him, I certainly never noticed any hint of it. Why’s it called “Astroburger”? Anybody know?
Line of the evening (out of many): “You have the same kind eyes my daddy did…..before I burned down his car dealership.”
* Now about that nurse who said Major’s full name. I stopped and gasped when I heard “Major Lilywhite.” It’s another pun, but it would only make sense if Major were a zombie, which he’s not….yet………..I’m unfamiliar with the Vertigo comic this is based off of, so I don’t know if this is truly a spoiler, but maybe they should’ve used a different name, or avoided saying this one?