iZombie “Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat” Recap
What would happen if a vapid, nasally-voiced, gum-chewing, “like” spouting, superficial teen girl suddenly gained cultural awareness? I don’t think there’s any group of people more despised in this current world, except for ISIS. The only two individuals that like shallow teens are (A) themselves and (B) whoever the CEO is who collects easy money from them. But they don’t seem to be aware of that. What a burden it would be to suddenly realize everybody on the planet hates you. What if one of them suddenly came to the realization of that truth? Would she be driven insane by that knowledge?
This has nothing to do with the episode. It’s just something I’ve been wondering about.
We see four shallow teens, most of them members of a band, driving a van through the wilderness on their way to solve a mystery actually, it was never specified where they were going. Most likely they were out on a joyride for the heck of it. They’re not watching the road and they run over a man crossing the street. They’re already in enough trouble as it is (it’s a stolen car and half of them are high), so they decide to quickly bury the body and pretend this never happened. Only problem is, this is one body that won’t stay down!
It was Sebastian, the Max Rager security toughie from two episodes ago, who became infected through Liv (though through no fault of her own. Don’t eat human blood, people, you don’t know where it’s been). He immediately took out the cheerleader of the group, who was also apparently a member of the Duggars, while everybody else screamed and ran.
The cheerleader’s body isn’t discovered until two weeks later. Liv has to drink another brain-shake, but once she does, and becomes like unto the cheerleader, we get some of the funniest lines we’ve EVER gotten out of any Liv before.
“I feel really bad for her! I think she gave me a contact sad.”
Liv and Clive determine the name of the band being pursued is “The Asshats,” and they’re well-named. They completely bomb their interrogation, giving conflicting lies about where they were the night of the murder before whacking each other upside the head Three Stooges style. It might’ve been nice to see them again in Season 2, but they didn’t even last half the episode.
Meanwhile, Liv’s new inane brain helps her bond with her friend and roommate Peyton in a manner never seen before. This scene is more than likely here because of something that happens later. Liv and Peyton haven’t gotten very many scenes together; they had to get this one in at the last minute to show this “bond” and long history between them that hasn’t been established before…..well, you’ll find out.
After the second member of the group, the stoner, goes down, Liv has to consume his brains for more clues and goes from a peppy airhead to The Dude in a span of minutes. (I do have to mention that as she was about to eat a pizza containing his brain, Clive walked in, said “I’m famished” and bit into a slice. The look on his face was classic.)
At this point, the remaining two know they’re next, and the goth chick races inside the police station and pleads for protection. A police sketch of their attacker is finally made, and Liv looks in horror as she realizes it’s a dead ringer for the guy she ran over with a motorboat.
One problem: if Sebastian is undead, he’s going to be after Liv as well. She doesn’t realize this until she returns home to find her roommate knocked out on the floor, the living room in disarray, and Sebastian coming straight for her!
There’s great potential in a fight between two zombies because they can throw pretty much anything at each other and keep going at it, as long as they’re not skewered through the head. I’m sure there’s an even better fight coming in the season finale, but this one was pretty fun. Sebastian plunged a knife through Liv’s hand, which she then used to stab him in the brain after a tense struggle.
Then Liv turned around, red eyes and all, to the face staring at her. It was inevitable that somebody outside the current circle of knowledge would discover the truth about her eventually. The direction things were heading, I thought it’d be Major. But no. It turned out to be the one least likely to take the news very well. It was Peyton.
It was genius.
If it were anybody else, Liv could have handled it. But she had no hope of talking down somebody who was in no way ready for this kind of revelation. This is quite a sticky dilemma, and it’s also an interesting one. Peyton split immediately, and I couldn’t tell you if she’ll even reappear before this season is over. The odds are fifty/fifty we might not see her again. She’s also the type to blab about everything she saw, even though no one will believe her, except for the few who will KILL her for having that knowledge.
Major’s latest harebrained plan involved posing as the health inspector and snooping around Meat Cute trying to gather photographic evidence. Why doesn’t he just walk up to Blaine and say “Kill me”? It’d be faster. As we see in his next few scenes, that’s actually on his mind. He’s showing buying weapons from a black-market dealer, and watching a bizarre YouTube video about how to fight zombies (every single joke in this episode worked spectacularly, by the way). For his troubles he winds up tied in the back room of Blaine’s restaurant, arms spread and at their complete mercy, his status as a central character the only thing keeping him alive. On top of everything else, Blaine now knows who Liv’s brother is and decides to accept his application. Half of Liv’s loved ones are in serious trouble!
What of the rest of the band? The ending scene shows they were attacked and murdered anyway, but…how? Sebastian died in Liv’s apartment. Who else could have had it out for them?
So many questions, so little minutes in an hour. Tuesday evening can’t come soon enough.