The previous episode introduced us to Seattle’s resident coyote Mama Leone and her underground operation, which once again takes centre stage after a hopeless romantic attempting to get into the city turns up dead. I’m surprised, and pleasantly so, that Mama Leone’s underworld is being placed at the heart of a major arc so early on in the season. Not only is Leone herself an interesting character, but the world she opens up gives the writers a wealth of story mining opportunities, with this week’s central mystery making more than a few intriguing turns and tying nicely into the B plots taking place elsewhere.
As a hopeless romantic, Liv was both frustratingly naive and completely endearing. Sure, I could have done with a few less shots of her staring wistfully into the distance and playing (a pretty misguided) matchmaker for Clive, but on this victim’s brains she was the perfect catalyst for some wacky comedy; that makeover montage was over-the-top amazing and I loved everything that happened in The Scratching Post’s Human vs Zombie night. So many of those lighter scenes felt like they were directly pulling from the better known romcom tropes, and while it may sound stupid on paper, the execution of it sold the absurdity completely.
While the investigation into this week’s victim initially led to the aforementioned silliness, it ended up taking a sinister turn towards the close of the episode, following the discovery that Liv and Clive may be looking at the work of a serial killer using the smuggling supply chain to trap his victims. Such a large shift in tone in many other series would be very difficult to buy into, but iZombie continues to pull off feats like this so easily. This being Part 1 of 2 means that we have to wait until the following episode to see how this plays out, but it’s an intriguing twist on the standard one-episode investigations we’re used to.
In addition to Liv and Clive’s police investigations, Seattle’s people smuggling operations appear to be having an effect on both Fillmore Graves' peace keeping and Blaine’s brain peddling business. As we learn in this episode, many of those attempting to enter and exit the city appear to be falling victim to those who are looking to make quick cash off their brains.
It’s interesting that we’ve got Fillmore Graves attempting to shut down Leone for turning humans, and Liv and Clive who are attempting to stop a different coyote from killing them. Leone swears the accused coyote ran with a bad crowd. How much of this is Mama Leone aware of? Could she be covering some of this, or is she really as good hearted as she seems?
Plus
No Angus this week.
Fillmore Graves have estimated 46 months before the ratio of edible brains to turned zombies starts to become a serious issue.
“Turn up the song, it kicks ass”. The song Peyton was referring to is one of the tracks on the Aly & AJ EP Ten Years that was released last year: Aly and AJ being made up of Aly Michalka (Peyton) and her sister AJ. It’s a pretty excellent collection of pop songs, I might add.
Liv spotted Bozzio getting cosy with someone who is not Clive at The Scratching Post.
I like that the voiceovers reappeared here in light of it being a very romcom orientated episode.
He Said, She Said
Liv: “I understand. Most of my boyfriends have died in terrible ways too.”
Ravi: “It's like watching R2-D2 stick his extension arm into the Grand Canyon.”
Peyton: “Sick robot callback!”
I missed watching these guys together.
Liv: “And I thought fate was a bitch.”
You know it’s a major iZombie arc if you’re concerned about it imploding under the weight of all its moving parts, but so far everything is working incredibly well. I’m curious to see how it will all unfold in Part 2.
8/10
Also posted at Doux Reviews.
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