iZombie 4.10: Yipee Ki Brain, Motherscratcher!

In light of the "freakish" brains that have dominated the last few episodes, 'Yipee Ki Brain, Motherscratcher!' feels like a breath of fresh air, in that it leans on a less extreme personality to anchor the hour. As a whole, the episode fails to come together in a cohesive way, but there are a number of wonderful moments of genius sprinkled throughout to keep it from tanking completely.

iZombie 4.09: Mac-Liv-Moore

Opting for a lighter investigation that usual, 'Mac-Liv-Moore' uses a deluded white rapper's brain as fuel for more light-hearted side action as the episode's main focus falls on the wider narratives. Despite being plagued with potential ways to derail itself, the episode manages to cut through a lot of interesting story beats, with a few laughs along the way.

iZombie 4.08: Chivalry is Dead

There's been a lot of noise this season about the brains being a little extreme in terms of the victims’ personalities overshadowing those of the zombies who have taken on said brains. We saw it in action in ‘Don’t Hate the Player...’ when a typically smart and thoughtful Liv turned into a narcissistic and obnoxious pig. Here the same problem persists, though Liv comes across as more of a nuisance than a complete a-hole with a LARPer at the wheel. But most importantly, she's still Liv.

iZombie 4.13: And He Shall Be a Good Man

“You don't think that I've done enough?”

Season four started out in such a promising place. The new “world order” in Seattle was crammed full of story building potential. From the escalating brain shortages, to the ramifications of a city-wide quarantine, there were a million different possibilities for the series to explore. It became increasingly obvious over the second half of the season that the ambitious nature of such a wide scoping narrative was hard for a small series like iZombie to pull off. ‘And He Shall Be a Good Man’ is a mostly satisfying closer to this show’s biggest arc to date, though it suffers in the same way that many of the preceding episodes did in terms of trying to do too much with too little.

iZombie 4.12: You've Got to Hide Your Liv Away

Some of the issues prevalent in the previous episode are course corrected, here. The plotting was tighter, the characterization more affecting and what felt partially formed previously was far more integral this time around.

iZombie 4.11: Insane in the Germ Brain

Traditionally, this is the point in a standard season of iZombie where everything starts to come together. The same can be said for this episode, but while previous seasons have felt organic in how they’ve merged all of the different plot strands floating around at that particular point, there was something stilted about what transpired here.

iZombie 4.07: Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Brain

This was the first major misstep of the season. The murder mystery was dull, the victim was reprehensible, and the rest of the characters spent their time either being party to Liv’s chauvinistic behavior (Ravi), or just being plain gross all on their own (Major). Thankfully, the moral complexity of the recurring arcs kept things afloat elsewhere.

iZombie 4.06: My Really Fair Lady

“Are we good, or do we need that in a wide?”

Since iZombie is a show that’s reliant on the prominent aspects of an individual’s personality to drive any given episode, there’s an inherent risk of the writers leaning into more of a caricature of who that individual was, rather than a personal exploration of what made them who they are; not to mention how they affect Liv and those around her. ‘My Really Fair Lady’ opens with a zany and entertaining musical number, with the incredibly talented Rachel Bloom at the helm, but it had me worried that we were in for an hour of Liv performing show-stoppers in the midst of a criminal investigation. Thankfully, the writers side-stepped any narrative awkwardness by grounding the more outrageous aspects of this theater nut’s brain in a deeply affecting story.

iZombie 4.05: Goon Struck

We’re just a few episodes into the season and the writers are continuing to push the boundaries of this show by asking some hard questions. ‘Goon Struck’ was permeated by a filler case, but its ties to the turbulent world that these characters exist in took precedent, with each of them forced into tough positions by the time the credits rolled.

iZombie 4.04: Brainless in Seattle, Part 2

“I remember this episode of Grey's Anatomy.”

Though the first half of ‘Brainless in Seattle’ ended on a terrifying note, the second half ended up returning to the wackier tone that this two-parter started out on. It was a nice surprise to see the writers focus so heavily on the lighter aspects of the show over a longer narrative stretch, but it does make me wonder if this was a story befitting of two parts.

iZombie 4.03: Brainless in Seattle, Part 1

Despite starting out as light romcom inspired entertainment, this episode trades the Bridget Jones jokes half way through for something far darker, giving the show a chance to show off its ability to easily tackle vastly different tones in a short space of time.

iZombie 4.02: Blue Bloody

With the premiere exposition out of the way, the second episode of the season ‘Blue Bloody’ dove head first into the tenuous world of Seattle, all the while maintaining the series status-quo; the case-of-the-week here serviced a different, but equally compelling side to the quarantine than what we’ve already seen.

iZombie 4.01: Are You Ready for Some Zombies?

Like last season’s premiere which had Liv and her comrades facing more dangerous and unpredictable circumstances, this opening salvo finds the world of iZombie in an even more volatile and uncertain state. The zombie secret is out, and with Seattle’s walled-in residents ready to do battle with one another, the city is akin to a war-torn country. It’s an exciting place to start the show’s fourth year.