iZombie 2.10 “Method Head”

iZombie left us in a very dark place over the holidays. Liv’s most recent brain transplant had gotten her fired and in doing so, stolen the one thing that had been holding her together. Following that, she and Major had a gut-wrenching discussion during which she ended their relationship. Just when we thought Liv’s life couldn’t get any worse, it turned out that the cure that Ravi was trying so desperately to replicate isn’t a zombie cure, so much as a zombie respite. So, the last we saw of Ravi, he was digging for the proverbial needle in a haystack, based on a lead from Blaine. Of course, that guy is a complete dick, so the tainted Utopium may not even be anywhere in the direction that he pointed Ravi.

While we’re on the subject of Blaine, this episode reminds us that he’s a monster. He was the reason that Natalie (former high class call girl that Major just added to his freezer), wound up a zombie hooker for his men, who paid her only in brains. While it seems as though further team-ups between Liv and her mortal enemy are inevitable, this week finally begins to see Clive connecting the dots straight from Blaine to the Meat Cute massacre. Bozzio interviews him about her missing rich men case and once she and Clive pool their info, all roads lead to our resident psychopath. However, David Anders is such a scene-stealer that it’s doubtful that the show will take Blaine off the board any time soon.

iZombie goes meta this week when an actor on Liv’s favorite show, Zombie High, is killed on set by real bullets that should have been blanks. This leads to funny jokes about tax breaks, Craft Services, fan culture and acting in general. It was entertaining to watch Liv on actor brains and there were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. That being said, the mystery itself was a bit lackluster. This was at least due in part to the fact that my heart simply wasn’t in it. Honestly, it seemed like the mid-season premiere was lacking heart in general, which is something that this show usually has in abundance.

“Method Head” features a time jump and while it’s understandable to want to dive back into the action, this skips over some very important character development. Liv and Major pretty much go straight from being heartbroken to being bros and we only see minimally how difficult it is for Liv to be on the outside of Clive’s cases. He keeps her out of a few investigations, but she works her way back in fairly quickly. This just seems out of place on a show usually so adept at balancing the murder of the week with the overall plot of the season. While it was a good episode, mostly keeping with the high standards set by previous installments, after the mid-season finale, I was expecting so much more.

Frankly, the treatment of Liv’s relationships with both Clive and Major were handled casually and without the concern that iZombie has always shown its characters. After putting so much stock into Liv and Major’s bond, the way that none of the emotional aftermath of their breakup was dealt with didn’t just do a disservice to the story, but to the viewer as well. Aside from that, Liv and Clive form the weekly lifeline of the show by solving cases together. While it can be argued that it is Liv and Ravi’s relationship that is at the show’s core, there is incontrovertible evidence that her job with Clive is what gives her undead life meaning. Sure, he went back on firing her because he’s a teddy bear, but where are the consequences of her being let go in the first place?

Meanwhile, back at the evil lair of Max Rager, Major is keeping up with this episode’s acting theme by giving an Oscar worthy performance of his own, convincing his boss that he’s been turned to the dark side. Gilda is sure that Major can’t be trusted, although much of this is probably due to her spurned advances. Not that she’s wrong. Major is a good guy through and through. DuClark tests his loyalties, but Major, who’s been listening in, is ready for him. Now that he’s put any suspicions to rest, hopefully Major will be able to catch DuClark off guard. The sooner that happens, the sooner he can stop stocking his freezer full of zombies.