Still, I liked the suggestion of a twist: That Liv-her head rotten with Sammy conspiracy thinking-may have brokered the Major-Ravi union as a way to subvert Major and Caryn and keep tabs on Major via Ravi.īlaine’s challenge this week was killing the competition-namely, the two beefcake clockers slinging and collecting for him.
Being owned for a full digestive cycle by paranoia helped catalyze Liv to “start looking forward instead of watching my back.” I get it, but it felt like a stretch. The link between Sammy’s psychotropic impact and the life lesson Liv learned skewed murky to me. They could be Diablo III/ Demon Hunter-playing BFFs!) “Love in the time of zombiedom” is challenging and dispiriting enough as it is, given that neck-nibbling macking and back-scratching sex are out of the question, and the guy you love is sleeping with another woman, Caryn, who added Major insult to Liv’s injured heart by appropriating her favorite coffee cup. Anxious questioning gave way to risky disclosure that led to genuine bonding. (The counterpoint was illustrated by the awkward mating dance between Major and Ravi as they felt each other out about being roommates. You know: Paranoia, they destroy ya! “Liv and Let Clive” hit hard the idea that anxiety creates distance and dissonance in relationships and chokes and drowns your real self. A smarter capper would apply the concept of The Philosophical Zombie to the episode’s ideas about appearances, irony, and inauthenticity. The deep wisdom of iZombie: A false or divided self is a deadly, deadening existence.
See: The spectacle of Liv Moore going undercover as gum-smacking party girl Melanie or Melody or Malady-even she couldn’t keep her alias straight-as she recklessly investigated this week’s case, bringing danger into her home and triggering the ”full-on zombie mode” that risks more dehumanization. To borrow jargon from Major’s late roomie Jesse, this one was about the folly of “frontin’.” See: The revelation that Detective Babinaux spent a year undercover trying to bring down a gang called the Blue Cobras and came out the other side a different, damaged person.
The line was a clever quip that articulated iZombie’s theme of rehumanization and an ironic way to start an outing about the high cost of living ironically-which is to say, pretending to be something that you’re not. “Time to look alive, baby,” Blaine murmured to his thrall and aesthetician hook-up, Jackie. “Liv and Let Clive” begins with one zombie waking another with a call to action.