The penultimate episode of iZombie‘s first season might very well be its strongest. In “Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat,” iZombie delivers an episode that’s more than an incredibly wordy title; it ramps things up very nicely for the finale. As the show closes it out its premiere season, it promises to end on quite a high note.
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iZombie Wanders into a Teen Slasher Flick
The Max Rager goon, Sebastian, who almost killed Liv and who she inadvertently turned into a zombie, wakes up in the middle of the woods. He wanders onto a highway and is promptly run over by some teens. They apparently have never seen I Know What You Did Last Summer and bury the body in a shallow grave, promising to never speak of it again. They also didn’t see Carrie because Sebastian juts one of his hands out of the earth while their backs are turned and kills one of the teens while the others flee.
Two weeks later, Liv and the police department find the body and begin to investigate the murder. Liv and Ravi immediately recognize the body; a cheerleader named Kimber was killed by a zombie.
If that’s not bad enough, Major is more erratic than ever and Ravi’s former zombie rat, the source of the potential zombie cure, ends up dead. On the one hand, Kimber’s brain makes Liv into a person so optimistic that she basically farts rainbows and pees glitter. So that counterbalances the dourness in the most annoying (and hilarious) way possible.
Major: Master of Disguise?
Major is not sitting on his hands waiting patiently like he promised Liv. Instead, he goes undercover as a health inspector to get a closer inside look at Blaine’s butcher shop, Meat Cute. When Blaine tells his gang about this development, the zombie who Major tried to kill is suspicious. In anticipation of being discovered, Major buys his own personal firearm arsenal.
Two Down, Two to Go
Liv and Clive do enough investigating to find out the identity of the teens that were with Kimber the night she died. They are all part of a band called The Asshats and one of their members, Nate, was Kimber’s quasi-boyfriend. The Asshats stay true to their name and deny knowing anything, but Liv’s visions tell a different story. By the time Clive gets enough solid evidence to investigate further, Nate ends up murdered.
Ravi and Liv suspect that the murderer is the same zombie who killed Kimber, but Nate still has all his brains, which raises their eyebrows. Liv has to eat his brains to figure it out. In doing so, her personality switches to the exact opposite of the high school spectrum. She goes from an airhead cheerleader to an empty-headed stoner.
While it’s funny to see Liv giggle and mope around for a bit, it’s extraordinarily unhelpful to the case. Especially when the drummer of The Asshats, Teresa, comes in and confesses to the whole truth, the whole zombie truth. Liv drinks more of Kimber’s brains to wash out Nate’s, just as the sketch artist completes his portrait of Kimber’s attacker. Liv immediately recognizes him as Sebastian.
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Peyton is Stuck in Her Hitchcock Movie
Sebastian saves Liv the trouble of trying to find him and adds her to his list of revenge. When Liv comes home, Sebastian is there, with Peyton unconscious on the floor. The two zombies begin to tussle in a fight scene that takes full advantage of their undead status. The two stab and brutally attack one another before Liv manages to kill Sebastian with a knife in his head. During the struggle, Peyton wakes up and witnesses the whole thing go down.
Liv tells Peyton the truth, the whole zombie truth. Peyton takes it a lot worse than the dream vision of Major did in “Astroburger.” Peyton flees the apartment, unable to deal with the new status quo. This also makes it officially ridiculous that iZombie still won’t actually tell Major the truth.
The Road to Finale Time
Speaking of Major, his firearms turn out to be super ineffective. Blaine’s goon captures him and ties him up in the back of Meat Cute, ready to await Blaine’s torture. Coincidentally, Liv’s brother chooses this time to hand his work application to Meat Cute. As iZombie heads to the finale, Blaine has two of Liv’s loved ones in very close proximity.
If that’s not enough of a cliffhanger Teresa goes to meet with Cameron, the only surviving member of her band. Communicating with Teresa through text message, “Cameron” gets her alone in a motel room and shuts the door behind her. The last shot is of the savaged Teresa, crawling towards the phone and dialing 911.
iZombie airs Tuesdays at 9pm on The CW.
(Image courtesy of The CW)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Derek is a Philadelphia based writer and unabashed TV and comic book junkie. The time he doesn’t spend over analyzing all things nerdy he is working on his resume to be the liaison to the Justice League.
