Revisiting iZombie, 10 years later
We loved the show’s wicked humor, great characters, and mix of cases-of-the-week with longer narrative arcs.
Zombies never really go out of style, but they were an especially hot commodity on television in the 2010s, spawning the blockbuster series The Walking Dead (2010-2022) as well as quirkier fare like Netflix’s comedy horror, The Santa Clarita Diet (2017-2018). iZombie, a supernatural procedural dramedy that ran for five seasons on the CW, falls into the latter category. It never achieved mega-hit status but nonetheless earned a hugely loyal following drawn to the show’s wicked humor, well-drawn characters, and winning mix of cases-of-the-week and longer narrative arcs.
(Spoilers for all five seasons below.)
The original Vertigo comic series was created by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred. It featured a zombie in Eugene, Oregon, named Gwen Dylan, who worked as a gravedigger because she needed to consume brains every 30 days to keep her memories and cognitive faculties in working order. Her best friends were a ghost who died in the 1960s and a were-terrier named Scott, nicknamed “Spot,” and together they took on challenges both personal and supernatural (vampires, mummies, etc.).
Created by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, the TV series borrowed the rough outlines of the premise but otherwise had very little in common with the comics, although Allred drew the nifty opening credits (set to a cover version of “Stop, I’m Already Dead” by Deadboy & The Elephant Men). The location shifted to Seattle.
An over-achieving young medical student, Liv Moore (get it?)—played to perfection by Rose McIver—decides to attend a boat party on a whim one night. It ends in disaster thanks to a sudden zombie outbreak, resulting from a combination of an energy sports drink (Max Rager) and a tainted batch of a new designer drug called Utopium. Liv jumps into the water to flee the zombies, but suffers a scratch and wakes up on a beach in a body bag, craving brains.
Liv is forced to break up with her human fiancé, Major (Robert Buckley) to avoid infecting him, and becomes estranged from her best friend and roommate Peyton (Aly Michalka), hiding her new zombie nature from both. And she ends up working in the medical examiner’s office to ensure she has a steady supply of brains. Soon her boss, Ravi (Rahul Kohli), discovers her secret. Rather than being terrified or trying to kill her, Ravi is fascinated by her unusual condition. He tells Liv he was fired by the CDC for his incessant warnings about the threat of such a virus and vows to find a cure.
The brainy bunch
Med student Liv Moore (Rose McIver) wound up a zombie after attending an ill-fated boat party.
The CW
The show’s premise stems from an unusual side effect of eating brains: Liv gets some of the dead person’s memories in flashes (visions) as well as certain personal traits—speaking Romanian, painting, agoraphobia, alcoholism, etc. This gives her critical insights that help Det. Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) solve various murders, although for several seasons Clive thinks Liv is psychic rather than a zombie. It’s Ravi who first encourages her to get involved when a kleptomaniac Romanian call girl is killed: “You ate the girl’s temporal lobe; the least you can do is help solve her murder.”
Every show needs a good villain and iZombie found it in Liv’s fellow zombie, Blaine (David Anders)—in fact, Blaine is the one who scratched Liv at the boat party and turned her into a zombie. He was there dealing the tainted Utopium. Zombie Blaine switches to dealing brains, which he naturally acquires through murderous means, creating a loyal (i.e., desperate) customer base by infecting wealthy sorts and turning them into zombies. What makes Blaine so compelling as a villain is that he’s as devilishly charming as he is evil, with some unresolved daddy issues for good measure.
Over the course of five seasons, we fell in love with iZombie‘s colorful collection of characters; relished the way the writers leaned into the rather silly premise and (mostly) made it work; and groaned at the occasional bad pun. (Major’s last name is “Lillywhite”; Blaine’s S1 butcher shop is called Meat Cute; when Ravi and Major take in a stray dog, Ravi names the dog “Minor”; and at one point there is a zombie bar called The Scratching Post.) Admittedly, the show started to lose some momentum in later seasons as subplots and shifting relationships became more complicated. And without question the series finale was disappointing: it felt rushed and unsatisfying, with few of the quieter character moments that made its strongest episodes so appealing.
Yet there is still so much to love about iZombie, starting with the brain recipes. Brains are disgusting; Blaine and Liv briefly bond over the metallic taste, gross texture, and how much they miss real food. It doesn’t help that zombies can’t really taste much flavor and thus douse their repasts in eye-watering hot sauces. No wonder Liv is constantly trying to find new ways to make the brains more palatable: stir fry, instant Ramen noodles, mixing the brains in with microwaved pizza rolls, deep friend hush puppy brains, sloppy joes, protein shakes—you name it. Blaine, however, takes things to a gourmet level for his rich zombie customers, creating tantalizing dishes like gnocchi stuffed with medulla oblongata swimming in a fra diavolo sauce.
Good guys, bad guys
“Full-on zombie mode” came in handy sometimes.
The CW
The writers didn’t neglect Liv’s love life, which she mistakenly thought was over once she became a zombie. Sure, Liv was always going to end up in a happily-ever-after situation with Major. But count me among those who never thought they really worked as soul mates. (Maybe pre-zombie they did.)
The clear fan favorite love interest was S1’s Lowell Tracey (Bradley James), a British musician who found he could no longer perform live after becoming a zombie—since pre-show adrenalin tended to trigger Full On Zombie Mode. He was Liv’s “first” as a zombie, and while they were superficially very different, they bonded over their shared secret and the resulting emotional isolation. And he bonded with Ravi over their shared hatred of a rival soccer team.
James’ smartly soulful performance won fans’ hearts. We were all rooting for those crazy kids. Alas, Liv soon discovered that his brain supply came from Blaine after she accidentally had a bite of Lowell’s breakfast one morning. In a desperate bid to win back her trust, Lowell agreed to help her take out Blaine; it helped that Liv was currently on Sniper Brain. But when the critical moment came, Liv couldn’t take the shot. She watched through the gun sight as Lowell put his hand over his heart and took on Blaine alone—with fatal consequences, because sensitive artist types really aren’t cut out for fights to the death. Howls of protest echoed in living rooms around the world. RIP Lowell, we barely knew ye.
Lowell never got the chance to become a recurring character but others were more fortunate. Jessica Harmon’s FBI agent, Dale Brazzio, started out as an antagonist investigating the Meat Cute murders—Major and a zombie police captain blew it up to take out Blaine’s criminal enterprise—and ended up as Clive’s romantic partner. Bryce Hodgson’s comedic S1 turn as Major’s roommate in the mental institution, Scott E., was so memorable that the writers brought the actor back to play twin brother Don E., part of Blaine’s drug (and brain) dealing enterprise. Others never graduated to recurring roles but still made the odd guest appearance: Daran Norris as the charmingly louche weatherman Johnny Frost, for instance, and Ryan Beil as nebbishy police sketch artist Jimmy Hahn.
You are what you eat
Liv on frat-boy brain crushed it at beer pong
The CW
And let’s not forget the various Big Bads, most notably S2’s Vaughan du Clark (Steven Weber), amoral playboy CEO of Max Rager, and his conniving temptress daughter, Rita (Leanne Lapp). They provided all manner of delicious devilry before meeting a fitting end: Rita, now a zombie due to Vaughan’s negligence, goes “full Romero” during the S2 finale and eats daddy’s brains in an elevator before being shot in the head.
Perhaps the best thing about iZombie was how much fun the writers had giving Liv so many different kinds of brains to eat—and how much fun McIver had weaving those very different personalties into her performance. There was the rich shopaholic Desperate Housewife; an amorous painter; a sociopathic hitman who was a whiz at pub trivia; a grumpy old man; a schizophrenic; a kids basketball coach; a magician; a dominatrix; a medieval history professor fond of LARP-ing; and a ballroom dancer, to name a few.
Liv on agoraphobic hacker brain dominates an online gaming campaign, while she becomes an ace dungeon master on Dungeons & Dragons brain, much to nerdcore Ravi’s delight—although perhaps not as much as he enjoys Liv on vigilante superhero brain. (He found Liv on PhD scientist brain more annoying.) And sometimes the brains are used for throwaway humor: Lowell accidentally eating a gay man’s brain just before his first date with Liv, for instance, or Liv, Blaine, and Don E. hopped up on conspiracy theory brain and bonding over their shared paranoid delusions.
If I were forced to pick my favorite brain, however, I’d probably go back to the S1 episode, “Flight of the Living Dead,” in which Liv’s adventurous former sorority sister, Holly (Tasya Teles) dies in a skydiving “accident” that turns out to be murder. Back in the day, Liv was among those who voted to kick Holly out of the sorority for her constant rule-breaking and reckless behavior. But after eating Holly’s brain in hopes of finding out who killed her, Liv learns more about where Holly was coming from and how to bring something of Holly’s insatiable lust for life into her own existence. “Live each day as if it were your last” can’t help but strike a chord with Liv, who took her former ambitious over-achieving life for granted before that fateful boat party.
Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.
