Some Like it Hot Mess: Review for iZombie 306


Summary

Alright, yes the brain in this episode does indeed fit the billing, it’s not the real mess we need to discuss. I’d like to present, the magically-vanishing dominatrix personality! Ta-da! Wasn’t that a neat trick?


Some Like it Hot Mess:
Review for iZombie 306
by A. Zombie

Clive wraps the case, suddenly Liv’s under no geas and is free to express her natural self. This leads me to believe the writers and production team knew the Sweet Lady Pain gimmick was a turd in the punch bowl. Yet they ran with it. For what purpose? To further deride sex workers in pop culture? Yeah, no. This isn’t something they can pass off as, “Oh, well, the brains wear off.” Liv rode Janko’s brain until she collapsed, utilizing the mercenary’s self-control to lock down her emotions after Drake’s final death. That took a while. Liv ditched the leather and whips on day two or three. She didn’t over-exert herself in any fights. Nor was she forced to heal any serious wounds. Both would take extra nutrients to heal, possibly explaining how Liv’s typical meal schedule wouldn’t be sufficient. Or we could just say, the writers messed up. They know they messed up. They went to great lengths to make us forget it by rushing Liv into a narcissist’s brain, therefore pitting her against everyone and causing drama. This is akin to tying shiny paper around nectarine tree limbs as a distraction so the birds won’t take the fruit, but truth is, the birds will always get what they want. What fans want is a show with a woman at the helm who isn’t deliberately knocked down to become the laughing stock in order to cover poor decisions from the production staff. I, for one, will keep checking this tree to see if there’s anything worthwhile to digest. There’s so much potential. It’s trapped behind a messy patriarchal wall, though.

Liv isn’t the only woman on the show getting this flavor of treatment in the writers’ room. Peyton still suffers barbs from Ravi over her personal life, only for every crappy thing he’s said to be proven right so Peyton is obligated to apologize. Apologize to the man so obsessed over who she’s kissing, he hopped in bed with a woman he detests? Are you kidding? But, it happens. This week’s case is centered on the victim, Yvonne, and her affair with a married club owner, with a jealous coworker red herring. Who actually offed the self-centered party girl? The roommate she screwed over. A woman, by the way. Not one of the sexually-motivated angles Clive and Liv investigate produces a lick of information. I dare not go back to count how many of the women who’ve died on the show were given a similar treatment, but off the top of my head it’s already too many. And when the victims themselves aren’t interesting sexually—because of race, weight, age, etc.—a side character, like Rhonda in episode 304, is tapped to fill the position. Could we not?

For a fun writing exercise, I’d like iZ writers to pen a script which has no mention whatsoever of sex. It happens in shows lead by men all the time! Why is it any different for Liv? She’s a zombie! That’s rather interesting on its own. Add in her career choice and it’s a story all in itself. With so much story fodder, why the obsession with the women on the show having sex? This isn’t how you present women’s sexual liberty. Go back to the drawing board.

Major is back to his puppy-dog-esque self after taking the cure. Ravi isn’t as calm. He obsessively tests Major’s memory. He’s so desperate to save his bro, he asks Liv—doped on dingbat brain—to take shifts watching their human-again friend. Which, of course, she doesn’t even bother trying to do. In an attempt to do one last good thing before he loses himself, Major takes an unannounced trip to visit his family. Cue panic. Flailing. And a big ol’ truth bomb dropped on Peyton like a load from a rhino’s backend. Blaine faked it. Well, most of it. The cure does indeed strip memories, but it’s more like a hard reboot than a full wipe. It took a couple days for Blaine to remember his old ways, and he hated it. He hid the truth to start over. Great news for Major, but Blaine’s lies put Peyton in an awful position yet again.

A functional cure also means Liv can finally stop being a pawn for whatever weird fantasies the writers are working out on the page.

Or not. See, the cure’s gone missing. There’s only one real suspect in Team Zombie’s mind.

Don E. has a regular at his bar who’s flat-out tired of the brain game and wants out without eating the end of a pistol. Being the ultimate businessman, Don E. skips over to the morgue to present Ravi with a lucrative deal, they split the money from the rich guy and hand over the cure. No go. Ravi has a finite amount of serum and probably has names to go with most of them on his mental list. Obviously there’s a demand for the cure. Who’s always around when there’s an opportunity to exploit? Yeah, Don E. is the usual suspect this season. But in this case, he’s the scapegoat when Blaine absconds with the remaining syringes of the serum. It looks like he’s going to make a new designer drug for the dead set based off the blue memory goo. So why take the cure, too? My guess is population control. Slip the cure into his drug and watch Angus lose his brain-munching customer base. It’s Blaine, the sky’s the limit with his scheming ways. He may surprise me.