Zombie Survival Crew

I know Ravi and Liv work for the morgue and all, but they’re usually not the ones to find the bodies, let alone report them to the police. While searching yet again for the murdered Utopium dealers with the tainted batch, Major and Ravi unearth a body far too fresh to be their prize. There’s no ID on the mystery dead guy, but he does have a gun and a coaster with a phone number scrawled on the back.

Clive seems to buy Ravi’s geocaching explanation when he asks how they found the body. He still takes Major aside for a private conversation. Not about the body nearby, but the Cute Meat incident. Using the good ol’ crazypants excuse, Major dodges the questions. It’s only now that Clive sees the really weird stuff; first Major’s connection in part to the brain and Julien DuPont and then later in the episode Clive question’s Liv’s personality changes reflecting the homicide victims they’re investigating. Funny how they managed to write around this for so long, it’s almost ludicrous they’d attempt to clue in Clive about Team Z.

The coaster yields its secrets, leading the team to a woman IDing the dead guy as Corey, no last name. They’d hooked up a while back at a place called Possibilities, but Corey never called her again. Gee, would that be because he was busy feeding the ecosystem in a field? The girl also dropped a bombshell; Corey said he was FBI. At Possibilities, the bartender has great things to say about Corey “Big Fish” Carp. Namely, his ability to lie his way into the pants of any woman he set his eyes on. No lie was ever grand enough for Corey, who in reality worked for an arcade game company repairing machines and collecting quarters. Boss just so happens to own this guy’s company, too. Is there anything happening in the city not supervised by Boss? Does he check everyone’s pee to make sure they’re hydrated, too? This show puts too much on their Big Bads in order to simplify the plot.

There’s a few red herrings, some tail-chasing. It all leads to another murder case with Terrell Johnson as the primary person of interest. Liv gets a few visions magically connecting Big Fish to Terrell and later Fish’s connection to the murdered Utopium dealers planted somewhere in that accursed field. Basically, Fish killed the dealers. He then kept an eye on the field to make sure they remained buried. When Don E and Drake, of all people, started digging, Fish shot Drake. This all ties back to the night Liv made Drake a zombie. I’d call it clever story weaving, but they reached so far to make this plot tie together, it doesn’t make sense unless we’re willing to forget how heavily they rely on Liv “accidentally” discovering everything. Also, Liv seems way too okay with Drake lying to her. She still calls him her boyfriend after the vision connecting him and Don E to the murder she’s investigating. A similar lie from Major would have caused three episodes of angst.

Speaking of Major, where’s he been after helping Ravi dig up the body? Well, you could say he’s helping Blaine comfort test caskets. Don E and Chief are called by a client who trapped Major in their panic room after he went to add them to his ice cube collection. Blaine and Major eventually strike a deal—Major takes care of the zombies Blaine wants and frees Angus McDonough in exchange for living outside a six-foot deep casket. Seems fair to me. They put the partnership to test with Jimmy Chu, Blaine’s newspaper inside man. Chu is high-maintenance, something Blaine cannot handle in his sources. Major drugs Chu with no incident. Later he returns Angus to his son. Blaine has some fun, dressing like he’s aged at least thirty years. Fresh off the defrost cycle, Angus is slow to figure out what’s happening. He even begs Blaine to help—a refreshing turn in the relationship for the son since he was always the one begging when his caretakers abused him. Once Angus is more himself, he thinks to outsmart Blaine. One step ahead, Blaine brings in Chief and Candy, both of whom have suffered thanks to Angus. Blaine is assured the will, currently drafted to give his abusive caretaker the entire inheritance, will be changed soon.

The point to this episode is to finally find the bodies with the tainted Utopium. Well, they found them. Everything else is fluff. There’s no change in the case with Boss. Blaine’s personal beef takes him from the conflict with the main bad guy and the FBI. Peyton is MIA in the episode. Drake vanishes after running an errand for Boss, so there’s no emotional resolution after Liv finds out he’s deeper in Blaine’s business than she thought. The whole episode was simply to get to that discovery moment with the Les Miserables soundtrack playing. Way to have storytelling goals, guys.