Their mechanic is out of commission—Roberta checked out after giving Charles mercy and isn’t planning to come back anytime soon. The others want to give her space to mourn. Murphy knows if she falls down that rabbit hole, they’re all doomed to follow suit.
“She’s got post-traumatic stress? The whole world’s got post-traumatic stress. Actually there isn’t anything post about it; we all got plain ol’ present-tense all traumatic, all stress, all the time. What makes her so special?”
Roberta is allowed to marinate in her feelings for the majority of the episode. Once 10k patches the radiator hose—and Doc stupidly dumps their entire water supply in the radiator—they find a trading outpost, where Warren proceeds to drink her weight in moonshine. Literally. That’s all she does until the last five minutes or so of the episode. Then when facing off with a zombie bartender, suddenly she’s ready to talk. Not to the living or the bar tender, but her lover, Charles. She blames him for dying and abandoning her to hopelessness, burdening her with a “beautiful lie” about the possibility of a better future with him by her side. In minutes she goes through half the stages of grief, landing on anger. Her anger transforms her into an efficient killer. But has she really moved on from the grief?
Mack is more than ready to move on. After the truck broke down, he and Addy scout ahead, looking for a place to pick up parts or even a mechanic who’ll do more than nap in the broke-down vehicle. Of course, they find nothing. Major Williams warned them, there isn’t much west of where his camp had been. Seizing the opportunity, Mack suggests he and Addy take their mysteriously-located motorcycle and run off together.
“Addy, the only promise we ever made was to each other—stay alive.”
She can’t leave Warren, can’t leave the memory of Garnett and how he saved her from the cannibals. Most importantly, she can’t trust Mack to not decide he’d be better on his own a week or two down the road. Reasonable. He’s willing to cut-and-run on people who’ve kept them alive for weeks. Who risked everything to save Addy when it wasn’t in their best interest. Mack can’t handle turmoil. With the weird flashbacks Addy’s had over the last few episodes, turmoil is all she’s got to offer. She needs the solidity of a large group in case she freaks—it’ll save Mack’s life at the very least. He agrees to go back. Senses there’s something she’s not telling him. It doesn’t matter. By the time they make it back to where they left the others with the truck, everyone is gone. Better yet, there’s a wall of zombies heading their way.
Cars are the number one fatality on this show. The trusty ol’ truck is showing some wear and tear—again. So of course the solution is to enter 10k in a live zombie-shooting contest at the outpost they found on accident. The prize is a .50 caliber rifle, which they plan to trade for a functioning car. The deal-makers are named Sketchy and Skeezy. I’m feeling huge waves of trust from these guys. Doc knows them from back in New York and vouches for their intentions. Spoilers: The plan doesn’t work. Of course. These guys aren’t allowed to have a reliable car, it’d make it too difficult to cause problems for them plot-wise.
Murphy is nervous and getting dumb with panic. He attacks a guy, Forman, to steal his car. During the struggle, he goes rabid, biting Forman’s neck. A little blood. One ticked-off drunk. And now there’s a witch-hunt on for Murphy. That’s when everything goes downhill—and how Roberta ends up chatting with a zombie bartender. Forman and his posse catch up with Murphy during the shooting contest. Doc, who’s been at 10k’s side with Cassandra, hears a ruckus and they dart off to save Murphy’s backside. A few misfired guns take out three or four innocent bystanders—including one poor sap using the outhouse and Forman. They turn zombie instantly. Except Forman. He’s just dead. Murphy inspects the bite mark he left and finds his tooth embedded in the wound. Turns out he is the cure after all. Here I thought they’d go through all this trouble for the cure to fail catastrophically upon arrival in California.
There’s still time for things to go wrong. They have to stay ahead of the zunami, first and foremost.
An ex-sniper, Everett Adams, is found with a gunshot wound on a paintball course during a Big Brothers Big Sisters event. There’s no witnesses. No real evidence. Seems like this is winding up to be another “accidental clue” case. Adams’ “little brother”, Harris Jenkins, is on the scene. Harris tells Clive and Liv all about the sordid details of Adams’ nasty divorce with his wife, Penny, and subsequent custody battle for Anna, their daughter, after she remarried. Open and closed case. Except, there’s still no evidence. Liv chows down on Adams’ brain and becomes Super Soldier Zombie—complete with PTSD. Trying to control the effects of the PTSD, she gives into Adams’ athletic/competitive side and heads to the paintball field. Where she accidentally finds a bullet casing the entire police and forensic teams managed to miss. Sure, I’ll buy it. Do the writers also have magic beans for sale? The casing wasn’t where forensics said the shooter’s perch was located. Cue loads of head-scratching . . . until Clive digs deeper into the ex-wife’s new husband, Sean Taylor. Who just happens to work with new drone technology. Case solved by actual police work. Wow.
On to more important things. Is Ravi turning into a brain-munching fiend after stupidly handling Zombie Rat? He’s as nervous as a sexually active teen girl with a late period. Constantly checking and rechecking his vitals. Asking Liv roundabout questions about how she knew she was a zombie after waking on the beach in a body bag. In the end, it’s a false alarm. Whatever strain of zombie virus infects the rat didn’t pass on. Liv, of course, is pretty miffed when Ravi tells her the truth. If he’d stop hiding things from her all the time, he wouldn’t get in half the trouble.
Major could use a dose of truth, as well. His quest to figure out why Dupont had a brain in his car leads to a weird land of Youtube gun training sessions, odd Google searches, and the wacky idea that Dupont eats brains to build muscle mass. Chasing the latter idea, he ends up in a gym, where in the course of five minutes, he manages to make his new trainer think he’s flipped his lid. Which he has. Because no one will pull him aside and say, “By the way, that guy you’re chasing is a zombie. Yes they exist. Stop chasing zombies. It’s bad for your longevity.” The trainer gossips about the whackjob who wants to eat brains to build muscle. Dupont overhears and tracks Major down on Blaine’s orders. There’s a fight. Major’s Youtube training lessons come in handy and he shots Dupont three times.
One phone call to his detective buddy and Clive comes in to find . . . no corpse. No blood on the floor. Just a bullet, a broken mirror, and a dent in the wall. Even he thinks Major needs a long vacation and many talks with a psychologist.
At last Liv is on the same page as the rest of us. She knows Lowell lied about his brain source and that Blaine is actually providing her honey with meals. Unfortunately, instead of approaching the revelation with a calm, cool head, she attacks Lowell. He gets defensive. Liv is still no closer to contacting Blaine to do something about his murderous rampage. It isn’t until Ravi makes Liv stop and put herself in Lowell’s shoes that she sees reason. How would she eat if she didn’t work in the morgue? She came into the undead world prepared to survive. Others like Lowell aren’t as lucky. Blaine turns them and part of the deal is Brains on Wheels. They know no better alternative. With empathy gnawing on her soldier-altered mind, Liv heads home. Lowell shows up unannounced, covered in dirt, with a brown paper bag. He sat in a graveyard all afternoon watching a man’s funeral. The same man whose grave he dug up. Whose head he tore apart to remove the brain—for Liv, as a peace-offering.
“We eat people,” Lowell tells Liv. As though he hadn’t put the pieces together before then. They kiss and make up. After, they hatch a plan to kill Blaine. Lowell lures their creator to his place. Liv will use her newfound sniper skills to take Blaine out. Sounds pretty easy. Until Liv’s conscience kicks in. If she kills Blaine, she’ll become someone like him—completely opposite from the Liv she was before the zombie-making accident. She calls it off. Then Lowell does the worst thing possible, he tries to protect her from this awful act by doing it himself. Blaine blocks the murder attempt and shoots Lowell.
Where can they go from here? If Liv isn’t willing to kill Blaine when she had the chance, she’ll have to go the legal route. How much can she dance around the Z-word while pointing Clive and the police in the right direction? The truth will come out eventually. It always does.
Last episode, Lowell was a minor distraction compared to the rampant Baby Fever cooking Liv’s brain. This time around, she’s so caught up in her new lover and how he makes her feel, she ignores the people who’ve been by her side pre-and-post zombie infection. When Major calls from jail, she ignores it in favor of a rather intense foot massage. Later in the episode, she agonizes over whether or not she actually has a relationship with Lowell or uses him for bedroom antics—despite the fact that in the previous episode, they spent an entire night hanging out as friends because Lowell ate a gay brain. The agonizing doesn’t amount to any growth on her part, his part, or for their relationship. They talk for a couple minutes, it magically fixes everything she sees is wrong, and they end up in bed together again. Liv can’t handle her own relationship, but analyzes everyone’s personal lives in the episode with help from the most recent case on the morgue’s table. The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
Since Liv is missing in action, Major relies on his roommate and friend, Ravi, to bail him out. Ravi is beat to the punch by Peyton, Liv’s roommate, who finds just the right loophole to get Major out of jail without bail.
Everyone Liv is close to comes to her ex’s aid. Ravi even carefully breaks the news that the police found the bodies of the missing boys. However, he can’t bring himself to tell Liv what’s happened to Major—aside from informing her about Major’s recent break-up. What is Ravi protecting her from? She’s pretty much gone through the worst thing possible in her life; finding out her ex played Batman, was caught, and beaten for his part in antagonizing an already tense police department isn’t going to ruin however long she’ll stuck in zombie limbo. It’s an absurd character decision. The show is full of them. Like Ravi’s failure to properly handle his undead rat friend at the end of the episode. Maybe a human shouldn’t handle the infected rodent, like, at all. Even with chainmail gloves. Spoilers: It proves to be an incredibly stupid idea.
The case is a nightmare—overly complicated like so many others this season just to drum up false tension. A radio relationship gossip queen, Sasha Arconi, is murdered on-air, electrocuted by her microphone. There’s no security in the building, anyone could’ve walked in to rewire the murder weapon. One caller is suspected after calling out the plate number for the car belonging to her husband’s mistress. Just so happens, the car belongs to Sasha. Problem is, Sasha believed in free love. There’s no telling how many lovers she has floating around in the world.
One lover in particular hosts a rival sports talk show, Morning Hurl. Their on-air hatred is the stuff of legends. It’s also disgusting. Morning Hurl’s host, Chuck Burd, is King Pig in the land of Misogyny. A shame since they brought in Battlestar Galactica star Aaron Douglas to play Burd. Everything from the character’s mouth degrades Liv or the deceased in sexual ways.
Is this necessary? Is this entertaining? Is this appropriate for a show touting a supposedly strong female lead? Bringing in Burd one episode after they forced Liv to become baby crazy isn’t wise. It perpetuates her role as victim. Sure, she talks a big game when Burd confronts her, but that’s thanks to Sasha’s brain. Liv is a passive vehicle for her meals and their personalities. They didn’t even need Burd for the plot to work. He is a red herring. The real killer is, of course, a woman jealous over professional success. Because women are incapable of coexisting in a competitive work environment. Sure.
To make everything more convoluted, at the end of the episode, Liv sees Blaine walking into Lowell’s apartment building. She should’ve thought about how her new lover sated his brain habit long before now. Oh, and the brain they ate for breakfast after a night in the sack? Just so happens to be Jerome’s. Major buys a gun after delving deeper into why Dupont had a brain in his car. Because guns solve everything. How these characters haven’t killed each other by accident yet boggles the mind.
This week’s case is pretty straight-forward. An underage girl, pregnant with her skeevy boyfriend’s baby, missing for eight months, and found near-dead in the woods by a bunch of teens her age. Obviously the boyfriend did it, angry with the girl for getting pregnant. Or was it her parents, enraged by her poor decisions and choice in boyfriend? A pack of wild dogs? Bigfoot? Even with Liv chowing down on Emily Sparrow’s brain for brunch, this case goes nowhere fast.
It’s a wonder any case is solved in that city. These fearless crime-fighters have terminal cases of “Ooo, shiny.” In the end, none of the suspects kidnapped the girl, which lead to her escape and death from the effort. Important clues happen by accident, save one moment of actual police work—charting Emily’s escape path via river instead of the assumed walking path the task force originally mapped out. At one point, they had one of the kidnappers in the station and were none the wiser. The police work is akin to how children play when their parents force them out into the sun—half-hearted, rules made up as they go, yet somehow they’re always the winner by the time play hour is up.
What happened to Liv? Normally her “Ooo, shiny” isn’t this bad. She’s pretty dog-and-bone when it comes to a new case, simply for the fact that she’s, essentially, the victim every week. Yes, it’s a show with a female lead which forces her into the victim role every week. Sounds a little fishy. This time around, it is worse. She’s distracted by Lowell’s sudden distance. Then Liv gets Baby Fever.
It’s lazy writing to take a female character who, when able to have children, was too busy building a career to commit to baking buns in her oven. Now Liv’s physically incapable of getting pregnant and can’t stop thinking about how quickly she can pop out a dozen kids. Yes, I’ll grant that being half-dead will change a person. But so much as to take a career-driven woman and land her in a rocking chair, knitting booties for the dozen kids she day-dreams about? It’s too fanciful, even for a show with coherent zombies. She’s mourning important human things, you say? She already gave up regular human life during her residency before Blaine infected her—willingly sacrificing sleep, time with family, her relationship with Major, regular friendships, and even a normal diet. Medical school was her everything, just as zombieism is now.
Major is, well, Major. He’s digging deeper into the missing kid’s case—getting his backside handed to him once wasn’t enough to slow him at all. Now Major’s dragging Clive into murky waters. After an ambush phone call between the two—witnessed by a reporter Major brought on to help him uncover the truth the cops don’t want to find—there’s trouble coming their way. Clive is demoted to paper-pushing in the Sparrow case after his bosses see the quote he accidentally gave, posted in bold writing on the next day’s paper. Major escapes unscathed until he stupidly follows the Candy Man—Julien Dupont. He’s caught by cops after breaking into Dupont’s car. Oh and he finds a brain hidden at the bottom of an ice chest. Dupont explains it away, mentioning the café Blaine uses as a front for his brain business. The cops let him go, but drag Major to the station. They lock him in with a biker gang and no supervision. There are a lot of accidental fists meeting his face. Just like Clive accidentally provided the media more fodder against the police department. Tit for tat.
“I’m missing a rat. Liv, you’re rocking a rat.” Ravi’s zombie-cure experiments move onto the next phase—rat testing to determine what mix of Utopia and Max Rager creates zombies. Great. Good. A cure is important. Except it works a little too well, leaving one rat full-on zombie.
Just what the show needs, more zombies. How about less zombies and more focus on the over-arching story line?
Corpse time. Simon Cutler was a grade-A d-bag with a God complex and far too much time to spend on a computer. When Ravi and Liv get the call—while Liv sutures the cuts on Major’s forehead from his fight in the previous episode—to pick up the deceased, they had no clue he’d marinated in his own juices for ten days in his basement.
Yes, Liv made a smoothie from brain matter so decomposed, they probably had to pour it out of the guy’s head. Even I draw the line there. Brain isn’t like steak; aging doesn’t do a thing to improve flavor or texture. Simon’s brain gives Liv a wicked case of agoraphobia, cravings for cheese curls, and mad computer skills. She puts the latter to use, breaking into the dead guy’s computer at Clive’s insistence. A possible lead through a video game falls flat, and eats up screen time which could’ve been spent actually building the plot for the murder case. Honestly, they solve this one by accident. It’s a bittersweet case once everything is on the table. Simon unleashed his anger on a customer service representative, going so far as to put her on the registered sex offender’s list and releasing false nude photos online. After a year dealing with his torture, the poor girl killed herself. Her brother tracked Simon via a Yelp review and took his revenge with no regrets. Unfortunately this story is buried under Liv’s love life and the snail-paced Blaine story arc.
Speaking of, Blaine has to clean house again. His woman-of-the-month, Jackie, loses her temper after a botched brain delivery and eats the delivery boy. It happens to the best of us, Jackie. However, Blaine isn’t as forgiving. One drill bit to the head later, Jackie has eaten her last free meal. Ever. It’s not the last heard from the dead delivery boy. His body is found, leading Clive straight to Blaine’s slaughterhouse/café. He doesn’t get any information from Blaine and nearly gets himself killed. Bravo, Detective. Meanwhile, Major stumbles on footage which places Blaine in the skate park with the guy he thinks is the Candy Man. Ravi sees and takes the problem to Liv. What the heck can she do about it? Major won’t listen if she tells him to drop it. Clive will get dead, or undead, if he comes at Blaine again. Rock, Hard Place, please meet Liv.
A surprisingly easy decision is the choice to give it a shot with Lowell. It’s easy to talk to him, zombie to zombie. Liv only really has Ravi to talk dead things with. Even then, there’s things he just can’t understand. Right now, that’s Lowell’s appeal. He empathizes with her problems. Brings her anxiety pills after Simon’s brain throws her for a loop. Lowell even got out of Dodge when things ramped up in the murder investigation without complaint. He’s too good to be true and that makes for boring television. But they kiss, so someone, somewhere must be pleased.
Something about the zombie apocalypse makes the weirdos come out to play. For once, I’m not talking about the crew of oddballs the show follows, but the cult hanging out in Hannibal, Missouri. With a city name like that, of course there’s a group of loonies thinking the undead are actually the first wave of the rapture—the Resurrected, as they call them. Didn’t we do our time with cults, already? Cassandra’s people demonstrated well enough what can happen when a man is capable of duping the weak because he says exactly what they want to hear. While this cult takes it a lot further down the religious grey waters, it’s essentially the same type of characters all over again. Six episodes in and they’re repeating ideas.
“Just because he’s dead, doesn’t make him a hero.” Murphy calls it again. Why are they following the map of a dead man who wasn’t very pleasant to be around? Lt. Hammond made some questionable decisions during the half a blink he was in charge of the mission. Talking sense doesn’t work for Charles and Roberta. They have a starving crew to provide for.
Off to the mythical resupply post named Province Town, run by Charles’ old friend, Major Williams. The place seems legitimate. They have a strict no weapons rule within the town’s fences. There’s regular patrols to keep zombies back from the compound. Everyone barters for supplies—Williams feeds the crew on his dime for their first meal. There’s not a lot of privacy, but there’s beds, electricity for four hours a day, fresh produce, and plenty of zombie-proofing.
Sounds too good to be true? It is. The cult leader, Jacob, sends three former town members back inside the fences. “. . . was just a crazy cult leader,” one tells Williams. Another says the magic words every survivor loves, “We brought food.” Within thirty minutes, they’ve snaked their way into everyone’s trust again. Not much longer after, the fun begins. The trio reveal concealed blades and kill themselves, turning into the Resurrected. How did the security staff missed the giant crosses under their shirts? The sudden Z outbreak in town puts a cramp in Roberta and Charles’ plans for alone time in one of the few private rooms. This is where the no weapon policy bites Williams in the backside. Everyone is vulnerable. Roberta and Charles fight their way to the others with heavy books.
Addy mashes a zombie’s face into his brain with an egg beater. Then she freaks out. Again. For the last few episodes, something’s gnawed at the girl’s brain. First, when she and Mack find themselves alone back in Illinois, again during the tornado, and a few times during this episode. Each incident is different. There’s no set trigger for her trauma. No explanation for what’s going on, either. She’ll be just fine, then BAM, a total wreck immobilized by fear and visions of violence. If they don’t explain what’s going on soon, these random visions are going to get annoying.
With the town overrun with undead, Jacob and his people let themselves in through the gate. Systematically, they gather the Resurrected and the living. Of the countless people living in the compound, we’re lead to believe only the crew we’re following survive. 10k and Cassandra find a spot to try to take out the cult. Williams is turned. Murphy is missing . . . until he steps forward in the zombie cage to confront Jacob on his lunacy in order to save Charles. He plays on the cult’s beliefs, exposing his bites, using the zombie’s disinterest in him to portray himself as the Resurrected Messiah. While it made a point, I wouldn’t suggest sticking your fingers in a zombie’s mouth. Ever.
Jacob doesn’t like being proven a liar. He suggests one last test for Murphy—a bullet to the heart. Knowing the risk if Murphy dies, Charles throws himself in the bullet’s path. He dies. The others drag Roberta away while Charles turns zombie. When they’re in a safe place, she forces them to stop so she can give Charles mercy. For good measure, she puts a bullet in Jacob’s heart and leaves him for the zombies running loose in the compound.
Can they make it to California without the backbone of the group? Williams warned them, mega-herds of zombies populate the plains and out west. As far as he knew, there is nothing out there for the living. Then why is this crew so determined to make a maybe-rendezvous? Murphy is slowly turning into something. There’s no telling what’ll happen in the time it takes to fight through the hordes ahead.
Without the helicopter Citizen Z failed to provide them with, the crew continues the trek west on the dim hope there’s still scientists left to take over caring for Murphy. They make a pit stop in Illinois to play at normalcy, taking over an abandoned house which just so happens to have . . . an electric fence? Pretty sure it’s something they rigged, taking advantage of the low chain-link fence around the house to secure it for some rest and relaxation time. How does one relax with zombies banging on the gates?
Addy and Mack frolic in the front yard before vanishing into one of the bedrooms to try and fail to have alone time. Roberta and Charles get cozy in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Murphy and Doc play poker, the stakes including whatever pills Doc has left after miraculously treating the burns he suffered during the fight with McCandless. 10k and Cassandra perfect the art of brooding in the living room, ignoring the poker game. Pretty normal, until someone has to go outside and kill the zombies frying on the fence.
Physics takes another vacation on this episode. The crew uses a blunt broom stick to pierce zombie skulls. Doable? Yes. However, it takes significant force to puncture a skull. Any time someone staked a Z, it never felt like enough force to do the damage shown through the zombie’s sudden demise. Lightning kills whatever system they set up to charge the fence. That’s pretty believable. But when the tornado shows up, stuff gets weird.
“Hang on, am I missing something? You did not drag my ass this far so that mankind’s hope can get sucked up by a tornado, did you?” Murphy sums up the plot problem perfectly, as usual.
They hole up in a nearby city, where Roberta and her husband Antoine lived before she shipped to New York to help with the outbreak. The house is a standard size with a basement she swears will protect them from the storm. Seeing as there’s windows down there, my faith in its protective abilities would’ve been shaken from the get-go. The tornado chases a horde of zombies toward the city. Slower zombies become part of the twister. Yes, there is the required Sharknado joke thrown in when the first Z takes flight.
At one point, they split into groups to find medical supplies to patch up the walking head wound and his girlfriend who’d been hiding in the house before Roberta’s homecoming. The newcomer’s head trauma leads to another round of “Doc isn’t a real doctor” but he goes on to perform a rather invasive procedure to relieve pressure on the guy’s brain. And screws up. Of course. During the same time, 10k and Cassandra think it wise to hide from the tornado in a sedan. I still can’t fathom how these people made it out of New York.
Once they reach Roberta’s home, she loses some of her fight. There’s no clear sign from her husband to tell her if he’s still alive—aside from testimony from the people in her house saying “the fireman” sent them to stay there. During the supply run, she discovers nearly the entire fire department staff locked in the station, all undead. Included in the group is her husband’s best friend. By the time they’re done giving mercy to the department staff, the tornado is on top of the town. She gets Charles to safety, locks him in the basement with the others, and sits in her living room, waiting to die or be saved by Antoine. Someone—Antoine or another faceless firefighter—covers her when the ceiling collapses, taking all four walls of the house with it. Miraculously, she survives. The basement crew survive. Even 10k and Cassandra’s less-than-bright hiding spot somehow keeps them alive. Suddenly, Roberta is okay with moving on. She talks to Charles as though she didn’t just try to kill herself via tornado. Someone remind the show’s writers that this is not how suicide attempts work, even if it’s death by failing to protect oneself from a natural disaster.
Murphy may have pluck, but his body is slowly giving up the fight with the combination of Z-virus cure and the bites suffered shortly after they pumped him full of it. He’s rotting. It’s the best word for what happens in the episode. Teeth grosser than they should be—they’re on the run, but still capable of brushing teeth—eyes jaundiced, skin mottled, and his hair is falling out.
To stop the others from noticing, he takes the time to shave his head. While a tornado is practically on top of them. Makes total sense. The empathy Murphy shows for the zombie flung through the basement window is striking. It’s one of few times we’ve seen anything other than amused contempt on his face. What does his degeneration mean for the cure overall? Does it work, or does the cure merely push back the symptoms? If so, everything they’ve done, all the bodies they’ve dropped since New York, is for nothing.
The snowball that is the CW’s newest paranormal television offering slowed down a little for iZombie‘s fifth episode. Something didn’t quite click with this episode. Not sure it it’s the almost forced maybe-lationship introduced near the end or if the overall “bad guy” arc for the season is running out of oomph as the show toddles forward and continues to grow. Is this the dreaded warning flag?
This week’s unlucky brain donor is an adventure-seeker turned skydiver kabob Liv knew back in college. Matter of fact, she helped kicked the girl out of their sorority. Guess that’s what it takes to fill Liv’s guilt tank and put her firmly on the case. It’s a little weird to hear Liv talk about owing it to Holly, like eating her brain is a great service instead of a huge invasion of privacy. At this point, it’s like she wants to find trouble. That’s when a show starts to lose interest—the second the main character keeps doing the Dumb Thing, fans walk. Why poke this emotional open wound by prying into Holly’s life and death? Oh, right. To show character growth. Start by having Liv make adult decisions about her love life, writers. It’d be swell if this weren’t another show with a female lead in her mid-twenties who acted like the nincompoops in teen dramas. It’s the CW, they like a certain formula for their female characters.
The case itself isn’t too thrilling until the big twist comes toward the end and Liv finds out she’s got a lot in common with suspect numero uno, Lowell Tracey—a moody rock star locked into a contract with the company who sent the skydivers out to jump as an advertising gimmick. There’s love triangles galore. Two misdirects on the actual bad guy. And in the end, it was a jealous lover who drugged Holly with GHB so she’d botch her landing. Yawn.
Back to the mysterious rock star. Did I mention he’s also a zombie? There’s a lot of that going around lately. Lowell flies under the radar, much like Blaine and his lover, by dying his hair and applying the best spray tan known to man. He knows right away Liv is a zombie. It intrigues him, even makes him a little hot for her. He breaks the truth via a seriously spicy bloody Mary—my kind of dead guy. There’s a date in the future for these two. Will it be as uncomfortably awkward as the rest of the relationship story lines on the show?
It’s gotta be more exciting than the continuation of the Blaine story arc, or rather lack of story. Clive does a little digging—thanks to a guilt trip from Major—at the skate park. More missing people to investigate. Okay, now he knows something is going on. What kind of resolution can this possibly have? Blaine is ruthless. Clive and Liv can’t even make it through one case without bickering over whether or not it’s actually a case. What happens when they’re on his tail? Clive’s bad cop interrogation routine won’t go far on a guy who didn’t flinch after executing his henchmen.
Is Liv going to guilt Blaine into turning over a new leaf? Maybe she can slay him with the new brain food comedy routine she and Ravi cooked up during the opening scene of the episode. Or Major can bruise his knuckles really bad with his face—much like he did with Blaine’s newly defrosted henchman at the skate park. That’ll show him.
Meat this week’s somewhat fresh corpse—a stomped on, fingerless and toothless John Doe. Ravi’s sleuthing narrow things down a little. The guy was in an Asian gang for at least five years, according to the tattoo on his arm. It’s not until Detective Babineaux walks in that the dead guy gets a name—Sammy Wong. Before Clive puts a name to the face, Ravi urges Liv to chow down so she can help with the case, calling it a “working lunch.” Only once they know who Sammy is, Clive calls off his attack psychic. He’s got this one under control. Which makes Liv twitchy as hell. Or maybe it is something she ate. How well can rice, brains, and rooster sauce sit in a zombie’s stomach? I have heartburn thinking about it.
The weird thing about Sammy and Clive is, they were in some shady dealings together. Liv catches glimpses of the two in the midst of watching the Blue Cobra gang torturing and beating anyone they think is a rat. Since Babineaux isn’t feeling too forthcoming, Liv goes digging in his old stomping grounds—vice. His old partner tells Liv, “Let’s just say, the thin blue line can get a lot thinner when you’re working vice.” When paired with the paranoia leaking into Liv’s brain from her lunch, that little tidbit, plus finding out Clive has been suspended from vice before moving to homicide, sends her into a panic. Desperate to find out if her detective pal is a dirty cop, Liv drags Ravi to a video store she saw the name of in her vision where she plays up having a fetish for Asian men. “Her life is like a whorey version of that movie, Momento,” Ravi improvises . . . poorly. Just so happens, the video store is the Blue Cobra’s headquarters and they’re not buying what the two are selling. Luckily reason wins over Liv’s indigestion and they leave. But now she’s on their radar and on Clive’s bad side.
During a confrontation in Liv’s apartment, Clive lets the truth fly—Sammy Wong had been in witness protection. He’d agreed to testify against the former Blue Cobra leader—father to the current leader, AJ—but came back because of a family matter. The gang found him and killed him for being a rat. Which is the same thing they’ll do to Clive’s ex-partner, Ray. The two had been in deep cover together. Clive got out. Ray didn’t. Before Sammy died, he gave Ray up, told the gang he is a cop. The instant Liv sees this in her vision, she has to trust Clive and tell him. They save the day and viewers finally see some depth to Babineaux. We also got to see Liv channeling some sweet martial arts skills from dearly departed Sammy Wong.
Due to the paranoia coursing through her dome, Liv ends up meddling even more in Major’s life—dragging Ravi along for the ride yet again. In order to prevent Major from asking Corinne, the woman he’s been seeing, to rent the recently vacant room, she cons her boss into taking it instead. Or rather, she tells Major that Ravi wants the place without bothering to inform him. Honestly, there are times one wonders how Liv’s family and friends cope with the weird thrown their way. It works out for the best, though. Ravi and Major bond over video games and high-quality televisions. They’ll make great roommates—and give Liv a reason to see Major more than she does already.
Blaine’s little brain-selling company has evolved greatly since Liv shot him down on the brain-harvesting proposal. He’s acquired two not-quite dumb-as-bricks goons to make deliveries. A café owner he turned stores bodies in her freezer and turns them into gourmet meals for his clients. Hell, he’s even got Jackie, a wealthy woman with a private beauty staff who artfully apply spray tan to hide their deathly pallor. The only hitch? Blaine’s goons aren’t happy. They want to break his monopoly on the brain business. Unfortunately they go to Blaine’s number one squeeze as their first potential client. Jackie’s answer comes in the form of two bullets from Blaine’s gun into their skulls. Luckily, he keeps spare goons in the freezer next to tomorrow’s lunch.
How long will it take for Liv to find one of Blaine’s brainless victims on the morgue’s table? I’m gonna guess sooner rather than later.
Of Wolves and Men Review of “The Walking Dead” 516 – “Conquer”
Let’s get the messy part out of the way—this episode didn’t warrant an extra twenty minutes of screen time. All it did was give producers a chance to dump all the plot threads into a pool and pray it all untangles in the end. They should’ve refined the story into something a little more cohesive that fits the normal forty-two minutes per episode. Every plot element was unnecessarily drawn out. It’d be different if the time was spent on much-needed character development or laying down a solid base for next season. It wasn’t. They flung everything off the table and fans are supposed to be happy with how the story lands until October. As far as finales go, this is The Walking Dead‘s weakest. So what did happen in the finale? Let’s discuss.
You know the drill, there’s spoilers from here on out in this review.
After weeks wondering why Morgan was brought back during a couple quick scenes, we finally get an answer. Kinda. It’s entirely possible, given the state of things in Alexandria by the end of the episode, that Morgan will fill the long-empty “morality of the group” position. A role desperately needed since Hershel’s murder. We were led to believe Gabriel would fill the need, but he’s loonier than a monkey in rubber pants. Morgan isn’t a pushover. When he’s confronted by the men who’ve been mutilating the walkers around Alexandria, he attempts a passive resolution. It doesn’t work, so he thunks them over the head and locks them in the car he’d used as a hotel room the night before. Later, Morgan bails Daryl and Aaron out of a tight spot—they unwittingly walk into a trap set by the same men who attacked Morgan. These men, wolves they consider themselves, could be the big bad for next season. Honestly, they don’t feel too threatening now that Daryl, Aaron, and Morgan know where they are hiding their zombie collection. What kind of weirdo keeps a zombie collection, anyway? (Zombie bunnies don’t count, guys.)
The entire time Rick and company have been in Alexandria, it’s felt like he and Michonne are growing apart. She wanted to find home so bad and he’s fought it tooth-and-nail since meeting the townsfolk. It’s not until Rick wakes in a makeshift holding cell with Michonne watching over him that they finally understand—they want the same thing and are going about it completely different ways. She doesn’t care if he conspired with Daryl and Carol to secure emergency weapons. She’s willing to look the other way while Carol coaches Rick on how to Play The Part—tell Deanna and her followers exactly what they want to hear, just like Carol has done since they arrived. Michonne has overlooked and forgiven a lot in the name of keeping their newfound home. Being a pushover won’t work, she knows it. However, she also understands in order to get what they all want, someone and something’s got to give. Michonne is the law alongside Rick. She can’t run off like Carol, threatening to murder anyone in the way—a message Pete got loud and clear in this episode. Michonne tells Rick, “We don’t need (guns) here. I don’t need my sword. I think you can find a way—we—can find a way. And if we don’t, I’m still with you.” So even though he’s been a paranoid nutjob for weeks, one of his most capable allies is still at his side. How much is Michonne willing to overlook and forgive in her quest for normalcy, though?
Tensions are riding high between everyone, not just the town’s peacekeepers. Toward the end of the episode, there’s a huge clash between Sasha and Gabriel—the crew’s most unhinged members. Sasha spent her afternoon laying in a mass walker grave, wondering what’s wrong with her. Gabriel spent his strolling around, looking for a walker to do what he can’t—end his life. At the moment of truth, he kills the walker. It’s actually one of the best kills in an episode filled with walker deaths. But when Gabriel and his inability to commit to death and Sasha with her equally large death wish are in the same room, the claws come out. “I think I want to die,” Sasha tells Gabriel. He replies, “Why wouldn’t you want to die? You don’t deserve to be here. What you did can never be undone. The dead don’t chose, but the choices you made, how you sacrificed your own . . . .” He goes on, blaming Sasha for Bob’s death, saying Tyreese deserved his death because of what she’d done. Most of what he says is directed at himself, not her. It doesn’t stop Gabriel from attacking Sasha. In the end, Maggie pulls them apart and sits them down to pray.
Another tense duo come to blows in the midst of the big, “What do we do with Rick” problem. Nicholas lures Glenn over Alexandria’s walls and shoots him in the shoulder. The wound isn’t fatal. Throughout the middle and end of the episode, Glenn and Nicholas take turns beating the snot out of each other and the walkers drawn their way by the noise. It ends with Glenn pinning Nicholas to the ground, a gun pointed at his head. Nicholas begs, crying. Glenn visibly wants to kill him. Is psyching himself out for the kill, telling Nicholas repeatedly to shut up. He doesn’t do it. Should he have? Not in this instance. Nicholas is a coward. He made his attempt to rid himself of the one man who knows just how much of a coward he is. Now that the plan has failed, I’m sure he’ll back down. He may even become Glenn’s new sidekick.
The town meeting to discuss Rick’s attack on Pete, the gun he’d hidden, and the threats made after the fight is doomed from the get-go. Deanna’s motivations aren’t without bias. It’s obvious she wants Rick gone. He’s a thorn in her side and constantly questions how she’s run things since the settlement was created. She doesn’t even wait to see if Rick will show up to the meeting that’ll decide his fate—which he won’t, seeing as Gabriel let a zombie into Alexandria after failing to secure the gate and he’s tracking it while his crew stands up for him. All those kind words from Michonne, Carol, Maggie—and let’s not forget Abraham’s eloquent offering—they’re for naught. Once Rick walks in with a dead zombie over his shoulder, it’s pretty much sealed. Instead of rushing to save his own hide, Rick hunted a walker on his own to ensure their safety. Not even Deanna’s admission of Gabriel’s concerns, which we heard last week, matter after Rick’s little speech.
“The ones out there, they’ll hunt us. They’ll find us. They’ll try to use us. They’ll try to kill us. But we’ll kill them. We’ll survive. I’ll show you how. You know, I was thinking . . . I was thinking, how many of you do I have to kill to save your lives? But I’m not gonna do that. You’re gonna change.”
Rick’s place in Alexandria is cemented when Pete comes into the meeting fully prepared to kill Rick—with Michonne’s katana. Reg steps in the way to calm Pete and is killed instead. Without hesitation, Deanna gives Rick the order to put Pete down.
This is the chaos greeting Morgan after he reluctantly agrees to come back to Alexandria with Daryl and Aaron. How will the old friends get along after such a brutal reunion? Who knows? We’ve got quite some time to ponder how things will land in an evolving Alexandria.
After weeks wondering why Morgan was brought back during a couple quick scenes, we finally get an answer. Kinda. It’s entirely possible, given the state of things in Alexandria by the end of the episode, that Morgan will fill the long-empty “morality of the group” position. A role desperately needed since Hershel’s murder. We were led to believe Gabriel would fill the need, but he’s loonier than a monkey in rubber pants. Morgan isn’t a pushover. When he’s confronted by the men who’ve been mutilating the walkers around Alexandria, he attempts a passive resolution. It doesn’t work, so he thunks them over the head and locks them in the car he’d used as a hotel room the night before. Later, Morgan bails Daryl and Aaron out of a tight spot—they unwittingly walk into a trap set by the same men who attacked Morgan. These men, wolves they consider themselves, could be the big bad for next season. Honestly, they don’t feel too threatening now that Daryl, Aaron, and Morgan know where they are hiding their zombie collection. What kind of weirdo keeps a zombie collection, anyway? (Zombie bunnies don’t count, guys.)
Tensions are riding high between everyone, not just the town’s peacekeepers. Toward the end of the episode, there’s a huge clash between Sasha and Gabriel—the crew’s most unhinged members. Sasha spent her afternoon laying in a mass walker grave, wondering what’s wrong with her. Gabriel spent his strolling around, looking for a walker to do what he can’t—end his life. At the moment of truth, he kills the walker. It’s actually one of the best kills in an episode filled with walker deaths. But when Gabriel and his inability to commit to death and Sasha with her equally large death wish are in the same room, the claws come out. “I think I want to die,” Sasha tells Gabriel. He replies, “Why wouldn’t you want to die? You don’t deserve to be here. What you did can never be undone. The dead don’t chose, but the choices you made, how you sacrificed your own . . . .” He goes on, blaming Sasha for Bob’s death, saying Tyreese deserved his death because of what she’d done. Most of what he says is directed at himself, not her. It doesn’t stop Gabriel from attacking Sasha. In the end, Maggie pulls them apart and sits them down to pray.
The town meeting to discuss Rick’s attack on Pete, the gun he’d hidden, and the threats made after the fight is doomed from the get-go. Deanna’s motivations aren’t without bias. It’s obvious she wants Rick gone. He’s a thorn in her side and constantly questions how she’s run things since the settlement was created. She doesn’t even wait to see if Rick will show up to the meeting that’ll decide his fate—which he won’t, seeing as Gabriel let a zombie into Alexandria after failing to secure the gate and he’s tracking it while his crew stands up for him. All those kind words from Michonne, Carol, Maggie—and let’s not forget Abraham’s eloquent offering—they’re for naught. Once Rick walks in with a dead zombie over his shoulder, it’s pretty much sealed. Instead of rushing to save his own hide, Rick hunted a walker on his own to ensure their safety. Not even Deanna’s admission of Gabriel’s concerns, which we heard last week, matter after Rick’s little speech.