‘iZombie 4×11’ Review

Stars: Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley, David Anders | Created by Diane Ruggiero, Rob Thomas

So far, my reviews of iZombie haven’t been completely positive but with this latest episode, the show starts to address a few of the complaints that I’ve mentioned previously.

In 4×11, Liv eats the brain of a germophobe which is played for pretty effective laughs and my favourite moment has to be when someone sneezes loudly in the interrogation room and Liv practically throws herself across the room in response. It’s one of the better used brains in recent weeks and if next week’s trailer is anything to go by, it might be the last of the season but we’ll have to wait and see.

The first subplot to mention is Peyton. Peyton doesn’t get much attention this week but Peyton has to go to Washington to represent New Seattle since the mayor has been murdered. However, her parents don’t want her to come back since the human and zombie tensions keep increasing and there are fears of New Seattle getting nuked. Peyton does end up going to Washington but insists she’ll be back but the moment is played like she won’t be back for a while. It could be a red herring but this is something that might continue into season 5 (by the way, happy to hear there is a season 5 coming!)

Next is Clive’s and finally, they start progressing the storyline with him and Dale. After seeing a recording of Clive admitting that he isn’t certain about the future with Dale and how Dale’s status as a zombie is a roadblock for what he wants, Dale decides ending the relationship is the best move. It’s still a bittersweet moment but one that was becoming inevitable as the season continued. It wasn’t a storyline that was done as well as it could’ve been but I’m intrigued to see where the romance between Clive and Michelle goes from here.

Unfortunately, Isobel’s story comes to end as she dies from her illness. Something iZombie always does well is how heartbreaking saying goodbye to protagonists are. Isobel is no exception but it loses a little bit of its effectiveness since she wasn’t well-utilised in regards to the overall plot and in how she faked her death as a running pun in this episode. The emotion really comes from the reactions of the other characters around her who are devastated by it and it’s very easy to feel their pain since the performances are great.

The last one I’ll go into detail about is Major and the moment where Major realises he may be with the villains finally seem to enter his head as the two young members of his squadron are dealt a tough blow by Chase. One is shot in the head which means permanent death and the other gets riddled with bullets and is left in Major’s arms. This seems to be a storyline that might come to a head next week as the teaser for 4×12 has Liv in a dilemma about whether to give herself up to save human smugglers or keep Renegade going and Major may have to make his choice once and for all.

Briefly, there’s Brother Love and Blaine sadly isn’t in this episode but this is a very minor part of the episode that is mostly there to showcase the growing tensions.

This episode lets a few character plots play out instead of keeping them on pause like the rest of the second half of this season has done. Next week will hopefully continue that so we can have a good finale that fixes the mistakes that have plagued the season.

The penultimate episode of iZombie airs on May 21st.