Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from all of us here alive at...

Op well, alive is optional. But Merry Christmas anyway.

iZombie: Cape Town

Liv getting to play as a superhero, more destroying Major inside and out, Ravi geeking out, and evil Leprechaun is back! Let's get to it!

The episode opens with a set of muggers fresh off a movie set chasing down a woman with a massive purse. Generic Jon Hamm leaps off the wall and tries to save her. After bashing in our two mugger's noggins, he calls himself "The Fog." I'm guessing all the other superhero names were already taken and it was "The Fog" or "Tastesicles."

Alas, our Fog doesn't last long as his body is found in the dumpster the next day. Turns out his real name was Chris and Clive knew him because, despite being shut up tighter than Fort Knox, Clive knows everyone in Seattle. His fourth of July barbecues are legendary, every single weird person in Seattle shows up regularly.

Our Foggy Chris was also a high school shop teacher, but we all know Ravi's not getting that new spice rack. While Liv chops up a brain sandwich Ravi says: "It looks to me like you have the makings of a hero." He should be punished mercilessly for that pun by walking naked down the street reciting the pun punishment and asking for mercy from the pun god.

All is not happy in Major and Liv land (like that's something new. Have we ever seen them happy beyond a blink and you'll miss it moment?). Liv's still arguing about her breaking into his phone and her texting Rita/Gilda/Poison Ivy (I assume the last one). Major is dead right that the fight is stupid and it was all her doing, while Liv expects him to...I have no idea. Gouge out his eyes with a pin? He hasn't done much of anything, aside from keeping his whole zombie assassin job on the down low.  Which, given Liv's tendency to go off the rails at a moments notice is probably a wise move.

They try to set us up to think that after the fight Major's planning on cheating on Liv, but please. That guy's main characterization trait seems to be perfect boyfriend, also kicked puppy. Instead, he's on the zombie hunt again and tries asking a young woman at the bar for the time. But before he can invite her back for a little Netflix and toss into the freezer, an older man appears to take her away. Stick that in your mind, it'll be important later.

Liv's gone full supe while Ravi digs through the Fog's utility belt (I assume Ravi has youtube videos showing how he built his own belt). Rappelling hook (okay, you can get carbines off water bottles), marble (technically a shooter, but fine), chloroform (how the hell does a shop teacher have access to that?), and the most important part of all crime fighting -- duct tape. If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy at binding up thugs.

All of the Supeing out gives Liv a chance to throw on her best Silver Age Batman routing with lines like "I make time for justice" and posing with her chest thrust out. The actors looked like they were having a ball. Half the time I watch this show just for reaction shots. Ravi's of course is golden but so is Clive. He's always on the tipping point of getting sick of whatever crap Liv's pulling now. Is there an Emmy for reacting to wacky shit?

Clive's taking Supe Liv to visit with Mr. Boss. Turns out the two muggers were his little minions. He's playing Santa Claus, as all evil CEOs and crime bosses do. Lex Luthor did a fine turn at Metropolis' Thanksgiving Day parade until he commandeered the sleigh to ram Superman's float. It had to end with Superman snapping Luthor's neck in front of all the kids - you know, real life drama! Liv has a quick zombie vision of a hashtag because kids from the 1980s are playing tic tac toe on the fog of a car window (I assume their phones all died simultaneously). But really, most of this scene was to remind you that Boss is our newest baddy, though his line about "I don't want the kids to know the truth...you know about my being Santa" was pretty forced. He was so delightfully creepy in the episode he threatens Peyton, just keep the creepy. Don't go trying to make him the funny one. Blaine's got it down in spades.

Speaking of our favorite ex-zombie (or is he?), Don E's brought in a dying man to Blaine's mortuary finally giving us a Star Trek line: "Damn it Don E, I'm a brain dealer not a doctor." Blaine zips the guy up into a body bag and takes him to see Liv and Ravi who are trying to pick her Supe name. Our little dying guy who bares a striking resemblance to Vanilla Ice, named Drake, will be singing with choirs of machine-gunning angels unless Liv scratches him. Of course she's all hesitant for a brief second before Blaine points out Drake is the only hope they have to find the tainted utopium and create a possible cure.

Does the Zombie virus also give people diamond studded nails? She doesn't just cut a line into his tissue paper skin, but a deep gash. File your nails down, Liv! How can you even keep nitrile gloves on without shredding right through them? Drake wakes up almost instantly from the zombie magic, and Blaine wants to celebrate with mojitos. But first he zips him back up into the body bag and wheels him out - probably right to party hour.

Back to our brain of the week, Clive's brought in # because, again, the man knows everyone. Seems # sucker punched Zach Snyder, no sorry, The Fog because he was building up a Superhero team without #. (How did The Fog not wear a trench coat and run around spouting libertarian shit like Rorschach? Missed opportunity there dead guy) They bring in the entire super hero team running around Seattle: Ghost cobra, Grey area, Super fly, Mega fist, Blue swallow. I wonder how many names got tossed into the writer's trash bin.

Give me a color. Okay, give me an animal. The Green Sloth! Good, go!

But...

You're the Green Sloth! Figure out your mighty sloth powers on the way out. NEXT!

Liv gives a heart warming super hero speech that I'm sure will pop up during one of the fifty thousand comic book movies coming out next year. This is all to learn that Fog's big plan was to intercept a gun shipment of Mr. Boss. Doesn't stopping a gun shipment seem so quaint now. Are we sure Boss is a crime lord and not just working for the NRA? Or are they one and the same now? The Super Team didn't hear about the plan part, they all thought Fog was nuts for thinking of taking down Boss and wanted no part of it.

One of the two muggers is found on top of the twenty foot high christmas tree with his throat slashed, which is apparently Boss' calling card. So, probably not with the NRA then. What's weird is they found on him a matchbook with Mary the muggie's address on it. Since the muggers knew where Mary lived and one is still "missing," Clive sends some people to check on Mary but she's already flown the coop. No word on the state of her shower curtain or if there's a lasagna in the oven. One day we will get answers for that shower curtain!

Liv and Ravi swing by the mortuary which is probably considered normal protocol for morgue doctors and talk to our newest zombie. Drake seems a little bit shocked about the whole getting shot but not dying thing. Turns out Blaine's massaged the truth a bit about getting his hands on the tainted utopoium right that very second. Seems that it all came about because Drake's old high school buddy swallowed a few condoms full of the stuff, then got shot by Mr. Boss' goons for trying to scam him, and his body is buried somewhere out by the water tower. Drake was a great help, thanks for that Blaine! Though he's still on the hook for needing brains and some other dun dun DUN later.

Don E's hot pockets explode in the microwave because he set the timer for 30 minutes, and Liv has a zombie vision of Boss' goons playing with some anti-aircraft guns (use it for duck hunting). This of course puts her into straight on Supe mode to bust Boss. Clive points out that they have protocol, need probable cause and all those other pesky constitution things. Not to mention the FBI has probably been looking into Boss along with the DA for a good decade and are trying to get him on tax evasion.

Speaking of, has anyone seen Peyton in awhile? I'm starting to think she's gotten locked inside her DA office/ancient classroom and is stuck eating her shoes to survive. For living with Ravi, and Major, and Liv now as well, she's never around. Though, given the tendency for Liv to yell at Major, maybe Peyton wakes up at 4 AM and beats feet before the theatrics begin.

After a day stalking the zombie woman, Major's ready to take her out. But when he turns the corner he spots plastic sheeting and her pointing a gun to her head. He tackles her, but she goes full zombie and holds him down until he confesses that Max Rager is forcing him to hunt zombies or they'll kill his girlfriend. The overwhelming Perfect Boyfriendness™ is enough to tame the zombie in the woman and she lets Major up.

While talking over cocoa, we learn that the woman used to be a call girl before she ran into Blaine. He turned her zombie just so she would service his clients in exchange for brains. Her savings are gone and she doesn't want to suffer the indignity of trading sex for food, so she planned to kill herself. After her sob story, Major shows he's not just a pretty bland face and knows that after he finishes with the list Von's going to just kill him and Liv anyway. He hopes to find some weakness in Von, but apparently the man's gone full messiah with the handful of remaining energy drink users in the world.

What was surprising about this heartbreaking moment between the two of them was that the call girl wasn't treated like the dead hooker trope, albeit an undead one in this case. She wasn't just there to show how seedy the city was, to be killed because lady that likes sex is dangerous. She enjoyed her work before, she talks about visiting places all around the world with the money she made. It wasn't until Blaine got a hold of her and took away her autonomy that her world crumbled. It's a far more nuanced look at sex work than one would expect from a zombie show.

I know I joked about the reaction Emmy, but it's a little sad to know that because iZombie can be rather lighthearted at times and it's in the spec/horror genre, it'll never stand a chance to be looked at. Rose McIver throws her all into each brain, a bit like another sf/f Orphany show that also gets ignored. And Rahul Kohli has comedic timing that would put any sitcom *cough*Modern Family*cough* to shame. But because the industry doesn't like the new or different, off beat things fall through the cracks.



Anyway, my point is this little scene should tug at your undead heart. Now back to Liv. She's gotten herself a superhero costume from the all night Cape Store you know Seattle has to have and is staking out Boss' place.

We quickly get closure on our brain of the week while Liv's going full Supe. Clive brings in the last mugger and Carlos confesses that the so called mugging victim actually hit one of Boss' casinos (do you just get given a casino or two when you fill out your crime boss paperwork?) and stole $50K. The two "muggers" were chasing her down to get it back when Fog popped out of nowhere and beaned them. Except, Mary turned around and killed him. Clive asks if Mary killed off the muggers for being witnesses, but Carlos scoffs that it was Mr. Boss. For being on the chopping block next, he doesn't seem to give too many shits.

While we know that it was Mary who offed the Fog, Liv's working in a few more Christmas references. She runs into a nutcracker that all shady warehouses have strategically placed to warn them of invaders. This alerts the guards (just go into sneak mode and wait it out in the back, Liv) and we finally figure out what that marble shooter was for as Liv CGI hurls it into a guy's forehead. She whacks a guy with a plastic reindeer (which I assume was filled with gold for how he goes down) and then she puts chloroform on a christmas themed oven mitt? (they were running out of ideas) to leap on top of another guy and gas him.

Because attacking people Home Alone style is stupid in real life, Liv gets shot in the back. Of course the guy wants to gloat, giving Liv time to go full zombie. Yay! Another zombie knife fight! Okay, it's nowhere near as awesome as zombie knife fight because nothing can be as great as that. It is still fun to watch tiny Liv leaping like an enraged wolverine all over the bad guys. He freaks out and asks her what the hell she is. Full Supe Liv says "I'm the nightmare before christmas" and takes him down.

Then she spots Mary all tied up because they were waiting until tomorrow to kill her? They ran out of cement shoes? Thugs just aren't what they used to be. Of course Liv frees her because she sees helpless citizen, and gives Mary her phone to call the cops. Mary whacks Liv in the back of the head which is the only way to immobilize zombies, I guess. She's about to shoot Liv when Boss shoots Mary from behind.

After obligatory Major put the zombie lady into the freezer scene, we cut to Ravi waking Liv up. All the guns and thugs are gone. It's just her and dead Mary left on the warehouse. Boss phones the police after he shot Mary who was about to kill Liv. Liv's still full of righteousness and demands that Boss be arrested for his minions. Creepy leprechaun does get in the great line "My minions? I'm a CPA, I'm not a super villain." See, stick with the creepy. And then we learn that Drake, Blaine's last ace in the hole, is working with Mr Boss. Which means that Mr. Boss shot him in the gut, leaving him to die, knowing that Blaine would turn him into a zombie. So he knows about the zombies and possibly even the tainted utopium as well. Dun dun DUN!


Clive's rightly pissed as hell at Liv who just set back who knows how many investigations and her storming in to nearly get herself killed. There's some regret mixed in with the sick of her shit from her getting injured because of working with him and Clive dumps her from the force. Did the writers finally realize that the brain of the week storyline is kinda boring and no one cares? It's been getting pushed more and more to the background as the rest of the world opens up, so...oh wait, mid-season finale. We have to shake everything up before the world resets in January.

Speaking of that, Major's making spiced apple cider because he's freaking Martha Stewart in an athlete's body. (okay, that might just be Martha Stewart period. Do not mess with that woman) We get it, he's the perfectest boyfriend to ever perfect the boyfriending, so much so that he's been trying his damnedest to put up with Liv's ever shifting mental state and the whole no sex thing (I assume we're going with the Clinton definition of sex here). He's so perfect it has to be Liv who finally pulls the plug.

"You love the woman I was before, you tolerate the woman I am now. We belong with our own kind."

This would probably be a bit more impactfull if we hadn't already seen this a couple times before. That's the problem with the on again-off again relationships. By the third breakup people aren't going to care. Oh they'll just Ross and Rachel it again, whatever. For Major's sake, I kinda hope this one sticks. Dude needs a hug, a puppy (hey whatever happened to Minor? Is he living with Peyton in the negative zone?) and years of therapy.

Still, Major clings to hope eternal. As he leaves he says that Ravi will find a cure and then they can be together again.

But, we ain't done with the drama bombs yet! While in the lab, Ravi walks past Hope and sees our little rat has gone back to being full zombie. Which means in a few dozen days or so Major and Blaine are probably going to return to their undead state. The episode ends with Ravi all alone searching for the buried bodies musing in a voice over if a cure is even possible.

So Liv's entire zombie purpose is gone, she dumped Major just as he's about to go back to being full zombie, and a crime lord is aware of the zombies running through Seattle and probably has plans for them all. And just as the world implodes we have a month and a half long break.

AHHH!!!!

See you all sometime at the end of January. For now, keep looking for that negative zone full of missing DAs and dogs.

iZombie: The Hurt Stalker

Welcome to the home stretch before the mid-season slumber. I think that's how network tv works, it's been so long since I've cared. Since we all live in a constant state of "spoilers" due to DVRs/Netflix/Bittorrent it's now possible to both know how a show ends and still get pissed about having it spoiled. Truly, it's a new day for quantum tv physics.

Liv's actually using her abandoned apartment. Due to her always being with Major, and Rita having her own life and one of a dozen flats, I assume a friendly family of raccoons have moved into the abandoned one. Since it's Seattle, they already have an Etsy store where they sell bits of string hand washed in an all natural river. This scene is just to establish that Rita super knows Liv's still sleeping with Major. Sadly, we don't get to see the raccoons jarring their own hand curated garbage collection and instagramming it.

Our brain of the week is the mystery woman from the end of last last weeks episode who slipped a white envelope somewhere. Turns out she's Regina Sumner, bad ass wedding planner who will fuck you up with a cake server. I'd have been checking her for super powers, because cave servers are dull as butter, but she went and got shot, so never mind. So long potential werewolf and/or Matrimonial Hulk. Turns out that she used to date/sleep with/stalk Clive. And the gun that shot her was Clive's. He seemed pretty chill about the whole thing, including her stealing his gun. Just how many do you have in the house that one goes missing and you shrug it off?

There's a quick scene of Von but, god, is anyone else really hoping that guy gets pushed off a building fast? I never want to lose Blaine, he's like watching an eccentric maestro compose a symphony backwards. But Von's been pushed so far to the "I'm awesome but can't accomplish shit" backburner to make room for Rita he just makes my hair hurt. I don't know why Rita tells her dad about her booty call woes, but Von doesn't give a shit because it's Von. This was mostly to establish there are eight dead zombies, and three innocent ones. AKA, Major shot up the ones in Meat Cute when he went all Rambo and stuffed the other three in his mannequin freezer.

They swing by the lab and the creepy Dr. Irving is gone (which I'm sad about, lady was ghoulishly awesome), but it does get a good line from Rita commenting on the eternal changing cast of Max Rager's R&D. "They're like drummers for Spinal Tap." If Super Max gets dumped into the full zombie's blood stream they go from original Dawn of the Dead shamblers to remake zombies with rockets up their asses.

Because Clive can't be investigating his own potential murder case, they bring in Detective Cavanaugh who is no longer a seemingly affable, candle loving guy. Nope, now he's just dick all the way down. I'm not really sure why. I preferred when he was this weird mix of goofy detective and scentsy mark. Going full asshole as a foil isn't breaking any new ground here. Oh well.

This whole episode was to give us a little bit into Clive's backstory, but once again the only way to crack under his skin is with a dead body. Dick Cavanaugh drops off a phone of Clive threatening Regina to leave him alone. After Liv noshes on some brains, Ravi has the thought we all did. "What if you have a vision of having sex with Clive? What if you see his O face? I bet it's super angry." Ravi's on point this episode. I think I blew a blood vessel laughing so damn hard.

We do finally learn the first name of BlondieFBI and it's Dale. I'm guessing her parents really wanted a boy. She explains what the weird ass package was, turns out Regina was a super stalker as well and would make scrapbooks pretending she was married to cops. But it was really just an excuse to give sudden hobby backstory to Clive: he plays piano, he cooks cajun, and - to Ravi's delight - he's a huge Game of Thrones fan. That's about it.

I'd say we learn more about dead Wedding Planner who wields the cake slicer like it's Excalibur. On top of having so-so photoshop skills, and actually printing out photos, she's a badge bunny and only went after cops before deciding they should be married forever. I'm more surprised at the idea of Clive meeting her at a wedding. Clive at a wedding seems a real stretch. Oh god, the idea of Clive having to be a pointless usher asking people if they're with the bride or groom and not giving a shit where he seats people.

Liv's going all super stalker to try and explain away why Regina stole Clive's gun, but seriously, dude. You dropped the ball on that one. They don't really explain when she stole it, but shouldn't that kind of thing be reported and on file? Or does he have so many he didn't notice? Never mind, the need to own and use a gun safe. We have to go track down whoever Regina was suing right now, but we're going to talk about this Clive. I mean it!

Our little zombie investigating duo is told they have to play it by the book and not get involved because that always works. Liv's teamed up with Ravi, which was freaking adorable, to try and question the couple Regina was suing. Liv tried to pretend they're fiances asking about using Regina as a wedding planner for their own fake nuptials. Clammy hands clinging tight to Liv, Ravi massively flops face forward into his improv session.

But Uma Voss doesn't see through it, as she talks about how Regina messed up their wedding, got fired, showed up drunk, then sued them. On the way out we learn that Uma's husband is a cop and Liv has her only zombie vision of Matthew throwing the same scrapbook off a bridge. Apparently Seattle co-opted that bridge hazard in Paris where uncreative people like to cause structural damage by covering it in padlocks and chucking keys at innocent fish. I mean, isn't love grand?

Ravi finds the tossed scrapbook and they notice that there's some white guy in a picture that Regina kept using. I can tell it's shopped by the pixels! It can't have been Matthew Voss that killed her because he was on call at the time, so we're back hunting.

The stalker brains have kicked in, and Liv throws a fit about Ravi's shampoo in the shower. Man takes good care of his hair. Major at first takes it in stride, but after Liv reads through his phone and finds the texts from Rita, he gets rightly angry. For some reason, now's when Liv admits about the stalker brains instead of before, but beleaguered Major isn't having it. He hides his zombie sleep drugs in his safe, but Liv's super suspicious that he even has that.

Since Major's shut down, Liv's now taken to stalking facebook, freaking out over every post on Major's wall. This doesn't seem so much like stalker brains as just jealousy cranked to eleven (I can make the Spinal Tap reference too!). Stalker would be more her reading a small moment of kindness as a sign someone is meant to be with her forever and ever. And then she photoshops her head onto a bride's and creates fake wedding invitations. It felt like it was played more as "ladies be jealous and crazy" instead of "stalkers have delusions based upon nothing you can control and can take it to dangerous and scary lengths." But this was mostly just to turn Rita's devious brain against Liv anyway. After Liv says Major called Rita desperate, you can see the gears churning in her brain.

Back to our Brain of the Week, Clive swings by the morgue with food (guys, we need to talk about you eating in the lab...beside dead people! That's an OSHA no-no, big time). Ravi's a true brit as a little spice on his po'boy knocks him down flat, and they both try to razz Clive by talking shit about the sandwiches. He sort of admits that he doesn't get them from a take out place called "Grandmas" but makes them himself.

Of course they want to know why he wouldn't admit it. Then Liv calls his cooking "adorable." "And that's why." Poor Clive can't just enjoy his eccentric hobbies in peace. Ravi does get one good one in by leaning close to him and asking "Clive, what's GRR Martin up to?" Through his knit jaw, Clive sneers, "Not writing!"

Anyway, dead lady. Right, should focus on that even if Clive seems pretty chill about his career ending and him winding up in prison and all. Seems some evidence has gone missing, one of the other scrapbooks that I don't remember anyone mentioning, but eh who cares. Liv, through the use of the cyclist community, has managed to trace an SUV that she promptly breaks into because she's bang up at laying low. While digging through the cleanest cop car in the world, the owner arrives. Rather than leave, Liv climbs into the bloody backseat. And then we see the new Chief Wallprice that appeared out of thin air for this episode (didn't it used to a black lady? I swear there was a black lady. The turnover in Seattle is getting impressive). Seems Regina was boning him and sent him a scrapbook as well.

Someone calls Chief Wallwiggum about the missing evidence and he pretty much paints himself by saying "If the scrapbook gets out, it'll end my marriage." Liv manages to steal one page out of the scrapbook and then promptly gets found out. Proving that no one has to follow the law in Seattle, she's thrown right into jail jail instead of county, no bail, no nothing. I'd say that violates the constitution but that seems to be the norm anymore.

She's not getting out until Monday morning, which means she's going to get real hungry. They finally figured out that Regina stabbed the shit out of someone with her cake server because there are two different blood types at the crime scene. But that may not exonerate Clive because they don't have any thermocyclers on premise and can't do a DNA comparison I guess. I don't know, I guess the Seattle CSI is a goat tied up with an extension cord. Someone buy these guys some taq polymerase because being unable to do a simple DNA extraction & amplification despite having your magic microscope that can see viruses is rather pathetic.

Despite being in jail on flimsy pretenses and having a police chief hate her, Liv can have visitors. After Ravi stops by, Major does as well. Seems he's still working with that kid's basketball team, which is nice. Anyone want to take up a fund to pay for Major's huge therapy bills when all this is done? Liv confesses the stalker brains are out of her system, which means she goes full zombie and wants to eat her roommate just as she gets released. This gives Liv another dose of stalker brains, but it's okay because, despite going to jail jail, Liv's still got the picture she stole. Do I want to know how she held on to that? Probably not.

They find it's the original picture of some white guy with Regina and can see that nice stalker lady stole Uma Voss' one of a kind grandmother's engagement ring. Liv and Ravi return to the dry cleaners where we see neck stabbed Karl is running the register. Ravi asks for a blood sample and Karl bolts while Liv and Uma just watch him. As Karl tries to start up his van for a get away in a vehicle marked with his damn business, Cavanagh pops up and plays some Karma Chameleon to our delight.

It's the same old story. Regina slept with Uma's not-quite husband which meant it was okay because there wasn't a ring on it. Uh, okay? And then she sent Uma a scrapbook and stole her grandmother's ring. Uma said the plan was to scare Regina to give up the lawsuit, but they didn't count on her having a vorpal cake cutter in her purse. So, before Regina could kill her brother, Uma shot her. (Anyone wonder why they didn't think to check for fingerprints on the gun? Just me?)


Still on the "stalker" brains, Liv tries to break into Major's safe. He opens it to show that all that's in there is her engagement ring (because Major's not stupid enough to leave all his shit out like that). He says the heart breaking line: "I couldn't stand the idea of anyone else ever wearing it." This man is like a crying clown picture crossed with a sad beagle. So many therapy bills in his future.

But Liv still hasn't learned her lesson and breaks into his phone again (dude, change your password to something other than your damn thumb!) and Rita's screwing with her. There's no way Rita doesn't know what she's doing, so expect more melodrama on the horizon.

A fun little episode that maybe moved Super Max a needle tick and gave us a few things about Clive. But, it looks like next week Liv eats a vigilante's brains and becomes the Zombie-Bat running around Seattle to beat up criminals with her undead hands. *rubs hands in anticipation*

Triscuit Cranberry & Sage

Hello and welcome back to another episode of "Don't Do as Sabrina Don't Does" or "Sabrina Eats Weird Ass Food To Your Delight." There's probably something about loving bombs in there as well.

In honor of the coming season I would like to introduce and then warn you as far away as you can run from this:

It seems like a no brainer right? Triscuits work well with savory spice like sage, and cranberry is a thanksgiving staple due to the lovely astringent overlaying with the more bland turkey. How can you possible screw that up? But sweet dear god, someone opened a portal to hell in creating these abominations of every snack food to ever walk the earth.

Open the box and your bile will rise. How can a cracker smell like rancid meat drudged through cranberry sauce I have no idea, but this one pulls it off.

Okay, now to taste it...

Nope! You can't make me! I have so much more to live for! You'll never catch me, sucker! AAHHHH!!!!!

All right, all right, this is for you, and science, and the Queen. I assume she's reading this from under a pile of corgis to keep her warm through the winter.

First Bite: Turduckfucking hell! This tastes like if a dog ate a can of jellied cranberries, tin and all, then vomited the mess up, and you -- armed only with an ancient box of moldy triscuts -- scooped the cranberry vomit onto the cracker and ate it (I assume in some post apocalyptic setting where that and a box of sugar bombs are all you have to survive on.)

The cranberry isn't that familiar sweet astringent we all pretend to love lest Ocean Spray break our kneecaps, it's rancid. If you took a big bite of cranberry sauce, then had your bile rise from Uncle Racist saying "Trump has some good ideas," the one that burns in the back of your sinuses and won't leave for an hour, there ya go. And someone loved that taste so much they slapped it on a cracker to sell for mass consumption.

Somewhere under there is a nice sage but who cares, it doesn't matter because your tongue's already run off to become a Jehovah's Witness so it never has to deal with this holiday shit ever again. Only masochists would eat an entire cracker - I say finishing the one because we still have to talk about the after taste.

It could be worse. Believe me, it could. But if you try one of these crackers, you're going to want to keep a pot of gravy on hand to wash it away. The sage and triscuit meld almost nicely in the back of your throat but then BAM! cranberry vomit swerves into the lane without signaling, running the sage off the road. It probably cackles while high-fiving a plate of yams covered in marshmallows.

I can only assume Triscuit used no focus groups to test this flavor because there is no way a human being could taste this and not run from the room screaming. Or, perhaps they are part of some secret cabal set out to destroy Thanksgiving one disgusting limited edition cracker at a time. Or they brought in a bunch of dogs in adorable reindeer hats who, in between licking their asses, ate a few crackers, then returned to the preferred taste of feces.

For all that is good and holy in these trying times, do not eat the Cranberry & Sage Triscuit. Do not open the box, do not even go near it on the shelves for fear it will lash cranberry tendrils that break under your skin and suck your juices to feed its old god soul.

Or, you could hand a box to Uncle Racist and smile politely while he chokes on the bile infused crackers. It's up to you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

iZombie: Abra Cadaver

Is November sweeps over yet? I swear this month is going to kill me. At least there's the balm of turkey and falling catatonic from an L-tryptophan hangover to avoid the stampede of capitalism next week. For now, we have Abra Cadaver.

Our brain of the week is found in a hotel where we watch the maid knock on the door, slip inside, do something, then run out screaming. This dead Chris Angel simulacrum is one Sid Wicked who had his throat slit by a playing card. Quick, round up Channing Tatum and hold him indefinitely to stop this cursed Gambit movie from being made!

Apparently, there's some magician con going on which, it turns out, Ravi's super into. SUUPER into. Is there any nerdy thing Ravi hasn't suddenly developed a love of? I find myself wondering why his room looks so plain, but maybe he hasn't bothered to unpack the good stuff what with his roommate being a zombie assassin that bought himself a holy hand grenade of Antioch. Probably best, Ravi.

Back to our dead Magic Man, Ravi smells a foul odor and traces it back to a dead fish tossed in the waste basket along with a note "Enjoy the Decay." It's a literal red herring. Round of applause. You've been a great audience!

After eating a bit of brains, Liv's doing some magic tricks much to Ravi's childish delight. "I almost want to start killing magicians so it never ends." Turns out there are some of those pesky cameras in the hotel. They saw Sid go into his room alive, never leave, then *magic* he's dead. So our Magic Man sat in the room with the rotting dead fish just for funsies because it was that or film a plastic bag floating in the air.

Our friend Sid's turned Liv into a full goth chick just without the heavy makeup, though she's got the pale part going at least. She left a voicemail for Major saying drowning would be a beautiful way to die. I'm more surprised by the voicemail part. Who does that anymore? Death to voicemail! You can drown it in a bowl of dead flower petals if you need to.

Because they need to pair up every female cast member with a male, they've decided to kick off Steph because she's weighing Ravi down, man. Women be such buzzkills. He tried to complain to Liv about it, but since he won't suddenly turn Steph into a zombie from sex (come on people, read a damn immunology book!) she won't hear any of it. No matter what brain Liv's on, she's still got narcissist down pat. Ravi's also complaining about Steph to Peyton about how this girl's just cramping his style. We get it, you want him to move on. Boy did this whole set up come out of nowhere. The stages of this quick one off relationship seem to be:

• "Hey, I met someone." 
• "Did you guys know I met someone?" 
• "This is Steph and she's cool." 
• "I'm already bored of her." 
• "As a robot I'm programmed to get sick of things much faster than you humans."

I have no idea what the point was aside from trying to make jamming Peyton back into the plot look a bit more seamless. Think you guys needed to add a bit more joint compound before slapping that coat of paint on.

Anyway, enough with Ravi's sudden need for drama - guess who's back? It's Blaine. Whenever I ask that, it's always Blaine. He swings by the morgue because he's got a key to every building in Seattle and tells Liv about the zombie assassin. A little surprising she couldn't figure it out at all - but that's Liv for you. If it's not staring her in the face, or her lunch, she's probably going to miss it. Blaine begs for her to help him solve his missing bottom line problem in the Blainiest way possible. "Help me Zombie Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." Liv's hemming and hawing but we both know they're going to end up working together. They always will because Blaine is awesome in his self awareness and utter "doesn't give a shit" attitude. He's so much better than Max Rager's Von, who I'm happy to see got sidelined for awhile.

Anyway, back to our Brain of the Week. Seems the maid that found the dead body heard him yelling something earlier about Angels, so Clive pulls in his assistant who's named Angel. That wasn't even kind of subtle there guys. We all know who you're satirizing here, we just don't care. Angel's got the alibi of being surrounded by a bunch of people signing head shots instead of taking them. But, she tells them that everyone hated Sid because his shtick was revealing how other magicians tricks worked online. I'm surprised it took this long for the magician union to put a hit out on him. You don't mess with the Magician Union. All they found of the last guy was his handkerchief - ten feet of it.

Angel also points the finger at our next two fish in wastebins - Houdina and the Magnificent Magnus. Ravi's put on twitter duty to see who all's been threatening Sid (and oh my god, maybe it's because I'm female and have seen the Gamor Gaters on the regular but Magician trolling is saaad. 'Excuse me, but I thought you were being rightly mean to me, and I'd like you to stop please' sad. The stuff that wouldn't even register being worthy of a block kind of sad. Come on magicians, if you aren't going to threaten to send wand pics and insinuate someone's mother is a white rabbit, I just can't take your anger seriously). Meanwhile Liv and Clive stop by Houdina's to show how this red herring's been taking deadly throwing card lessons.

Is this a thing now? Arrow just had tattoo guy and now this premise. Oh god, does this mean the Royal Flush Gang is going to get its own movie. Please no, I'm begging you. I'll even throw my support behind the Chaning Tatum Gambit movie if....nope, can't do that either. HE LOOKS LIKE A HAM WITH FEATURES!

Dicing celery with playing cards is all so Liv can have a zombie vision of Houdina throwing a diamond ring back in Sid's face. Turns out they almost got married once before she got freaked out by all the death and piles of pancake makeup. Then, because Sid is such a gentleman, he turned around and revealed how her tricks are done before tweaking it and using them himself. The great Revealo is such a jerk. Houdina's missing the four face cards from her deck, but that seems to be a regular occurrence. I imagine the lost and found bin is bulging after the Magician conference given how sticky fingered everyone is. Do they all meet up at the next one and hand back stolen wallets, watches, and underwear?

Clive and BlondieFBI are meeting up to "Netflix and Chill" though Liv buys that excuse and thinks they're really going to a movie, so she's sitting outside Blondie's house with Blaine. This scene doesn't do much more than establish Clive can sometimes get it, and Liv and Blaine need to team up to fight crime together. The next day they break in to rifle through Blondie's piles just left on the table. Does no one use a computer in Seattle? Paper, actual paper stacked up on the table. Maybe Blondie is that out of touch vampire I was hoping for.

After rifling for an hour Blaine's the one to find a picture of Major's new dog he got courtesy of freezer zombie. But they haven't learned anything more than what they already knew. Seems the FBI also doesn't know a thing about zombies despite there having been that Max Rager leak from a season ago, and there was the fact Ravi used to work for the CIA drawing up zombie plans. Granted, just for fun, but come on, no one else there is putting the two together? A whole lot of brainless bodies popping up doesn't ring a few bells?

While picking over a cop's stuff and leaving their prints everywhere, the mail drops off the report on Suzuki's beer fridge brains. Liv goes on a magician rant about how best to break into it without leaving any evidence, while Blaine just slits it open with his blade. See, perfect crime fighting duo. If this zombie thing doesn't work out, you know. Just put it on the back burner. Liv offers to doctor up the pages to make it look like the lab results came back as cow, because in no way would the lab guys be thinking "Huh, wonder why the hell they needed us to test human brains. Think we should check up on that?"

After a night of Steph having to turn super annoying because we all must hate her now, she decorates Ravi's place (seriously, can everyone lock pick in Seattle? Is that what they teach you to do while waiting in line at Starbucks?) to look like a brit exploded in there. Ravi waits to dump her until the next morning because, see, she made him drink and have fun. She's such a bitch like that. It's not like he could have said he wasn't into it before that.

Clive's trying to interview the Magician Magnus but first he has to show off his powers to some Three Card Monte. After winning, he quips "I grew up in Brooklyn. You don't play in Brooklyn." Hipsters are serious magicians, they'll make your sense of dignity disappear. Our Magician Magnus is the kind of sleazy guy that insists he's chivalrous while slobbering on your hand and trying to guess what color your knickers are. Turns out his alibi is an auburn haired woman who drug him to the bathroom for a little tickle and then crying for five minutes and swearing that never happens.

Liv has a quick zombie vision of Magnus confronting Sid about some terrible blurb for his book. Much like their trolling efforts, it's far from the most biting commentary ever worthy of killing someone over. Shit, Fantastic Four would probably use it on their DVD covers. "It's a...magician!" This was the red herring that sent the actual red herring in a basket to our brain of the week, so you know he didn't do it. Red herring squared is no way to solve a murder.


Outside of dead brains, Liv's talking to dead roses and Major's taking it all in stride. I'm really expecting another major breakdown from him for the way he's trying to act like everything's "Cool, so cool. Super cool. No problems. None at all." They've got some new rule where they never lie to each other (because let's try healthy relationship for once), and Liv tells Major about the zombie assassin. Of course he lies to her immediately, but promises that Liv won't get taken out by this guy - though it may not be a guy, who could be about my height and weight - that's killing zombies because someone might have some dirt on them. Nope, not at all. Forget I said anything and drink your single plum floating in perfume in a man's hat.

At even less healthy relationship land, Peyton swings by Blaine's mortuary where he's singing O Danny Boy (god, I love this guy). Seems she's still freaked out about Boss' warning. As Blaine puts it: "For a little guy, he's enormously terrifying." Because Peyton has no standards, she accepts Blaine's cellphone number while giving him the eyes. With Ravi now trying (and failing) to kiss her, they're setting up the weirdest love triangle. This "let's make Peyton interesting and relevant" train is really going off the rails.

When not failing at female interactions, Ravi's reading through the angry tweets and finds one where Sid responded to a group called *sigh* Smok & Meers. He threatened to reveal their trick next. Considering these magicians were all performing to a smattering of people in a Holiday Inn conference room, I feel like everyone was seriously overreacting to their modicum of power. I wouldn't be surprised if our Sid Wicked's youtube channel got like 5,000 views at best.


But, because Clive leaves no stone unturned, he interviews Smok & Meers. We're all gonna pretend they're not supposed to be Penn & Teller, right? Okay. Can we at least acknowledge Meers is obviously a woman dressed like a man? No? You're no fun! Seems they're filming some cable special (I assume they really meant special access cable), and Meers shtick is to write everything out on a whiteboard instead of just not talking. Smok & Meers *sigh* say their alibi for the murder was sitting in on Houdina's show. Except ,after her disappearing act she never came back for the bow which was weird. Dun dun DUN!


Clive and Liv confront her where she hasn't moved since they last saw her two days ago. You accidentally glued your butt to the window, didn't you lady? It's okay, you can tell us. We won't judge...much. She has to point out that she was the cocktail waitress that pops up to ask about the rabbit. The magic isn't real. Sometimes the solution is obviously in front of you. Like a woman poorly dressed like a man. Seriously, Lucille Ball looked more like a man for one of her wacky schemes.

Liv and Clive figure out that the reason the only one to go into Sid's room was the maid was because the maid killed him. Except Erina's vanished. Wooo. And there's no home address because she's undocumented. But wait, Liv spots a bit of writing on the wall and they all finally figure it out. But for the few viewers at home that were getting snacks and/or on their phones, here comes the big reveal.

While Smok & Meers *Seriously?!* are, oh let's call it performing, Clive pops up to arrest them. Turns out that Erina was Meers the whole time. Wow! I am shocked. Shocked. They killed Sid to stop him from revealing how their anvil trick worked to all fifteen of his fans. Meers took a part time job as the maid, killed him with the card, then ran out screaming about finding his dead body.

But that's not all. Liv rolls out an old flash pan cart and yanks off the tablecloth to expose the auburn haired woman that they paid to seduce Magnus (I hope she got her body weight in gold bullion for that one). Seems that they wanted to hedge their bets by having two people to blame the murder on, not that it mattered in the end because, oh no, they got exposed on cable access television that Meers can actually talk...and is a woman. Though I suspect the latter was less surprising. Oh and the murder thing.

Liv drops off her doctored report (are magicians also accomplished forgers? I feel like the FBI would be watching them more closely if that was the case) and we're shown dun dun dun, a random woman we've never seen before watching Liv. Is this the female werewolf I've been hoping for? I have no idea, all we learn of her is that she drops a big white envelope off in front of the door marked for Occupant. Mystery lady leaves us with a big question for the coming break.

This episode ends on Liv dressed for an Irish wake playing with a Ouija board. Major, finally, can't take all the weirdness and just leaves.

So that's all we got this week. Not too much set up beyond a few pawns shifting around the board and one new mystery lady. There's a week break coming up for Thanksgiving, and then we'll be back in December. Enjoy your lovely turkey dinner with brain stuffing. Me, I can't wait for cerebellum pie.

iZombie: Max Wager

Ravi and Peyton seem to have gotten over their awkward "So we dated for like two weeks and then you ran to Peru but now you're living with me" moments by sharing some eggs that had to be cold coagulated messes by now. (Do these people wake up at like 5 in the morning to languidly sit around eating breakfast or do they just not have to get into work until like noon?)

The real terror is when Major comes down the stairs. He's...he's happy! AH! I'm remembering why this show's been turning Major into a twisted, broken monster measure by measure. Happy Major is scary, far scarier than Rambo Major. He was in such a Disney Prince mode I expected him to start singing so happy bluebirds did his chores for him.

And the source of Major's happiness? Being back together with Liv. Which still seems like a really, really bad idea. Sure, he finally knows the whole truth (though this time she doesn't), but that's a lot of baggage they're just sort of waving their hands over and pretending doesn't exist. For now, scary happy Major and his singing and dancing routine.

Ravi offers to try and test to see if the zombie virus can be stopped by a condom because he's got nothing better to do. Which, should be bloody easy to do in magic lab, but I'll go on that rant later.

Outside of the Happy Couple Vomitorium, Clive's being taunted by the guy from last week (who has a name now, it's Harry Cole) that took a plea deal for his killing Telly with his bat. Because he never studied under stoolie 101, Harry stands on the police department steps while a motorcycle rolls up with two people awkwardly perched on the back. You all know what's coming next.

Clive rolls out of the way because he's got the dexterity of a cat, Clive Cat! It can so become a thing. But alas Harry Cole has slipped this mortal coil. Out out brief candle, we barely knew ye beyond oh yeah, his gambling addiction. There goes our brain of the week.

Continuing to do actual detective work, Clive brings in Thronk (our fixer from last week), a lawyer that hasn't been in a courtroom for nine years. That isn't entirely surprising, there are all kinds of lawyers not just court ones and...okay yeah, they just slapped a suit on a mountain gorilla and called him a lawyer. Thronk's (god damn is that a good henchman name. I hope he winds up working for Boss just so they have to keep saying Thronk over and over.) cryptic words on a phone call to the fixer's fixer were "Take care of Mister Sheldon." That leaves to poor Clive to try and track down every trace of this Mister Sheldon and connect it back to dead Harry.

In trying to get Clive to come out of his shell, he's sharing a meal with Blonde FBI Lady and the fact Suzuki's wife dropped off some brains. Anyone else find it rather suspicious how quickly she jumped to it being human while Clive just shook his head and said he had no idea but it was in his freezer? Seems like the FBI might already be aware of the zombie apocalypse but they have to wait a good decade before they have enough evidence to convict or do anything. And they want to see how it will go. There are a lot of video game devs waiting to see if they got it right.

While they're on this not-date date Liv and Major wander by still in that sickly sweet diabetic coma stage of wuv. This is mostly so Major can freak out about the FBI being there, as he assumes it's due to Meat Cute. But Liv tells him it's because of this weird serial killer attacking the rich. Major seems surprised but come on dude, you're not killing the homeless. You're taking out the only people the government gives a shit about. Of course someone's gonna notice. It also implants the idea in the series that the serial killer is some anti-capitalistic nut. Quick! Round up any Bernie Sanders supporters in Guy Fawkes masks!

But, to Blaine. Oh Blaine, how they're giving our Zombie Lex Luthor so much pathos (also, I would kill to see Blaine steal 40 cakes). His dad swings by the mortuary giving Blaine a chance to spout the great line: "I hoped your first visit here would be more horizontal." We learn the rotted apple studied hard under the tree as his dad first shoots mute Lenny (we barely knew ye too), then goes on a rant about Kronos. Um, yes, he ate his kids because one was fabled to overthrow him, but, you might have wanted to finish that story. It doesn't end well for Kronos.

Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Just like how Romeo & Juliet lived happily ever after.

Angus (Beef Zombie) knows that Blaine's no longer a zombie. Seems he found the woman who does his makeup and tortured her. He threatens to turn Blaine back into a zombie, which, again, if we cured it then how can...eh, there I go using actual science. I'll save the rant for later. He wants Blaine to kill one of his business rival's sons so Beef Zombie can eat his brains and learn his secrets. I'm not sure how great that plan is since Liv tries to have flashes and even hers seem haphazard at best. But Beef's too busy being a psychopath to think things through. I bet he's got a strong opinion on the paper used for business cards as well.

Back with our brain of the week, Liv has a quick zombie vision of Harry killing Telly. Not the freshest information aside from Telly saying, "The barber's done waiting for his money." Of course Clive knows who this is because Clive knows everyone. Once off work Clive throws massive parties that all of Seattle attends. The barber is an actual barber leading to an entertaining by way of skin crawling scene as our titular barber, his lawyer, and the secretary (I assume that's the guy taking bets over the phone) place their own wagers on who killed Harry. One of them throws out that it was probably the wife to collect insurance money.

Of course that's the one Clive hones in on. Liv chuckles, "You and murdered spouses, Clive. Never get married."

We only get a quick scene of Ravi confessing to buying every brand of condom available (oh god they needed to have him say condom 30 more times. British condom is so damn adorable. Con-dome!) and showing off the balloon animal he made. Liv also makes knowing eyes at Ravi as Clive drags her off the Harry's funeral. I had no idea what the eyes were about until they show up at Blaine's mortuary (apparently the only one in Seattle, which, okay I'd believe Blaine burned the others down, in retrospect. Continue).

Blaine is nine shot gun blasts to the head drunk and sulking downstairs where Liv sent him because Clive's looking for him and she doesn't want her little empire to crumble. Why is she worried about Blaine again? Is it trying to protect Major? The existence of zombies in general? He has almost no connection to the cure after killing Jesus Gabe. Eh, Liv never was one to think much past herself so I suppose anything's possible. Blaine mostly taunts her about how she must love being a zombie because it makes her feel oh so important and special.

She does leave an idea in Blaine's brain as her parting words about how much she despises being a zombie from the visions, never knowing if you're going to feel the last brain's owner die. You can practically see his eyes light up. I'm surprised he didn't stroke his chin and then smoke on a pipe as she climbed the stairs.

Back at the funeral and our homicide (You forgot about it, didn't you? It's okay), Clive is starstruck by a basketball player introduced in the back half of the episode. You all know what that means. Watching Clive stan over Calvin was great. (Anyone else picture Gruncle Stan when anyone uses that term? Just me?) He was practically drooling over the man and manages to find out Calvin and Harry were old college friends. Finally, he works up the courage to ask to see the ring.

This triggers our second zombie vision of Harry begging for money from Calvin, and Calvin refusing him. Dun dun dunnn!

Liv's little gambling brain paid off and she's back at the barber shop to collect her winnings. It's a scene that's only there to introduce us to murderous leprechaun. While the other guys - barber, lawyer, secretary - are discussing the perfect ways to murder someone (Strangers on a Train gets thrown out because everyone in Seattle is addicted to Hitchcock), a tiny man in the chair getting a haircut speaks up. He says the real trick is to get the guy to do it himself. Skype him with a gun to his wife's or kid's heads and then tell him to kill himself or else. The gamblers are all rightly freaked out, but one asks "What about the wife?" Creepy leprechaun just shrugs his shoulders, "collateral damage."

And why were we introduced to that freaky little ball of murder? Why, because he's our illusive Stacey Boss. (It is Boss! I saw it on the big board of crime) He pops up to threaten Peyton in her tiny office that looks like it's part of an old school.

Four times the DAs tried to bring him down, and three took major payouts then retired to roll around in their bribe. The fourth, well...How does someone have a creepy shrug? I have no idea but murderous leprechaun pulls it off. He rightly points out that turning a 27 year old assistant DA on him means the District Attorney really doesn't give much of a shit. He's also quick to note that whoever gave her his information is about 2 years out of date. Does that paint a bullseye on Blaine? You'd think quite a few old drug runners would come and go out of the bottom. Actually, it's a bit surprising how much old loser Blaine on the low rung of this drug empire learned about the top.

Back to trying to figure out the case, Clive has Thronk's turtle sitting on his desk. Some assistant was coming to feed the turtle, but got scared away by the cops. So, Clive slaps on a pair of gloves and carefully lifts poor Mister Sheldon up to see if he's sporting any hidden messages. It's just a turtle. Wash your hands after and refrain from licking him and you'll be fine. Turns out that turtle was also one of the greatest cocaine smugglers since Yertle the Turtle got into the Oxycotin game. But the fact the turtle's castle is full of a bag of bisquick means that Thronk didn't kill Harry. Don't ask me how that works, people are only capable of one crime at a time in Seattle.

Back at the gamblers barber shop, Liv swings by to collect her winnings and then promptly put it all on the tip she got from Calvin. She drops his name and our Barber turns cold "He would know about betting on basketball." Clive finishes his detective work and finds the dumped motorcycle in the harbor was owned by two Serbian nationals who beat feet back home. Liv jokes about how infiltrating the Serbian crime syndicate would be easy. While Clive's reading off the names Liv realizes their surname is familiar.

And here's our connection back to Calvin. Seems he was on a team with their father/relative, who got caught pulling a knife on a team flight and fled back home to start his own little assassin hit gang. Back in his college days Calvin would feign injuries so he and Harry could pump up their income. And yet the NCAA will come down hard on a starving player who accepts a hamburger for free while missing one making bucko bucks from his friend's betting. Priorities!

Harry needed Calvin to keep paying off his debts, but he finally refused. So, terrified of Harry blackmailing him, Calvin called in some Serbian nationals to take Harry out (Calvin watches way too many Bond flicks). There is something almost tragically poetic about Harry killing Telly with a Pete Rose signed bat while his old college friend shaved points off games so they could win money from betting. This concludes all I know about baseball.

But who cares about the brain of the week, we've got some tasty tasty bits at the end that'll make you sit up and go "WHAT?!"

We find Blaine visiting his elderly grandmother. Seems her son/his dad also took the business away from her. Blaine's plotting revenge but he needs her help, of a sort. It was when he called his dad accepting the offer I realized what was coming. Even then, it was brutal to watch Blaine suffocate his grandmother that he seemed to love just so his father would suffer from zombie visions watching her die. Darkness runs deep.

Liv and Major continue to be horny bunnies, leading Ravi to rush in to their bedroom and shout that the zombie virus is 100X smaller than any other virus and condoms can't stop it. Okay, time to put on a scientist hat. If this magical zombie virus is actually 100X smaller than any other virus then HOW THE SHIT COULD YOU SEE IT IN A MICROSCOPE? One that can, at best, magnify eukaryote cells and some bacteria. Some. There is no way you can see a virus on it. For that you need an electron microscope, not some little glass slide, fixer, twist the knob one.

But, ignoring the fact shows never get microscopes right and turn them into magic devices that can do anything (sonic microscopes?), if Ravi already knew the virus was so damn tiny why would have have to check every single condom brand? You already know it can't be stopped by latex, they're all made the same way, why bother? This should have taken all of two minutes. Check the size of what virus is blocked by a condom, compare to zombie virus. Done!

There's another problem with this supposed cure as well. I'd been operating on this being a "virus" aka it's not really a virus virus, that's just what they call it. Actually, I prefer to think of it as a zombie mycoplasma because those things are complete death in cell culture. Here's the quick and dirty science, viruses are not bacteria. Bacteria are alive and can be killed by antibiotics that attack their cell walls (mycoplasma don't have cell walls, hence the really really sucking part). Viruses exist in a strange nebulous not dead but not alive state that keeps philosophers busy and out of the lab. You can't just inject someone with magic "Make it all better juice" and cure them the way antibiotics knock down bacteria colonies. And a vaccine sure as shit wouldn't help.

What one needs is an anti-viral to help fix the current batch of zombies AND a vaccine to protect everyone else. These are two different things. In theory, if Ravi and his magic microscope already have access to the zombie virus he could begin working towards a vaccine (the next trick would be convincing the hipster and special snowflake parenting crowd in Seattle to actually take the damn thing). That vaccine could protect countless lives from the zombies if and when they turn.

The other reason I harp on this is that assuming Major is cured because his body produced antibodies to destroy the virus then he and Liv can bone like rabbits to their hearts content. Viruses come equipped with double jeopardy -- you get sick once your body learns how to protect itself and takes down any virus. It's the entire backbone behind vaccines. Bacteria, however, are more nefarious and your body has to fight hard to take those down because they are alive and can overwhelm your own cells. Now, it is possible that the zombie virus destroyed Major's immune system but that's a whole other ball of wax to tackle and seeing as how he's running around without pneumonia probably not.

My point is that everyone is doing science stupid and medicine super stupid and I bet Ravi just wants to keep the truth to himself because he can't stand Happy Major and Liv anymore than the rest of us.

Since it's cruel to leave on a science rant, we still have more from Blaine. While he's processing his grandma's brain for his dad, Don E runs in to show his boss that Angus mcBeef Zombie got himself kidnapped by the anti-business serial killer (who needs a good nickname. Maybe something like the Hood or the Vigilante? Nah, those are both stupid).

Surprise surprise, Major got him but...it isn't Angus he pulls out of his trunk and shoots but something else human shaped stuffed inside plastic bags. Instead, we see Major return to a warehouse that specializes in freaky mannequins and chest deep freezers big enough to hold a dozen human bodies. And that's just where he tosses Angus, into the deep freezer. Good thing Major knows zombies can survive being frozen and...okay he doesn't, unless maybe Lenny told him about the time Blaine threw him in there for few weeks. Lenny could be so chatty.

So Major hasn't been killing the elite and wealthy but is stuffing mannequins into the black trash bags, shooting them, and hurling those into the river. A good plan...until there's a news report about a massive clog of mannequins in the river and Rita figures it out. She'd probably make Major kill himself. Oh, I know a creepy leprechaun that can make it happen!

iZombie: Love & Basketball

We waste no time this episode to come back to Liv and poor, broken Major in the middle of a makeout session. Dude's just as much a hot mess as ever, but he's good at pretending he's not and hopes that somehow Liv will fix him. Nice try buddy, but she's too concerned with transferring the zombie virus back to him (which raises a lot of questions actually. Assuming this is a virus that they cured shouldn't his immune system develop antibodies to stop it? Or is it more like a bacterial infection? Is there a zombie antibiotic on the horizon? And I've thought too hard about a zombie virus).

Liv makes Major sleep on her couch while she checks him for signs of undeath and lays out all her fears for transferring the zombie virus from sex to her transforming into a rom-com heroine, gaining super clumsy powers, and scratching Major.

"So far all our problems could be solved with condoms and rock salt."

But she runs off to our brain of the week, leaving Major with the "Let's just be friends" ultimatum that worked so great in season one. He doesn't need friends, he needs ten month stay with a psychologist in another country. Liv never could see much beyond her own problems so she's happy to entertain Major needing her, but not what would actually help him.

Our brain of the week starts off as random security guard, killed out of nowhere. Someone took the time to shut the cameras off so you couldn't see the murderer, but the only one who could do that was our security guy. Mystery! There is a fun scene of Clive swinging by the morgue with pictures of our who dunnit challenge before Liv eats any brains. She needs to watch more psych to get better at her bullshitting.

We cut to a quick scene of Rita watching a full zombie restrained by every bicycle chain Max Rager could find trying to take a swipe at some brains. It also introduces us to the craziest R&D lady I've ever met. Seems she really wants some blood from a zombie not in full on brain lust mode, and is happy to take it from anywhere possible. I will be very happy if it turns out she's some kind of evil vampire that just likes drinking zombie blood for the exotic flavor. Supposedly this all has to do with that mysterious Super Max Rager - so either the company wants to make better zombies or...nope, that's all I got from it, make bigger, faster, bionic zombies.


Back with Liv, now full of basketball trivia courtesy of her breakfast, we learn that our brain of the week was in fact Coach Mike who taught the local underprivileged kids basketball and how to point the finger at murderers. Seems the kids all got on a bus and swung by the police station that must have an open door policy to tell Clive they know who the murderer is.

Our first red herring is RJs Dad (if he had a name I missed it), who tried to choke Coach Mike during practice. Liv gets a couple quick succession visions of Abusive Dad choking our brain of the week, and then smacking the shit out of his son. All pretty pedestrian things that mean he's not the murderer (because in cop shows it's always the last one you'd expect), but the look in Clive's eyes changes when he learns the truth about Abusive Dad. Are we going to get some actual backstory for Clive?

Jesus Gabe has returned from his sabbatical in the desert and is willing to make a deal. He says he'll cut the utopium the same way as at the boat party as long as Blaine promises him the cure. Anyone else want an episode that just follows Blaine as he works in his mortuary? The panicked looks on grieving faces as zombies shuffle in and out, carrying coffins loaded down with drugs/dead bodies/undead bodies/all of the above. Blaine filling out paperwork or trying to hire a hearse and not having his zombie henchmen fill it with beer. Just me?

Major's still broken, always broken. This show should be called Breaking Major. He's also stuck training some guy in Max Rager's gym because Seattle is now owned by Von the way Luthor owned all of Metropolis. Rita's sniffing around him, pissed at his missing her booty call, but Major uses it to demand a stronger tranquilizer because the last guy he killed woke up in his trunk. Evil R&D lady, Dr. Irving to her accountants, is curious and asking about a dozen questions about lucid zombies. I'm not sure why she's so surprised that zombies could keep walking and talking and begging to not be killed. Sure, you studied a feral one, but obviously there are others out there. If you ask nicely, Rita and her cages of flying monkeys could provide video footage of a living zombie before Major offs one. I think Ravi, who tested drugs on himself for science, has a more vigorous grasp of the scientific method than R&D lady.

I still hope she's a vampire though.

Now to the possible Clive backstory. *rubs hands* After checking a few sources, Clive returns to Abusive Dad and threatens him that if he ever lays a finger on his kid again, he's coming for him. Of course Abusive Dad tries for Clive, but he gets soundly beaten. So, did that seem really personal to anyone else? Not in a cops see bad shit kind of way either. Well, I suppose we'll just have to keep waiting for crumbs of Clive's history because he's busy getting called into the office for not letting the Meat Cute investigation go. His boss, who got the job after Suzuki played with matches, is pissed that Clive is asking Suzuki's widow questions and won't let it just be chill.

For reasons I cannot fathom beyond her being 12, the new Blonde FBI agent is doing an old mime routine out the window to get Clive into even more trouble. Did she hit her head really hard, or is she also a zombie under the control of bro brains? After putting everyone's staplers in Jell-O and saran wrapping the toilets, BlondFBI reveals that she's interested in Meat Cute because they discovered a single strand of the missing astronauts hair down a drain there. They must have been scrutinizing every inch of that place given that it was also coated in blood from Lenny, Mrs. Lovett, Random Zombie #3, Blaine, and Major as well as all the corpses that had been hanging in the freezer. Really? The cops just covered that part up as well? No one bothered to point out pieces of frozen corpse shrapnel? Or how the bandsaws were coated in human blood and DNA? Just that one hair. Okay, FBI, you just keep doing you.

In trying to prove she's not really selfish, Liv's set Major up with coaching the kids who lost their coach. Except she's doing it so she can indulge her basketball craving brains. It's sweet, but there's always this navel gazing that comes with every choice Liv makes. I wonder if we'll ever see her do a truly selfless act.

Back at the lab, in one of the few scenes he gets, Ravi watches as Don E drops off a massive bottle of tainted utopium to make the zombie cure. But Ravi's gonna do it right this time, by repeating his results and having more controls, eh Ravi? Or just an excuse to have more cute rats. That works too. Liv wants to name them after the '86 Celtics, but Ravi's having none of that. "We'll just be standing here trying to remember why we called a rat 'Bird.' Isn't that right, Boba Rat?"

Rita suddenly remembers she's supposed to be Liv's roommate and stops by while Liv's hosting a tapas party. Seriously, lady, for being a zombie that can't taste shit you sure devote a lot of your life to fancy food prep. Shish kabobs? Unaware that her roommate is evil, Liv drops the bomb that she's been making out with Major so Rita stabs Liv in the hand with a kabob. While Liv runs off to clean it up, there's a single drop of blood on the cutting board which Rita dabs off, proving once again that you don't send an evil MBA to do a scientist's job. What the hell is anyone going to do with a dried drop of blood smeared across a napkin and contaminated from whatever was on the cutting board? Think Rita, or we're sending you back to nemesis school.

Back to Breaking Major, while coaching the kids who never go to school, another fight breaks out and Major speaks to the kid, getting close to him and learning about his dad leaving. Later, when he's out stalking zombies, he comes across one but then the obligatory adorable child runs into his zombie dad's arms. This is what's made Major so interesting, out of all the characters he's the one constantly thrown in a dark pit and never allowed to escape. At the beginning of this series the man's a freaking saint to the point of Mary Suedom. Oh look, a college athlete who also works with disadvantaged youth so he can give back to the community and looks like a Ken Doll. So the show piles more and more dirt on that golden heart to see just how far one can taint something until it won't snap back.

He plays the pretend happy boyfriend around Liv, but then they draw the bags under his eyes and redden them up the moment he's by himself, forced to live only inside his shattered brain. Perhaps it's already gone too far and he can never come back from being a zombie assassin killing people with happy families to protect his zombie girlfriend. Or he'll go crazy at the end of the season and blow up the entire Max Rager building. He does know how to get a bazooka.

We had a brain of the week didn't we? I suppose we should get to solving that. Seems that Coach Mike had a Thunder (Finders?) Keeper which is a fundraising site that had nothing whatsoever to do with Kickstarter. He wanted to send his kids to camp. On the day he died it suddenly got a huge boost and was fully funded. Clive tries to trace the bid, but in the meantime one of the three possible murderers winds up dead in Tacoma.

Ravi gets some great scenes arguing with the doc in charge there about quotas and fancy british accents. Of course, he also gets to show up that he's 10X the dead body guy by noticing Telly died from blunt force trauma. Racist Mortician blames it on a hammer, but that seemed to be Telly's weapon of choice as he worked in the "You don't ask what I do" business.

What was a bookie doing on the 14th floor of the building Coach Mike was killed in? Why, visiting one of the lawyers, of course. First they stop by a guy named Thrunk(?) He's just there quick to establish his existing so you might remember him later. Don't worry, there will be a test. Clive does some real police work again by checking the copier codes to see who else was working late that night.


While interviewing our last random white guy lawyer (RWGL), Clive smells bleach on an autographed bat. Liv has a useless zombie vision just to prove that RWGL once got upset about a team losing, which means he must have been 10 large in with Telly or something. Really, this is all Clive's show now as he tests out the reach of the bat and finds blood coating the blinds from the weapon smashing into Telly's skull.

But now, this is the scene we were all waiting for. While Ravi's getting the rats set up for dosing, Blaine swings by asking where the cure is. As Ravi's trying to explain that this shit takes time, Jesus-Gabe sneaks up and snatches up the syringe filled with Max Rager + utopium = super zombie curse. He injects the stuff straight into her sternum, which had to hurt like shit. Rather than get cured, he turns into a double zombie and...no, that would have been cool. Instead, he flops over dead.
"Needs work, Doc," Blaine jokes. Ravi screams that the tainted utopium wasn't right and they're back to square one. Blaine says that Ravi discovered the anti-cure, an instant zombie killer. Suddenly both realize the potential and, honest to god, roll across the morgue floor trying to get their hands on the bottle.

This isn't some quick one minute fight either, they're climbing over top each other, throwing elbows, and chasing after the thing while "Friday I'm In Love" plays over top. This was almost as good as zombie knife fight from season one. Ravi smashes the zombie anti-cure with another bottle. Blaine accepts his defeat gracefully by rising and says, "Well, that's my cardio for the day."

Back in the interrogation room, RWGL admits that he killed Telly after he pulled out a hammer to threaten him, but that he had nothing to do with Mike's death. Seems lawyers have a guy they call "The Fixer" because all lawyers are shady as shit, I guess. He claims that it was the fixer who shot Mike and is willing to cut a plea deal in exchange for the name, but Clive already knows who he is because Clive is the real psychic - he just keeps that fact hidden and relies on Liv's weirdness as a smokescreen. Of course it's that guy we saw for blink and you miss it, also the last guy in the pictures who couldn't be identified. He's already hopping the same private jet that Max Rager PR lady vanished on. I wonder if he took his shower curtain with him.

Major swings by Max Rager to drop off a list of zombies he'd checked off as being human. He also tries to dump Rita but she's not having any of that. Being at least fathered if not raised by Von the adult toddler, it's no surprise she doesn't know the meaning of the word no. She also insinuates that Major best get to killing people because he can't get his punch card filled until there are more bodies clogging up Dead Zombie River.

Poor Major's still grasping as straws, trying to find some balance to his life and tells Liv, again, that he doesn't want to just be friends. He needs something stable in his life. Anything. Maybe a pet rock would help. It's not like that could turn into a golem and try to break his legs in the middle of the night. Okay, yeah it would.


We end with Suzuki's widow dropping by Clive's desk (He lives there, right? Probably because Liv's roommates keep scooping up all the available real estate in Seattle). She says that while going through her husband's beer fridge she found this - and drops a tupperware onto the desk which we all know is full of brains.

Dun dun DUNN!!!

So, the cure is back to square one, less than square one now that Jesus Gabe is dust to dust, Major's just as in deep with Von and Rita as before, and Clive might finally be on the hunt for zombies. I have absolutely no idea where this season is going. But I'm still holding out hope for vampire R&D lady.

iZombie: Even Cowgirls Get the Black and Blues

Welcome back to a week with a forgettable Brain of the Week - I think the writers themselves forgot about it until the last 5 minutes - some more jamming Peyton pathos in to spackle over the cracks, and Blaine! Blaine makes everything better.

This episode opens with a bunch of pervy, idiotic high school boys (all high school boys) finding a gun in the bushes. Despite all the leading imagery with the convenience store robbery, I really kept hoping that gun was Majors. I don't think he'd be that stupid, but man's been cracking like a cadbury egg lately. His brains are starting to ooze out like a disgusting fondant creme people only eat because it's tradition is what I'm saying.

Because we're still going to get you to care about Peyton, we open on her doing some weird hiphop dance yoga PSL white lady thing. Liv swings by to thank her for the birthday cake, and to inject in a friendship that would have made more sense in the last season. I'm glad that not everyone is all "Ah! Liv zombie! Kill with fire!" and Peyton, after taking a beach vacation for six months because she's a secret Trump or something, is surprisingly cool with it all. But there was just almost nothing there before beyond the occasional exposition, and I'm not sure if Peyton's been interesting enough beyond she's a lawyer and hot, and a lawyer and hot! Hopefully they'll do something beyond her getting frisky with Blaine and a dumb love triangle.

Who wouldn't want to see Peyton go all Rambo the way Major did? That'd be something new.

Speaking of the zombie assassin, he's in deep waking up at Rita/Gilda's place (Liv doesn't seem fazed at all that her roommates keep having second and third homes) and regretting every moment he's in his skin. There's a lot of man pain on display but in this case, I think the guy's earned it. He never really mourned Liv dumping him, never mourned losing all those kids from his job to Blaine, never came to terms with the whole zombie apocalypse and is just snorting/licking/rubbing in his hair utopium to smooth out the pain.


Ravi's apparently done something to his car, which we've never seen, but it was really an excuse to have Liv bump into Major again as she swings by to pick him up for another murder. We also get to learn that Ravi named the dog Minor because of course he did. You're just lucky, you're cute Punman!

To our brain of the week - it's a waitress at a country music joint in the Little Redneck district of Seattle. Lacy was strangled by someone waiting in her closet. Liv finds piles of unopened letters our dead waitress sent to someone in prison. Of course the guy was released a month ago from the joint and she cheated on him, and he was in jail for beating a guy with a pool cue.

The country song backstory was worth it to have Ravi sidle up next to Clive and whisper "Thank you for doing sex with me." Go and try this, preferably with your significant other. It's 0-100% guaranteed to work. I am totally with Liv, "Make Love" needs to die in a glittery fire of moltav cocktails.

Out of the brain of the week to what seems a distraction about the convenience store shooter. We learn that Clive's working for Amanda Waller now (run, Clive!) and the FBI sent in a blonde lady named after the mayor of some city. Seems the FBI is really concerned about all these rich white guys disappearing. It's only been a few days, a week at the most for some, but damn it! This shall not stand! What's that? Blaine killed over a hundred people for party trays at his zombie soireés? Were they rich? Who cares!

Liv and Clive swing by a pawn shop, giving the writers the chance to use "Pawn of the Dead" for their scene card. We got another glitter moltav cocktail for that pun? Matt Sudek, Lacy's jailbird boyfriend, works there - but mostly it gives Liv a chance to start speaking in Apple Jack level of countryisms. I'm surprised they didn't make the actress adopt a yee-haw texas accent as well. They did force Liv to get big into singing and, after running into a wall with the investigation, she buys a guitar.

After some teasing for a few weeks, we finally meet Stephanie and she's freaking adorable. Ravi talks about how he's wearing a cologne with pheromones so he can be a walking sex experiment, and Steph's joking back, wondering where they got the pheromones from. That, that's a good start of a relationship. Not long glares, silent stares, or watching people while they sleep. People bantering and building off one another.

Of course, because we've got to throw another wrench into the mix, Peyton shows up unannounced and it seems, despite her being richer than Croesus - she's going to move in with Major and Ravi. Not that Major felt the need to tell Ravi or anything. I went full team Steph when, after the awkwardness, she asked if that was Ravi's ex and then went for a high five.


Doing some more investigation into the brain of the week, our crime prodding duo stop by Lacy's place of work - a dive bar shipped plank by plank from the side of an interstate in Oklahoma into Seattle's hipster paradise. The crimsoniest of red necks tells them that the night of Lacy's death he saw her arguing with the owner and then dump hot coffee into his lap. This gives Liv her only zombie vision of the episode where Lacy asks for a loan advance from her boss Rick and, of course, the guy gets handsy. What do we have behind door number 1? I do believe it's a red-herring!

But who cares about that, we've got Blaine! Seems he's noticed a few of his zombie customers have gone missing and isn't happy about that. He's also gotten himself a new zombie thug who's either mute or, knowing Blaine, had his tongue ripped out. He speaks through his phone which leads to some great one-liners. As Blaine's about to send Lenny 2 out to figure out what's going on, Don E pops up to announce he's found the guy who made the tainted utopium, but there's a problem - he's found Jesus.


Blaine tries to torture Gabe into giving up his formula while Lenny beats him with a bible, but there's no budging Gabe's faith. He's in it hardcore.

Back to our brain of the week, Rick voluntarily turns himself in along with his pregnant wife now spinning the story that Lacy was hopelessly in love with him so, when he told her he was married, she went crazy and pelted his crotch with coffee. Of course, Liv calls him on it  "You offered her cash for sex, that's what those blisters are about."And his wife loses it, whacking Rick about the head and says he was going to use her to lie as an alibi.

Sadly, the hope of solving this early and spending the rest of the episode with Blaine's marry band of misfits is dashed as Clive does his awesome detective stuff without having to be an insufferable ass in a scarf by talking the wife into a trap. He asks if there was any blood on Rick's clothes, which she says of course she saw it, then he tells her that Lacy was strangled. There was no blood.

I'm not sure if we got the scene of Liv singing in the dive bar so the actress could show off her pipes (which were nice) or just to see Ravi in full on cowboy hat and fancy shirt. If it was the latter, totally worth it. That man must have a wardrobe that could rival Cher from Clueless, or maybe he's got an in with a costume shop.

While Liv's singing her little zombie heart out, Clive's trying to call her about the false-false alibi from Rick's wife. While there, a woman finally realizes her dumb ass son found the gun and drops it off at the police station. But Clive's so distracted he passes it off to the scented candle cop (I have no idea where that candle guy setup is going, just run with it).

Somehow, Liv's song about Matt and Lacy stirs up all these feelings and she has to run out of there to find Major. Ravi shouts to her: "You're gonna miss me trying to convince one of these lovelies to play cowgirl and Indian."

At the car, Matt pops up looking super creepy. Because he missed the "how not to be a creep" lessons, he leans close to this barely known woman in a dark parking lot, huffing through his words, and saying love a lot. I'm surprised Liv didn't slip right into zombie mode there. But Matt's scene was just to prove he's not the killer because he really loved Lacy, and murderers never kill people they love. Liv rushes off to Major to finally cut him free. She pours her little heart out (not in song) and Major's response is "Okay, cool" as he shuts the door.

Liv's not having this and runs back in because somehow everything is always abut Liv. She even blames Major for her going to the party because he wanted her to have some fun. "How could I become your wife? I was a monster." There's an interesting selfishness that bobs up often in Liv. Whenever she lets people down, it's often played as the brains at work but I wonder how true that is. Liv often does questionable things just so she won't be alone. But that doesn't make her a bad person, just human. It's refreshing as female characters tend to either be devils or saints - there's almost never any nuance. Which isn't all the fault of writers, the public in general has trouble accepting grey in a woman. If she isn't a perfect singing nun at all times, then she's a shrieking harpy ala Skyler from Breaking Bad. Why couldn't she just let Walt run his own meth making ring and been happy for it? It's not like she was saddled to this monster through her children or anything.

Anyway, back at Blaine's where I'm really glad they brought back Scott E in the form of his twin Don E. The actor hits it out of the park explaining to our mute zombie about religion and the eucharist, "Jesus rose from the dead, but that doesn't make him a zombie if he doesn't eat brains. I don't know what you qualify as when you require other people to eat you."

They're in charge of watching over poor Gabe who Blaine's got in a coffin. Gabe still refuses to give up his formula, so Blaine has Lenny 2 slice him up with his fingernail. They throw Gabe back into the coffin and screw it down. "Gonna be a fresh angry zombie soon. Might want to use more screws."

Peyton's continuing her two-face transition by trying to find someone, anything willing to take down Stacy Boss (Voss?), but of course everyone's far too scared to take the deal - until a white haired angel comes through her door. Yup, Blaine's plans to take down this Boss involve him working closely with Peyton. There's some mafia-babble about the utopium coming out of Singapore and Hong Kong which you'd think would get the DEA or someone other than a lone Seattle lawyer on the case but, eh, the FBI's busy looking out for missing rich guys.

We also see the start of Blaine flirting with Peyton because that girl has got the widest tastes imaginable. Back when Ravi first wanted Liv to set them up, she talked about all the random dudes Peyton kept on speed dial. Now she's piqued by the white haired major drug criminal that waltzed into her door to take down some Boss Boss? Girl, buy a few standards.

Just to remind the viewers at home how evil (and awesome) Blaine is, he's taunting our new zombie Gabe with some brains. He promises him all he can eat and even to cure the zombie out of him if he'll just share his formula. I'm not sure why they didn't go to the come-to-Jesus guy with the promise that if he helps in the investigation he could save hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives from a looming zombie apocalypse. You'd think Gabe would jump at that chance far before all the bible beating and coffin screwing.

Gabe believes that Blaine is testing his faith, so Blaine does what he does best by throwing Gabe out into the wilderness for "40 days" to get him good and hungry and send him running back with the formula. An interesting idea but Blaine better hope he comes back to the dark side before going full feral. Gabe seems to be the only hope for a cure. Though they're also relying a lot on a strung out junkie/drug dealer remembering a formula he mixed up a year and a half ago. I don't foresee that type keeping stringent lab notes.

Major, in his 'doesn't give a shit about anything' state, managed to lose the dog. Ravi's the one to find Minor sniffing around the park where Major first abducted him and his old owner. Of course this breaks our little Ken Doll and he goes chasing after more utopium. Is this...I do believe we've finally hit rock bottom when he realizes he's buying it off one of the kids he knew from his old days in the shelter.

As he's about to leave, guilty pills in hand, Rita/Gilda hits him up for some Netflix and Chill. Major's life is not in a good place.

Oh right, that brain of the week. We should probably solve that. I mean Clive, he always solves it. Turns out the convenience store killer, after ditching the gun, ran into Lacy's closet for reasons that only make sense to someone losing blood flow to the brain due to the spanx over their face. He jumped out and killed Lacy just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life's cruel like that. Anyway, moving on...

Our final stinger is Major, red eyed and barely able to stand, begging for Liv to help him. She does this by jamming her tongue down his throat. I'd have suggested a glass of water and a nap first, but you do you, Liv.

So we've got Peyton playing with two kinds of fire, Major trying to rebuild himself with probably the worst option available (Ravi seems like the more considerate one - tongue jamming optional), and Blaine working to take down the Boss, probably learn Major's the zombie assassin, and trace the cure for his own means.

Can't wait to see what happens next.