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.