'iZombie' Shines in Its Fake Season Finale

Last night, iZombie aired what was originally intended to be its season finale. If the CW hadn’t ordered more episodes midway through the season, this would have been a sorry excuse for a crescendo. Luckily for the show, we now have several episodes left, which just made this one feel like an extra-exciting mid-season jolt.

Blaine continued to be the most dynamic and watchable character in the ensemble, dressing up as an elderly version of himself to convince his father that he had been frozen for 50 years. Ever the closet nerd, he panicked during his fake-future explanation and threw in several pop culture references, mentioning a Dr. Zaius and that winter was coming. To cover up the sounds of his father being tortured, he put on the Les Miserables soundtrack, rounding out his role as the show’s most ruthless goofball.

This episode shoved iZombie forward in many ways, and we’re now lucky enough to watch these changes play out before the season actually ends. In an important development, Clive finally told Ravi that he actually notices when Liv adopts the traits of each murder victim, and we learned that Major hasn’t actually been murdering anyone as the Chaos Killer. Liv’s zombie boyfriend, however, is definitely a murderer, and Liv continued her weird, internal monologue wherein she tried to tell herself she didn’t really know the guy. Peyton was mysteriously absent from the action, and Mr. Boss made a very quick appearance, which was odd considering how many times the cast had to say his name in last week’s episode.

Although it still has a handle on what makes it a fun show, iZombie has a lot of catching up to do in order to end this season with a bang. Its first season concluded on such a high note that its audience knew good things were in store, but so far this season has felt a tad unfocused. Not wanting to address whether Blaine and Major and the other “cured” zombies will turn back into the undead (or just die), the show had to invent new mini-villains, on top of each week’s murderer, in order to keep everyone distracted. The dastardly duo at Max Rager felt like they had some awesome violence in them when they were introduced, but this season saw them becoming increasingly sedentary. At this point, when Major has a scene at Max Rager, it’s literally just a follow-up appointment, and everyone sits around a conference table and makes veiled threats. Where’s the intrigue?

A couple things need to happen, now that the show has lived past its original end point — this actually means iZombie’s second season is technically undead, which is great — someone from the core group needs to die or be turned (again, that’s Liv, Ravi, Blaine, Clive, Peyton, or Major), and one of the big baddies (the folks at Max Rager or Mr. Boss) needs to see their storyline come to a huge, bombastic end. Clive’s girlfriend is likely to die before the season is over, and he really needs to learn about zombies before he starts to think he’s a terrible detective. Looks like iZombie has a lot of work to do.