iZombie S01E02 Recap – Brother Can You Spare a Brain?

Brains and beauty, some zombies can just have it all.

Story by @ErikaAshley

A murder victim, Javier, is found dead with the weapon sticking out of his eye by his wife and art dealer. When Ravi and Liv arrive to the scene Ravi notices the victim is a local popular artist and admires his art while he works. Babineaux automatically assumes the wife who found the victim killed him but asks for Liv’s psychic input. Ravi and Liv return to the morgue where Live eats the victim’s brain in a hot pocket in order to help out Babineaux, without him known of course. Later Major drops by Liv’s apartment return some of her items and but mostly just wants to get close to her again. He suggests they take a road trip and she acts cold and distant towards him. Feeling awkward and out of place he leaves before her roommate can ask for the juicer they got as an engagement gift. He agrees to bring it by and leaves upset. That night Liv has a nightmare that the other zombie from the incident almost attacks her and she feels the need to find him. At work the next day she tells Ravi and he suggest she distract herself and throws her a magazine, she begins flipping through the pages when suddenly she has a flashback from Javier’s memory. She witnesses Javier’s having an affair with a beautiful young girl that was broken up by someone walking in. Live goes to Babineaux to give him the news where he again voices his original thought that the wife must have been the murderer. Because the wife is always the murderer.

The two go to see the victim’s wife, Lola and finds her being consoled by the girl from the vision, Tasha. Lola admits she respects Javier’s decisions to sleep with other women as a part of his artistic process and she wasn’t bothered by it. She explains that they didn’t have any children to worry about because Javier never wanted any. Liv is taken by Javier’s brain’s impressions and thoughts begins to be distracted and flirts with Tasha. Babineaux gives her a questioning look then calls her out when they leave. He sticks to his previous assumptions that the wife killed Javier when Ravi texts him to inform them the weapon was thrust into Javier’s eye by a killer that is between 6’1” to 6’3”. Lola is obviously not that tall as she is roughly Liv’s height.

When Liv returns to the morgue Ravi has the police sketch artist there to help her picture their “missing friend,” AKA the other zombie. Liv describes the characteristics of the missing person but uses language and descriptors only a true artisan would use. The sketch artists gets frustrated because she starts to draw the man herself and he leaves abruptly. Back at the precinct Babineaux questions Javier’s art dealer, Artie, and tries to press him on details about Lola. Artie reassures Babineaux that they were only friends, and instead he should be looking at the deadbeat boyfriends left in the dust after Javier sleeps with their girls. When Babineaux asks him his height he doesn’t answer at first but then confesses he’s 6’2”.

Liv realizes that after she’s eaten Javier’s brain she’s consumed with passion for beautiful things and takes up painting on her own. She goes to work as usual a few days later and is surprised when the missing zombie appears in the morgue. He first confirms that Liv’s a zombie too then asks what she wants with him. They get along pretty well and reminisce about their previous lives and what they miss about being alive. He allows Ravi to take his vitals because he too is on board with getting cured. He asks Liv how she became a zombie and she defensively blames him. The other zombie doesn’t believe it at first but then apologizes profusely at ruining her life. Liv suddenly has another flashback to a man smashing a painting of Javier’s and she tells them she has to leave but not before the other zombie leaves first. Hurt he accepts this and takes off.

Liv goes to Babineaux and tells him that it wasn’t Lola who walked in on Tasha and Javier in her first vision, but instead it was Tasha’s jealous boyfriend. Babineaux already has the boyfriends in a line up and Liv picks out Tasha’s from the group of men. They take him into a room for questioning and ask about his alibi. He admits he was alone that night at home and when Babineaux asks his height he confirms he’s 6’3”. Taken by his good looks Liv starts to flirt with him and Babineaux threatens to kick her out of the room. The boyfriend swears he didn’t kill Javier over his ex-girlfriend, instead he left Tasha and shortly after Javier ditched her too for a younger version. Javier began to sleep with his art dealer’s 18 year old daughter, Becca.

The other zombie, Blaine, goes to the bar and offers to buy a drink for an older lady and she quickly tells him she isn’t a cougar. They agree to just talk but then end up at her place all over each other. Not before long Blaine goes “full zombie mode.” Cut to Liv painting in her apartment when Major arrives with an engagement present and jokes that he has no idea who she is anymore since she took up art as a hobby. They reminisce for a moment and she’s gives him a peck on the cheek only to confuse him more. The next day Blaine shows up at Liv’s work again and they have a little spat dealing with their trust issues between them. He tries to gain her trust and asks her for a little favor. He doesn’t want to grave rob anymore and instead asks her for help getting more brains. Blaine tells her he isn’t a drug dealer anymore and instead has cut out all of the bad people in his life as he’s turned a new leaf. Liv agrees to help him. He awaits her first delivery outside when his old drug dealing colleagues show up demanding their old boss needs to see him. Liv catches Blaine “making a deal” and leaves without giving him the goods he requested. Blaine attempts to fend off his old pals refusing to go see their boss but gets into the car anyways and kills them.

Later Blaine returns to the cougar and she’s not a zombie too. She asks what’s happened to her and he admits he’s turned her into a zombie. He offers her a business proposal that he’ll supply her new need for brains for $25k a month and dangles a fresh sample in front of her as long as she keeps quiet about the whole thing. She calls for her assistant to get her checkbook. Back at the morgue Ravi requests that Liv get in contact with their new zombie friend but she refuses to call him because she thinks he’s a liar and dangerous. Babineaux pops in and invites them to Javier’s most recent art show and gives them the info he just scored from a waitress that places Artie at a diner down the street. He explains that Artie left to go to an ATM and spent far too much time trying to get funds he doesn’t have. Instead Artie is dead broke living off of credit cards, so killing Javier would get him boatloads of cash since artist’s art goes up in price once they’re dead.

The group attends the art show and Babineaux goes to look for Artie. Ravi starts to mingle with the crowd and Liv goes to take a look around for clues. Babineaux finds Lola instead and asks her about why she’s covering for Artie and she stands stunned. Ravi is approached by Tasha and he pretends to be a detective that will help her with getting rid of her ex-boyfriend while Liv heads down to his storage room and peeks through Javier’s paintings. Tasha’s ex-boyfriend finds Liv in the storage room and tries to make a pass at her. She quickly scans the room to see an abstract painting of a baby’s sonogram and has a flashback to Becca and Javier at her doctor’s appointment to see the gender of their unborn child Becca is carrying. She quickly snaps too and Tasha’s ex-boyfriend tries to make another pass at her more aggressively. Liv snaps to zombie mode and hits him breaking his nose. She runs back to the party and finds Babineaux questioning Artie about his finances and the timeline for the night Javier died. Liv brings up Becca’s pregnancy and spills the beans on Javier and Becca’s indiscretions. Artie is stunned by the news and doesn’t believe her at first when Ravi stops them and explains that a shorter person could have killed Javier if they were standing on the stair like Liv was at that moment. Babineaux looks to Lola and puts the pieces together that Artie didn’t kill Javier, instead Lola did because she found out that Javier was having a child with Becca. He confronts her in front of everyone and she confesses that she was so upset that he was starting a family with an 18 year old girl when he clearly did not want one with her. Babineaux was right all along. After assisting with solving Javier’s murder Liv doesn’t want to lose her passion and inspiration that Javier’s brain supplied her. She eats another portion of his brain and finishes the painting she started earlier. She then goes to Major’s and tries to have a romantic moment with him to rekindle their romance because she finally admits she’s missed him so much when he refuses and kicks her out of being so hot and cold towards him. Liv realizes that the passion she’s consumed has caused her to be selfish and instead returns home to hang her new art. She has a self-reflecting moment and promises to be a better version of her new dead self.

Although the somewhat silly premise of a zombie-cop duo can be a little bit difficult to get past at first, this series is actually pretty intriguing. The characters are well thought out and can stand alone as individuals not needing one another to progress the story and the dialogue is still witty enough to get a laugh at the right time. This series does have some outstanding potential but if the inner monologue continues it might get old fast as it takes the viewer out of the moment and projects what they should be thinking instead of allowing them to draw their own conclusions. I’m excited to watch as this series continues on and the story develops further. I’m a sucker for comic book crossovers but this is well done so far but can use a few minor changes.