This summer, it is imperative to your television-related health that you watch iZombie on The CW. This show will make you laugh, cry, and cause your jaw to drop with the surprise plot twists. iZombie, now in it’s third season, is a procedural zombie show. Yep, a procedural whose main character is zombie Olivia ‘Liv’ Moore (get it?), who works at a morgue in order to get the brains she needs to survive. Of course, things are a bit more complicated than just that, but instead of spoiling the whole show, you can watch the first two seasons now on Netflix. The show airs every Tuesday at 9pm on The CW, and season three will be thirteen episodes total. Here are five reasons to get hooked on this entertaining sci-fi drama.
1. The cast.
While they’re all incredibly incredibly beautiful people on-screen, one of the most beautiful things about this show is the cast’s off-screen friendships. The whole cast use the tag ‘#BehindTheBrains’ while they’re filming to give fans a look at behind-the-scenes photos and videos. It’s nice to watch a show where you can tell the cast members so genuinely enjoy each other’s company. Plus, Rahul Kohli and Robert Buckley’s bromance may be the greatest of our time. And, this cast includes Aly Michalka of Aly & AJ fame as Peyton, Liv’s best friend.
2. It’s a relatively gore-free zombie show.
While shows like The Walking Dead are too gory for some viewers to handle, iZombie is actually relatively light on gore. When Liv (and other zombies) eats brains it’s often shown as a cooking-show style montage of her turning the human cerebrum into sushi, chili, or whatever else she feels like cooking. When Liv goes “full zombie,” her eyes go red and she loses her humanity, but it’s never for extended periods of time, so the audience isn’t overwhelmed or frightened for long.
3. Rose McIver.
Yes, the cast was previously mentioned, but Rose McIver’s performance as Liv deserves it’s own mention. With each brain she eats, Liv inherits some of the deceased’s personality skills. Every episode, McIver must slip into a different persona. Her brains have been from all kinds of people, some memorable examples being a country singer, a high-school cheerleader, a pathological liar, and a frat boy. While doing this, McIver must retain Liv’s own personality, which cannot always be an easy task. With this premise, it makes every episode an adventure – who will Liv “be” next? Plus, Liv sees visions of her persona’s past – can you say That’s So Zombie?
4. The storylines.
Yes, the episodes tend to follow that pattern of Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) getting a murder case, Liv and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) investigating it, and through Liv’s visions, they are able to solve the case. But it’s so much more complicated than that. Liv’s ex-fiance, Major Lilywhite (Robert Buckley) and Liv’s best friend, Peyton Charles, who is an assistant district attorney for the city of Seattle, also come into play, especially when Major and Ravi start living together. And of course, there’s a love triangle blooming between Peyton, Ravi, and Blaine (David Anders), and the complicated nature of Liv’s relationship with Major. Blaine’s character is one of the more complex on the show, a zombie involved in a drug-ring like brains distribution business. Everyone and everything ends up being connected, making every episode interesting.
5. The cleverness of the writers.
They really do think of everything. While the show films in Vancouver, it’s set in Seattle. There was a whole plotline about competing coffee chains. One of the creators of the show is named Rob Thomas, and the season two finale had a visit from the well-known singer Rob Thomas. Ravi also uses his scientific skills to perform tests on rats with the zombie virus, and scenes with New Hope, the rat, are some of the funniest on television today. Overall, each episode is clever, quick-witted, and keeps viewers on their toes.
All gifs are from Giphy.