iZombie 3.04: “Wag the Tongue Slowly”

“Ravi, it’s a stakeout. We’ll just hunker down in my car, you don’t even have to wear pants.”
- Major

I thought this episode did a lot to move various plot threads forward in an interesting way. And the case of the week was entertaining enough to provide little bright spots of humor throughout. As we saw at the end of last week, Blaine took the serum that could restore his memories. As a very hung-over Ravi checks his vitals the next days, we learn that if anything is going to happen, it will happen by Saturday morning. So, Blaine sets an alarm and drops by to visit Peyton, asking her to keep an eye on him in case he starts to die. That’s where Ravi and Major’s storyline for the week kind of comes in. Ravi is super mopey from what happened with Peyton but Major has a lead on finding Natalie. So, he’s going to drag Ravi along on his quest to save the zombie call girl.

The case of the week, however, is about a dental equipment sales associate who was the office gossip. Two of her co-workers find her in the bathroom, dead. Liv doesn’t realize the victim was such a gossip until she and Clive start talking to the victim’s co-workers. It turns out she was not a nice person. She liked to gab about everyone. It quickly becomes obvious that more than one person may have had motive to kill the victim (who died from a lethal combination of Utopium-laced yogurt and anti-depressants). She outed one co-worker as gay (who was having an affair) and she ruined another co-worker’s chance at promotion. Oh, and then there was the former adult film star (who had 80 movies in 5 months). Kudos to their HR person for keeping such detailed records.

As Clive and Liv continue to work this case, they continue to work the zombie family murder by going through the message board comments (of which there are many). While all this is going on, we get some honest conversations with Blaine and Peyton, especially the longer he doesn’t get his memory back. She wants it to work obviously so that Liv and Major can become human again but Blaine isn’t sure he wants to remember who he used to be. I’m with him. I like this new Blaine. Blaine even calls off sexy times because they both would (in their own ways) regret it in the morning if he reverted. But, lucky for them (for now), Blaine doesn’t remember so they can hook up again.

Elsewhere, Ravi and Major stake out the guy who has Natalie and follow him when he heads out (apparently, he’s in the diamond business and has a family). Major has a tracking device that he manages to slip into the muscle’s jacket after they get pulled over. I have to admit, I’ve never been a fan of Major and him slowly dying is kind of annoying but I have to admire his commitment to keeping a promise. Because before episode’s end, he finds Natalie. She warns that Seattle isn’t safe for her and so unless Fillmore Graves can relocate her somewhere super obscure, she’s not going anywhere. But it looks like he convinces her to take the dose of the cure (at least to keep it) that Ravi gave him because his condition is getting worse and an inhaler isn’t going to cut it for much longer. Whether we see Natalie again or not, at least Major kept his word as best he could. And we then see him head off for his first mission with the mercenaries.

Thanks to some good police work and combing through lots of phone records, Clive and Liv figure out what happened in the case of their dead office gossip. The three employees she wronged the most teamed up and intended to just prank her with the drug-laced yogurt. They had no idea that it would kill her. They just wanted to bring her down a peg. I don’t condone murder 9or even involuntary manslaughter) but someone needed to bring that woman down a bit. She was over the top obnoxious in getting into everyone’s business.

And lest we forget the larger case being investigated, Liv finds a post by someone who owns a gun range (which is having a zombie apocalypse sale). The guy seems like a racist hothead but he didn’t kill the family. He does have motive to hate zombies though. His brother died at the Max Rager massacre and as Liv and Clive leave, they realize they used his brother’s arm to gain access to the facility that night. Oops!

Overall, I thought this episode moved things forward pretty well. I know it doesn’t provide any real hope for Liv and Major not being zombies but then, what’s the point of a zombie show if the main character isn’t a zombie anymore? Also, I’m liking the Blaine and Peyton relationship that is burgeoning. I find Ravi being all mopey and pathetic, well, pathetic. He needs to move on. He’s better than all this pettiness and jealousy. Yes, he got his heart broken but move on. He does have more important things to worry about, like making sure his former boss doesn’t find out about zombie sand trying to figure out how to reverse the memory loss of the second cure! I suppose finding a way to keep Major from dying is important, too, although I wouldn’t be too broken up if he died. I know Liv and Peyton would be upset but he really doesn’t add all that much to the storyline and I heard we were supposed to get a new love interest for Liv and I can’t imagine Major being overly thrilled to see his ex-fiancée dating someone else. But, we are only a short way into this season so there is still plenty of time to see what happens and whether Major makes it.