S02.E09: Cape Town

[blugirlami21]

I think we agree for the most part. I think I'm just willing to give Major some slack on this issue.

I also don't think that Liv puts that much effort into maintaining her own personality when she eats someone else's brain. I wish we could see more of that struggle on screen.

[Jack Kerouac]

I think we agree for the most part. I think I'm just willing to give Major some slack on this issue.

I also don't think that Liv puts that much effort into maintaining her own personality when she eats someone else's brain. I wish we could see more of that struggle on screen.

Agreed. I guess I'm just tired of Liv acting like a jackass to Major and then getting pissed off at him when he doesn't 'understand.' She still hasn't admitted that turning him into a zombie against his will might have been a mistake.

[ketose]

We don't know for 100 percent sure, but it seems like it's almost certain. Who else do we know who goes around infecting people to match such skillsets as cook, muscle, police info. etc.? Not too many other people have the "Welcome to Team Z" speech, as he referenced in this very episode.

 

And infecting her is really no work at all. It's sleeping with someone hot and then scratching her.

Plus, the big Z is the worst STD ever. Blaine (or mystery pimp) could have used protection and still infected her.

[Actionmage]

Didn't Vaughn get turned?  I remember him ducking out of his offices at the end of S1 and he had the telltale white/gray stripe of hair. He still has it, iirc. 

 

He's douche enough to try a bit of pimping. He's supposedly sexually voracious ( see sleeping with board members' wives) and amoral enough to not having a problem turning a call girl. Add the really super-duper strength shown when he tossed the medicine ball at the groaner a couple of weeks back. I can buy that the new Rager formula even has HGH and steroids, but Major's eyes almost rolled out of his head at the weight Vaughn was pushing.

 

I'll go back under my tinfoil swimcap.

 

 

Except to say: I think I want to see Stacy Boss make Vaughn Du Clark pee himself. I am petty and Du Clark needs to be brought low, period.

[Crim]

I think we agree for the most part. I think I'm just willing to give Major some slack on this issue.

I also don't think that Liv puts that much effort into maintaining her own personality when she eats someone else's brain. I wish we could see more of that struggle on screen.

I would be willing to give Major some slack had he not been a social worker. He also loved that job, i.e. did his best to process and empathize with social and psychological issues. YMMV, but I like that Liv doesn't struggle in the way characters normally do on TV, that her mind changes, her brain changes, her thoughts change, and "she", what she identifies as her self, can see the difference and it doesn't help, that she mostly witnesses it. It's refreshing to see it, especially in a light context like iZombie.

[Shriekingeel]

Liv's Christian Bale impression was adorable.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

iZombie's Super Holiday Bummer
If you're seeking a warm and fuzzy season-of-hope finale, you've come to the wrong morgue.

[MisterGlass]

xqueenfrostine, you nailed it with the word grim.  I have in other parts of the season thought the writers were insensitive in the way they presented situations, and I wondered for a moment if they realized just how horrible a situation they constructed for Natalie even though her dialogue references it.

 

Otherwise, Ravi is the hero here.  The man went out alone with a metal detector and shovel in the faint hope of furthering a cure for his friends and for humanity.  Someone make the man a spice rack.

[MisterGlass]

Follow-up question: if Blaine or Major were killed now, would he immediately revert to being a zombie?  If the cure is more of a suppression agent that empowers the immune system, once the immune system stops functioning would the zombie element rocket back to the front?  The zombie infection has been shown to act very rapidly.

[xqueenfrostine]

Didn't Vaughn get turned?  I remember him ducking out of his offices at the end of S1 and he had the telltale white/gray stripe of hair. He still has it, iirc. 

 

He's douche enough to try a bit of pimping. He's supposedly sexually voracious ( see sleeping with board members' wives) and amoral enough to not having a problem turning a call girl. 

 

 

I don't think the streak of grey is significant as I can't imagine that he wouldn't be dying his hair more competently if it were the Zombie virus and not age that was causing the grey.  Plus the pattern of grey in Vaugh's hair matches Steven Weber's hair in real life (the linked pic even shows his grey streak at the hair line), so the makeup team for the show might have just decided to let Vaughn age the same way Weber is.  

 

I definitely agree with what others have said about the significance of Natalie and Blaine both using the phrase "welcome to Team Z" in the same episode. I think it all but confirms that Blaine was the one to turn and conscript the girl into a life as a zombie sex slave.  I don't think the writers would have put those words in the girl's mouth otherwise.  Plus is there really any doubt that Blaine wouldn't see his clients' sexual frustration as a business opportunity?  He's already in the business of creating both the supply and the demand for brains, and has a history of turning the people he wants to do his bidding.  It's no stretch to think that he wouldn't do the same for zombie sex slaves.   It's a very Blaine thing to do.  

 

And as for the "work" it takes to be a pimp, I doubt it's any more work that it takes for Blaine to do any other part of his business.  Blaine already has a system in place where his clients order brains, so they could probably just put in a request for time with a call girl when they order their weekly brain supply.   Natalie needs to be fed on the regular so it's not like she's going anywhere.  They probably give her the details for her "appointments" when she picks up (or they drop off) her supply of brains.. 

[FilmTVGeek80]

I don't really remember the exact dialogue of zombie hooker's explanation, but is there anyway the one who turned her and her pimp weren't one and the same? I definitely believe there's no doubt he turned her given her mention of the "welcome to team Z" speech. I think Blaine is disgusting but I have a hard time believing the show would have had him do something like this and truly expect most of the audience to find Blaine amusing. Then again he murdered a bunch of kids, so it's hard to put anything past him.

 

 

And I have to think Rob Thomas can see that there really isn't anywhere to go with the Major character at this point- even if he becomes a zombie again, would anyone care about seeing him and Liv get back together? And it's not as though Buckley is awful, I just think it stands out like crazy when the rest of the cast is this strong and has such great snappy chemistry, comic timing and line delivery (McIver, Goodwin, Kahuli and Anders are all fantastic with that). With dialogue like this and a unit that strong, you can just see who isn't up to par with it much easier.

 

I disagree and I doubt Rob Thomas has come to that conclusion. I think he and the rest of the cast are fans of Buckley and I don't see them getting rid of him. I would love to see Major and Liv get back together. I think they have chemistry and were cute together. I also think he has great chemistry with Ravi and Peyton. His comic timing is just fine IMO. Most of the time his character is the one that makes me laugh the most.

 

 

 

From my point of view, the concepts of "Liv needs to eat brains to remain functional," "Liv's eating of brains means that she will adopt personality traits and have the memories of the people whose brains she eats," and "Liv apparently has no control over when, where and how those memories or personality traits will surface" are not that hard to process.

None of those concepts require anything so extreme as being a zombie for a protracted period of time to understand. We in this forum all get all this.

 

I think Major gets the concept, but understanding a concept and having to deal with the realities of it are a lot different. We on the forums don't have to tell with a zombie loved one with a constantly shifting personality. I don't really think Liv gave him a lot of time to deal with the realities of the situation.

 

It's one of the problems I have with the show and with the character of Liv. I like her for the most part, but there doesn't seem to be a real handle on what her real personality is like since she's always on a brain. The show also hasn't done a really great job of showing Liv trying to suppress the personality or really get into if it's actually impossible not to.

 

I also don't see what was the problem with Major doing research on the synthetic brain and trying to find an alternative. Yeah the cases have become important to Liv, but when they had their argument at the beginning of the episode she expressed how hard it was to dealing with the constant personality shifts. I can see why he would think she might like to explore other options. Especially given that , as much as Liv likes making a difference, she would take a zombie cure in a heartbeat - despite that meaning she would lose them.

 

I thought curing Major so fast was a wasted opportunity, so I'm actually glad the cure isn't permanent and can't wait to see zombie!Major.

 

I think getting Clive and Liv back together will be harder than reuniting Major and Liv. I'm not sure what kind of explanation - even telling him the truth - would make him change his mind.

[Julia]

I'm not really clear that Liv can't control the influence of the brains. None of the other zombies seem to be quite as affected as she is. I don't really get from her that she's really putting maximum effort into it.

[MisterGlass]

We rarely see that much of other zombies, so it's hard to tell how affected they are, though Lowell was.

 

Blaine had a work for food arrangement with Suzuki.  At least, that's how I interpreted it.  And Suzuki killed himself.

[xqueenfrostine]

I don't really remember the exact dialogue of zombie hooker's explanation, but is there anyway the one who turned her and her pimp weren't one and the same?

 

 

No chance at all.  Here's what Natalie says exactly in her conversation with Major:  

Natalie: Then this mystery man contacts me.  We have our date.  And the next morning I wake up, and guess what sounds tasty to me?

Major: Brains.

Natalie: Exactly.  Then this john drops back by, welcomes me to 'Team Z' and explains that I was a zombie now.  And in exchange for the brains I needed to survive, I would have to service his zombie clients.  

Major: That's terrible.

Natalie: Yeah, I literally got screwed into becoming a zombie hooker.

 

So yeah.  The entire exchange reeks of Blaine.  Not only does the exchange closely mirror his conversation with Drake earlier in this episode, it's also a pretty direct callback to the way he turned Jackie early in season one.  Blaine specifically sought Jackie out and seduced her in order to turn her into a zombie, and reappeared the day after the encounter to give her his "Welcome to Team Z" speech.   Obviously Blaine wanted to extort Jackie for her money, not for her services as an escort, but otherwise it's the exact same pattern. 

 

Blaine's a lot of fun as a character, but we shouldn't forget that he's a man with zero morals and who has single-handedly built a thriving business based on human and zombie exploitation.  And yes, making a zombie sex slave is horrible, but it's not worse than murdering dozens of homeless people and kids in order to feed a growing population of rich zombies that he alone was responsible for expanding.  When you've already done all that, why not add zombie sex trafficking to your list of crimes?  I don't think there's a limit to what he would do to further his business or if enough money was involved. 

[Julia]

Yeah, not seeing the charm or the fun in Blaine, but I have to give credit to the people writing this - between turning the zombies, the homeless kid farming, the attempted murder of Major, and killing grandpa to make a point, they're making him pretty much impossible to make excuses for. We even periodically get the evil speech of evil from him, and Liv took him out in the season 1 finale because he was monologuing. I don't think he's not evil enough to be running prostitutes. It actually seems like something he'd enjoy. And didn't he turn the woman client he later killed with sex?

[sjohnson]

Although I can see how switching from her preferred client list to Blaine's can feel tragic, I'm really not feeling the notion that sex trafficking is Blaine's most dastardly act. Killing homeless kids, killing his own grandfather are easily so much worse. Taking steps to prevent zombie apocalypse caused by zombie/human sex is possibly the most socially responsible thing the dude has ever done.

 

As for for Blaine's charm and entertainment value? This lies in two aspects I think. First, Liv and Ravi have never worried about zombie apocalypse. They've very rarely worried about what Blaine was up to. If our heroes don't worry about Blaine's evil why should the audience? Second, Blaine has agency. Entertainment for lots of people lies in various intensities of identification with the characters. Character with lots of agency are fun characters to identify with. Of course people who look for that will prefer Blaine to Major.  

[xqueenfrostine]

Although I can see how switching from her preferred client list to Blaine's can feel tragic, I'm really not feeling the notion that sex trafficking is Blaine's most dastardly act. Killing homeless kids, killing his own grandfather are easily so much worse. Taking steps to prevent zombie apocalypse caused by zombie/human sex is possibly the most socially responsible thing the dude has ever done.

I don't know that I'd go that far. Surely switching his supply source from murder victims to the recently deceased is more socially responsible than adding escort services to his business model. And Natalie didn't just lose the ability to pick her own clients, she lost her way to earn a living. She told Major that her savings are gone, which means that Blaine isn't giving her any money for her services and it's not like she can take other clients on top of the ones Blaine gives her to keep a roof over her head. Humans clients are out for obvious reasons, and zombie clients are out because we already know what Blaine does to people who try to break out on their own and start competing businesses. And I doubt she has the legit work history she would need to try to get another decent paying job. Her schedule might not even allow it if Blaine expects her to be on-call at all times.

I know the fact that Natalie was a call girl before Blaine came along might make what he did to her seem less inherently rape-y than it would be otherwise, but it isn't. This isn't just prostitution, it's sex slavery. Blaine turning Natalie and then controlling her access to brains is on par with the common human trafficking tactic of luring someone to a foreign country with the promise of a job and then confiscating her passport.

As for for Blaine's charm and entertainment value? This lies in two aspects I think. First, Liv and Ravi have never worried about zombie apocalypse. They've very rarely worried about what Blaine was up to. If our heroes don't worry about Blaine's evil why should the audience? Second, Blaine has agency. Entertainment for lots of people lies in various intensities of identification with the characters. Character with lots of agency are fun characters to identify with. Of course people who look for that will prefer Blaine to Major.

I'd add the charisma of David Anders to the list. The man is very skilled at playing highly entertaining sleazebags.

[Julia]

I'd add the charisma of David Anders to the list.

Honestly, I wonder if perceiving charisma in David Anders might pretty much be the list. While Blaine is certainly a striking character, I find him as repulsive as his acts, maybe because I don't have any prior positive associations with the actor.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Julia

[xqueenfrostine]

Honestly, I wonder if perceiving charisma in David Anders might pretty much be the list. While Blaine is certainly a striking character, I find him as repulsive as his acts, maybe because I don't have any prior positive associations with the actor.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure people's positive (or in your case negative) response to David Anders accounts for at least 80% of whether or not people find his character appealing. And by appealing, I obviously mean in terms of entertaining the audience, not in how appealing people within the iZombie universe should find him. As for previous positive associations for Anders, I think if you're the type of person who has a hard time appreciating an actor's performance beyond the terrible acts his character commits David definitely isn't for you. I don't think I've ever seen him play a character who didn't (at minimum!) deserve to be punched in the junk.

[sjohnson]

I've seen Anders on Once Upon a Time and Heroes and he had zero charisma. The actor is selling the character i think, not playing himself. 

 

I'm not sure how I communicated the thought that Blaine wasn't doing something horrible with the woman. Something so awful may be the closest he's ever come to doing anything remotely right, but I was thinking of how far away his personal best still is. I do think murder is worse than rape, though, which I guess has become a controversial position. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I don't think I've ever seen him play a character who didn't (at minimum!) deserve to be punched in the junk.

Ha, that would be a great subtitle for his resume.

[xqueenfrostine]

I do think murder is worse than rape, though, which I guess has become a controversial position. 

 

 

No it hasn't.  The wording in your post just didn't reflect that you even considered what happened to Natalie as rape, and really undersold the stark reality of what happened to Natalie.  Particularly in this line:

 

 

Although I can see how switching from her preferred client list to Blaine's can feel tragic

 

We agree that murder is worse than rape, but I don't think we should undersell the horror of what happened to Natalie in order to make that point.  And describing what happened to her as no longer being able to choose her own clients does that, because that is the very least of what happened to her.  Her circumstances didn't just "feel" traffic.  They were tragic.  

 

 

And I disagree with you about David Anders's charisma in OuaT.  I loved Dr. Whale.  I don't think David Anders is playing himself, I think he just is very good at selling these sorts of parts.  Clearly, casting directors seem to think so.

[sjohnson]

Ah, I see. My skepticism about the whole Happy Hooker routine came over as taking her change in situation lightly, instead of my seeing her original situation as tragic. 

 

It's very disorienting for me sometimes because the stark reality in the fictional universe of iZombie is the zombie apocalypse, and killing people to eat their brains, which the show refuses to take seriously. 

 

But sorry you'll never convince me about Dr. Whale.

[jhlipton]

In a way, what happened with Natalie was worse than murder -- she would have only died once, but instead had months of being raped by despicable people. 

[maxineofarc]

I've seen Anders on Once Upon a Time and Heroes and he had zero charisma.

 

I really liked him on Heroes and he was probably the reason I kept watching into season three. So I fully admit that I am coming largely from an Anders Place in finding Blaine charmingly repulsive.

[MisterGlass]

I hadn't seen much of Anders's work before this, though I did watch the first two seasons of OUaT, and liked his work there.  The thing about Blaine is that he doesn't act like a villain in casual conversation.  He acts like a stoner with moderate business skills and the charm to get by.  He's occasionally witty, often weary, and frequently disarming.  Blaine is a horrible person, but his crimes just don't bother him enough to make him behave in a guilty or self-conscious way.  As a result, he's a lot like Stacey Boss.

 

Edited for spelling.

Edited December 21, 2015 by MisterGlass

[aradia22]

Drake (Greg Finley) is distractingly pretty. This almost makes up for losing Lowell. Not really. But he's got potential.

 

Episode 8 wasn't bad but it was mostly because of Ravi. Too much Liv/Major relationship drama for me. I appreciated the distraction of Blaine and Drake this week.

 

I also liked the way Major got to play off the zombie he was going to tranquilize. It was depressing but an interesting take on life as a zombie that we haven't got in a while.

 

With this show on the cw, it was fun to finally see Liv in a costume. It was also nice to see her fight again. It satisfied my craving for an Agent Carter fix.