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S02.E15: He Blinded Me With Science

ElectricBoogaloo

By ElectricBoogaloo
in iZombie [V]

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Agent Dark

Agent Dark

Nice easter egg with Undercover Liv's alias - Gwen Dylan is the name of the main character from the iZOMBIE comic :)

 

One thing I really love about this show is that those little scene gags they go out of their way to include - Clive walking on the half-hearted attempt to cover up the zombie rat dissection and they all just stand there awkwardly was hilarious.  And Blaine's big mute guy sending him the emoji text lol.  And the scene where Vaughn is explaining to 'Gwen' that yes they do have a secret basement with top-secret research and the music starts swelling as if he's about to reveal the big zombie secret - "Fisher-Price probably has a secret basement" and the music abruptly cuts out lol.  I just love how legitimately fun this show is.

  • Love 16
Bort

Bort

Liv looking like an ordinary person was disconcerting.

One thing that took me out of it was everyone acting like it was totally bizarre that Liv was knowledgable about science-- especially biology! She has a freaking medical degree, that requires a pretty strong knowledge of science and biology! In fact, does Ravi have any education that she DOESN'T have?

Liv was a surgeon, which I guess is less research and development than what Ravi and the murdered doctor have experience with.

  • Love 2
ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

  • Author

My favorite thing about the brain of the week was Liv's data charts about Drake.

 

I totally loved Blaine lurching into the morgue moaning, "Braaaaaaaains," to Ravi. I was also cracking up at Blaine's attempt at small talk on the bus while wrapped in a picnic blanket. And those two things made me realize that I hope Blaine doesn't die yet. I know he's the bad guy, but he is just so amusing. I also enjoy Vaughn's gleeful villainy but I don't want the show to be reduced to just Liv vs. Vaughn. Having a reluctant truce with Blaine but not trusting him is much more fun to watch.

 

I am not at all surprised that Vaughn left Rita in the basement so he could save his own ass, but what is he going to do now? Have Major kill her? He can't possibly think that Rita is going to forgive him for abandoning her, so he'd better watch his back. If I were here, I would scratch him the first chance I had.

  • Love 7
fastiller

fastiller

...

One thing I really love about this show is that those little scene gags they go out of their way to include ...

&

...

I was also cracking up at Blaine's attempt at small talk on the bus while wrapped in a picnic blanket.

 

The use of & reference to Duran Duran's songs in the bus scene is another illustration of these gags; double entendre indeed.

 

Courtesy ElectricBoogaloo, over in the quotes thread:

 

Blaine: I am hungry like the wolf.

Guy on bus: Sorry?

Blaine: The music. "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Guy on bus: I think that's "The Reflex."

Blaine: So true. So true.

Though it did have me wondering if the bus system has MUZAK in all their buses.

  • Love 3
blixie

blixie

 

Meaning would Liv and Rita be an unevenly matched fight?

 

I imagine Rita will be effected by the Max Rager-ness of the Zombie who scratched her? But no I think Zombie strength is about equal it's just whether they have higher brain function from a steady diet of...brains.

 

This was a fan freaking tastic episode, so fun, so dark! I won't lie though I will miss smoking hot Drake who was so smoking hot Major has to literally put him on ice. I think I missed the episode where Major decided to freeze the zombies he's supposed to be killing? Liv still doesn't know anything about him working for Max Rager douche, so I can only imagine how awkward it's gonna be when she finds out her bad boyfriend isn't bad, and got taken out by her "good" ex-boyfriend. 

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Minneapple

Minneapple

Other thoughts:

 

It's going to be an interesting conversation between Drake and Major when Drake wakes up. I like Drake and I enjoy him and Liv together so I don't want him to die or be frozen yet.

 

It almost amuses me how they go out of their way to explain why Blaine hasn't been killed yet and why the protagonists put up with him. "HE FEEDS SEATTLE'S ZOMBIES, SO WE CAN'T KILL HIM." "KEEP FEEDING THE ZOMBIES, BLAINE." "HERE'S THE CURE SO YOU CAN KEEP FEEDING THE ZOMBIES, BLAINE." Not just hey, we like writing snarky lines for this character so let's keep him around even though he's totes evil -- Dick Casablancas comes to mind. 

  • Love 5
Jael

Jael

Not so sure DuClark allowing his daughter to become a zombie makes sense. Obviously he knows that if zombies promptly get brains they can basically just get around like normal people. And then she can come after him. She knows where to find him. She can get her revenge.

 

It just seemed not to entirely track. Or is he going nuts from too much Supermax?

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Bort

Bort

Not so sure DuClark allowing his daughter to become a zombie makes sense. Obviously he knows that if zombies promptly get brains they can basically just get around like normal people. And then she can come after him. She knows where to find him. She can get her revenge.

It just seemed not to entirely track. Or is he going nuts from too much Supermax?

I don't really think Vaughn "allowed" Rita to become a zombie. He probably didn't expect her to survive.

  • Love 14
Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

On some vampire shows, older vampires are stronger than younger vampires. Has anything been established or discussed on this show in a similar vein? Meaning would Liv and Rita be an unevenly matched fight?

I don't remember there being too many physical fights between two zombies in full-on zombie mode for us to base a judgment on.

 

I think in S.1, Liv fought a "Romero" zombie for a bit when she was on psycho sniper brain and saved Ravi. Mostly, it's been Team Z members versus humans.

 

I would say age makes sense in the vampire context because you're talking about the difference between 1,000+ year old vamps, 500 year old vamps, 200 year old and vamps who were born in the scope of the show. 

 

Here, it would seem that the oldest zombies would be like 2-3 years old. It doesn't seem like enough time for there to be a stratification of zombies of strength by age.

 

If anything, my hypothesis would be for zombies, the older they are, the further along in rotting they would be and thus older zombies would be weaker zombies.

  • Love 1
possibilities

possibilities

(edited)

I think DuClarke panicked. He didn't think she would survive, and he didn't think through the various possibilities. He just chose to protect himself-- and other consequences were not fully weighed. He cared about her to some extent, but mostly as an extension of himself/his agenda. He's shown himself to be motivated by the narrowest of self-interest, so it's perfectly in character for him to just consider loss of his daughter the cost of doing business. Earlier, she herself had said they calculate the cost of lawsuits when people using SuperMax get violent. Safety is not first. profit is.

 

In theory, he could be useful to Ravi and Team Cure, by offering the labs and resources of his company for a cure. Maybe Gilda/Rita will leverage her position to make that happen now-- she probably has inside knowledge and other ways to ruin the company, even aside from the possibility of killing (and eating the brains of) her dad, or turning him into a zombie. DuClarke is soullessly evil, but he probably would not be able to kill her directly, and I doubt he would feel he could ask Major to do it-- waaaaay too much vulnerability in giving Major her name for the kill list.

 

I am guessing Gilda/Rita and duClarke will join Blaine among "the bad guys we make alliances with for messy reasons and also because they're funny."

 

Now, how Rita/Gilda responds should be interesting. I think she's as evil as her father and Blaine, but she now has mixed loyalties, and thus becomes more of a wildcard. I don't see her forgiving her father, but I don't see her really being someone the others would fully embrace, either.

Edited by possibilities
  • Love 3
blugirlami21

blugirlami21

I wasn't surprised that Du Clarke left Gilda down there. He's a self centered coward. He's always looking out for number one. Gilda seemed to be a newly discovered child so I don't think he's nearly invested enough to endure a zombie attack for her. I felt really bad for her though, that was messed up.

I do wish that the people on the "good" side would talk to each other. I was hoping Major would follow through with his confession to Liv about being his nighttime activities. I'm worried about Drake's undercover operation with Mr. Boss now that he's been "killed." If Liv had told Major about Drake he wouldn't have picked him off the list. The lack of transparency between the group is annoying.

  • Love 1
MisterGlass

MisterGlass

Yikes!  I loved this episode but man does it feel like we're about to get hit with a massive end of year cliffhanger.

 

Rita is going to be an intimidating Zombie, and she's in a good spot to swap stories with Blaine about terrible, self-centered fathers.  I feel like DuClark is on the verge of some kind of catastrophic heart failure or permanent rage zombie transformation.  When he threw that magic 8 ball at Major, I think it embedded in the wall.

 

If Blaine is about to die I'm going to miss him a lot.  He's just so much fun in his twisted way.  The opening on the bus and bursting into the morgue had me  snickering throughout.  And then things turned poignant when he said he'd been making his own final arrangements.  Chief is loyal, but Don E is not at all trustworthy when it comes to not cashing in on the utopium.

 

I'm sad Drake is getting put in the freezer, but I have to think that his handler is going to storm downstairs to the morgue to talk to Liv about his missing officer.  At least he's not dead-dead.

 

Ravi was great with Blaine and Liv, but I would like him to have a little joy, not just the dire parts of the story. 

 

While Liv is a surgeon, her view is on a macroscopic version of the body - organs and tissues.  Chemical and cellular interactions are a different specialty.  I would just say she was uniquely able to interface with and support the expertise of this brain.  I did like her statistics readout.

  • Love 3
twoods

twoods

(edited)

I agree with the others that Liv having medical knowledge has nothing to do with biochem. Hell, I was a biochem major and forgot everything once I went to medical school and did not go the research/Ph.D. Route.

I'm getting tired of Liv not trusting her boyfriends and getting all stalkery. I don't know why she didn't check his phone to see where he was when he didn't show up. I hope we see him again soon because he is great with Liv.

That ending was terrifying. I wonder where that zombie is, and maybe I will like Gilda more now that she's a pissed off zombie. I can see her and Blaine hitting it off.

Yay to Clive for figuring out the case without Liv's help, and for learning about the human brains.

Edited by twoods
  • Love 3
rue721

rue721

Drake's poor mother!

 

There's no way that Drake is going to be missing for long. His mom is going to be ringing Liv's phone off the hook looking for him.

 

Blaine is so much fun! He can't die! The show would be so much worse off if he did.

 

Also, aside from his one-liners and being generally charming (in his own sorta sociopathic way) I like that Blaine prefers being a zombie, because he prefers having the ruthlessness, physical strength, and blunted emotions that come with being one. It makes sense why most/all the other characters hate being zombies...pouring hot sauce on brains, taking on weirdo personalities, and being a carrier for a deadly STD seems like a pretty shitty way to live. But I like that there's this one character who sees the silver lining -- and even thinks life is easier being dead! Because his perspective actually does make some sense, too.

  • Love 4
xqueenfrostine

xqueenfrostine

Wow that ending!  Steven Weber did an AMAZING job with that last scene.  That expression on his face when he sat alone in his office (both before and after Gilda appeared) was haunting.  

 

On some vampire shows, older vampires are stronger than younger vampires. Has anything been established or discussed on this show in a similar vein? Meaning would Liv and Rita be an unevenly matched fight?

 

Nothing like that has been established, and until we hear otherwise I'm assuming how strong a zombie is depends on general physical factors (i.e.size and general fitness of their bodies) and how well fed they are.   

 

I think DuClarke panicked. He didn't think she would survive, and he didn't think through the various possibilities. He just chose to protect himself-- and other consequences were not fully weighed. He cared about her to some extent, but mostly as an extension of himself/his agenda. He's shown himself to be motivated by the narrowest of self-interest, so it's perfectly in character for him to just consider loss of his daughter the cost of doing business. Earlier, she herself had said they calculate the cost of lawsuits when people using SuperMax get violent. Safety is not first. profit is.

 

I do think DuClarke cared about her.  I thought that was the point of having him freak out when he saw Gilda's black eye at the beginning of the episode was to show us that one some level, DuClarke does legitimately care about his daughter.  But that said, I agree that Vaughn's a selfish coward, and that he left Gilda in the basement with a zombie on the loose because he wasn't prepared to risk his own life to potentially save hers.  He knew how badly they had been starving that zombie in the basement.  I don't think he thought either of them would escape with just a scratch if the zombie caught them.  

  • Love 3
possibilities

possibilities

My theory is that they are not going to kill off Blaine, but there will be side effects of the experimental cure. They can't cure the virus because that ends the show. But they don't want to kill off Blaine or Major. So I think they will keep toying with new cures that have weird unintended consequences, to keep things both suspenseful and a little funny.

  • Love 5
Ruby25

Ruby25

(edited)

What's funny is that I don't see them wanting to let Major be a zombie, but I can see them leaving Blaine as one, so I wonder how they'll sort that out. Of course, maybe I'm wrong.

 

Blaine's so funny to me though. He really needs more scenes with Ravi, they're hilarious together. I also liked it when him and Liv were on the same brain. I think the finale cliffhanger's going to have to involve Clive finding out somehow. If not about Liv, at least about zombies in general.

Edited by Ruby25
  • Love 2
AudienceofOne

AudienceofOne

(edited)

The problem is that Blaine wants the cure for himself but not for anybody else. If every zombie gets the cure he has no business anymore. I don't think Liv and Ravi have really thought that one through.

 

Great episode, if a little disjointed. As usual they tried to do too much. This season needed a few more episodes.

 

But regardless of how much was jam packed in it, what actually happened was great. Really looking forward to a Season 3 now (yay!)

Edited by AudienceofOne
  • Love 1
Actionmage

Actionmage

This season needed a few more episodes.

 

We have four more to go. If they are as intense as this one, we are in for one wild ride.

 

What will be interesting is what GildaRita will decide. There is only three places she could go for help immediately: Liv's, Major's ( if he took her there before), or the morgue.  If they bring Blaine in, for whatever reason ( Liv probably still can't deal with her outside of medical professionalism, Major and Ravi don't want her around their house), then some info-merging might happen, like when Blaine and Major had their talk. Only that will leave Blaine in the know because he will then have most, if not all, of the pieces he needs.  

sacrebleu

sacrebleu

 

That ending was terrifying. I wonder where that zombie is.

I assumed from the shots of Rita/Gilda holding her high heeled shoe-- then afterwards at Vaughan's office with just one shoe-- that she killed the zombie-- but not before getting scratched.

 

 

On some vampire shows, older vampires are stronger than younger vampires. Has anything been established or discussed on this show in a similar vein?

 

I don't think older zombies are stronger, I think all full-on zombie mode zombies (w/o SuperMax) are about the same. When Liv took out that one zombie who broke into her apartment-- it looked like a pretty fair fight. Liv had the edge because it was her apartment and she knew where all the sharp knives were kept. 

 

Great episode. Again-- very much like Veronica Mars-- I enjoy the pacing of the show-- how worlds start colliding. Now, I wonder how Drake's 'death' will complicate things. Although anything that bring Enrico Colatoni back to the show is a plus in my book. 

  • Love 1
Bruinsfan

Bruinsfan

I don't think older zombies are stronger, I think all full-on zombie mode zombies (w/o SuperMax) are about the same. When Liv took out that one zombie who broke into her apartment-- it looked like a pretty fair fight. Liv had the edge because it was her apartment and she knew where all the sharp knives were kept.

There are also the factors of Liv knowing a lot more about how to operate as a zombie and having the willpower to control it (as she pointed out to her intruder in that episode) and intentionally trigger a full-on zombie rage. Those likely would not be advantages she would uniquely possess in a confrontation with Blaine or Chief, for example.

Cthulhudrew

Cthulhudrew

(edited)

Are we sure Rita's a zombie? IIRC, her hair was still red when she came back, and she had her high heel ready to do some zombie head stabbing before her dad abandoned her.

 

(Of course, as sacrebleu mentions, she could have been scratched and just not turned completely yet. I can't recall precisely how it works; it seems to me it was always a pretty quick change, but I don't think we've seen it happen since Drake, maybe? So I could be wrong.)

Edited by Cthulhudrew
AudienceofOne

AudienceofOne

Are we sure Rita's a zombie? IIRC, her hair was still red when she came back, and she had her high heel ready to do some zombie head stabbing before her dad abandoned her.

It takes several days (maybe even weeks?) for the hair to turn white. And they don't exactly go full on zombie mode straight up. This was right after being scratched. So yes, she's definitely a zombie (unless they find out she's immune). I hope she goes to Liv for help but that seems unlikely after their dust up.

  • Love 1
thuganomics85

thuganomics85

Damn, Vaughn DuClarke!  That was some cold, ass shit right there!  He might be competing with Blaine's dad for the worst father on the show.  But Vaughn is totally someone who would do that.  It doesn't matter if Rita is his daughter, he cares about himself first, and will always be out to protect number one.  Loved watching the smugness drop at the end and seeing him realize what he had done.  Steven Weber was fantastic in that moment.  He better watch his ass, because I can only imagine what Rita will do as a zombie, assuming she was scratched, and I have to think she was.

 

While the doctor brain wasn't my favorite, I like the idea of Liv and Blaine sharing a brain, and seeing how it effects both of them.  Wouldn't mind seeing that again.

 

Ravi being unnerved over "normal" looking Liv was great.  But it was nice seeing Rose McIver without the zombie make-up for a brief moment.

 

I did like that Clive ended up solving the case himself, since Liv was so sure the killer was Vaughn, and focused to much on him.  Well, that, and using her scientist skills to stalk Drake.  Who know, of course, has been captured by Major since he was on the list.

 

So, Blaine was basically going to die again after turning back into a zombie, so he now just took a shot of Ravi's latest concoction, that might cure him, might not, and might even kill him.  I doubt the show will kill him unless David Anders found something else, but I do suspect there will be some kind of surprising "side effect", to whatever he took.

 

Clive walking in on Ravi and Liv with the dissected zombie rat, was one of the best gags this show has done yet.  I love that Ravi and Liv couldn't even think of an excuse, and how quickly Clive went from confusion to just not even caring anymore, because he's already seen enough wacky shit at this point when it comes to those two.

  • Love 4
sjohnson

sjohnson

I think the best joke was the charity runner brain leading Blaine to give his henchmen instructions to keep feeding the zombies for the sake of humanity. Admittedly not a belly whopper, but  it nicely highlighted the dramatic irony: It's the villainous Blaine whose actions have kept mad scientist Ravi's private campaign for exclusive credit for the cure from leading the the zombie apocalypse. 

 

Drake's trip to the freezer, Liv's not noticing Drake's vehicle (aka her heartbreak,) Blaine's will I push the plunger? moment, Rita's zombification, well, they happened. These complications will always happen to run out the clock in an open-ended serial. Something's got to pass the time.

 

It was sort of a relief to feel some genuine emotions that actually made a difference in the case of the week. 

ratgirlagogo

ratgirlagogo

 

I think the best joke was the charity runner brain leading Blaine to give his henchmen instructions to keep feeding the zombies for the sake of humanity.

I appreciated this one too.  Largely because it took me a few seconds to realize that it was the brain talking - I do like that the show expects me to pay attention, but doesn't get so ridiculously convoluted that I stop being able to keep things straight.

  • Love 2
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