S04.E10: Yipee Ki Brain, Motherscratcher

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

When Liv consumes the brain of a vice detective who doesn’t play by the rules, her newfound recklessness gets her into trouble. Meanwhile, Major is coming really close to discovering Liv’s secret.

Promo:

[UNOSEZ]

Will catch this episode in the a.m

[JamieLynn832002]

Is Filmore-Graves doing something to Major that affects his behavior? Everything about him seems off this season. That's not to say Liv's behavior is stellar either since she doesn't seem to understand that continuously adding new zombies to a city that already couldn't feed its existing zombies is not a sustainable plan. And planting a tracker on Major could easily have gotten him killed. Still could if Graves ever finds out Liv is Renegade and makes the connection.

[MisterGlass]

I don't think they did themselves a favor by lampshading that this was a filler episode.  I've seen worse meta episodes, but some of the commentary was clunky.  I have to give it to Malcolm Goodwin for retelling the ridiculous off-camera antics.  Not sure why they picked this moment to do away with Enrico Colantoni's character.

There are so many plot threads going that it felt like none of them was well served.  I'm having issues with both Liv and Major's viewpoints at the moment.

It didn't occur to me last episode that Blaine wore a mask to kill the mayor in case someone ate his brain.  I thought it was in case he was caught on the video. 

[CCTC]

1 hour ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

Is Filmore-Graves doing something to Major that affects his behavior?

I kind of feel the show has gotten a lot more plot driven than character driven, plus they seem to have characters do things largely so it will create conflict with another character rather than if it makes sense for that character.

 

1 hour ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

That's not to say Liv's behavior is stellar either since she doesn't seem to understand that continuously adding new zombies to a city that already couldn't feed its existing zombies is not a sustainable plan.

Yes - in some ways they seem to have dumbed her down. She is pretty reckless and really should have been caught by now, and probably would have, but they are most likely saving it for the finale.  You can see her plans have potential disaster written on them about ten miles away.

I don't necessarily dislike the girl with the zombie immunity, but she reminds me of the standard young precocious character they used to bring onto shows as they were aging.  Usually not a good sign for the show.

[GaT]

Only 3 more episodes, do you think they'll be able to get rid of Filmore-Graves  & extra zombies by then?

I’m confused by Liv’s look, is the blond hair supposed to be a wig? I thought she dyed it, but they kept showing her looking like a zombie when she was watching DVDs

[AnimeMania]

Nothing they do makes sense, there was a episode showing how hard it was to get one zombie ID printer, now they have six.

Why are they filming everybody, one of their members got caught, what if it was the one with the camera, they would all be skull crushed.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Inside the episode:

[Chicago Redshirt]

7 hours ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

Is Filmore-Graves doing something to Major that affects his behavior? Everything about him seems off this season. That's not to say Liv's behavior is stellar either since she doesn't seem to understand that continuously adding new zombies to a city that already couldn't feed its existing zombies is not a sustainable plan. And planting a tracker on Major could easily have gotten him killed. Still could if Graves ever finds out Liv is Renegade and makes the connection.

I think Major has been relatively consistent in his characterization - a good-hearted guy who can and will do what it takes in the service of what is right, or at least what he thinks is right. Some of his off-behavior can be explained by him buddying up to Roche. 

Liv, by contrast, has been all over the place. Part of that is the brains, of course. But specifically with Major, she has now used her connection to him twice to do Renegade business. (She stole his vest in order to have one of her minions gain access to where a smuggled human was, a few episodes back). Risking her life for that cause is her right. But risking his is obnoxious. Major was her fiance and we were just told they supposedly still love each other. That's not how you treat someone you love. 

7 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

I don't think they did themselves a favor by lampshading that this was a filler episode.  I've seen worse meta episodes, but some of the commentary was clunky.  I have to give it to Malcolm Goodwin for retelling the ridiculous off-camera antics.  Not sure why they picked this moment to do away with Enrico Colantoni's character.

There are so many plot threads going that it felt like none of them was well served.  I'm having issues with both Liv and Major's viewpoints at the moment.

It didn't occur to me last episode that Blaine wore a mask to kill the mayor in case someone ate his brain.  I thought it was in case he was caught on the video. 

I liked a lot about the episode. It seemed to have a lot more energy than most this season, and I felt like the jokes landed more often than not. Some of my favorites:

• Vampire Steve talking about the Cezanne of the digital age and then transitioning to Don E acting like the idiot he is
• Liv putting on the sunglasses and Cavanaugh making the CSI-like scream
• The riffing of cop movie titles
• The aforementioned lampshading of running out of money and describing action sequences
• The lampshading of the bad guy you end up rooting for

4 hours ago, GaT said:

Only 3 more episodes, do you think they'll be able to get rid of Filmore-Graves  & extra zombies by then?

I’m confused by Liv’s look, is the blond hair supposed to be a wig? I thought she dyed it, but they kept showing her looking like a zombie when she was watching DVDs

I think we are supposed to think Liv's real zombie hair is being hid under a wig that is Rose McIver's real hair.

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Nothing they do makes sense, there was a episode showing how hard it was to get one zombie ID printer, now they have six.

Why are they filming everybody, one of their members got caught, what if it was the one with the camera, they would all be skull crushed.

It was hard to get one zombie ID printer back when Liv was a newbie at the smuggling game and they only had themselves as resources. Now Liv was on corrupt-cop brain and her organization has a bunch of money thanks to Peyton's theft of Mr. Boss's money. So I can buy that they could have increased success. What I don't necessarily get is how these fake IDs get plugged into the FG system. 

Yes, Chekhov's documentary footage makes no sense from any perspective, other than setting up that it will be evidence that will potentially condemn Liv to smashotine.

[gaucho91]

Did anyone else notice that Enrico Colantoni directed this episode?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Awwww, I always love Veronica Mars reunions so yay for the return of Keith Mars! Kind of a bummer he was killed, but I loved his confession beforehand.

So all it took for Blaine to forgive Angus was watching his abusive nanny get murdered by zombies? Does he really want to take over the church or is he playing along to somehow work this to his advantage?

Even when the plot gets clunky, I still enjoy the jokes. The Die Hard/cop movie jokes made me laugh. I love how Malcolm Goodwin totally got into retelling the stories of his investigation/pursuits/gunfights.

[Free]

5 hours ago, GaT said:

Only 3 more episodes, do you think they'll be able to get rid of Filmore-Graves  & extra zombies by then?

I’m confused by Liv’s look, is the blond hair supposed to be a wig? I thought she dyed it, but they kept showing her looking like a zombie when she was watching DVDs

Possibly, the zombie storylines should be wrapped up by the end of the season at the very least.  There's not much else they can do with the Filmore-Graves plot tbh and what they've already done.

[Ray Adverb]

6 hours ago, GaT said:

Only 3 more episodes, do you think they'll be able to get rid of Filmore-Graves  & extra zombies by then?

I’m confused by Liv’s look, is the blond hair supposed to be a wig? I thought she dyed it, but they kept showing her looking like a zombie when she was watching DVDs

If you go way back to the pilot, Liv's hair was brown while she was still a human.

8 hours ago, CCTC said:

I don't necessarily dislike the girl with the zombie immunity, but she reminds me of the standard young precocious character they used to bring onto shows as they were aging.  Usually not a good sign for the show.

They usually call that a "Cousin Oliver" in reference to the character on The Brady Bunch.

[CCTC]

26 minutes ago, RayAdverb said:

They usually call that a "Cousin Oliver" in reference to the character on The Brady Bunch.

A kid showing up with a bowl cut, talking like a little wise-cracking adult, from some never before mentioned relatives was always a bit ominous for a show.  Poor Cousin Oliver, compared to other precocious of kids of the 70's and 80's he was fairly unobnoxious, but he is the one everyone remembers.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Free said:

Possibly, the zombie storylines should be wrapped up by the end of the season at the very least.  There's not much else they can do with the Filmore-Graves plot tbh and what they've already done.

I think they have just scratched the surface, so to speak, of the plotlines and conflicts involving FG.

Chase vs. the rest of FG: who has been withholding info from him and why? What did FG do about the zombies who spread the contaminated vaccine in the first place? We now know that AJ has been masterminding the brain black market. (Which doesn't really make sense to me, since there's no particular connection as far as we know between him and anyone at FG, but OK.) At some point that will have to be resolved.

FG vs. the Triple Cross church: Angus has been whipping up his flock against FG. And now it looks like Enzo is becoming a true believer.

FG vs. the coyotes: Eventually they are going to find out Liv is Renegade 2.0 and deal with her. There are also other coyotes out there.

FG vs. civilian Seattle: The Dead Enders, the 206 Weekly, and others are standing conflicts

FG vs. the military: It's been mentioned that there's sentiment that wants to nuke Seattle. There's more to play out in that dance.

[Paloma]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

10 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

I don't think they did themselves a favor by lampshading that this was a filler episode.  I've seen worse meta episodes, but some of the commentary was clunky.  I have to give it to Malcolm Goodwin for retelling the ridiculous off-camera antics.  Not sure why they picked this moment to do away with Enrico Colantoni's character.

There are so many plot threads going that it felt like none of them was well served.  I'm having issues with both Liv and Major's viewpoints at the moment.

It didn't occur to me last episode that Blaine wore a mask to kill the mayor in case someone ate his brain.  I thought it was in case he was caught on the video. 

I liked a lot about the episode. It seemed to have a lot more energy than most this season, and I felt like the jokes landed more often than not. Some of my favorites:

• Vampire Steve talking about the Cezanne of the digital age and then transitioning to Don E acting like the idiot he is
• Liv putting on the sunglasses and Cavanaugh making the CSI-like scream
• The riffing of cop movie titles
• The aforementioned lampshading of running out of money and describing action sequences
• The lampshading of the bad guy you end up rooting for

I was totally confused by this episode and I'm not sure what lampshading means in this context, though I did look it up. 

 

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

So all it took for Blaine to forgive Angus was watching his abusive nanny get murdered by zombies? Does he really want to take over the church or is he playing along to somehow work this to his advantage?

Even when the plot gets clunky, I still enjoy the jokes. The Die Hard/cop movie jokes made me laugh. I love how Malcolm Goodwin totally got into retelling the stories of his investigation/pursuits/gunfights.

It did seem unbelievable that Blaine would forgive Angus, and I suspect he is playing along to work things to his advantage. 

I still enjoy the jokes also, but Clive's behavior seemed out of character with his usual serious self (although I guess not totally out of character, since he is a D&D fan). When he started retelling these stories, I was confused and didn't understand what he was doing and why.

[Free]

37 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I think they have just scratched the surface, so to speak, of the plotlines and conflicts involving FG.

Chase vs. the rest of FG: who has been withholding info from him and why? What did FG do about the zombies who spread the contaminated vaccine in the first place? We now know that AJ has been masterminding the brain black market. (Which doesn't really make sense to me, since there's no particular connection as far as we know between him and anyone at FG, but OK.) At some point that will have to be resolved.

FG vs. the Triple Cross church: Angus has been whipping up his flock against FG. And now it looks like Enzo is becoming a true believer.

FG vs. the coyotes: Eventually they are going to find out Liv is Renegade 2.0 and deal with her. There are also other coyotes out there.

FG vs. civilian Seattle: The Dead Enders, the 206 Weekly, and others are standing conflicts

FG vs. the military: It's been mentioned that there's sentiment that wants to nuke Seattle. There's more to play out in that dance.

Oh, I was just saying that story wise, it feels like it's heading towards a revolt of some kind if they go there based on their actions so far.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

I was totally confused by this episode and I'm not sure what lampshading means in this context, though I did look it up. 

"Lampshading" means to point out something that is an obvious flaw, complaint or other characteristic in how the writers are doing things. It's as if the writers say to the audience, "Hey, we're aware that we fit this cliche. So we're winking at you about it."

So for example, when the characters were talking about how in Zombie High there was the villain that people like even though they aren't supposed to, that was really acknowledging how iZombie treats Blaine.

And when they were talking about how you could tell when the show was running low on money and they had to resort to talking about action sequences rather than show them. Then they did that with Clive extensively talking about all his action sequences in investigating the murder.

[LoneHaranguer]

5 hours ago, gaucho91 said:

Did anyone else notice that Enrico Colantoni directed this episode?

No, but I noticed the poor job he did. In fairness, according to IMDB, this is only his second shot at that on this show, and he has little prior directing experience.

[NUguy514]

My feelings on this episode:

[thuganomics85]

So, they brought back Enrico Colantoni's character, just to kill him off?  Kind of lame.  I did see that Enrico used this opportunity to go another round in the director's chair, as well.  Speaking of returns, AJ from "Liv and Let Clive" and "Return of the Dead Guy" is also back as the head of whatever organization Major's partner is involved in.

Nothing says "Sorry I was such a crap father" like bringing back the abusive nanny to be feasted on by zombie.  Well played, Angus!  But I have my suspicions over Blaine "joining the flock."  I have a feeling he has his own game plan here.

The show trying to be "wink wink, nudge nudge" about this episode being a filler and budget saving was clunky, but I did laugh at Clive's over-the-top descriptions of all the action scenes he apparently did off screen.

So, besides trying to find a zombie cure, Isobel's new purpose is basically turning Ravi into an exaggerated overprotective father figure, since he's the one tasked with watching out for her.

Major easily determines Liv is the new Renegade.  She really isn't good at this whole mastermind criminal thing.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, thuganomics85 said:

I have my suspicions over Blaine "joining the flock."  I have a feeling he has his own game plan here.

Blaine always has his own game plan. If he's joining the flock, it's not because he's suddenly found religion.

[marketdoctor]

Between the lampshading, the possible Cousin Oliver, and the meta references (including the Zombie High actor who says he's 18, but people think he's not--that's happened once or a lot with actors on other shows), this was the most TvTropes.com packed episode we've had in a while.  I enjoyed that, but I can see why it's not for everyone.

I also liked how Liv went straight for the brain because she "didn't feel like cooking." 

[Goldmoon]

 This was my favorite episode of the season and most of it is down to Clive, who I have never been that fond of.  Lampshading the trope, then having him do exactly that trope was hilarious.  I enjoyed seeing Vampire Steve again, and appreciated that Liv got to be herself somewhere in the middle.  Then she must have had another bite of Daddy Mars, because she went all Die Hard again. 

I think Chase is turning out to have some good characterization, finally.  I not only want Angus off my screen, I am truly tired of psychopath/cold-blooded-murderer Blaine getting to live without consequences.  It's too bad they like the actor so much.  I really don't see his charm and never did.

The FG and Zombified Seattle storyline was too ambitious.  I really miss the first two seasons when the whole issue was the case of the week.  I hope this show gets cancelled.

[tennisgurl]

I smiled when Liv just ate the brain. "I dont feel like cooking". Very relatable Liv. 

I think the meta jokes were pretty funny, but I hope this is them actually realizing that they're spinning their wheels lately, and not just a wink and nudge towards the audience. The jokes about the action movie names were good too, I miss Ravi and Live just riffing over the dead body of the week. 

Damn it, you cant kill off Keith Mars like that! Still, always great to see him, and I love checking in on VMars alumni. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

The "I don't feel like cooking" is actually a pretty meta thing as well. The rule is that she makes something of the brain that is reminiscent of the victim. Here, by not cooking, she's breaking the rules like Daddy Mars. :)

[MisterGlass]

15 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The lampshading of the bad guy you end up rooting for

That was pretty good, and they went all the way with it, right down to having his shirt off for no particular reason.  I think I would have liked the individual jokes more if they were spread out over a few episodes.

2 hours ago, Goldmoon said:

I think Chase is turning out to have some good characterization, finally.

It was an interesting moment when Chase and Enzo showed up at the safe house to intimidate the coyote.  That was one of the few times when Chase seemed to be in his element.  Enzo didn't bother me this episode.  I'm a little interested to see how he responds to the zombie church.

12 hours ago, Paloma said:

It did seem unbelievable that Blaine would forgive Angus, and I suspect he is playing along to work things to his advantage. 

I think Blaine is interested in having his own private army if and when the brains hit the fan.

[Richness]

I'm so over the FG and zombie Seattle plot. The fewer the Zomebies the better. However, I did enjoy the locker room teasing of Major. I also enjoyed the cop movie name puns, but not Clive's talking about the scenes. I would say leave the meta episodes to the experts at Supernatural, but even they have had misfires. And if we're going to have a gratuitous shirtless scene, I'd rather it have been Chase or Liv's Boyfriend.

 

Speaking of the (Un)Dead Boyfriend Walking, didn't like him and Liv slapping each other to induce her Beast Mode, and getting turned on by it. Major was also this close to administering a beat down on him. The dude plays hockey, so he's got to be tougher than that. Not fond of the brewing fight between Major and Liv either.

 

I also enjoyed the callbacks to Zombie High, and the stuff affiliated with it. Daddy Ravi and Mama Liv are doing their best to raise a daughter together.

 

Speaking of mothers and daughters, I wonder if they're ever gonna circle back to the first season to follow up on Liv's family. They've got to realize their daughter is a zombie now, and that's why she couldn't do a blood transfusion with him. Of course, I don't recall people liking the family drama much, and were happy to see that part of the show dropped. Though I think I'd rather have that zombie Seattle.

[Teitr Styrr]

I liked the episode and all the meta thrown in.

I think Blaine is gonna cure Angus and let his flock eat him.

[possibilities]

Another meta joke was Ravi talking about how needy actors are, what a terrible thing it is to date an actor.

I liked this episode a lot. I thought it advanced a lot of the stories and for a while I was wondering if it was the season finale, because I thought they were building very quickly to a turning point with most of the loose ends: Liv-Major estrangement, Fillmore Graves losing grip on New Seattle, zombie cure, coyote-exposure, Blaine and Angus cult, potential nuking or mass starvation. And Clive got to be silly and Liv wasn't completely lost in her meal's persona this week.

They never solved the case of the week, did they? Or was that disposed of in the very first interrogation? Maybe that's why Liv wasn't so absorbed by her meal. She was focusing on other things.

I don't mind that the show has taken on bigger issues than the case of the week. It started off really interesting, I thought, and I liked how they were using the zombie issue to address a bunch of larger issues about the world. But I agree it's been somewhat off center for a while and I saw this episode as a strong signal of impending course-correction.

I don't really want them to go back 100% to case of the week and "zombies living in secret" but the show has been renewed so I hope they  have a good plan for what they DO plan to do next season, and aren't going to just try to draw out the suspense on the current storylines. It is really time to reset.

If the government really wanted to get rid of zombies, they could be screening people very easily. Surround the city, and then evaluate everyone one by one, and take action accordingly. FG is nothing compared to what martial law COULD look like. My theory is that the government actually IS working on a cure, and the reset could be that there's a cure, but it only works on some people (Isobel is the first to be discovered but there will be others), or there's a movement to resist the cure because some people like being zombies and the zombie virus saves lives and is also useful for some purposes like super strength and difficulty being murdered. So the next phase would be somehow related to who gets the cure, who doesn't get it, and why.

I don't want it to be gloomy, though. I like some thoughtfulness and I think the "cultural significance and social issues metaphors of the existence of zombies" can be interesting, but I also like it when the show is funny. I don't really enjoy the "someone has a secret" aspect of the show and never have, so I hope that whatever they do they don't base it once again on an underground conspiracy. Make it an out-in-the open situation and mine the new reality for humor and interesting choices, not furtiveness and angst. Unlike Liv, I'm not turned on by the fighting.

[Chicago Redshirt]

18 hours ago, possibilities said:

They never solved the case of the week, did they? Or was that disposed of in the very first interrogation? Maybe that's why Liv wasn't so absorbed by her meal. She was focusing on other things.

 

Clive explained that the gun he got off of the third criminal after his big gunfight matched the gun used to shoot the crooked cop. So that guy did it. 

[AudienceofOne]

I love me some meta. This was meta. Ergo. 

[Affogato]

On ‎5‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 12:08 PM, LoneHaranguer said:

No, but I noticed the poor job he did. In fairness, according to IMDB, this is only his second shot at that on this show, and he has little prior directing experience.

I had that feeling early in the show but in retrospect I think they were references to camera shots, etc, from action movies. Maybe ones I haven't seen or seen for a while. Like Die Hard. I thought the directing evened out later in the episode.

[aradia22]

I haven't been checking in because I haven't been that excited about the show anymore. This season is completely off the rails. There's still some funny writing and some good moments but like SO MANY shows they cashed out their plots too quickly and this New Seattle thing is just a mess. The human smuggling is a mess. Filmore Graves is a mess. The XXX church of Brother Love is a mess. 

It was interesting to see an old villain pop up but like the reappearance of Stacey Boss it made me more confused than anything else. With Boss I totally forgot if he was a human or zombie and I didn't know where he came from and then they didn't find the money and he just disappeared. With this guy, all I remember is that Liv beat him up and he was hot and now he's the Big Bad they've been searching for who is stealing brains to... sell them on the black market or something? I'm also not loving the implications about the Asian character running this black market/sweatshop-like business. 

I was finally motivated to post because look... yes, Major is compromising his principles to some degree. But he's living in the real world. While Liv might think she's a do-gooder she's still completely self-righteous and irrational and the show, which is in complete control of this narrative, hasn't convinced me why I should sympathize with her. Isabelle is cute and all but they haven't made a real attempt to get us to sympathize with any of the other people she's turned into zombies and there's still the fact that this is a completely unsustainable strain and a terrible allegory for whatever they're trying to allude to... I can't tell because again, everything's a complete mess this season.

[aradia22]

Quote

ON 5/7/2018 AT 10:30 PM, JAMIELYNN832002 SAID:

Is Filmore-Graves doing something to Major that affects his behavior?

I kind of feel the show has gotten a lot more plot driven than character driven, plus they seem to have characters do things largely so it will create conflict with another character rather than if it makes sense for that character.

I don't know. I'm not that bothered by Major's behavior. That is, I think that as a character he's shown more growth and change than they've allowed Liv. After everything he's gone through with Liv and being the Chaos Killer and going through these FG patrols and now being Chase's right hand man I might not always like what he does but it mostly makes sense. But with Liv she's going off on wacky brains all the time and when she isn't she's this one note self-righteous character. It reminds me of how bad the writing got on Bones towards the end. Or at least the end of when I stopped watching. I gave up a couple seasons before the end.

Quote

Nothing they do makes sense, there was a episode showing how hard it was to get one zombie ID printer, now they have six.

Yes! They really didn't need that in the montage. Not only did it not make sense for them to steal more machines without getting caught, it also didn't make sense to take the risk. We have no indication that the machines work slowly. There's no reason there wouldn't be time to print 6 IDs in the time it takes to transport 6 new humans to New Seattle. 

Quote

Speaking of mothers and daughters, I wonder if they're ever gonna circle back to the first season to follow up on Liv's family. They've got to realize their daughter is a zombie now, and that's why she couldn't do a blood transfusion with him. Of course, I don't recall people liking the family drama much, and were happy to see that part of the show dropped. Though I think I'd rather have that zombie Seattle.

Good point. They used to be able to handle the personal relationships better (as opposed to the weekly investigations) but it feels so disingenuous when they try to make us care about things now.