S04.E12: You've Got to Hide Your Liv Away

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Ravi and Clive work together to solve a case; Major pulls a surprising move on Liv.

Promo:

[dubbel zout]

She looks fantastic in that shot! Liv doesn't usually wear bright colors like that.

[Mr. Sparkle]

For those of you in the NYC area and elsewhere, Monday's showing will be preempted by a Yankee game. It will be shown Saturday the 26th at the same time. 

[ketose]

As a reminder, anyone who can't see a show live on the CW can usually see it online by the next morning on the CW website or app.

[HunterHunted]

What's worse than mansplaining? Major's condescending and paternalistic plan to kidnap Liv to keep her from harm and Ravi and Levon signing off on it. The fuck was that shit?!?!? Liv is a grown ass woman who freely made this choice, which included the consequences that she was fully aware of. Where was Levon's Captain Save-a-ho when Mama Leone was getting her brain bashed in?

So, Hobbes, is playing Major against Chase Graves. Who is he Littlefinger? Congrats! He can be king of the ash pile that is New Seattle.

I literally have no clue what Blaine's end goal is. I half believe he's an FBI agent whose sole goal is to completely destabilize Filmore Graves and New Seattle. The end result is that the US government can send in the national guard and raze New Seattle.

[mjc570]

That was DREADFUL.  I had pretty much given up, but thought I would give it another chance.  That had to be the least entertaining (sort of) hour of tv I think I have ever watched.  This could be Exh. A in illustrating what happens when you have good actors but the worst writing in the world.  I realize the show to some extent has always been a Rose McIver vanity production, allowing her to play different parts, but that extended 50s thing was ridiculous.  Throw in an incoherent plot, and desperate antics with Ravi being a ridiculous character, and the reek of desperation just comes through loud and clear.  At this point, I don't care about Clive and Dale getting together, or about Ravi finding a supposed cure (it's happened before).  Don't care about David Anders, who used to be one of my favorite actors.  Tell me - were the writers' brains infected with some virus?  This show really went from being one of the best written to one of the worst. 

[ketose]

Here we go again with the "cure." We've already had a cure, and everyone who's taken it has either gotten re-zombied or died in some gruesome manner. A vaccine would be a lot better because it would stop people from being turned forever. The show continues to dance around the solution to zombie-ism because if there was a real cure / vaccine, Liv would probably end up taking it and the show is over.

Liv has the right to make her own choices, but it's also stupid to turn herself in. Besides being dead, the smuggling ring would probably fall apart. I doubt that Mama Leone would have given up under the same circumstances. If Liv doesn't want deaths on her hands, she should get out of that business now.

My prediction is that right before World War Z, Ravi uses all the "cure" he has to disperse it in the air, curing everyone except Liv, who someone manages to avoid it.

[ruby24]

Man, every episode is getting worse and worse! What a total waste of time this season was.

Every storyline is just crap. I can't even imagine how they could turn this around for the last season.

I gotta say something about this Clive/Dale thing- I loved them in past seasons, but the problem this year was that Dale became a non-entity! She had no story, she basically disappeared from the narrative and anything that happened to their relationship seemed like it was only happening to Clive, because she had like no screentime. What on earth was that about? Hopefully now that they're engaged she can come back into the show and become a person again (I'm guessing she'll be the first person they use the cure on, so they can be together and get married next year).

[CCTC]

1 hour ago, ketose said:

Liv has the right to make her own choices, but it's also stupid to turn herself in.

One of the bigger problems I have with Liv playing this Renegade role is that she has been foolhardy and reckless from step one.  I am not sure how she had not gotten caught before this, because she certainly does not think anything through.  Running this kind of operation is something that cannpt just be done on emotions and impulse.

Ravi's role was pretty cringe-worthy at best, offensive at worst.

6 minutes ago, ruby24 said:

but the problem this year was that Dale became a non-entity!

Yes -- was hard to care they got engaged, esp. since every time we saw them this year they were having major problems.  Probably not the smartest move to jump right into an engagement after being estranged for months, and not really together that long before the break-up and problems.

Edited May 22, 2018 by CCTC

[Cthulhudrew]

I can appreciate Major kidnapping Liv to keep her from doing something everyone knew she would do that would get her killed, and it being essentially his admission for the love he still has for her.

I can't appreciate that he effectively drugs her to keep her a docile homemaker, effectively brainwashing her (literally, really). I don't care if he did the same thing to himself, I cannot fathom for the life of me how the writers thought this would be a good idea. If both characters had willingly submitted to the brains, that would be one thing, but this just ends up making Major look like the biggest POS imaginable.

(Not to mention that, yet again, we have what has become this season's biggest failure in writing, that being that brain consumption seems to completely overwhelm every conscious thought and personality of the consumer, making them little more than mindless caricatures. Liv didn't even once mention the fact that she has a boyfriend that she is very much into, or seem to think twice about shacking up with Major. Ugh.)

The "aside" exchange between Don E. and Fillmore Graves Henchman about the conflict between the couple whose brains Liv and Major ate also struck me as a pretty hackneyed and overly heavy-handed way of foreshadowing. Not at all worthy of this show.

And then they continue to drag Clive's character through the mud with his wishy washiness. Bad enough that he jumped into a relationship with Michelle when he clearly wasn't over Bozzio, now he's going to end up dumping her and breaking her heart. (But I guess we shouldn't care, because she was never anything more than a two-dimensional foil for a bland love triangle.) I have to echo other sentiments that they really did Bozzio a disservice this season by reducing her also to nothing more than a two-dimensional love interest.

As for the latest "cure," I think I can best sum it up thus:

[Chicago Redshirt]

Where to begin?

It's not just that Major's plan was condescending and paternalistic. It also involved basically the zombie equivalent of roofies. I can buy going out of your way to stop Liv from committing suicide as something a well-meaning, reasonable friend would do. But it is repulsive for Major to get his- and her- brains to make her be in love with you when a) he has access to other brains and of course brain tubes and b) he knows Liv is in a relationship. It is infuriating that he would put her in a position to have romantic and sexual feelings for him without her knowing consent. 

For Liv to say that"the brain isn't in total control" was a thinly veiled attempt to try and avoid the ramifications fo what a fundamentally shitty thing Major did by dosing her with those particular brains. Especially when pretty much everything we've seen this season and this episode suggests the opposite. I don't understand how they couldn't have thought through the ramifications of this plot, and for them to play it for laughs.

And even putting that aside, how did he think the plan would work? Wouldn't eventually she just turn herself in?

Then there's Chase. He has an army at his disposal. Literally. And he can bend the Seattle PD to his will. So to find Renegade knowing that he has one of Renegade's people, he has to resort to blackmail? And why would anyone think for a second that Chase actually would honoring his word and release a human smuggler just because Renegade gave up? Why would he not learn from his mistake with Renegade 1.0 and try to take out the entire operation?

And we are to believe that Roche a) managed to evade FG looking for him b) somehow got outside the quarantine c) chose to go not just to the Portland area but to a specific FG safehouse? Oh, and is now at the point where he's starving?  Also, let's make a deal only works when you can trust the guy to honor the deal, and when the deal is something both people want. "I'll only shoot you 6-X times, where X is the number of brain tubes you give me, rat who I hate and blame for my current condition." just doesn't make sense. 

How does Liv get back into New Seattle? I guess she knows corrupt FG guys, but she presumably has no cash or other resources on hand to bribe them with. 

Malcolm Goodwin is a pretty good actor. He almost sold me on Clive's undying love for Bozzio even though what we have seen on screen for this entire season is both characters refusing to be straight with each other or to have a conversation about their relationship until now. I do kinda hope that Michelle kicks both of them in the metaphorical nuts.

Giving Enzo more screen time and lampshading that he is derivative of Inspector Clouseau from Pink Panther is not a good look.

So presumably Hobbs is the guy who has been undermining Chase and limiting the information he's been getting. And now he's trying to undermine the Chase-Major bromance. Yawn.

[JamieLynn832002]

Did Clive propose to Dale while the woman he was supposed to be going out with that night was still in the building? I'm guessing Michelle's feelings aren't as involved as Dale's are but it stills seems inappropriate. And yes, to everyone's points about it being hard to invest in the relationship/engagement when Dale's mostly been a non-entity and every time they've been featured it's been rocky.

[Chicago Redshirt]

4 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

I literally have no clue what Blaine's end goal is. I half believe he's an FBI agent whose sole goal is to completely destabilize Filmore Graves and New Seattle. The end result is that the US government can send in the national guard and raze New Seattle.

Based on  what he stated previously, he has bought up a bunch of sweet New Seattle real estate at a song since no one wants to be in New Seattle. He then is encouraging Brother Love to spread zombie-ism far and wide, making the quarantine pointless. Once the quarantine is done, all the real estate he bought for a pittance will suddenly be worth millions or even billions. Also, he won't have to worry about the Catch-22 he was discussing of either New Seattle humans rebelling and killing all zombies or New Seattle zombies killing all/most humans within city limits and then getting nuked.

The thing is we know based on this episode at least one person paid him $14 million for the cure. And his businesses are apparently doing well. So how many yachts does Blaine need to water ski behind? 

[thuganomics85]

I really hope Clive actually took the time to end things with Michelle before he proposed to Bozzio, because if he didn't, then that's just a dick move and a half.  At the very, very least, that's going to ruin the Dungeons & Dragons games!

But the biggest dick move of the night easily goes to Major not just kidnapping Liv, but then hooking her on brains that were intended to make her docile and even fall back in love with him.  Kidnapping is bad enough, but at least there is the general idea that he was panicking over her turning herself in and crossed the line.  But the brain part just turns it into creepy territory.  Bad form.

If Levon ends up dead next week, then Liv probably should never date again, because apparently all of her love interests are destined to die.

As soon as Angus said he needed a "sign", I knew Blaine was going to create one real quick.

Was looking forward to seeing Clive/Ravi paired off on a case, but Ravi on that brain was pretty bad and unfunny.

Definitely hope they get things back on track for the final season, because this one has admittedly been its weakest one.  At the very least, I hope they kill Chase because he's become a dud as a main antagonist.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Inside the episode:

[Ray Adverb]

I haven't seen the episode, but since Major has already done much worse things than dosing Liv with weird brains and kidnapping her, I can look past that.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I honestly thought that the whole 50s scenario of Liv and Major in love with each other at the safe house was a dream sequence (partly because I thought there was no way in hell that Liv would cheat on Levon with her ex) so I was just enjoying how beautiful she looked. When I realized that this was a result of Major giving her those specific brains, I was like DUDE.

It's bad enough that he knocked her out and kidnapped her, but at least she still had her own brain at the beginning of this ordeal. But essentially roofying her with those brains took Major's actions from GROSS to SUPER GROSS.

I kept waiting for Liv to knock Major in the head or put something in his drink so that she could escape and turn herself in (even before we found out from the FG guy what happened to the real couple), so at least the brain that Major gave her ended up having a good consequence.

Look, I get that Major still loves Liv and he doesn't want to see her die, but YOU DON'T OWN HER. That should be Liv's decision, NOT YOURS. Taking away someone's agency isn't a sign of love. It's a way of being in control.

But a tiny part of me still can't 100% hate those scenes at the safe house because Liv looked so gorgeous. Between the makeup and the colorful clothes, she was even prettier than usual.

Edited May 22, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo
Typo

[Chicago Redshirt]

8 minutes ago, RayAdverb said:

I haven't seen the episode, but since Major has already done much worse things than dosing Liv with weird brains and kidnapping her, I can look past that.

I can't think of anything that Major has done that was worse than this. Or at least, anything where he had easily accessible alternatives to doing the worse thing. 

[Ray Adverb]

36 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I can't think of anything that Major has done that was worse than this. Or at least, anything where he had easily accessible alternatives to doing the worse thing. 

He terrorized a bar full of humans and a newspaper.  Both with automatic weapons.  Your mileage may vary, but I find that Major crossed the moral event horizon long ago.

[Affogato]

33 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I can't think of anything that Major has done that was worse than this. Or at least, anything where he had easily accessible alternatives to doing the worse thing. 

Me also. 

Kidnapping the General’s daughter is in the same wheelhouse but without the added layers of violation of personal trust and lack of respect for a valued friend and his professional betrayals as well. Major is currently without honor. 

[Ray Adverb]

24 minutes ago, Affogato said:

Me also. 

Kidnapping the General’s daughter is in the same wheelhouse but without the added layers of violation of personal trust and lack of respect for a valued friend and his professional betrayals as well. Major is currently without honor. 

I totally forgot about that.

 

I'm not defending this latest action per se, but I'm talking about moral levels.  If a sweet and good church pastor beats up a dog, you think "Holy cow!  What's wrong with that guy?????" 

 

If an escaped serial killer beats up a dog, you think "That's terrible that he beat up that dog, but he did also murder 4 people, so I can't say I'm surprised."

[marcee]

I'm confused about whose brains they ate if the happy couple was zombiefied in their own basement.

[LoneHaranguer]

12 hours ago, ketose said:

Here we go again with the "cure." We've already had a cure, and everyone who's taken it has either gotten re-zombied or died in some gruesome manner. A vaccine would be a lot better because it would stop people from being turned forever. The show continues to dance around the solution to zombie-ism because if there was a real cure / vaccine, Liv would probably end up taking it and the show is over.

Disease organisms mutate, so a vaccine would stop working. If there were a real cure, they could just have Liv decide not to take it so that she could continue solving murders (and play different characters each week).

12 hours ago, mjc570 said:

This could be Exh. A in illustrating what happens when you have good actors but the worst writing in the world. 

This was a cleanup episode, meant to put things on track to the end of the season. These aren't the only writers to try to do too much in the available episodes and have to scurry to get things in order.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, marcee said:

I'm confused about whose brains they ate if the happy couple was zombiefied in their own basement.

He got the brains from the Scratching Post. Another FG employee took Don E to task about the brains because he and his fiancée used them, not knowing the seemingly sweet story of a long term marriage ended in murder-suicide.

Major bought the same brains and disguised them as brain tubes, which are mixed brains that don’t influence people’s personalities.

[marcee]

Just now, Chicago Redshirt said:

He got the brains from the Scratching Post. Another FG employee took Don E to task about the brains because he and his fiancée used them, not knowing the seemingly sweet story of a long term marriage ended in murder-suicide.

Major bought the same brains and disguised them as brain tubes, which are mixed brains that don’t influence people’s personalities.

But then who was the supposedly happy couple in the basement? I thought the point was that it was supposed to be THEIR brains... *shrug*

[Chicago Redshirt]

8 minutes ago, marcee said:

But then who was the supposedly happy couple in the basement? I thought the point was that it was supposed to be THEIR brains... *shrug*

The house was run by FG employees who had gone off the grid. According to the note they left, FG stopped sending brain tubes for reasons, and they apparently didn’t have the wherewithal to write/call/text FG to send brain tubes or to obtain actual brains themselves.

So they made a murder suicide pact  but didn’t go thru with it.

[Affogato]

35 minutes ago, marcee said:

But then who was the supposedly happy couple in the basement? I thought the point was that it was supposed to be THEIR brains... *shrug*

the point is that Fillmore graves is bad. Very bad. Chase deserves whatever comes to him. 

[Free]

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I honestly thought that the whole 50s scenario of Liv and Major in love with each other at the safe house was a dream sequence (partly because I thought there was no way in hell that Liv would cheat on Levon with her ex) so I was just enjoying how beautiful she looked. When I realized that this was a result of Major giving her those specific brains, I was like DUDE.

It felt very creepy especially with the added context of the kidnapping and basically forcing her into this 50's housewife brain persona.

[biakbiak]

So not only did Liv surrender but she outed the FG employees that were helping the operation? That's messed up.

[Jinxie]

I think saying that Major drugged Liv is a bit harsh.  Those brains shouldn't completely consume your personality.  If they do, then no one ever knows if they're talking to Liv at all.

For example, Liv had an ex who ate the brains of a gay guy, and therefore he couldn't get himself to kiss or have sex with Liv.  But he knew it was weird, and he also didn't go try to hook up with another gay guy.  He still knew who he was.

Who's to say that her consuming the happy couple brain wouldn't cause her to madly miss Levon, and decide that Levon was the love of her life?  That he was the other half of her couple, not Major?

It worked with Major, not because he also ate the brains, but because she has very strong feelings for him.

And we all know that Levon wouldn't beat out Major.  She adored Justin, and then cheated on him with Chase Graves - she gets briefly infatuated easily.  She likes Levon now.  And she'd feel insanely guilty if she let him sacrifice himself.

[biakbiak]

8 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

I think saying that Major drugged Liv is a bit harsh.  Those brains shouldn't completely consume your personality.  If they do, then no one ever knows if they're talking to Liv at all.

He drugged her before he even gave her the brains in order to knock her out. 

[Jinxie]

27 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

He drugged her before he even gave her the brains in order to knock her out. 

Oh, that's fair.  Yes, he did drug her then.

What I meant was that giving her those brains was not drugging her.  She had free will at that point.

[GaT]

So happy that next week is the end of this horrible, horrible season. This season was so bad, I don't know if I'll be back for the final season.

[Ray Adverb]

12 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

What I meant was that giving her those brains was not drugging her.  She had free will at that point.

From everything we've seen from the brains this season, that is debatable.  Like that time she at the LARPer and somehow she didn't have the free will to TALK LIKE A GOD DAMN NORMAL PERSON.

[Cthulhudrew]

19 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

What I meant was that giving her those brains was not drugging her.  She had free will at that point.

Except that he misrepresented that the brains were not just brain mash-in-a-tube, but were these happy, supposedly lovey-dovey couple. Hence the comments that have been made about roofie-ing Olivia.

[Chicago Redshirt]

49 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

I think saying that Major drugged Liv is a bit harsh.  Those brains shouldn't completely consume your personality.  If they do, then no one ever knows if they're talking to Liv at all.

For example, Liv had an ex who ate the brains of a gay guy, and therefore he couldn't get himself to kiss or have sex with Liv.  But he knew it was weird, and he also didn't go try to hook up with another gay guy.  He still knew who he was.

Who's to say that her consuming the happy couple brain wouldn't cause her to madly miss Levon, and decide that Levon was the love of her life?  That he was the other half of her couple, not Major?

It worked with Major, not because he also ate the brains, but because she has very strong feelings for him.

And we all know that Levon wouldn't beat out Major.  She adored Justin, and then cheated on him with Chase Graves - she gets briefly infatuated easily.  She likes Levon now.  And she'd feel insanely guilty if she let him sacrifice himself.

Here’s the thing: it has always been the case that the brain a zombie is on will impact their personality. It is just a question of how much.

In most instances that I can think of, Liv has not been able to just act herself while under the influence of a brain. She has stolen clothes from the Seattle PD lost and found to fit her new personality. 

 

There have ave been only a couple instances I can think of when she resisted the influence of a brain. When she ate the brain of Ravi’s nympho boss, she controlled herself enough not to sleep with two humans before giving in and sleeping with Chase.

And learning that Tim was a zombie supremacist got her off rom-com brain.

But even if I were to agree that Liv would have free will, Major couldn’t know that for sure. And he could have simply gotten plain old brain tubes.

He deliberately dosed her with couple brain disguised as neutral brain.

[Jinxie]

7 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Here’s the thing: it has always been the case that the brain a zombie is on will impact their personality. It is just a question of how much.

In most instances that I can think of, Liv has not been able to just act herself while under the influence of a brain. She has stolen clothes from the Seattle PD lost and found to fit her new personality. 

 

There have ave been only a couple instances I can think of when she resisted the influence of a brain. When she ate the brain of Ravi’s nympho boss, she controlled herself enough not to sleep with two humans before giving in and sleeping with Chase.

And learning that Tim was a zombie supremacist got her off rom-com brain.

But even if I were to agree that Liv would have free will, Major couldn’t know that for sure. And he could have simply gotten plain old brain tubes.

He deliberately dosed her with couple brain disguised as neutral brain.

My point from my first post still stands, though.  Even if the brains made her act like this lovey dovey person, why were those feelings for Major?  Why weren't they for her boyfriend Levon?

In a recent episode, Liv ate the brains of a girl named Annie, who was trying to get smuggled into New Seattle to be with Alan Fox, a guy she fell in love with over the internet.  Liv met this actual guy, and while she was attracted to him, she didn't hook up with him, and instead became obsessed with some other guy she met at the scratching post.

And remember - when she cheated on Justin with Chase Graves, she blamed it on the brains, and Justin told her that was bull.  Because he knew better.

[biakbiak]

18 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

person, why were those feelings for Major?  Why weren't they for her boyfriend Levon?

Levon wasn’t there and Major also took the brains of the dude so that they would have shared memories to reinforce them. At the end of the day he gave her a substance that altered her against her will and that is not okay.

Edited May 22, 2018 by biakbiak

[Jinxie]

17 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

Levon wasn’t there and Major also took the brains of the dude so that they would have shared memories to reinforce them. At the end of the day he gave her a substance that altered her against her will and that is not okay.

Yet, when she was on Annie's brains, she stopped herself from jumping all over Alan Fox, whom Annie was in love with, and was right in front of her.  Not just shared memories - exact same guy.

Interestingly, Liv and Major weren't sharing memories of the couple in their conversations.  They were sharing their own memories.

The brains altered her personality.  Like every brain she eats alters her personality.  Did not take away her free will.

[biakbiak]

3 minutes ago, Jinxie said:

 

The brains altered her personality.  Like every brain she eats alters her personality.  Did not take away her free will.

Its not okay to alter someone's personality against their will and there is a reason that Major chose these specific brains. Just because she eventually fought their influence doesn't mean that what Major did wasn't fucked up and making decisions for Liv when he has no right to do that.

[Jinxie]

1 minute ago, biakbiak said:

Its not okay to alter someone's personality against their will and there is a reason that Major chose these specific brains. Just because she eventually fought their influence doesn't mean that what Major did wasn't fucked up and making decisions for Liv when he has no right to do that.

I actually don't remember the scene where Major chose those specific brains.  Did they show it?  Why did she choose to eat them at all; she should have eaten recently.

The truth is, they wanted to show Liv and Major together, and they didn't want to show Liv cheat on yet another boyfriend, so they did it this way.

Incidentally, not that this would make the reverse okay, but Liv has also "dosed" someone with brains before.  In a romantic situation with a new guy she was dating.  After she got him good and horny, she confessed to it, so I guess that made it okay to everyone.

And in fact, Major confessed to it here.  Otherwise, we wouldn't know.

To be honest, Liv has done some pretty terrible things.  And even in this episode, she left Major there to die.  (She said she'd send someone back, but when?)  She only came back, because she couldn't hitch a ride.

[CCTC]

2 hours ago, Jinxie said:

Even if the brains made her act like this lovey dovey person, why were those feelings for Major?  Why weren't they for her boyfriend Levon?

I think the scene was supposed to show that things are not resolved between them and how much they lost by the zombification entering their life.  They would not have been play-acting being a married couple, they would have been living it.  That said, I think the show completely miscalculated how bad it would look in regards to issues of consent and control.   If the current boyfriend survives into next season, I suspect there will be some triangle tension next season, because the triangle is not the most overused plot device on television.

Maybe because I am always kind of waiting for Liv's love interests to die, I don't get that invested in them, but I don't really see a great connection between her and Levon (I have also not watched every episode, so have missed things between them).  I don't see them together at the end of the series, not that she should be with Major at this point either.  They have some issues to work out...

I agree with the earlier comments about the cure, when they showed Ravi being excited about the rat, I thought, haven't we seen this exact scene already.

[Chicago Redshirt]

12 hours ago, Jinxie said:

My point from my first post still stands, though.  Even if the brains made her act like this lovey dovey person, why were those feelings for Major?  Why weren't they for her boyfriend Levon?

In a recent episode, Liv ate the brains of a girl named Annie, who was trying to get smuggled into New Seattle to be with Alan Fox, a guy she fell in love with over the internet.  Liv met this actual guy, and while she was attracted to him, she didn't hook up with him, and instead became obsessed with some other guy she met at the scratching post.

And remember - when she cheated on Justin with Chase Graves, she blamed it on the brains, and Justin told her that was bull.  Because he knew better.

The real reason that those feelings were for Major was because the writers felt like telling a story about Major and Liv exploring the possibility of getting together and enjoying domestic bliss. That also explains why Liv did not even seem to consider Major as a viable candidate for true love when she was on rom-com brain in the episodes you referenced: the writers did not feel like talking about that relationship in those terms.

If you're looking for an in-story reason, it could be a sign that Liv's feelings for Levon aren't all that strong. Or it could be that there was something in the connected brains that made them bond with each other in a way that one taken by itself would not have worked. 

In the episodes with Annie, the only reason Liv didn't hook up with Alan was because he was apparently not interested in her. She rewrote her romcom narrative to say that Alan was a fakeout and then fixated on Tim. Again, she didn't seem to make the conscious decision to be interested in Tim. That was rom-com brain. She did manage to break free of the rom-com brain effects when Tim turned out to be a zombie supremacist. So it's possible to break free, but it doesn't seem easy.

Justin told Liv that it was bull that it was the brains, but that doesn't mean that he knew better. In fact, Justin had (as far as we know) lived mostly on brain tubes and had rarely felt the impact of what it is like to be on a full brain. We also got insight to Liv's thinking and compulsions on nympho brain. She was literally compelled to pick up people at the hotel and was able to stop herself in two cases because she would be turning humans. The third time was with Chase and it seemed like she could let go because he was a zombie.

11 hours ago, Jinxie said:

I actually don't remember the scene where Major chose those specific brains.  Did they show it?  Why did she choose to eat them at all; she should have eaten recently.

The truth is, they wanted to show Liv and Major together, and they didn't want to show Liv cheat on yet another boyfriend, so they did it this way.

Incidentally, not that this would make the reverse okay, but Liv has also "dosed" someone with brains before.  In a romantic situation with a new guy she was dating.  After she got him good and horny, she confessed to it, so I guess that made it okay to everyone.

And in fact, Major confessed to it here.  Otherwise, we wouldn't know.

To be honest, Liv has done some pretty terrible things.  And even in this episode, she left Major there to die.  (She said she'd send someone back, but when?)  She only came back, because she couldn't hitch a ride.

They didn't actually show Major choosing the specific brains, but that is basically what must have happened from the scene with Don E and the FG guy. Liv talked about how the brain tubes they ate weren't just ordinary ones. 

I don't remember the situation where Liv dosed someone else with a particular brain. I remember she tried to trick Levon into sleeping with her by pretending she wasn't on player brain, when she in fact was.

I don't think Liv left Major to die at all. We saw her tell one of her minions that a FG soldier was locked up and that he needed to be rescued on returning to New Seattle. So clearly, she fully intended to help him and did. 

I think we are supposed to believe that she somehow recognized Roche, deduced that he was for some reason going to end up at the FG safehouse and decided to go save Major and/or figured she could jack his keys. It doesn't make much sense otherwise that she would have returned to the FG safehouse and taken out Roche. 

18 hours ago, RayAdverb said:

He terrorized a bar full of humans and a newspaper.  Both with automatic weapons.  Your mileage may vary, but I find that Major crossed the moral event horizon long ago.

I think one big difference was that Major's actions in shooting up the bar and newspaper a) were not premeditated b) can be rationalized/justified as necessary for a greater good.

If he did not shoot up the bar, he, Jordan and Captain Seattle were outnumbered like 5 to 1 by people who hate zombies and would be more than willing to use violence against them. If shooting up the bar meant that they got out of there not only in one piece but also with a valid line on the video that would have blown up human-zombie relations and led to much more violence, that's not unreasonable.

If Major didn't follow Roche's shooting with his own, he would have lost his chance for an in with Roche and a chance to shut down the brain black market that has zombies starving and again threatened the survival of New Seattle.

Major's kidnapping of Liv could potentially be justified. But dosing her with the brain he did cannot IMO.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Chicago Redshirt

[ketose]

6 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

Disease organisms mutate, so a vaccine would stop working. If there were a real cure, they could just have Liv decide not to take it so that she could continue solving murders (and play different characters each week).

This was a cleanup episode, meant to put things on track to the end of the season. These aren't the only writers to try to do too much in the available episodes and have to scurry to get things in order.

Some disease organism mutate more than others. Polio vaccine didn't change much.

I can see Liv not taking the zombie vaccine as a series finale option. If there was a real, widely available cure, the world would insist on every zombie taking it.

 

Liv dosed her boyfriend with nympho brains once. I think Major was trying to keep Liv preoccupied. Plus, he probably knows things aren't going to end well for him. 

Edited May 22, 2018 by ketose

[Jinxie]

18 minutes ago, ketose said:

Some disease organism mutate more than others. Polio vaccine didn't change much.

I can see Liv not taking the zombie vaccine as a series finale option. If there was a real, widely available cure, the world would insist on every zombie taking it.

 

Liv dosed her boyfriend with nympho brains once. I think Major was trying to keep Liv preoccupied. Plus, he probably knows things aren't going to end well for him. 

Yes, this.  And actually, I don't think Drake was her boyfriend yet.  I believe it was just their first date.

[biakbiak]

It wasn’t okay when she gave Drake the Librarian brains but she was also on the brains,  regretted it, told him before things went too far, and even though he said he didn’t mind she refused to have sex with him until they brains wore off. Which isn’t the same situation as with Major. 

[Haleybug]

6 hours ago, biakbiak said:

He drugged her before he even gave her the brains in order to knock her out. 

I thought whatever he injected her with is what knocked her out - not the brains.  Or was it the brains he was injecting her with? Now I'm confused.  I guess I didn't think too much about what was going on.  

[biakbiak]

4 minutes ago, Haleybug said:

I thought whatever he injected her with is what knocked her out - not the brains.  Or was it the brains he was injecting her with? Now I'm confused.  I guess I didn't think too much about what was going on.  

It was drugs to knock her out which qualifies as drugging her in my book.

[Haleybug]

21 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

It was drugs to knock her out which qualifies as drugging her in my book.

Definitely!  I thought someone was saying the brains are what knocked her out and I was thoroughly confused.  :P 

[Lady Calypso]

This is the first episode in a few weeks that I've been able to watch.

I can't say that I felt comfortable with Major's choice in kidnapping Liv and also drugging her, both to knock her out, and drugging her with brains, even if he also drugged himself. First off, it was a weird sequence of events before I figured out what was going on. And also, despite Liv getting her free will back at the end, the choice was made for her up until that point by Major (and then Ravi excusing it). I like Major, and I don't think that'll change, but this episode didn't present him in a good light. They did it for humour, and although I thought Robert and Rose both did a great job with the material, it just wasn't comfortable. And yeah, for me, I consider Major drugging Liv twice, the second one on brains. She may not have been completely out of control or unconscious to what was happening, but he still did it as a way to keep her complicit long enough for Curtis to be killed and the deadline to pass, which isn't right.

Not that I think Liv turning herself in was the smartest idea, but it was her choice to make. In this moment, I really was disappointed with Major. 

Also, I do really like the couple, but Liv just cheated again, and their relationship being explored for the zillionth time while subsequently splitting them up pretty much shortly after that is annoying as hell. 

I just feel like they need to stop with the teasing with the couple in general. Either put them together, or don't. Stop with putting them together for one episode, having them split up for a season, and then starting that cycle all over again. And also stop with whatever they've done with Major in this episode. He's usually a pretty good guy. 

I did partially enjoy the Clive/Ravi teamup. It was a nice change of pace, and Rahul seemed like he was having a blast. The Clive/Dale stuff was confusing. Though, to be fair, I've missed a whole lot in the episodes that I've missed. An engagement between the two seems too fast. Maybe talk about it first.